The Evening Blues - 9-24-15

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Piedmont bluesman Amos "Bumble Bee Slim" Easton. Enjoy!

Bumble Bee Slim - I Keep On Drinkin'

“The darkest secret of this country, I am afraid, is that too many of its citizens imagine that they belong to a much higher civilization somewhere else. That higher civilization doesn’t have to be another country. It can be the past instead—the United States as it was before it was spoiled by immigrants and the enfranchisement of the blacks.

This state of mind allows too many of us to lie and cheat and steal from the rest of us, to sell us junk and addictive poisons and corrupting entertainments. What are the rest of us, after all, but sub-human aborigines?”

-- Kurt Vonnegut


News and Opinion

"We Are Living at a Critical Moment of History": The Pope on Poverty, Immigration & Climate Change

Worth a full read:

The One Thing Pope Francis Could Say That Would Truly Stun Congress

There are many things Pope Francis could say in his Thursday address to Congress that would make its members uncomfortable. ... But the Pope’s critique of the world has an even more radical component, one that’s gotten little notice in the United States — maybe because it’s so radical that many Americans, members of Congress in particular, might not even understand what he’s saying.

And what Francis is saying is that capitalism and our growing environmental disasters are rooted in an even older, larger problem: centuries of European colonialism. Moreover, he suggests this colonialism has never really ended, but merely changed forms — and much of U.S. foreign policy that’s purportedly about terrorism, or drugs, or corruption, or “free trade,” is actually colonialism in disguise.

That’s a perspective that no one in Congress — from Ted Cruz to Bernie Sanders or anyone in between — is going to get behind. ... Read this and try to imagine what would happen if it were spoken at the U.S. Capitol:

The Earth, entire peoples and individual persons are being brutally punished. And behind all this pain, death and destruction there is the stench of what Basil of Caesarea called “the dung of the devil.” … Once capital becomes an idol and guides people’s decisions, once greed for money presides over the entire socioeconomic system, it ruins society, it condemns and enslaves men and women. …

We see the rise of new forms of colonialism, which seriously prejudice the possibility of peace and justice. … The new colonialism takes on different faces. At times it appears as the anonymous influence of mammon: corporations, loan agencies, certain “free trade” treaties, and the imposition of measures of “austerity,” which always tighten the belt of workers and the poor. … At other times, under the noble guise of battling corruption, the narcotics trade and terrorism — grave evils of our time, which call for coordinated international action — we see states being saddled with measures which have little to do with the resolution of these problems and which not infrequently worsen matters.

A Progressive Pope or Greenwashing the Vatican?

Colombia Will See Peace in Six Months, President and FARC Leader Announce

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and FARC rebel commander 'Timochenko' on Wednesday shook hands — firmly, but drawn together physically by Cuban President Raul Castro — as both sides in Colombia's armed conflict announced breakthrough agreements to end the hemisphere's longest war. ...

The leaders said the peace talks should be concluded in "no later than six months," meaning Colombia could theoretically see a peace agreement by March 2016. Once a final deal is signed, the rebels will have 60 days to abandon their weapons and demobilize. ...

Combatants in the conflict who accept guilt for human-rights abuses or war crimes will face jail sentences of five to eight years in "ordinary" prisons. Those who do not accept guilt for abuses could face up to 20 years in jail. ...

As previously expected, the FARC-EP, or Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia/People's Army, will become a legal political party, the leaders announced.

On Wednesday, Timochenko appeared to accept the prospect of prison time for rebels, who are accused of scores of abuses against non-combatant citizens over the course of the FARC's campaign against the government. Colombia's military and paramilitary forces are also accused of extrajudicial killings and so-called "false positive" executions of innocent civilians.

Putin Said to Plan Islamic State Strike With or Without U.S.

President Vladimir Putin, determined to strengthen Russia’s only military outpost in the Middle East, is preparing to launch unilateral airstrikes against Islamic State from inside Syria if the U.S. rejects his proposal to join forces, two people familiar with the matter said.

Putin’s preferred course of action, though, is for America and its allies to agree to coordinate their campaign against the terrorist group with Russia, Iran and the Syrian army, which the Obama administration has so far resisted, according to a person close to the Kremlin and an adviser to the Defense Ministry in Moscow. ...

Putin’s proposal, which Russia has communicated to the U.S., calls for a “parallel track” of joint military action accompanied by a political transition away from Assad, a key U.S. demand, according to a third person. The initiative will be the centerpiece of Putin’s one-day trip to New York for the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 28, which will include a meeting with President Barack Obama, both the White House and Kremlin said Thursday.

“Russia is hoping common sense will prevail and Obama takes Putin’s outstretched hand,” said Elena Suponina, a senior Middle East analyst at the Institute of Strategic Studies, which advises the Kremlin. “But Putin will act anyway if this doesn’t happen.”

US Denies Russian Claims They’re Receptive to Syria Unity Govt

For the past several months, there have been reports that the US is increasingly coming on board with Russian calls for a “unity government” made up of the current Syrian government and secular rebels to fight against ISIS. It was therefore unsurprising that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov brought the matter up again in comments today.

The US has let such comments come and go several times, but today angrily rejected the report, saying that America’s position on Syria, and its opposition to Russia’s involvement in the fight against ISIS, remain wholly unchanged.

Syrian Kurd offensive against Islamic State has stalled

U.S. tallies of airstrikes show dramatic drop since July in northern Syria

A Syrian Kurdish offensive described last week by U.S. officials as the most effective assault to date on the Islamic State has ground to a virtual halt because of Turkey’s opposition to the advance and Kurdish commanders’ reluctance to extend their frontlines beyond Kurdish areas, Syrian Kurdish and Arab militants say.

The stalling of the offensive, which was aided by U.S. airstrikes that were coordinated with Syrian Kurdish fighters on the ground, deals a new setback to the Obama administration’s efforts to build an anti-Islamic State coalition among Syrian opposition forces, and it comes amidst a buildup of Russian jet fighters, armored vehicles and personnel near Syria’s coast. ...

The slackening in the drive by the Peoples Protection Units, a Syrian Kurdish militia known as the YPG, can be traced through the dramatic drop in the rate of U.S. airstrikes launched against the Islamic State in areas inside and adjacent to the swath of territory along the border with Turkey from which the brutal Islamist movement was expelled by the YPG offensive.

Activists aligned with the YPG said in interviews that the lull in American bombing has allowed the Islamic State to bring in reinforcements and that they’ve lost the critically important momentum that had the militia on the verge of driving the Islamic State from Jarabulus, the main urban center of the Syria-Turkey border strip still held by the Islamist group. ...

Turkey, which recently has seen a re-ignition of a decades-old insurgency by separatists of its own Kurdish minority, objected to the plan and threatened to intervene militarily if the YPG moved to capture Jarabulus, a mixed Arab and Turkmen city, because of fears that the Kurds could declare a state on the territory.

[Heh, that's some pretty neutral "journalistic" language there, "Turkey, which recently has seen a re-ignition of a decades-old insurgency by separatists of its own Kurdish minority." It's total propaganda - it presents a totally false picture of events. Turkey's dictator wannabe has just reignited an insurgency which had been suspended in pursuit of a peace process. The aggressor is clearly the Turkish government, rather than the Kurds as one might assume from the language. Quelle surprise! An American media outlet that prints utter bullshit. - js]

Pentagon insists no defections to al Qaida from U.S.-trained Syrian fighters

The Pentagon is firmly denying social media reports that a new group of U.S.-trained Syrian fighters who recently reentered their country to combat the Islamic State have defected to the Nusra Front, al Qaida’s main affiliate in Syria. ...

Cpt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, on Wednesday rejected reports of defections from among what the United States calls the New Syrian Force. He also dismissed assertions that were circulated on Facebook and Twitter that the commander of a Syrian rebel unit called Division 30, with which some of the U.S.-trained fighters have been embedded, had handed over to Nusra a large cache of weapons in exchange for a pledge of protection. ...

The credibility of the Pentagon regarding the United States’ controversial train-and-equip program, however, has suffered in recent months because of shifting statements about the initiative, for which Congress appropriated $500 million this year.

'Failed' EU Refugee Summit Results in Aid Pledge — and Little Else

As the continent faces what one humanitarian organization has dubbed "a social, economic, and political crisis of immense proportions," European heads of government agreed Thursday to pledge at least €1.1 billion to help refugees, but failed to come up with a comprehensive strategy to stem a growing disaster. 

The Guardian reports: "The emergency Brussels summit decided little but to throw money at aid agencies and transit countries hosting millions of Syrian refugees and to step up the identification and finger-printing of refugees in Italy and Greece by November."

In a parallel decision earlier in the week, European governments forced through a deal to impose refugee quotas, sharing 120,000 people between them in a controversial decision that several states bitterly opposed.

U.S. State Department “Welcomes” News That Saudi Arabia Will Head U.N. Human Rights Panel

Last week’s announcement that Saudi Arabia — easily one of the world’s most brutally repressive regimes — was chosen to head a U.N. Human Rights Council panel provoked indignation around the world. That reaction was triggered for obvious reasons. Not only has Saudi Arabia executed more than 100 people already this year, mostly by beheading (a rate of 1 execution every two days), and not only is it serially flogging dissidents, but it is reaching new levels of tyrannical depravity as it is about to behead and then crucify the 21-year-old son of a prominent regime critic, Ali Mohammed al-Nimr, who was convicted at the age of 17 of engaging in demonstrations against the government.

Most of the world may be horrified at the selection of Saudi Arabia to head a key U.N. human rights panel, but the U.S. State Department most certainly is not. Quite the contrary: its officials seem quite pleased about the news. At a State Department briefing yesterday afternoon, Deputy Spokesperson Mark Toner was questioned by the invaluable Matt Lee of AP, and this is the exchange that resulted:

QUESTION: Well, how about a reaction to them heading the council?

MR. TONER: Again, I don’t have any comment, don’t have any reaction to it. I mean, frankly, it’s — we would welcome it. We’re close allies. If we —

QUESTION: Do you think that they’re an appropriate choice given — I mean, how many pages is — does Saudi Arabia get in the Human Rights Report annually?

MR. TONER: I can’t give that off the top of my head, Matt.

QUESTION: I can’t either, but let’s just say that there’s a lot to write about Saudi Arabia and human rights in that report. I’m just wondering if you — that it’s appropriate for them to have a leadership position.

MR. TONER: We have a strong dialogue, obviously a partnership with Saudi Arabia that spans, obviously, many issues. We talk about human rights concerns with them. As to this leadership role, we hope that it’s an occasion for them to look at human rights around the world but also within their own borders.

QUESTION: But you said that you welcome them in this position. Is it based on [an] improved record? I mean, can you show or point to anything where there is a sort of stark improvement in their human rights record?

MR. TONER: I mean, we have an ongoing discussion with them about all these human rights issues, like we do with every country. We make our concerns clear when we do have concerns, but that dialogue continues. But I don’t have anything to point to in terms of progress.

That’s about as clear as it gets. The U.S. government “welcomes” the appointment of Saudi Arabia to a leadership position on this Human Rights panel because it’s a “close ally.” As I documented two weeks ago courtesy of an equally candid admission from an anonymous “senior U.S. official”: “The U.S. loves human-rights-abusing regimes and always has, provided they ‘cooperate.’ … The only time the U.S. government pretends to care in the slightest about human rights abuses is when they’re carried out by ‘countries that don’t cooperate.'”

Israel's War on Children

Edward Snowden to attend meeting via video on ‘treaty’ to improve privacy laws

The NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden will be beamed by video link into a New York meeting on Thursday, at which a draft international “treaty” bearing his name will be launched in an attempt to persuade governments around the world to strengthen privacy laws.

The so-called “Snowden Treaty” is conceived as a way for states to begin pushing back against the mass surveillance undertaken by the US National Security Agency and its cohorts. Snowden, who leaked details of the agency’s digital data dragnet, has seen and approved the draft document, though he is not its author.

The “International Treaty on the Right to Privacy, Protection Against Improper Surveillance and Protection of Whistleblowers”, as it is otherwise known, aims to elevate digital privacy into a 21st-century human right. Under its terms, mass surveillance of phone calls and online activity would be outlawed, oversight of state bodies involved in surveillance would be stepped up, and whistleblowers – like Snowden himself – would be afforded international protection.

Feds: Still no proof Verizon Wireless in NSA surveillance program

The Justice Department is persisting in the implausible claim that there is no reliable proof that Verizon Wireless was part of the National Security Agency's program to sweep up data on U.S. telephone calls, notwithstanding a government document officially released last month that appears to confirm the cellphone carrier's involvement.

In a filing Tuesday night with the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, government lawyers argue that because Verizon Wireless's name appears only in the caption of the newly released letter and not in its text, the government has not officially acknowledged Verizon Wireless' participation in the NSA program. ...

The filing also casts doubt on the authenticity of the Aug. 2, 2010, letter, which was addressed to Judge John Bates of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court and bears an official filing stamp from that court. The New York Times published the letter last month as part of a package of materials it received through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about oversight of the phone surveillance program. The newspaper also published online a letter from the Justice Department itself, releasing the records.

The DOJ lawyers call the letter "a purported FISC filing" and seem to take a neither-confirm-nor-deny posture about whether it is even real. ...

"The secrecy here is entirely a fiction. The purpose of it is to insulate the government's surveillance activities from judicial review," the ACLU's Jameel Jaffer said. "We now live in a kind of bizarre world where their position is that [the letter disclosed to the Times] doesn't count and that the term 'official disclosure' is drawn so narrowly that it is excludes their own affirmative disclosure on their own letterhead. ... It’s a fiction that bears no relation to reality and, at a certain point, I think -- I hope -- courts aren't going to entertain that fiction anymore."

Disaster capitalism is a permanent state of life for too many Americans

In the United States, disaster has become our most common mode of life. Proof that our daily existence was something other than a simmering, smoldering disaster has been historically held somewhat at bay by the myth that hard work equals some kind of subsistence living. For the more deluded amongst us, this ‘American dream’ even got us to believe we could be something called ‘middle class’. We were deceived. ...

The New York Post, no bastion of bleeding heart liberalism, reported on Monday that “Hundreds of full-time city workers are homeless”. These are people who clean our trash and make our city, the heart of American capitalism, safe and livable, including for those who plunder the globe from Wall Street. These are men and women, living in shelters and out of their cars, who have government jobs – the kind of workers conservatives love to paint as greedy, gluttonous pigs. ...

We live in such an interminable state of disaster, we barely see the locusts for the plague. Take the other major sad story this week: that Silicon Valley investor Martin Skrelli has bought the drug Daraprim, raising its price 5,000%. No crisis necessitated this increase. The drug is 62 years old, and its initial costs had long ago been absorbed.

It’s easy to be angry at Shkrelli, his smug smile and his greedy choices that may well equal the deaths of those priced out from the malaria, Aids and cancer medicine they need. But Shkrelli is just a tool. He lives in a world where disaster capitalism will reward him. He now says he will make the drug “more affordable,” but the richest nation on earth can’t stop him from deciding what “affordable” will mean. He may repulse us, but he represents our American way of disastrous living. Disaster capitalism no longer just reacts to chaos for profit, or even creates chaos for profit. It creates the conditions by which the spectre of social, spiritual and biological death hang over our heads on a daily basis so oppressively, the crises become seamless.

And it asks us to accept that when you work full time driving workers to the richest corporation in the history of the human race and must live in your car, you should be grateful that you’re “making ends meet”, keep calm and carry on

Heh, actions of a real capitalist caught in the spotlight, suddenly people don't like capitalism so much.

Turing boss Martin Shkreli says Daraprim price drop 'might curtail research for lethal diseases'

Martin Shkreli, boss of the controversial pharmaceutical company that increased the price of its life-saving drug 50-fold overnight, has claimed slashing the price of the drug may lead him to cut research for “lethal diseases” and force him to fire staff.

After intense pressure, including criticism from presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton, Shkreli confirmed this week he will slash the price of Daraprim, a drug his company, Turing Pharmaceuticals, bought in August and then hiked from $13.50 to $750 a pill.

“We might have to curtail research for several lethal diseases that we are seeking treatments for. We might have to fire people,” he told the Guardian.

Shkreli declined to say how much he would cut the cost of Daraprim, the standard treatment for the dangerous blood infection toxoplasmosis. Daraprim is a daily drug many patients have to take for a year or more.

Progressives Fight to Prevent Overthrow of Regulator Who Has Defied Auditing Firms

The battle over an obscure yet important regulatory agency heated up on Wednesday as the progressive activist organization Credo demanded that SEC Chair Mary Jo White recuse herself from selecting the next head of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board (PCAOB).

The oversight board was created after the Enron debacle, and charged with policing the big accounting firms whose audits are supposed to keep public companies honest. Its current chairman, James Doty, has turned into one of the most persistent regulatory reformers in Washington.

White is considering ousting Doty in favor of someone more amenable to corporate sensibilities. White’s husband, John White, a partner with the corporate law firm Cravath, Swaine & Moore, sits on the PCAOB’s Standing Advisory Group. And Credo says that he and his Wall Street clients may be influencing her decision-making.



the horse race


Hillary Clinton's lead over Biden and Sanders slips among Democrats, poll says

A new poll suggests that the dominance of Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton among left-leaning voters is waning, as a challenger who has not even declared his candidacy gains ground: vice-president Joe Biden.

A quarter of respondents to a Bloomberg poll conducted last week said their top pick for president was Biden, while Clinton was backed by 33% and Vermont senator Bernie Sanders by 24%. ...

Earlier in the summer, pollsters believed that Clinton would not only sweep her Democratic challengers but the entire election. In late June, she was polling 8% above her closest competitor, who at the time was Republican former Florida governor Jeb Bush.

Since then, Sanders has also gained in polls in the key early primary states. September polls found Sanders led Clinton by nine points in New Hampshire, and was one ahead in Iowa.

Hillary Clinton unveils her plan to make US 'clean energy superpower'

A day after announcing her opposition to the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, Hillary Clinton unveiled a more comprehensive agenda for the US energy infrastructure that seeks to transform the US into “the clean energy superpower of the 21st century”.

The Democratic presidential candidate detailed her proposals on Wednesday in both a blog post on Medium and a fact sheet distributed by Clinton’s campaign.

Clinton’s plan calls for the existing energy infrastructure in the US to be modernized through a series of steps, such as repairing or replacing oil and gas pipelines that are outdated and risk both oil and methane leaks and other hazardous accidents. ...

Clinton said her plan would invest in “grid security and resilience”, and create a threat assessment team to protect against cyber-attack through improved coordination.

Citing challenges that extend across the borders of Canada and Mexico, Clinton also said she would immediately begin negotiations with both nations, if elected president, to forge a North American climate compact with the purpose of producing shared targets and accountability measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and cut energy costs.

Such a pact, Clinton wrote, would ensure that “all three countries demonstrate a commitment to climate action,” as well as “[create] certainty for investors and confidence in the future of our climate, so we can all marshal resources equal to the challenges we face.”




The Evening Greens



UK, France and Germany lobbied for flawed car emissions tests, documents reveal

The UK, France and Germany have been accused of hypocrisy for lobbying behind the scenes to keep outmoded car tests for carbon emissions, but later publicly calling for a European investigation into Volkswagen’s rigging of car air pollution tests.

Leaked documents seen by the Guardian show the three countries lobbied the European commission to keep loopholes in car tests that would increase real world carbon dioxide emissions by 14% above those claimed.

Just four months before the VW emissions scandal broke, the EU’s three biggest nations mounted a push to carry over loopholes from a test devised in 1970 – known as the NEDC – to the World Light Vehicles Test Procedure (WLTP), which is due to replace it in 2017.

“It is unacceptable that governments which rightly demand an EU inquiry into the VW’s rigging of air pollution tests are simultaneously lobbying behind the scenes to continue the rigging of CO2 emissions tests,” said Greg Archer, clean vehicles manager at the respected green thinktank, Transport and Environment (T&E). “CO2 regulations should not be weakened by the backdoor through test manipulations.”

Vehicle emissions are responsible for 12% of Europe’s carbon emissions and by 2021, all new cars must meet an EU emissions limit of 95 grams of CO2 per km, putting accurate measurements of real emissions at a premium.

Inside Exxon’s Great Climate Cover-Up: From Early Climate Change Researcher to Epic Climate Denier

Canada’s Prime Minister Believes That Americans Support Keystone XL

Democratic presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton has come out against Keystone XL, calling the controversial pipeline that would carry crude oil from Alberta to American refineries on the Gulf Coast "a distraction from the important work we have to do on climate change."

But despite the staunch opposition — including from President Barack Obama and Alberta's premier, Rachel Notley — Canada's Conservative government continues to express optimism about the 1,179-mile pipeline proposal that has been a flashpoint on both sides of the border, and in the lead up to the US presidential race in 2016.

"This is not a debate between Canada and the US. We know the American people support the project," Stephen Lecce, a spokesman for Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper, told the Globe and Mail in response to Clinton's statement.

"Keystone XL will create jobs for Canadian and American workers and strengthen energy security in North America," he said, and declined to comment further on Clinton. "We will not engage in presidential primary debates."

In August, Clinton refused to pick sides on the pipeline until she was elected.

Obama Refuses To Give The Sage Grouse Endangered Species Protections

The announcement Tuesday that the Obama administration decided not to list the sage grouse as an endangered species drew sharp criticism from both environmentalists, who accused the administration of bowing to GOP pressure and energy interests, and from Republicans who are wary of federal jurisdiction over land that could hamper oil and natural gas industry development.

The decision was meant to be a winning compromise between the two positions, and was touted as such by Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell and an array of federal agency leaders and state governors who emphasized the balance struck between corporate interests and a need to conserve the birds' fragile habitat. ...

The sage grouse is a wild bird that lives in sage brush across the western United States, with much of its habitat on federal, state, and privately-owned lands having been eroded in recent years by energy development and ranching. The battle over whether to protect it pitted conservationists against energy company interests and big-government watchdogs. ...

The announcement outlined how land-use plans that the federal government, states, and private owners will implement to increase the bird's habitat without the federal government imposing the strict regulations of the Endangered Species Act.

"Today's decision reflects the joint efforts by countless ranchers and partners who have worked so hard to conserve wildlife habitat and preserve the Western way of life," US Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said about the announcement. "Together, we have shown that voluntary efforts joining the resources of private landowners, federal and state agencies, and partner organizations can help drive landscape-level conservation that is good for sage-grouse, ranching operations, and rural communities."

Pope's climate push is 'raving nonsense' without population control, says top US scientist

In a commentary in the journal Nature Climate Change, Paul Ehrlich, a senior fellow at the Stanford Woods Institute for the Environment, argues that Pope Francis is simply wrong in trying to fight climate change without also addressing the additional strain on global resources from population rise. “That’s raving nonsense,” Ehrlich told the Guardian. “He is right on some things but he is just dead wrong on that.”

The critique in “Society and the Pope’s encyclical”, part of a special package from scientists on the encyclical, marked a rare note of dissent from scientists and campaigners. Many hope that the pope will drive home his call to action on poverty and the environment in his speech to Congress on Thursday. ...

Francis in the encyclical explicitly rejects the idea of population growth as a strain on global resources. “Demographic growth is fully compatible with an integral and shared development,” the pope wrote. “To blame population growth instead of extreme and selective consumerism on the part of some, is one way of refusing to face the issues.”

Ehrlich said that was a mistake. The global population, now over 7 billion, is projected to reach 9.7 billion in 2050 according to the United Nations. “There is no competent scientist who would say there is not a problem with population growth. In other words, the pope is dead wrong. Here he is following an antique doctrine that it is impossible to change,” Ehrlich said. “I am sure he knows better, he is not a dope.”

Other scientists in the Nature Climate Change package also took issue with the pope’s message – such as his call for leaders to undergo a “moral conversion” when it came to the environment. That overlooked the powerful forces behind the global economic order, and fell far short of a credible strategy, writes Erik Olin Wright, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

“The powerful interests that are opposed to genuinely restoring ecological balance and seriously dealing with global poverty need to be defeated through political confrontation, rather than simply converted to a more compassionate, ethically grounded mindset.”

Naomi Klein's Take on the Pope's Popularity


Also of Interest

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

Refugee crisis: EU splits exposed at emergency summit


Israel is a stone's throw away from becoming the Roman Empire

Alleged al Qaida commander fires legal team, paralyzing Guantánamo trial

A Secret War in 135 Countries

The Hillary Clinton Emails and the Honduras Coup

Abu Ghraib Torture Survivors Appeal Dismissal of Lawsuit Against CACI Interrogators

“By Means Fair or Foul”: the British Army and Jeremy Corbyn

Waiting for Collapse: USA Debt Bombs Bursting

License to Kill


A Little Night Music

Bumble Bee Slim - Sloppy Drunk Blues

Bumble Bee Slim - Bricks In My Pillow

Bumble Bee Slim - Lemon Squeezing Blues

Bumble Bee Slim - No Woman No Nickel

Bumble Bee Slim - Going Back To Florida

Bumble Bee Slim - Fattening Frogs For Snakes

Bumble Bee Slim - No More Biscuits Rolling Here

Bumble Bee Slim - Slave Man Blues

Bumble Bee Slim - When The Music Sounds Good

Bumble Bee Slim - When Somebody Loses (Then Somebody Wins)

Bumble Bee Slim - Any Time At Night

Bumble Bee Slim - I'se Gonna Break'Em Down

Bumble Bee Slim - Ida Red

Bumble Bee Slim - Wake Up In The Morning



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The country that recently set the standard by legalizing marijuana, and that was the first in South America to set up a welfare state, rejects the status quo again.

Earlier this month Uruguay’s government decided to end its participation in the secret negotiations of the Trade in Services Agreement (TISA). After months of intense pressure led by unions and other grassroots movements that culminated in a national general strike on the issue – the first of its kind around the globe – the Uruguayan President Tabare Vazquez bowed to public opinion and left the US-led trade agreement.

Despite – or more likely because of – its symbolic importance, Uruguay’s historic decision has been met by a wall of silence. Beyond the country’s borders, mainstream media has refused to cover the story.

This is true. I did a search and found several news articles about this in the alternative press but not one news story from any big media outlet. Gee, I wonder why?

According to WikiLeaks, it “is the largest component of the United States’ strategic ‘trade’ treaty triumvirate,” which also includes the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) and the TransAtlantic Trade and Investment Pact (TTIP).
TiSA involves more countries than TTIP and TPP combined: The United States and all 28 members of the European Union, Australia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Hong Kong, Iceland, Israel, Japan, Liechtenstein, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, South Korea, Switzerland, Taiwan and Turkey.

That's 53 countries. No make that 52 countries.
No, make that 51 countries, because Paraguay dropped out the day after Uruguay left the negotiating table. I haven't found any reason given for why they left.

Uruguay and Paraguay are very small countries with very small economies, so this will not disrupt the secret negotiations at all. However, it has important symbolism.

It says that, yes, it is possible to withdraw from global negotiations, and that the apparently irreversible trade deal ratchet can actually be turned back. It sets an important precedent that other nations with growing doubts about TISA – or perhaps TPP – can look to and maybe even follow.
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joe shikspack's picture

uruguay provides a fine example for the world. hopefully, all of the ftas will fall apart because other nations find it in their best interests to stand up to the us' bullying.

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enhydra lutris's picture

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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

have a good one!

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This is BEFORE a recession hits

With the effects of the financial crisis still lingering, 30 million Americans in the last 12 months tapped retirement savings to pay for an unexpected expense, new research shows. This undercuts financial security and underscores the need for every household to maintain an emergency fund.

Boomers were most likely to take a premature withdrawal as well as incur a tax penalty, according to a survey from Bankrate.com. Some 26% of those ages 50-64 say their financial situation has deteriorated, and 17% used their 401(k) plan and other retirement savings to pay for an emergency expense.

And it gets worse.

The number of households tapping alternative financial services are on the rise, meaning that Americans are turning to non-bank lenders for credit: payday loans, refund-anticipation loans, pawnshops, and rent-to-own services.

According to the Urban Institute report, the number of households that used alternative credit products increased 7 percent between 2011 and 2013. And the kind of household seeking alternative financing is changing, too.

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joe shikspack's picture

now that, thanks to the banksters, many americans have little home equity to tap, they are risking dire old-age poverty instead of mere homelessness to stabilize their financial situation temporarily.

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snoopydawg's picture

I see from the link to the article about Putin and Syria that Bloomberg news is blaming Putin for our coup in Ukraine.
I think he had every right to hold on to the base in Crimea. What would the U.S. do if one of its bases overseas was threatened? The same damned thing.

I feel so bad for all of the innocent civilians in the wars zones that are either living in a destroyed country or have fled.
Too bad that the people in our government don't.
I can't imagine how those people can make decisions like that which affects so many people's lives and give no thought about it.
And this has gone on for decades.
Which country trains the most terrorists?

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There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?

Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.

joe shikspack's picture

perhaps one day soon, our paper of record will produce a guide to the problems of the modern world from the instability in the middle east to the waxy build-up on your kitchen floor - it's all putin's fault. (somehow)

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joe shikspack's picture

i guess i'll go take the dogs for a walk and head off to bed. see y'all tomorrow.

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NCTim's picture

What's in the bag?

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

joe shikspack's picture

whatever got into bag, it was groovy...

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Shahryar's picture

I love that style. Is that what they call barrelhouse?

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joe shikspack's picture

i think that you could call it barrelhouse, which would be period correct. barrelhouse is a mixture of ragtime and blues, you might also fairly call it boogie woogie.

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mimi's picture

let alone comment. See you in the next days. Hang in there.

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joe shikspack's picture

not a big deal. enjoy yourself and hang in there.

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gulfgal98's picture

The first wave left yesterday. I have been washing sheets and changing beds for the second bunch coming today. I will be scarce through late Saturday.

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Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?

“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy