Evening Blues Preview 5-6-15

This evening's music features blues and r&b saxophone player Noble "Thin Man" Watts.

Here are some stories from tonight's post:

Court rules warrantless cellphone tracking not illegal search

Investigators do not need search warrants to obtain cellphone tower records in criminal cases, federal court rules

Investigators do not need a search warrant to obtain cellphone tower location records in criminal prosecutions, a federal appeals court ruled Tuesday in a closely watched case involving the rules for changing technology.

The Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, overturning a three-judge panel of the same court, concluded that authorities properly got 67 days' worth of records from MetroPCS for Miami robbery suspect Quartavious Davis using a court order with a lower burden of proof.

In its 9-2 decision, the 11th Circuit decided Davis had no expectation of privacy regarding historical records establishing his location near certain cellphone towers. The records were key evidence used to convict Davis of a string of armed robberies, leading to a 162-year prison sentence.

In fact, Circuit Judge Frank M. Hull wrote for the majority, it's clear that cellphone users in today's society understand how companies collect data about calls and that cell towers are a key part of that. ...

Two judges dissented, contending the Fourth Amendment requires probable cause and a search warrant for such records and some judges in the majority agreed in separate opinions that the U.S. Supreme Court should make the ultimate decision. Davis’ attorney David O. Markus said the dissent could provide a "roadmap" for a likely appeal to the high court.

Why the USA Freedom Act Is Both Desperately Important and Laughably Pathetic

The key reform in the USA Freedom Act, Times reporters Peter Baker and David E. Sanger now pointed out, was an idea “suggested to President Obama in 2013 by Gen. Keith B. Alexander, then the N.S.A. director, who saw the change as a way for the president to respond to criticism without losing programs the N.S.A. deemed more vital.” ...

Tapping data lines that go in and out of the U.S., grabbing personal information without a warrant from major content providers like Facebook and Yahoo — no worries.

Sweeping up all non-U.S. content possible — sometimes an entire country’s phone calls at a time. Breaking encryption. Installing malware. Hacking Sim cards. Tracking cellphones. No problem.

Spying on porn habits. Sharing raw intelligence on Americans with Israel. It happens.

Installing shunts on the fiber optic cables that are the backbone of the Internet. Breaking into cell networks. Tapping private links between data centers. S’alright.

Allowing secret laws developed on the fly by a rubber-stamp secret court that the Intelligence Community still doesn’t level with. Spy chiefs who want to “collect it all.” Cost of doing business.

Extraordinary new abilities — like automated transcription of phone calls — that Congress never anticipated, may not even know about, and certainly never establish rules for. Love it or leave it, baby.

The USA Freedom Act is like a surgeon talking about taking a small tumor off of a much larger one. Would you recommend against such surgery, if that was the only one the surgeon was even willing to contemplate?

That’s the bind some pivotal privacy groups find themselves in. Access, the Center for Democracy and Technology, Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation are among those who say yes, it’s better than nothing. Demand Progress and the ACLU say it’s worse.

This is an excellent article, well worth reading in full:

What we can learn from Judith Miller’s rehab tour

Judith Miller’s publicity campaign for her new book (The Story: A Reporter’s Journey) which has taken her from the Wall Street Journal to numerous television interviews, has been an instructive and engaging media spectacle.

She has shown characteristic passion and energy in attempting to defend her journalistic reputation after being pummeled during her final years at The New York Times for, among other things, writing persuasively that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction ...

She has made sporadic efforts before to defend her reporting. But now she’s employing an important element in the modern method of obfuscation and confusion. Waiting several years after the events, she tries to take advantage of fading memories, especially involving detailed and complicated matters.

Time and complexity are the best friends of a determined distorter of events. ...

This has produced some commentary around the question of what a journalist’s obligations are when fed hard-to-verify information by people with an agenda.The issue in her case is, however, much more simple. It doesn’t involve whether she or any reporter could fact-check the claims of her sources. What Miller appeared to do was make a Mephistophelian journalist’s bargain with officials and sources that went like this: Bring your assertions to me first. In exchange for the notoriety I will achieve I will place them in The Times without careful examination or scrutiny.

Police brutality and total impunity Obama style...

DEA Can’t Tell Senate How Detained Student Was Left to Drink Own Urine to Survive

During an obscure Senate hearing on Tuesday morning, lawmakers vented their frustrations with the Drug Enforcement Administration for failing to answer questions about an incident that saw a man almost die of dehydration while in its custody. ...

On April 20, 2012, Chong was detained by DEA agents during a drug raid on a friend’s house in San Diego. The 23-year-old university student cooperated with agents during an interrogation, and was told that he would soon be free to go, only to be handcuffed with his hands behind his back and left in a small holding cell for five days without food or water. When he was finally discovered, Chong was suffering from near-kidney failure and hypothermia and in need of serious medical attention.

A Justice Department Office of Inspector General (OIG) investigation released last June shed additional light on Chong’s maddening de facto sentence — often served in complete darkness. He told investigators he was forced to drink his own urine and at one point attempted suicide. ...

Senator Grassley, who called the findings “shocking,” had last August sent a 19-question letter to DEA administrator Michele Leonhart.

“It’s been now eight months — I still don’t have a response from DEA to these questions,” Sen. Grassley said on Tuesday. He asked DEA Deputy Assistant Administrator of Drug Diversion Joseph Rannazzisi to commit the agency to responding to his inquiry by the end of the month.

Third Year of Korea FTA Data Released, Show Failure of Obama’s Last ‘More Exports, More Jobs’ Trade Pact Promises, Further Burdening Fast Track Prospects

Trade Deficit With Korea Balloons 104 Percent as Exports Fall and Imports Surge Under Korea Pact Used as TPP Template

Today’s release of U.S. government trade data covering the full first three years of the U.S.-Korea free trade agreement (FTA) reveals that the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has more than doubled. In addition, today’s U.S. Census Bureau data show Korea FTA outcomes that are the opposite of the Obama administration’s “more exports, more jobs” promise for that pact, which it is now repeating with respect to the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) as it tries to persuade Congress to delegate Fast Track authority for the TPP.

U.S. goods exports to Korea have dropped 6 percent, or $2.7 billion, under the Korea FTA’s first three years, while goods imports from Korea have surged 19 percent, or $11.3 billion (comparing the deal’s third year to the year before implementation). As a result, the U.S. goods trade deficit with Korea has swelled 104 percent, or more than $14 billion. The trade deficit increase equates to the loss of more than 93,000 American jobs in the first three years of the Korea FTA, counting both exports and imports, according to the trade-jobs ratio that the Obama administration used to project gains from the deal.

“As if the odds for Fast Track were not already long enough, with most House Democrats and many GOP members stating opposition, today’s unveiling of a job-killing trade deficit surge under the Korea FTA puts a few more nails in Fast Track’s coffin,” said Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. “Who’s going to buy the argument about Fast Track and the TPP creating ‘more exports and more jobs’ when Obama’s only major trade deal, used as the TPP template, was sold under that very slogan and yet has done the opposite?” ...

The administration has tried to deflect attention from the failure of its Korea FTA by claiming that its poor performance has been caused by economic stagnation in Korea. However, Korea’s economy has grown during each year of the Korea FTA, while U.S. exports to Korea have not.

'Too Big to Exist': Sanders Introduces Bill to Break Up Big Banks

If passed, bill would give Treasury Secretary a year to break up institutions bailed out in financial crisis

U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who in April announced his candidacy for president for the 2016 election, on Wednesday will introduce a bill to break up the country's biggest banks—just a day after the Senate passed a Republican budget that takes aim at many progressive issues.

Under the proposal, called the Too Big to Fail, Too Big to Exist Act, regulators on the Financial Stability Oversight Council would compile a list of institutions which say they are so large that their collapse could trigger an economic crisis—otherwise known as "too big to fail."

The Treasury Secretary would then have a year from the bill's passing to break them up.

"If an institution is too big to fail, it is too big to exist," Sanders said Tuesday. "No single financial institution should have holdings so extensive that its failure could send the world economy into crisis."

The firms on that list would also be banned from using customer money to make "risky or speculative activities on the financial market," Reuters reports

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There is no end to the evil of Edward Snowden

Edward Snowden’s leaks about U.S. intelligence operations “played a role in the rise of ISIS.” That’s the explosive new allegation from the former deputy director of the CIA, Michael Morell, who was among the United States’ most senior intelligence officials when Snowden began providing highly-classified documents to journalists in 2013.

U.S. intelligence officials have long argued that Snowden’s disclosures provided valuable insights to terrorist groups and nation-state adversaries, including China and Russia, about how the U.S. monitors communications around the world. But in his new memoir, to be published next week, Morell raises the stakes of that debate by directly implicating Snowden in the expansion of ISIS, which broke away from Al Qaeda and has conquered large swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

What's next? He was the second shooter on the grassy knoll? He created AIDS? He poisoned the town well?

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…in part via the atrocity that she (and her shrill Neocon harpies, Susan Rice and Samantha Power) coerced Obama into committing in Libya (as reported by the NYT). Chris Stevens was in Benghazi that day meeting with his Turkish counterpart arranging a gun-running scheme through Turkey to give to US-hired hired rebels in Syria. The US plan was to topple Assad just as Hillary and the Neocon-embedded State Department did to Gaddafi. Two very interesting file folders went missing that day from the so-called consulate/CIA rendition center. Petraeus was busted a few weeks later. He was sentenced two weeks ago for sharing intel with former military officer, Paula Broadwell.

Stevens was targeted (there was no protest over a video in Benghazi) and dragged through the streets of Benghazi by Libyans, whose nation Hillary destroyed.

Blowback. Thanks for the atrocities, Hillary.

Best Secretary of State, ever.

The blood of the thousands of refugees who die weekly in the rough winter water of the Mediterranean — is on Hillary's hands. She's the gift that keeps on giving.

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

Then we discovered that the Soviet apparatchiks and propagandists were pikers compared to our own government.

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shaharazade's picture

After the bushies T thought things could not get worse. They have. Now it's clear why the complicit Democratic, the loyal opposition, took every damn thing prescribed by law as a remedy or a check on power 'off the table'. Party loyalist rank and file scream but the Supreme's, the obstructionist looney Republicans, the idiot right wing voters. That's the ticket vote in more Dems. like HRC or useless powerless 'progressives' that will restore the Rule of Law and get some checks and balance of power back in the system.

There is no way that any 'duly elected' bent official either federal, state or local is going to cede the illegal unconstitutional power the Bushies grabbed. It was legalized, became the norm and is now just accepted. We have no rule of law, we have no free press, the fourth estate is dead and gone as well as any pretense of a democratic government under the rule of law. We're just so fucked and yet people defend this shit and call it inevitable. see Pluto's excellent diary which sums up the state of our media all of it, online, TV and radio.

I read the news each day and alternate between anger and grief. I'm so done with American establishment politics and yet these fuckers have us boxed in. Don't like it? How about we turn loose the really mad dogs? Meanwhile if you dare to speak about the reality we live in here in der Homeland, globally or even locally your a racist, delusional purist, spoiler who doesn't realize that progress is incremental and war is peace and ignorance is strength. So called pragmatism upholds this total Democratic fuckatude by misstating the famous Voltaire misquote ' the perfect is the enemy of the good. '
Here's what he really said

"In his writings, a wise Italian
says that the best is the enemy of the good."

Shakespeare also talked about this now upside down tweaked concept

"Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,
To mar the subject that before was well?"

Why is do these observations apply to our current state of affairs? How can the reality we live under globally be rationally considered 'good' or 'well'. The current Orwellian turn of reality does not make this mad vicious global 'world as we find it' good, well or anything but just pure evil. As the young hero of Time Bandits said in the end 'Don't touch it, it's pure evil'. There is no good to find 'the subject that before was well' or at least bearable is long gone. The only good I see are Good Germans who think this is all humans can get or strive for. This is not pragmatic it's accepting the unthinkable as 'the good'.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…in exchange for normal and common human rights, according to Business Insider.

More than a third of US millennials would leave the country to get better parental-leave benefits

A new survey from tax and consulting firm EY reveals that it's not just weekly happy hours or Bring Your Dog to Work Day that keep 20- and 30-something workers happy.

The majority wants the ability to work flexibly — without stigma and without being passed over for promotions. And they're prepared to make serious sacrifices for better work-life balance: 38% of American millennials say they would leave the country for better paid parental leave benefits.

Yep. It's a human right, ratified at the UN in 1948.

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

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Pluto's Republic's picture

All other developed nations have extensive human rights that are completely denied to Americans. Such rights as health care, food, shelter, affordable higher education — make for a much more beautiful society with modern infrastructure, very low crime rates, no death penalty, self-determination of government by the people, and longer life spans. One hundred percent of the population are afforded such human rights. All other developed nations also require paid vacations, never-ending unemployment benefits, and income subsidies to those who work but don't make a living wage.

Some people confuse this with socialism, but these are basic human rights, which were established and ratified unanimously by all the nations of the world at the UN General Assembly in Paris in 1948. (Only 8 nations abstained).

The US should be ejected from the UN, and the UN should relocate out of the United States. I'm working on that.

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

important for more Americans to engage in issues such as attempting to stop the toxic 'tax reform' that's coming down the pike.

The so-called tax reform will slash the marginal tax rates of the wealthy and corporations, in exchange for slashing entitlements. Also, there will be 'deals' made regarding the trade-off of entitlement cuts, for allowing more discretionary spending.

Since it will be revenue neutral, someone will pay. As it stands now, it appears that the target will primarily be seniors, and persons with disabilities.

Not to mention, the PtB will go after tax expenditures that target very middle class (and lower) folks. Per US Representative Jan Schakowski's Reuters Op-Ed, "The Sham Of Simpson-Bowles."

If this reform isn't stopped, I can't imagine how Americans will ever have the "rights" which you describe.

Remember, 1 of 2 Americans are Poor or Low Income. Per NBC, US News: 'Dismal' prospects: 1 in 2 Americans are now poor or low income" (The Associated Press)

Mollie

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…have such human rights that most other nations enjoy. It is a disgrace to use that obsolete and regressive document in the 21st century. It was written to benefit slave-holders — which is why the US so easily became privatized and corporate-owned.

As for the Budget that passed the Senate, I had to LOL over this NYT article:

Senate Passes Cost-Cutting Budget Plan

WASHINGTON — The Senate gave final approval Tuesday to the first joint congressional budget plan in six years, ratifying a 10-year blueprint that would cut spending by $5.3 trillion, overhaul programs for the poor, repeal President Obama’s health care law and ostensibly produce a balanced budget in less than a decade....

For the plan to take effect, Republican committee chairmen would have to draft legislation that would impose the prescribed cuts. But they have made little effort to do so, and committee leaders in both parties are already calling for new negotiations on a more bipartisan approach....

“It’s going to keep us very busy over the next few weeks,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee and chairman of the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. “We’ll see what comes of it.” His committee is now supposed to draft legislation to repeal the health care law, turn Medicaid into block grants to the states and begin converting Medicare into a program that offers the elderly assistance to buy private health insurance….

Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota, characterized Tuesday’s action as a “historic” step toward a balanced budget….

“Today, not only will Congress pass a budget for the first time in six years, it will pass a balanced budget for the first time in recent memory,” Senate Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, proclaimed. “This is something many Americans have been waiting a long time to see. It’s something they deserve.”

::

Democrats called attention to the cost reductions required to get to a balanced budget without raising taxes. They include cutting Pell Grant scholarships, either by capping the number of recipients or the benefit amount for each recipient; cutting off health insurance to as many as 27 million people covered by either the president’s health care law or Medicaid; and slicing $600 billion from “income security” programs like school lunches, food stamps, tax credits for the working poor and nutritional assistance to poor mothers.

Democrats dared the new Republican majority to pass the bills that would put those policies into effect.

“Bring it to the floor, let’s vote on it,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the No. 2 Democrat in the chamber. “Let’s see if the 23, 24 Republican senators up for re-election this time really want to run on this platform.”

Hahahahaha!

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

as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist." – Lysander Spooner

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Unabashed Liberal's picture

or the setup, for achieving the tax reform/entitlement 'deal.'

Lamar Alexander and Bob Corker are corporatist neoliberals--in the mold of Obama and Clinton. So, of course, they'll strike a deal--a 'Grand Bargain.'

(although pols in both parties avoid the term)

In fact, that's pretty much what this piece says.

But in truth, few anticipated that Republicans would even try. Senator John McCain of Arizona, chairman of the Armed Services Committee and an opponent of military cuts, took to the floor just before the final vote to call for a new budget deal that would lift the spending caps the budget ratified.

(McCain and Graham are two of the Republican 'useful idiots' that team with Dems to try to reach a Grand Bargain by cutting entitlements. I'll try to post the video clip of Van Hollen clarifying this to a WaPo reporter. Naturally, he would say he's willing to strike a deal. Again, that deal would be a 'Grand Bargain.')

“We must work together in bipartisan fashion to fix the damage” caused by previous budget cuts, he said.

Mr. Obama has already promised to veto spending bills that stick to the spending caps in the 2011 budget legislation.

And in the coming weeks, leaders of the appropriations committees plan to push spending bills that pay for health care, education, criminal justice and housing programs to show that they cannot muster the votes to even get those bills to the president’s desk.

(All of this done by the Democrats as 'show votes,' to fool a very gullible Base, which will buy it hook, line and sinker. Repubs will happily go along with it, because they, too, will delight in deceiving their likewise clueless Base, by pretending to initially 'fight' for certain policies--abolishing or defunding the ACA, etc.)

(If the President is serious about his veto threat, then there has to be entitlement cuts, to offset the lifting of the sequester cap that he is seeking on the "discretionary" spending side. We know that McCain and Graham aren't going to budge on defense spending, but would gladly trade lifting caps on discretionary spending for entitlement cuts.)

(IOW, all parties--the White House, the Dems, and the Republicans--are demanding that the legislation be "revenue neutral." Therefore, non-discretionary spending--entitlements--will clearly be traded, or cut, in order to free up monies on the discretionary spending side.)

By forcing a spending stalemate well before the end of the fiscal year in October, appropriators hope to compel Republican leaders and the White House to enter negotiations that could head off another funding crisis at that time, when the government runs out of money and the federal borrowing limit is exhausted.

(I've read several accounts that corporatist Democrats/Republicans and the White House, will use the 1 October 2015 fiscal year deadline, to ram through tax reform, and or course, that deal won't be struck, unless entitlements are further slashed.)

“I’m always open to bipartisan approaches and fresh ideas, but these ideas are way out of the mainstream,” said Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a frequent collaborator with Republicans on health care and tax proposals. “I just find it hard to see how you would move forward with them.”

(Yeah, I bet Wyden is open to a deal. He co-sponsored a Medicare 'premium support' bill with Ryan, just a couple of years ago. I've got a screenshot of that announcement.)

Hey, I know that the non-binding budget resolution that just passed is part of a joint Kabuki Theatre.

Lawmakers wrote it this way as "cover" for the upcoming phony budget "negotiations" that will continue to dismantle our social insurance programs, while raising our taxes.

And that is a real concern to me.

Mollie

Postcript: Remember, it was Senator Wyden who acknowledged last summer, to the WSJ's Gerald Seib, during a forum, that he had reached an agreement as the Finance Committee chair to lower the corporate and individual tax rates to 25%.

That is also a very major concern to me--because of the (truly) middle class tax expenditures that they are willing to trade off as the "offset" for these deep cuts to the marginal tax rates.

They have no intention of raising taxes on corporations, either. The President is on record saying this to The Financial Times reporter, James Politi, in March 2013.

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mimi's picture

get rid and rewrite this "obsolete and regressive document", the US constitution? It is impossible for a foreigner to criticize the US constitution. I am waiting for a movement from inside the US to really push for a rewrite, starting with Congressional and Electoral Laws. Otherwise I can't see how anything is going to change. Is it really impossible to get Americans to demand something like that and have a "peaceful revolution" just by acknowledging that their constitution is dysfunctional and needs to be rewritten?

The US Constitution assures that USians will never …have such human rights that most other nations enjoy. It is a disgrace to use that obsolete and regressive document in the 21st century. It was written to benefit slave-holders — which is why the US so easily became privatized and corporate-owned.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…is now "entrenched." That means that there is no longer a political means to amend or modernize it. The corporate barrier is too high.

Furthermore, you will find that even people here, on the far left, are terrified to do so or even discuss it. The document is a superstitious fetish for Americans on both the left and the right.

This is why no political change can take place from inside the US. It is the world at-large that must liberate the American people and confer upon them the same Human, Civil, and Social Rights that the rest of the world has. Like the right to privacy, for example.

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

how did you get to that point and why? If the change doesn't come from the inside, but from the outside, it won't change in ways you would want to see. It would be just bloodshed and war. I doubt a war from outside would ever happen. And I really wouldn't wish anybody that kind of war. So, change must come from the inside. May be it will be a totally other development, a sort of starving yourself to death, and implosion. I dunno. I hope change will come from the inside by people who understand that it's necessary.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

I'm afraid it is you, mimi, who lives in such a harsh place.

And, then, projects it upon others.

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

I understood outside influence meaning war. That was stupid. Sorry. I was just surprised about the wording fetisch. There are parts of your comments I often don't understand fully. Again my apologies.

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mimi's picture

the fact that logically if, as you said, there is no politically solution from the inside anymore possible, It must come from the outside. And I didn't understand what that political outside solution would be, so I concluded wrongly it would something like a warlike situation.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

When the US puts sanctions on a nation (which is indeed an act of war) as is the case in Russia, North Korea, Venezuela, Iran, etc. — that is a way of forcing a change in internal politics without resorting to physical attack. (Of course, US sanctions stopped working about a year ago, and the entire world now ignores them. The American people haven't figured this out yet. But they will. And then they will know their government is nothing but a zombie on the world stage.)

The US is currently being crushed by sanctions that the entire world has levied on it.

That was the topic of my first article here: America's Mein Kampf.

This is the way to stop ongoing US acts of terrorism throughout the world, which in turn will free the American people from the high costs of US international-murder sprees, which eat up 50 cents of every tax dollar.

Collapsing the US economy works far better than war. That will change the purpose of the US from international terrorism to benefitting the American people.

We are so unfamiliar with the actual words of truth — instead of the bullshit words of US government propaganda — that truthful and precise and accurate words sound harsh, perhaps.

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

again, my apologies. Well, it's not a physical attack, but when people can't afford to eat anymore, because the economy gets collapsed through such sanctions, it's still quite an attack. Sorry, I am too tired to follow. I will re-read your first article again.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…then they suffer at their own hand. (But I don't think they will. It's a rich country. If the people decide to take it back from their corporate oppressors, they could live in abundance.)

Nonetheless, we should all rejoice because the rest of the world will no longer suffer from the atrocities of US terrorism.

Those who stay in the US and do not make an effort to return to their indigenous lands, are in a position to redefine their own destiny and the future of their children. Or, they could simply remain completely clueless livestock, which is how the corporations regard them.

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

the only way to stop a nation armed to the teeth with nuclear weapons, especially one that's already proven itself crazy enough to use them, twice. When/if we go down economically, or by some other means, I'm still not certain that the bat shit, blood thirsty neocon crazies might not use them again.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…large and small, is targeted by far superior nuclear weapons. The US military does not know where they are, because they are in constant motion — by design. This nation won't live longer than 30 minutes.

That's a fact.

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

assures all sides will suffer the consequences, unless one side has first strike capability. If a lone tactical nuke is used somewhere, will those nuclear weapons pointed at us be launched knowing that there will be reciprocation. That is the conundrum and question. I hope you are right, P.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…article, "Conversation with a Silicon Valley Russian." It's a real eye-opener.

Suffice to say that Russians are not in the least worried about surviving a nuclear attack.

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

Russia is no longer worried about US missile defense systems. Aren't there rumors that the Russians will deploy their own missile defense system some time in 2015?

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Pluto's Republic's picture

…for the link. I hadn't seen that.

My piece is an "exclusive" that will debut here..

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

that even the 'best' in this society and country are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. They seem to identify with their oppressors,. If they are doing okay, and a lot are, they don't want to rock the boat. If they are suffering and hopeless, they seem to feel it's their lot in life and it could be worse. God knows it has been and always will be as The rationalizations from both the comfortably affluent and the people on the edge, who are barely hanging on are incomprehensible. Then there is the poor, the lepers we don't want to see. As the denizens of dkos state often they don't vote so they are not victims but losers Please masters of the universe give us our daily bread and quit killing us with your viscous cruel version of whatever this is.

Why do people both Democratic and Republicans and the vast numbers of people self identify with oppression on this level? Tribalism or 'culture' does not explain the current state of docile acceptance. Sad that despite the inevitable claims of that's how it always has been and always will be amen or this is human nature, it is not reality. Nothing is static in this world. Especially not politics. How do they think humans ever got to the point where the secular humanistic principles and concepts expressed in our sacred documents ever evolved?

Inalienable rights and self evident truths are not the stuff of power mad pols from any era. They are not the perfect, they were gathered from coincidence and hard won by the humans though out history who died and lived to establish them. They are not ours to give or compromise away they belong to prosperity. The past, contemporary and the future of humanity and our planet itself does not belong to the sick psycho's who always claim they are inevitable. It belongs to those who stand up and refuse to give consent to the want to rule the world assholes we as humans are dealing with once again.

From the dim beginnings of the concept of the rule of law written by the creepy corporate Babylonian society carved in Hammurabi's Code to the Magna Carta and beyond humans have progressed. How can we move beyond the stalemate that we face. Crown me I win is not the inevitable result. I somehow believe that humans globally will topple their game board and stop consenting to the concept that they are only lowly pawns in the sick game they offer up as the only choice you have as we own it.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

Why do people both Democratic and Republicans and the vast numbers of people self identify with oppression on this level? Tribalism or 'culture' does not explain the current state of docile acceptance.

Poor USians are hopelessly isolated in their genocide paradise by vast oceans, with no way in or out. They just don't know any better. Like Clockwork Orange, their eyes are propped open by toothpicks as they are bombarded with the lies and propaganda of the Corporate News Service.

new-world.jpg

Young Americans still have brain plasticity.

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

does anywhere in northern europe want a high-mileage american with media skills and a really good blues collection? B)

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Pluto's Republic's picture

I thought you were a 20-something millennial.

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____________________

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

i am middle-aged and approaching retirement age.

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Pluto's Republic's picture

60 is the new 40.

That's just how it is.

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____________________

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

heh, you would be homesick after a couple of months and feel like a traitor to the Americans you left behind. Nea

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joe shikspack's picture

even though i grew up hearing my mom and grandmother speaking flemish, german is really difficult for me to wrap my ears around. on the other hand, i might be willing to give it a try in order to live in a more humane society.

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mimi's picture

most speak some basic English, so you will be understood everywhere and in musical terms all understanding is universal... Smile What could go wrong? Nothing much.

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mimi's picture

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They know a bad deal when they see it. It's the old fogies that are slow.

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Shahryar's picture

when I was younger it was clear, the game was rigged and it was a waste of time to participate.

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lotlizard's picture

In contrast, isn't it funny that the government was so lackadaisical about in finding out who shut down Congress with weaponized anthrax spores a week after 9/11. Anthrax which investigation showed could only have come from the U.S. government's own biological weapons lab in Fort Detrick.

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joe shikspack's picture

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