The Evening Blues - 9-22-21



eb1pt12


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

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans blues guitarist Guitar Slim. Enjoy!

Guitar Slim - Along About Midnight

"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."

-- Benjamin Franklin


News and Opinion

Internet freedom on the decline in US and globally

Online freedom is continuing to decline globally, according to a new study, with governments increasingly cracking down on user speech and misinformation on the rise.

The report from Freedom House, a Washington DC-based democracy advocacy group, found internet freedom declined for the fifth year in a row in the US and the 11th year internationally – for two distinct reasons.

Domestically, the lack of regulation in the tech industry has allowed companies to grow beyond reproach and misinformation to flourish online. ... Freedom House cited a growing lack of diversity among sources of online information in the US that allowed conspiracies and misinformation to rise, an issue that was gravely underscored during the 2020 elections and the 2021 insurrection at the US Capitol. ...

The report called measures taken by Joe Biden since his election “promising” for internet freedom, citing the reversal of a Trump administration order to halt transactions between US individuals and Chinese social media companies as beneficial.

Progressives NIX Iron Dome $ From Budget, Biden DENOUNCES War While Drone Strikes Continue

House takes up progressive-led defense spending cuts this week

House progressives will have a few chances to hold down the defense budget this week, but it’s going to be an uphill fight. The House is set to vote this week on two Democratic amendments to cut the fiscal 2022 National Defense Authorization Act’s $740 billion top line. One would reduce it by roughly 10 percent, and another would undo a $24 billion a plus-up the House Armed Services Committee passed earlier this month.

Key Republicans have warned that cutting the NDAA would cost their support, which Democrats likely need to pass the bill. When the House Rules Committee met Monday to screen amendments, the panel’s top Republican, Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, said his party likes the bill as-is. ...

On Tuesday, the panel advanced a rule that allows consideration of 476 amendments. Among them:

  • A prohibition on funding for the Air Force’s nascent Ground Based Strategic Deterrent — a next-generation intercontinental ballistic missile and its warhead, the W87-1 — from Rep. John Garamendi, D-Calif.
  • A prohibition on U.S. military forces in Syria without approval from Congress within one year, from Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y.
  • A prohibition on U.S. military logistical and intelligence support for Saudi air forces conducting strikes in the Yemen civil war, from Rep. Ro Khanna. (A separate amendment from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Gregory Meeks, D-N.Y., would bar U.S. sustainment and maintenance support for those forces, with certain exemptions.)
  • The top line-lowering amendments are a proposed 10 percent cut (excluding salaries and health care of military personnel), from Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., and proposed reduction of the defense authorization top line to the level requested by the president, from Rep. Barbara Lee, D-Calif.
  • In 2020, the House and Senate defeated twin measures to reduce the Pentagon budget by 10 percent to address the pandemic’s economic fallout. Then, Democrats split, with the Senate voting 23-77 and the House voting 93-324.

    Critical House vote could end support to Saudi in Yemen

    Biden pledged to end American support for offensive operations in Yemen, including relevant arms sales, during his first foreign policy speech as president. Yet almost eight months later, the U.S. continues to enable the Saudi war on Yemen, primarily by keeping the Saudi air force aloft. Without U.S. maintenance and spare parts, the Saudis would be unable to conduct air raids on Yemen. In this year alone, the Saudis have run 866 raids, amounting to a total of 23,470 air raids during the war thus far.

    Airstrikes have killed or injured at least 18,616 Yemeni civilians since 2015. When airstrikes hit key infrastructure, they also killed over 200,000 Yemeni civilians by depriving them of food, water, and health care. The Saudi tactic of blockading fuel imports from entering Yemen has increased the scale of famine. In early 2021, the UN anticipated that 400,000 children under age five would die of starvation this year. At present, the UN characterizes over 20 million Yemenis as needing humanitarian assistance, and over 12 million as experiencing acute need. The UN considers Yemen the world’s “worst humanitarian crisis.” While many factors contribute to Yemenis’ misery, food insecurity is most severe in areas most impacted by violence.

    The Saudi air force has imposed a no-fly zone over Sana’a International Airport since first bombing it in 2015. As a result, 32,000 critically ill Yemenis have been stranded in the capital region, unable to travel abroad to seek treatment. By withdrawing maintenance support for the Saudi air force, the U.S. would allow the Sana’a International Airport to re-open. ...

    This week, several amendments have been proposed to the NDAA regarding U.S. involvement. Of these, the amendment most likely to effectively constrain the Saudis is co-sponsored by Representatives Ro Khanna, Pramila Jayapal, Adam Schiff, Adam Smith, Peter DeFazio, Katie Porter, and Peter Welch. Their amendment “terminates U.S. military logistical support, and the transfer of spare parts to Saudi warplanes conducting aerial strikes against the Houthis in Yemen and permanently ends intelligence sharing that enables offensive strikes.” Unlike more limited and conditional restrictions on aid to the Saudis such as those laid out in the Yemen-related amendment by Representative Gregory Meeks, the Khanna amendment would immediately and decisively end U.S. support for the war.

    Congressional action is imperative because the Biden administration has made clear that it will not prevent Saudi violence.

    Iran’s president denounces US sanctions as ‘crimes against humanity’

    Iran’s new ultra-conservative president has used his debut on the international stage to deliver a sustained assault on US, denouncing sanctions as “crimes against humanity” and hailing what he called the end of Washington’s hegemony. “Sanctions are the US new way of war with the nations of the world,” President Ebrahim Raisi told the UN general assembly in a pre-recorded address from Tehran.

    Raisi, who is himself under US sanctions over alleged human rights abuses, said sanctions “were crimes against humanity during the coronavirus pandemic”. ...

    Raisi expressed support for renewed nuclear negotiations but said all parties must stay true to the 2015 nuclear deal, adding that he had no faith in American promises. Earlier on Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry said it would return to the talks in Vienna on reviving the deal within the next few weeks, although western powers remain suspicious of Tehran’s delaying tactics and a lack of specifics. ...

    The US has offered to lift most economic sanctions on Iran that are linked to the country’s non-compliance with the nuclear deal, referred to as JCPoA, but not those linked to human rights abuses. Iran has said it will come back into compliance with the deal, but only after it is clear that the lifting of sanctions has had a practical impact on the ability of Iran to trade.

    Iran is also looking for new guarantees about what would happen if the US was to walk out of the deal again, as it did under Donald Trump in 2018. It wants guarantees that the US would, if in breach of UN security council resolutions, pay compensation.

    'Get a grip,' PM Johnson tells France after submarine row

    US has ‘no closer ally than Australia’, Biden says after Aukus pact

    Joe Biden and the Australian prime minister, Scott Morrison, have welcomed their new security ties after last week’s announcement that Washington would provide Canberra with advanced technology for nuclear-powered submarines as part of trilateral deal with the UK. “The United States has no closer or more reliable ally than Australia,” Biden said on Tuesday ahead of a bilateral meeting with Morrison on the sidelines of the United Nations general assembly in New York.

    In his speech to the general assembly earlier, Biden made no direct reference to the controversial new security pact, under which the US agreed to share nuclear propulsion technology for submarines in a move that is designed to contain China. The deal has infuriated Paris, and Biden has yet to be able to arrange a call with the seething French president, Emmanuel Macron. ...

    On Tuesday, Morrison came under a ferocious attack by the former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd, who, writing in the Le Monde, said the prime minister had behaved in a cavalier manner that would play into the hands of China propagandists. Rudd accused Morrison of not following “basic diplomatic protocol by failing to inform the French government of his decision”.

    “Such a failure is not acceptable between adversaries, it is even less so between allies. Besides, Morrison failed to understand the wider implications of his decision for foreign policy, and this is perhaps the most appalling of the whole story,” he said.

    Cuban Diplomat on U.S. Blockade, Havana’s Homegrown Vaccines & Biden’s Hypocrisy on Human Rights

    Justin Trudeau secures a third victory in an election ‘nobody wanted’

    Justin Trudeau has secured a third election victory, but his decision to call a snap election was criticised by political opponents – and even allies – after the Canadian prime minister failed once again to win a parliamentary majority.

    As of Tuesday morning, the Liberals had won or were leading in 158 seats – short of the 170 needed for a majority. Erin O’Toole’s opposition Conservatives won 119, a result that largely mirrored the outcome of the 2019 election.

    “It looks like nobody wanted an election and no one got what they wanted,” said the Toronto Star political columnist Chantal Hébert as results came in.

    For the second time in two years, Trudeau has been handed a minority government by Canadians, meaning he will have to reach across the aisle to work with smaller parties in order to govern.

    Demand soars for monoclonal antibody treatments in states with low vaccination rates

    Demand has been soaring for monoclonal antibodies – a treatment to lessen the severity of Covid-19 symptoms – especially among states with larger populations of vaccine-hesitant Americans, as the US continues to struggle with the highly contagious Delta variant in regions with lagging vaccination rates. The demand for the treatment increased twentyfold in recent weeks because of the sharp rise in new cases accelerated by the Delta variant and lagging vaccination rates, and because of increased awareness of the treatment. But the distribution has, so far, been unequal.

    Seven states that have seen Covid-19 rate spikes in recent weeks and months – Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and Texas – have used 70% of the federal supply of monoclonal antibodies. Several Republican leaders have made the treatments a central part of their pandemic response, even appearing to champion them over vaccinations. The governors of Florida and Texas, Ron DeSantis and Greg Abbott, have touted antibodies even as they oppose mask mandates and decry the federal vaccine mandates on large employers as “illegal” and a “power grab”. (The monoclonal antibodies are also provided by the US government.)

    The Covid-19 vaccines are highly effective at preventing hospitalization and death, and they can also cut transmission of the virus – something the antibody treatments can’t do. Antibodies are also significantly more expensive, at about $2,100 a dose. In comparison, the Covid vaccines cost between $10 and $20 a dose. ...

    In the face of a shortage of the treatment, the Biden administration has changed its allocation system, and some states are objecting to the reduced shipments. The Biden administration said on 9 September it would increase shipments of the treatment from 100,000 to 150,000 doses a week. Days later, the health department announced it would change the way the supply is distributed.

    “They’re trying to come up with a way to make the monoclonal antibodies available, but do it in a fair way,” Plescia said. “There wasn’t a lot of demand for monoclonal antibodies up until a month or two ago. This just popped up, and it’s going to take a while for the manufacturers to respond.

    Bush and Warren Lead New Bill to Protect Renters Nationwide From Eviction

    With millions of people across the United States facing lapsed eviction moratoria, joblessness, and expired unemployment benefits as the coronavirus pandemic drags on, U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday unveiled a bill to help keep renters in their homes.

    The pair led dozens of lawmakers in introducing the Keeping Renters Safe Act of 2021 (pdf), which would clarify that the head of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has the statutory authority to implement an eviction moratorium in the interest of public health, and call on him to do so in response to the current emergency.

    The bill, if passed, would direct HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra to implement a national moratorium that automatically "applies to all residential eviction filings, hearings, judgments, and execution of judgments," and would remain in effect for at least 60 days after the end of the Covid-19 pandemic.

    "Housing is a human right, not a bargaining chip to let fall between bureaucratic cracks," declared Bush (D-Mo.), who was previously homeless and has led multiple legislative proposals to address housing insecurity, including the Unhoused Bill of Rights.

    Noting that the virus has killed over 670,000 people nationwide and infected millions more Americans, leaving an unknown number "permanently disabled from its aftereffects," Bush argued that "as the Delta variant continues to force individuals to quarantine, close schools, and stifle businesses, we must do all we can to save lives."

    Sunrise Movement Targets Kyrsten Sinema for Obstructing Build Back Better Act

    Hours after 13 Sunrise Movement activists were arrested at the Students March on Congress for Climate Action in Washington, D.C., members of the youth-led environmental group rallied for a Monday evening protest outside Sen. Kyrsten Sinema's Phoenix office to demand that the Arizona Democrat support at least a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package that funds robust measures to combat the climate emergency.

    "While Sen. Sinema caters to fossil fuel executives in D.C., young Arizonans are outside her office demanding she listen to them as they face record drought and extreme heatwaves killing their communities," Sunrise Movement executive director Varshini Prakash said in a statement Tuesday.

    Activists have joined progressive U.S. lawmakers in pushing back against efforts by Republicans and right-wing Democrats including Sinema and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) seeking to defeat or dilute the $3.5 trillion Build Back Better Act, a popular package that, if passed, would fund bold climate action, poverty alleviation, healthcare and education expansion, and infrastructure improvements. ...

    "Sen. Sinema and Democrats, who do you work for? Do you work for the young, BIPOC, and working people who put their lives on hold to elect you?" asked Prakash. "Or do you work for ExxonMobil and fossil fuel corporations, who pollute the air we breathe, the water we drink, and have caused the climate crisis in the first place?"

    In July, the climate advocacy group Oil Change U.S. revealed that Sinema, Manchin, and four other conservative Democratic senators collectively received nearly $330,000 in contributions from ExxonMobil lobbyists.

    Prakash said that President Joe Biden and Congress "must pass at least a $3.5 trillion reconciliation package to boldly invest in our infrastructure and pass a fully funded Civilian Climate Corps so we can finally kick off the decade of the Green New Deal."

    The Civilian Climate Corps is a proposed government jobs program that would put people to work directly combating the climate crisis.

    "Failing to deliver on the mandate Democrats were elected on means that they risk disillusioning young people, their base, and holding onto power in 2022," Prakash warned. "We did our part, now it's time for Democrats to deliver on their promises."

    Missouri couple who pointed guns at protesters may have law licenses revoked

    Mark and Patricia McCloskey, a Missouri couple who became famous for pointing guns at protesters marching for racial justice last summer, could have their law licenses revoked.

    According to court documents first reported by Missouri radio station KCUR-FM, the Missouri chief disciplinary counsel, Alan Pratzel, asked the state supreme court to indefinitely suspend the licenses of the two personal injury lawyers. Pratzel’s office investigates ethical complaints against lawyers in Missouri.

    In June 2020, widely circulated video showed the McCloskeys standing in front of their home as demonstrators protested the murder of George Floyd by police in Minneapolis. Mark McCloskey was pointing an AR-15 style rifle. His wife held a semiautomatic pistol.

    Protesters were walking through the gated community on their way to the house of the then mayor of St Louis, Lyda Krewson. The McCloskeys said marchers broke through an iron gate and were threatening them. Organizers maintained that the protest was peaceful.

    Mark McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor fourth-degree assault and was ordered to pay a $750 fine. Patricia McCloskey pleaded guilty to misdemeanor harassment and was ordered to pay $2,000.



    the horse race



    Incriminating Hunter Biden Emails CONFIRMED By Independent Source, MSM Forced To Accept Legitimacy

    Ryan Grim: New Political Movement Could Take Over The Nation’s Smallest State To BUST Corruption



    the evening greens


    A Black town’s water is more poisoned than Flint’s. In a white town nearby, it’s clean

    Bobbie Clay first realized something was wrong a few years ago. The water at her Benton Harbor, Michigan, home had started coming out of the tap looking “bubbly and whitish”. ... She wasn’t alone. For years, residents of this small, struggling city in south-west Michigan had been having similar problems. ...

    When residents raised questions and concerns, they said, officials in the city and county were unresponsive. Finally, in 2018, they found out what was going on: tap water samples tested that summer revealed lead levels of 22 parts per billion – well over the federal lead action level of 15 parts per billion and higher, even, than the 20 parts per billion nearby Flint averaged at the height of the crisis that made that city a national symbol of environmental injustice.

    But for the last three years, neither the city of Benton Harbor, the county, nor the state have taken sufficient action, according to an emergency appeal filed recently by the National Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The petition, which calls on the US Environmental Protection Agency to address the crisis and assist residents in the meantime, states that lead levels have consistently tested well above the federal action limit, with recordings as high in some samples as 889 parts per billion – nearly 60 times the action limit.

    The health risks posed to the residents of this mostly Black, poverty-stricken city –which also happens to be the corporate headquarters of Whirlpool – are extraordinary. Children with lead poisoning tend to have lower IQs, high rates of attention deficit disorder, poor memory and a lack of impulse control. As they become adults, they are also at higher risk for kidney disease, stroke and hypertension. Studies have also connected lead exposure to incarceration for violent crime.

    “It’s like they don’t care,” Clay said of the government inaction.

    Worth a click and a read:

    Will taxpayers bear the cost of cleaning up America’s abandoned oil wells?

    Oil and gas companies have a century-old bad habit of drilling wells and ditching them. And while Congress finally has a plan to plug some abandoned wells, new proposals effectively pass the fossil fuel industry’s cleanup costs on to taxpayers and may even enable more drilling. Concerned parties seem to agree on the scale of the crisis: millions of wells sit untended across the US, leaking toxins that pose public health problems along with the potent greenhouse gas methane, which contributes to the climate emergency.

    But powerful special interests have carved out a presence in federal well-plugging efforts – one of the most bipartisan corners of Joe Biden’s $1tn infrastructure bill, which is due for a vote later this month. Instead of requiring fossil fuel companies to cover the actual cost of drilling and cleanup, policy experts say the proposal is an additional multibillion-dollar subsidy for the industry most responsible for driving the climate crisis. ...

    Congress’ 30-page proposal does provide a much-needed plan to inventory, measure and track methane emissions and groundwater contamination associated with orphan wells – abandoned wells with no identifiable owner. But tucked inside the proposal is $2m in funding that goes directly to the Interstate Oil and Gas Compact Commission (IOGCC), an organization closely linked to the fossil fuel industry. The draft bill empowers the group to consult with the federal government as it issues billions of dollars in grants for states to plug, remediate and restore orphan wells.

    The infrastructure bill treats the commission innocuously, granting it duties and access to federal research and development funds as if it were a formal government entity. The trouble is, it’s not. And as recent comments from the IOGCC vice-chair, Wayne Christian, suggest, the organization’s involvement in the infrastructure negotiation process includes more explicit pocket-padding priorities.

    “If the bill passes, and we’re pretty close to it passing, 25 million [dollars] will be coming to Texas to clean up abandoned wells, and larger amounts than that in the future,” Christian – an avid climate change denier and head of the Railroad Commission of Texas with notoriously close ties to the oil industry – boasted on 20 August at the North American Prospect Expo, an oil industry gathering, according to a recording of the event. “So, we will be helping the energy industry to some of these trillions of dollars,” he said.

    Insects are vanishing from our planet at an alarming rate. But there are ways to help them

    [See article for current state of the Insect Apocalypse. -js]

    We feel helpless in the face of many global environmental problems, but we can all get involved in halting and reversing insect declines. Most insects have not yet gone extinct, and they could recover quickly if we just gave them some space, somewhere to live and feed in peace. If you are lucky enough to have a garden, you can take some simple steps to invite insects in; in North America, the Xerces Society can provide advice. It is astonishing how much life a small garden can support. The biologist and wildlife gardener Jenny Owen spent 35 years obsessively cataloguing every plant and animal that she could find in her modest eighth-of-an-acre garden in urban Leicester, an area of the UK not famed for its rich wildlife. She recorded no less than 2,673 different species, 1,997 of which were different types of insect.

    Britain has about 22m private gardens, the US an estimated 43m. Just think how much life they could collectively support if they were all wildlife-friendly. Grow a single marjoram plant, perhaps in a pot on your balcony or roof terrace, and when it blooms I guarantee that the bees, butterflies and hoverflies will sniff it out. You can feel smug that you have done something to help. Now do something more!

    If you have no garden, you might consider joining national and local campaigns to fill our urban green spaces with wildflowers, or to have your town or village declared pesticide-free. Imagine every garden, park, cemetery, roundabout and road verge filled with swathes of wildflowers; we could create a national network of wildlife-rich habitat.

    Of course we cannot forget the bigger issue of how we grow food. It is my view that the move towards ever-more intensive farming is unsustainable; it has done terrible damage to our wildlife and soils, pollutes streams and rivers, and is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. British farmers apply 17,000 tons of pesticides to the landscape every year. The figure for the US is a staggering 450,000 tons. The federal government recently announced that 2.6m acres of Montana rangelands are to be sprayed with insecticides via crop dusters, to control native grasshoppers. The collateral damage done to other insects such as the monarch butterfly is incalculable; countless trillions will die. Little wonder that insects are in decline.

    It is hard for most of us to do much about these farming practices, but we can reduce our own impact and support more sustainable farming practices by buying and eating local, seasonal, organic produce, buying loose fruit and vegetables and reducing our meat consumption. Better still, we can grow some of our own food in a garden or allotment.


    Also of Interest

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

    How Corporate Profiteers Won the War on Terror

    Assange Extradition Case Has So Far Cost British Public Over £300,000

    "What Happens When China Becomes Number One?"

    Taliban Announces More Cabinet Members, Include Minorities

    Wall Street Watchdog, Better Markets, Calls Fed Presidents’ Trading Binge “Pandemic Profiteering” or, Possibly, “Illegal Insider Trading”

    ‘Pay me my worth’: restaurant workers demand livable wages as industry continues to falter

    Abortion clinics north of Texas flooded with patients after severe state ban

    Urgent climate action is getting lost in the heat of Germany’s election campaign

    Avoiding Real Change: The Myth of Green Capitalism

    Sarah Dash, member of Lady Marmalade trio Labelle, dies aged 76

    Democracy Now: “Life Has Become Unlivable in Honduras”: How Corruption & Drug Trade Fueled Migration to U.S.

    Rising: JUST 9 Days Until LOOMING Gov't Shutdown, Senate Republicans Threaten To SINK Funding Bill

    Briahna Joy Gray: Border Crisis EXPOSES Flawed Immigration Policy, Biden WH Continues TRUMP Strategy

    Rising: IRS SCREW UP Leads To MILLIONS Of Americans Receiving Notice They May Owe MORE In Taxes


    A Little Night Music

    Guitar Slim - New Arrival

    Guitar Slim - Guitar Slim Boogie

    Guitar Slim - Story of My Life

    Guitar Slim - It Hurts To Love Someone

    Guitar Slim - Quicksand

    Guitar Slim - I Done Got Over It

    Guitar Slim - Our Only Child

    Guitar Slim - Stand By Me

    Guitar Slim - Think It Over

    Guitar Slim - The Things That I Used to Do


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    Comments

    ggersh's picture

    brought to you by CNN via JD/Nick Cruze from Fred Hampton Leftist's

    [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H7WCPvkPXFI]

    autumn has arrived here in Chicago, am trying real hard not to turn the heat on but I just might have to give in....sigh

    Thanks for the EB's Joe, stay safe everyone, winter is coming

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    16 users have voted.

    I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
    those born Jewish

    "Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
    now it's someone who Jews don't like"

    Heard from Margaret Kimberley

    joe shikspack's picture

    @ggersh

    heh, it looks like pot use's most unusual effect is perversely not on the user, but on authority figures.

    thanks for the video, have a great evening!

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    9 users have voted.

    @ggersh
    Not counting two weeks of A/C during the day (80's) and heat at night (50's).

    I'm reminded of a critique of "Planets For Man" that complained that by the books criteria, Chicago is uninhabitable. The book was right!

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    0 users have voted.

    I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.

    Lookout's picture

    The sky finally cleared, temperatures dropped, and the rain stopped. What a lovely entry into fall!

    I found this analysis pretty accurate. (about 10 min long)
    [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SxVJrnT7ucM&t=16s]

    Thanks for all the news and music. Hope you all ended summer and started fall in a good way!

    Summer's passed on, and so has John. This is his last song.

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

    @Lookout @Lookout eloquent speaker. LOL

    BTW thanks for the informative video.

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    joe shikspack's picture

    @Lookout

    galloway and his guest seem to be on target. too bad american mainstream media won't discuss the obvious this way.

    thanks for the tune, it reminds me that prine's passing was an incalculable loss to our culture.

    i am delighted to see fall rolling in. we had a rainy and cool day here - a great day for pulling the covers up over your head and going back to sleep for a while. Smile

    have a great evening!

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    mimi's picture

    but thanks for the EB and music, Joe I need some silence. have a good one all.

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    joe shikspack's picture

    @mimi

    heh, i'll try to keep the volume down so that you can get some peace and quiet. Smile

    have a great evening!

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    mimi's picture

    @joe shikspack
    that you have a funny answer to everything. Stay that way if you can.

    Now with all the silence around me I am scared, better turn the volume up. Wink

    I would have to say so many words, the more I have to say, the less I say them.

    Now tell me about me. What's wrong with me?

    May be better not. Smile

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    @mimi

    I played it while reading everyone's comments here. It was a nice experience. We are in Helena MT for the month. The smoke finally blew out (at least for now), the temps are perfect and fall is showing itself. We are busy helping to build our granddaughter a tree house while Covid rages all around. It feels like this is how life will be for a long time... trying to find the little nuggets of the sweet part of life within the sour.

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    "Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

    https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/573534-manchin-biden-told-moderates-...

    Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) said President Biden urged a group of moderate lawmakers to come up with a top-line number they could support for Democrats' sweeping reconciliation bill.

    Manchin, a key vote in the Senate, was part of a group of House and Senate moderates who met with Biden on Wednesday afternoon as Democrats try to figure out a way to bridge their divides on the $3.5 trillion package.

    “He just basically said find a number you’re comfortable with,” Manchin said, adding that Biden’s message was to “‘please just work on it, give me a number.’”

    Manchin told reporters that he didn’t give Biden a number he could get behind, and that Biden didn’t give him a hard deadline for when moderates needed to turn over that number.

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    @humphrey

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    joe shikspack's picture

    @humphrey

    heh, i would call it playing hardball if biden's doj announced an investigation into manchin's daughter for antitrust violations and manchin's wife for corruption.

    maybe that would get his attention.

    if not perhaps biden's epa could open an investigation into manchin's coal companies violations of the clean water act.

    i would guess that maybe even 4 trillion would be ok then.

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    14 users have voted.

    @joe shikspack But I do like your suggestion.

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    9 users have voted.

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    13 users have voted.
    joe shikspack's picture

    @humphrey

    that's a great article, thanks!

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    11 users have voted.

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    7 users have voted.

    "Without the right to offend, freedom of speech does not exist." Taslima Nasrin

    snoopydawg's picture

    1st they censored the president of the United States and now they’re throwing around Lt. governors and I’m afraid to find out what they’ll do to the next guy. Or gal like the Australian cops that pushed down a 70 year old woman and then pepper sprayed her twice in her face. They militarized them to get around posse comititas. They are the standing army that the four fathers warned us about. Might have been a few more…Schumer says that Biden must stop border patrol from being mean to migrants…ya think, Chuck?

    Speaking of Kamala’s ever changing immigration views:

    She scolded the Biden administration yesterday. Umm hello, Kamala aren’t you in charge of the border?

    Pallet cleanser.

    Pleasant evening tonight after being down right cold Monday. I’m trying to get out of town and into the mountains, but….

    Have a good night folks.

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    12 users have voted.

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

    @snoopydawg Have fun in the mountains with your dawg.

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    7 users have voted.

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

    joe shikspack's picture

    @snoopydawg

    heh, i checked into that nevada story. apparently, the fellow that the police were beating on was a republican candidate for lieutenant governor. he and a crew of anti-vaxxers were at a clark county commission meeting to protest the tyranny of the commission which passed a resolution which stated that covid-19 vaccine misinformation is a public health crisis. the resolution was just that and did not have any prohibitions, enforcement mechanisms or punishments.

    somehow (mirable dictu!) shoving and wrangling got started in the room which the gop candidate joined in with some alacrity and he wound up getting ejected by the cops.

    the cops, of course, did not exactly cover themselves in glory as can be seen in the video.

    it is, however, nice to see some rabid conservatives get exercised about the mistreatment of a black man by the police for once.

    wow, that kamala. what deep commitment to her principles she shows.

    have a great evening!

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    snoopydawg's picture

    but…

    Biden has deported 700,000 migrants already so who knows what he’s going to do with them. I remember when Bush sent some there and people were rightly ticked off about it. That was before it became known as torture island. Boy ain’t it great that Trump is gone?

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

    joe shikspack's picture

    @snoopydawg

    according to the tender that biden put out for contractors to run the immigrant gitmo, the place is supposed to hold 20-120 people, with potential surges to 400 immigrants. there was previously a migrant facility at gitmo (meant to temporarily house cuban refugees) that the obama administration shut down. i'll be posting a story about it in tomorrow's eb.

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    Thanks for the news and blues.
    I do want to drop in a line about Ranting Rooster. He is getting some health issues taken care of, and he loves his rural life.
    He says hello to all.

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

    joe shikspack's picture

    @on the cusp

    glad to hear that rr is getting along and enjoying himself out in the country.

    have a great evening!

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    CB's picture

    [video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ml-wKe-6dM]

    In this video, Brian Berletic and Daniel Dumbrill discuss America's true intentions in the South China Sea revealed in a slip up by retired US Airforce Colonel & current National Security and Cybersecurity expert Cedric Leighton, further corroborated by multiple US State Department funded reports.

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    @CB @CB @CB @CB @CB @CB @CB Not Yet Right there is our problem.

    We are pre-emptively supposed to panic and fight. Gaslit brainwashed America

    Not new. But alarming, if like 99,99% of our population you want a peaceful world.

    War is the always and forever get rich quick plan of our wealthiest citizens, against the interests of most of us.

    They go on to detail how the USA is guilty of the bad behavior we accuse others of.

    We are the ones blockading Venezuela, for example Next blockade---China? not going to hapen, imho. China most likely has a plan to short-circuit any of our grandiose intentions.

    Everybody here at c99 will enjoy seeing the short clip at the end of this 25 minute video

    [video:https://youtu.be/9ml-wKe-6dM?t=1424]

    4 minutes long---you will not be sorry

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    NYCVG

    CB's picture

    @NYCVG
    Military-Industrial-Congressional-Intelligence-Media-Academia-Think-Tank well fed. I noticed that war monger James Clapper was also in the CNN video to add "gravitas" to the situation.

    The following article based on an interview with James Bradley contains an in depth review of the United States' history with China since the days of Franklin Roosevelt’s grandfather, Warren Delano, profiting from the opium trade that devastated China.

    James Bradley Speaks Out Against the U.S. Military Encirclement of China
    By Jeremy Kuzmarov - April 26, 2021

    In an exclusive interview with CAM, James Bradley warns that war could break out anytime, and the U.S. would be to blame. Bradley calls for renewed engagement with China at a grass-roots level.
    ...
    The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia ends with a warning for today. Bradley writes that, “from those early days [19th century] until now, America has dispatched its hopeful sons and daughters to faraway Asia in search of a mirage that never was. And never will be.” That mirage is the idea of China as moldable in American hands. Now, according to Bradley, we have entered another disappointment phase as an ascendant China has gone about its business of expanding its economy and hence its worldwide influence. The danger is that Washington will not get over its disappointment. Bradley in fact describes the current situation—where the U.S. encircles China—as akin to dry tinder ready to spark a war.
    ...
    Jeremy Kuzmarov: Very interesting. On that topic of war, do you see a threat of war breaking out? A lot of your writing has been about war and its terrible human costs. How dangerous is the situation today with the United States and China?

    James Bradley: Extremely dangerous. Like dry tinder that could spark. Like we are on the edge of a cliff. My opinion has been informed by a number of experts, such as Michael Klare, a national security expert, who says that the long-term outlook of the civilian leadership of the United States is that eventually we’ll have to confront China. And that we’d rather have our troops out there forwardly deployed. Why are we in Japan and Korea? Why did we change the name from the “Pacific Command” to the “Indo-Pacific Command” all of a sudden? Look at a map, we own the Pacific.
    ...

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    @CB have to confront China. Or any of the other countries we currently encircle and starve.

    Russia's new pipelines are set up to avoid Ukraine. Think about that collosal failure.

    It seems to me that the blockades and siege strategies we have been pursuing for so long will be coming back on us.

    Russia/China/Iran/Afghanistan/Syria/India/Iraq, etc etc and oh yes Turkey, will weaken our hand all over the ME and eventually in our hemisphere as well.

    Mexico and Cuba talking, for instance. That twosome will certainly expand.

    CB, I may have some details wrong but I think I am grasping the gestalt.

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    NYCVG