The Evening Blues - 7-10-24
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player George "Harmonica" Smith. Enjoy!
George Harmonica Smith - Juke
"Power is domination, control, and therefore a very selective form of truth which is a lie."
-- Wole Soyinka
News and Opinion
Oh, Looks Like Bombing Hospitals Is Bad Again
A missile struck a children’s hospital in Kyiv on Monday during the heaviest Russian bombardment on Ukraine in months, which stretched across five regions and reportedly killed some forty people.
Kyiv and its western allies are saying the children’s hospital was hit by Russia, while Moscow says the hospital was hit by a Ukrainian air defense missile during Russia’s attack. All that’s clear as of this writing is that the hospital was bombed either as a direct or indirect result of the Russian missile strikes, and that western leaders are responding very, very differently to this news than they have been to deliberate Israeli attacks on hospitals throughout the Gaza Strip.
“Russia’s missile strikes that today killed dozens of Ukrainian civilians and caused damage and casualties at Kyiv’s largest children’s hospital are a horrific reminder of Russia’s brutality,” tweeted whoever runs the US president’s Twitter account, adding, “It is critical that the world continues to stand with Ukraine at this important moment and that we not ignore Russian aggression.”
“Attacking innocent children. The most depraved of actions. We stand with Ukraine against Russian aggression — our support won’t falter,” tweeted the UK’s new prime minister Keir Starmer.
“This is abhorrent. Striking a children’s hospital — and the innocent children inside — cannot be justified,” tweeted Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, adding, “My heart goes out to the families who are grieving — and Canada’s commitment to Ukraine remains as strong as ever.”
“Russia’s missile attacks on several Ukrainian cities, including a Kyiv children’s hospital are abhorrent,” echoed Australian foreign minister Penny Wong as though responding to some kind of memo. “We condemn the targeting of civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. Australia continues to support the people of Ukraine in the face of Russia’s illegal, immoral war.”
Contrast this firm and unequivocal statement from Wong with her mealy-mouthed, passive-language statement about Israel’s deliberate systematic destruction of Gaza’s healthcare system:
“Hospitals, patients, medical and humanitarian staff must be protected. Australia is deeply concerned by attacks in and around hospitals in Gaza, including an Indonesian-funded hospital in northern Gaza and a Jordanian field hospital.”
Passive language is a political choice pic.twitter.com/kqzZpwwJP6
— naama (@derridalicious) July 9, 2024
And that’s about as strong a criticism as you’ll see from western officials regarding Israel’s relentless assault on Palestinian hospitals. Most haven’t had anything to say at all.
Since October 7 there have been hundreds of documented IDF attacks on Gaza’s healthcare system, which according to the UN has been mostly destroyed by this onslaught.
Oxford University professor Nick Maynard has accused the IDF of “systematically targeting healthcare facilities, healthcare personnel and really dismantling the whole healthcare system” in Gaza after spending time working there during Israel’s bombardment of the enclave.
According to a new report published in The Lancet medical journal, indirect deaths ensuing from Israel’s assault on Gaza by things like disease and inability to access healthcare services will likely wind up being many times greater than the direct deaths caused by mass military violence, saying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths for every one reported official death would wind up putting the grand total death toll at around 186,000. And that’s with an official direct death toll that is definitely a huge undercount.
Great to see bombing hospitals is bad again.
— Tadhg (@TadhgHickey) July 9, 2024
Where was all the outrage about all this? Where were all the statements from western officials about how “abhorrent” it is to attack those hospitals? Where were all the western news media headlines explicitly naming Israel as the perpetrator of those attacks, like they’ve been doing with Russia? Nowhere to be found.
This is because western empire managers do not actually believe that there is anything “abhorrent” or “horrific” about attacking a hospital — at least not one which provides services to Palestinians or other populations who are not favored by the western empire.
This has nothing to do with concern for human lives and wellbeing. They just want to manufacture more consent for continuing their proxy war in Ukraine.
Israel Attacks Schools & Orders Palestinians to Leave Gaza City Amid Ceasefire Talks
Israeli attack on Gaza City continues as Hamas says ceasefire efforts at risk
Northern and central Gaza were hit by a second day of heavy Israeli airstrikes on Tuesday, attacks Hamas said threatened to derail new international efforts to broker a ceasefire and hostage release deal.
Residents of Gaza City reported helicopter strikes, explosions and gun battles as Israel expanded its two-week-old offensive in Shuja’iya, an eastern neighbourhood, moving tanks into areas of the city where Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad fighters have regrouped.
More than 50 people had been killed in airstrikes on Gaza City and the central town of Deir al-Balah and surrounding refugee camps in the preceding 24 hours, medics said. A third round of leaflets dropped on several neighbourhoods told residents to evacuate to southern Gaza, leading to a new wave of displacement of people who were unable or unwilling to leave their homes when Israeli troops first entered the city at the end of October. In a statement, the Palestinian Red Crescent said all of its medical clinics in Gaza City had been forced offline.
In Nuseirat camp, near Deir al-Balah, an Israeli airstrike in the early hours of Tuesday on a multistorey building killed 17 people, including 14 children, the Hamas media office said. Neighbours rushed to help medics and emergency workers recover bodies and search for survivors under the rubble. ...
The new fighting has unfolded as international mediators make headway in ceasefire negotiations after a major concession from Hamas last week, when the group dropped its insistence on a “complete” ceasefire as a prerequisite for talks. ... But speaking on Monday night, the group’s Qatar-based political chief, Ismail Haniyeh, said that the “catastrophic consequences” of the latest battles on the ground in Gaza could “reset the negotiation process to square one”. The group has also accused Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, of deliberately trying to thwart the truce talks.
Phil Giraldi : IDF and US Tax Laws
Israel Controls 26% of Gaza, Potentially Paving the Way for Jewish Settlements
The Israeli military has taken control of 26% of the Gaza Strip and is building bases and paving roads in the areas to ensure long-term occupation, which could lead to Jewish settlements, Haaretz reported on Monday.
Israel established a “buffer zone” along the Israel-Gaza border by demolishing buildings and agricultural land. The zone cuts into about 1 kilometer along Gaza’s entire border with Israel and accounts for about 16% of the Strip’s territory.
Israel has also taken control of the Philadelphi Corridor, which runs along the Egypt-Gaza border, and demolished buildings in the Netzarim Corridor, a 38 kilometer square area that separates northern Gaza from the rest of the Strip
The Israeli military has built bases in the corridor and is using the Turkish hospital, which was Gaza’s only cancer treatment hospital, as another base. The US-built pier is also located in the Netzarim Corridor. Haaretz reported that Graffiti written in Hebrew near the pier reads, “Without settlement, there’s no victory.”
Their Goal Is Total Ethnic Cleansing: Mustafa Barghouti on Israel’s Expulsion Order for Gaza City
UN Experts Say 'Targeted Starvation Campaign' by Israel Has Led to Famine Across Gaza
While the United Nations still has not formally declared a famine in Gaza after nine months of Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid, 10 top U.N. experts on Tuesday said they have seen enough.
"We declare that Israel's intentional and targeted starvation campaign against the Palestinian people is a form of genocidal violence and has resulted in famine across all of Gaza," said the experts.
Michael Fakhri, special rapporteur on the right to food, was joined in the statement by other experts including Francesca Albanese, special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, and Paula Gaviria Betancur, special rapporteur on the human rights of internally displaced persons.
They said the recent deaths of three children in various parts of the enclave led the experts, who do not speak on behalf of the United Nations as a whole, to declare a famine has taken hold.
"Fayez Ataya, who was barely six months old, died on May 30, 2024 and 13-year-old Abdulqader Al-Serhi died on June 1, 2024 at the Al-Aqsa Hospital in Deir Al-Balah," said the experts. "Nine-year-old Ahmad Abu Reida died on June 3, 2024 in the tent sheltering his displaced family in Al-Mawasi, Khan Younis. All three children died from malnutrition and lack of access to adequate healthcare."
"With the death of these children from starvation despite medical treatment in central Gaza, there is no doubt that famine has spread from northern Gaza into central and southern Gaza," they continued.
At least 34 Palestinians in Gaza—the majority being children—have now died from malnutrition since October, when Israel began its bombardment of the enclave in retaliation for a Hamas-led attack and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced there would "be no electricity, no food, no fuel" allowed in to Gaza.
Israeli officials said in response to Tuesday's statement that it has increased the aid allowed into Gaza recently, but hundreds of delivery trucks remain stranded in Egypt and a floating pier built by the U.S. has not significantly improved the humanitarian crisis.
The U.N. experts said that with the first death of a child from malnutrition and dehydration, it should have been considered "irrefutable that famine has taken hold."
"When a two-month-old baby and 10-year-old Yazan Al Kafarneh died of hunger on February 24 and March 4, respectively, this confirmed that famine had struck northern Gaza," they said. "The whole world should have intervened earlier to stop Israel's genocidal starvation campaign and prevented these deaths... Inaction is complicity."
The
Integrated Food Security Phase Classification, which is backed by the U.N., said last month that Gaza is at high risk for famine and that nearly half a million people were facing "catastrophic" food insecurity, with an extreme lack of food.In May, Human Rights Watch co-founder Aryeh Neier, who had previously hesitated to say Israel was committing genocide in Gaza, said Israel's "sustained policy of obstructing the movement of humanitarian assistance into the territory" ultimately convinced him that Israeli officials are "engaged in genocide."
In March, the International Court of Justice ordered Israel to ensure its military refrain from violating the Genocide Convention by preventing humanitarian aid from reaching people in Gaza, saying that "the catastrophic living conditions of the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip have deteriorated further" and that "famine is setting in."
A woman named Ghaneyma Joma told Reuters on Monday at a hospital in Khan Younis that she feared her son would soon die of starvation.
"It's distressing to see my child... lying there dying from malnutrition because I cannot provide him with anything due to the war, the closing of crossings, and the contaminated water," she told the outlet.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations called on the U.S. government, the biggest international funder of Israel's military and a persistent defender of its actions in Gaza, to ensure that a cease-fire agreement is reached and that Palestinians receive necessary humanitarian aid.
"The intentional starvation of the Palestinian people in Gaza can only occur with the active complicity of the Biden administration in Israel's campaign of genocide," said Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director for the group. "This complicity must end, and the Palestinian people must be offered a future in which they are free of occupation and can live in dignity."
Feds Declare WAR On UAW Over Gaza Ceasefire
Well, that was 320 million or so well spent! That Genocide Joe Biden really knows how to get the job done!
US Gaza aid pier to be permanently dismantled after operating for just 20 days
A US military pier, built two months ago as a way to bring sea-borne humanitarian aid into Gaza, is to be permanently dismantled within a few days, according to a new report.
The Associated Press (AP) reported that the pier, which has had to be moved repeatedly to avoid bad weather, would be reconnected to the Gaza coastline on Wednesday but would operate for just the next few days before being disassembled by the US army and navy.
The AP quoted unnamed officials as saying that the pier would be put back in place only long enough to move humanitarian supplies which have accumulated in Cyprus and on a floating dock offshore since the pier went out of action on 28 June as a result of weather conditions.
There was no immediate comment from US Central Command or the US Agency for International Development which have operated the maritime aid corridor between Cyprus and Gaza, but aid workers familiar with the project had been predicting for weeks that the pier would not survive beyond July.
More Free Speech Frauds Exposed As Crackdowns on Israel Critics Escalate
Oh lookee, Biden can still do war-monger-speak.
Biden promises new air defenses for Ukraine in forceful Nato speech
Joe Biden has announced that Nato countries will provide Ukraine with five new strategic air defense systems as leaders began a summit in Washington where the alliance was expected to declare Ukraine’s path toward Nato to be “irreversible”. ...
“All told, Ukraine will receive hundreds of additional interceptors over the next year, helping protect Ukrainian cities against Russian missiles and Ukrainian troops facing their attacks on the frontlines,” said Biden.
The headline speech was a critical step to convincing foreign leaders that Biden, 81, remains up to the task of leading the 32-member military alliance. It was also a key test in saving his presidential campaign following a disastrous debate against Donald Trump that led many in his own party to question his mental acuity.
In forceful tones, Biden said: “Before this war, Putin thought Nato would break. Today, Nato is stronger than it’s ever been in its history. When this senseless war began, Ukraine was a free country. Today it’s still a free country and the war will end with Ukraine remaining a free and independent country. Russia will not prevail,” he said to rising applause. “Ukraine will prevail.”
It was announced on Tuesday that the US and its European allies would act to bolster Ukraine’s air defences at a time when the country is under constant heavy bombardment from Russia. The US, Germany and Romania would send additional batteries of the Patriot air defence system while Patriot components donated by the Netherlands would enable another battery to operate, according to a statement by the leaders of the US, the Netherlands, Germany, Italy and Romania.
Modi in Moscow. India-Russia trade surges
Modi and Putin cement ‘bonds of friendship’ despite Ukraine tensions
As India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, landed in Moscow on Monday, it was straight into the warm embrace of Vladimir Putin. Modi said the visit – his first since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine – was to cement the “bonds of friendship” between the two countries, and later effusively described Russia as India’s “all-weather friend and trusted ally”.
The India-Russia relationship runs deep, dating back to the cold war, and Russia has long been the largest supplier of arms to India. Since he was elected in 2014, Modi has built up a much-publicised rapport with Putin, the two leaders having had more than 20 meetings.
However, Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine in February 2022 put an unprecedented strain on their ties and forced India to tread a tricky path in balancing its relationships with both Putin and the west.
India refused to join western countries in condemning Putin’s invasion and abstained from all UN votes denouncing Russia. It also eagerly became the largest buyer of cheap Russian oil, still sending billions to the country’s coffers, which was seen by some to undermine western sanction efforts. Nonetheless, India’s displeasure with Putin’s actions was not entirely concealed, with Modi stating that “now is not the era for war”.
The Indian prime minister’s decision to strengthen his relationship with the western leaders who are Putin’s biggest critics, including the US president, Joe Biden, and the French president, Emmanuel Macron, has been met frostily in the corridors of the Kremlin. Similarly, Putin’s increasingly close ties with Beijing are viewed with great suspicion in New Delhi, where China is viewed as the greatest threat. But while the geopolitical landscape was markedly different from 2019, when Modi was last in Moscow, the leaders went to great pains to display their continued bonhomie over the two-day visit which ended on Tuesday night.
Jonathan Pie: 'It's 50 Shades of Beige.' Meet Britain's New Prime Minister.
Senate Dems Seek Special Counsel to Investigate Clarence Thomas and Billionaire Benefactors
Stepping up efforts to hold U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas accountable for alleged ethics violations, two Democratic senators on Tuesday announced they'd requested that the Biden administration appoint a special counsel to investigate the right-wing judge.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), who chairs a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on the federal courts and oversight, was joined by and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) in writing to Attorney General Merrick Garland, warning that extensive reporting has pointed to possible violations of the Ethics in Government Act by Thomas.
While the senators' committees have presented Thomas with opportunities to explain his failure to disclose a significant forgiven debt and several financial gifts he received from wealthy benefactors, the justice "has maintained a suspicious silence," said Whitehouse and Wyden.
"The evidence assembled thus far plainly suggests that Justice Thomas has committed numerous willful violations of federal ethics and false-statement laws and raises significant questions about whether he and his wealthy benefactors have complied with their federal tax obligations," wrote the senators. "No government official should be above the law. Supreme Court justices are properly expected to obey laws designed to prevent conflicts of interest and the appearance of impropriety and to comply with the federal tax code."
"We therefore request that you appoint a special counsel authorized to investigate potential criminal violations by Justice Thomas," they added.
The senators cited a loan of more than $267,000 to Thomas, in connection with his purchase of a luxury motor coach. The Senate Finance Committee found that the provider of the loan, Anthony Welters, a wealthy businessman in the healthcare sector, stopped collecting principal and interest on the loan in 2008—suggesting the debt was forgiven and therefore taxable.
"The Ethics in Government Act requires justices to disclose any 'income from discharge of indebtedness,'" wrote the senators. "Justice Thomas did not report any such forgiveness as income on his financial disclosure report covering the year 2008, or for any other year."
The letter also points to numerous financial gifts Thomas received from benefactors including billionaire Harlan Crow, businessman Wayne Huizenga, and former Berkshire Hathaway executive David Sokol. The justice has reportedly received free private jet travel, lodging, tuition for his grandnephew, a country club membership, and free rent for his mother, among other gifts, "all of which Justice Thomas failed to disclose" in violation of the Ethics in Government Act.
"Justice Thomas has claimed that some omissions were 'inadvertent,' and he has amended some past reports accordingly," wrote Whitehouse and Wyden. "However, Justice Thomas has not disclosed all of the gifts that have been uncovered, and there may well be more. His long history of omissions indicates a pattern of willfulness meriting investigation under the Ethics in Government Act." ...
The senators noted that an ethics investigation by a special counsel appointed by Garland could shed light on payments reportedly facilitated by Leonard Leo, board chair of the right-wing Federalist Society, which has pushed for the appointment of right-wing judges to the Supreme Court and other federal courts.
"Last year, The Washington Post reported that Leo directed payments of at least $25,000 to a consulting firm run by Justice Thomas's spouse, with Leo specifying that the documents related to the payments should make '[n]o mention' of Mrs. Thomas," wrote Whitehouse and Wyden. "The furtive nature of the payments raises further questions about how many such payments were orchestrated, whether legitimate services were actually rendered, and whether such payments required additional reporting by Justice Thomas."
An investigation is needed, said the senators, to uncover "the full scope of potential unlawful conduct related to any coordinated gifts program for certain justices."
![the horse race](https://farm9.staticflickr.com/8704/17115703217_42a5d5eb4c.jpg)
Democrats appear torn over Biden as concerns whether he can win deepen
After a day of private meetings on Capitol Hill, congressional Democrats appeared torn over whether Joe Biden should remain the party’s nominee, as concerns deepen over the 81-year-old president’s age, mental acuity and ability to win the White House for a second term.
Lawmakers emerged from closed-door gatherings on Tuesday stone-faced, appearing uneasy about Biden’s path forward, even if most weren’t ready to publicly call on him to step aside. Asked if the party was on the same page after a House Democrats meeting, Representative Steve Cohen of Tennessee quipped: “We’re not even in the same book.”
Senate Democrats offered a similarly assessment. “We’ve got a ways to go,” Senator Peter Welch of Vermont told reporters, after a lengthy caucus meeting over lunch on Tuesday afternoon.
Hours after the House meeting, Representative Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey became the seventh congressional Democrat to call on Biden to step aside. ... Senate Democrats, meanwhile, have yet to prod the president to end his campaign, a move Biden himself has categorically and repeatedly ruled out.
The president’s adamance that he would stay in the race, outlined in a letter to congressional Democrats on Monday, appeared to have forestalled – for now – a flood of widespread defections, and possibly even beat back some public criticism.
A decent article, worth a read. Here's a bit to get you started:
Curb ‘stupid plastics’ and stop industry BS: urgent actions to prevent a plastic crisis
Plastic is everywhere, including our bodies. This year, various researchers found microplastics in every sample of placental tissue they tested; in human arteries, where plastics correlate with increased risk of heart attacks and strokes; in all 27 of the human testes they studied; and the semen of 40 otherwise healthy patients, adding to concerns that plastics – many of which contain hormone-disrupting chemicals – may be contributing to a global decline in sperm health. These recent discoveries add to the rapidly mounting evidence of plastic’s ubiquity and our growing understanding of the health risks it poses.
It is increasingly apparent that we are in a plastic health crisis. Industry profits from products that are not safe, passing these health and economic burdens on to the public and governments. The 2023 Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health estimated that the costs of disease, disability and premature death caused by exposure to the chemicals BPA, DEHP and PBDE exceeded $675bn in 2015 in the US alone. A report from the University of Birmingham this month further links microplastics, inflammation and noncommunicable diseases.
Yet some researchers say we are actually in “the lull” before this crisis begins in earnest. In a 2024 research review about the implications of increasing microplastic pollution, the authors write “the widespread outbreak of [microplastic] pollution has not yet occurred”. The currently detectable levels of microplastic pollution are “likely just the beginning”, the authors write, in part because plastic production has dramatically accelerated since the 1970s. We’re approaching a tipping point because much of the plastic waste from 20 to 40 years ago is crumbling to micro-scale.
While plastics may take over a thousand years to break down completely, they can become micro-particles much sooner. For example, opening a bottle cap can release microplastics immediately, and many forms of plastic begin degrading into micro-particles within decades or even years under certain conditions. Despite a potential surge in environmental and health issues related to microplastics, we haven’t yet started reining the problem in. Global plastic production doubled from around 230m tons annually in 2000 to 460m tons in 2019, and is expected to double again by 2040.
Devastation as world’s biggest wetland burns
Perched atop blackened trees, howler monkeys survey the ashes around them. A flock of rheas treads, disoriented, in search of water. The skeletons of alligators lie lifeless and charred. The Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland and one of the most biodiverse places on Earth, is on fire. Huge stretches of land resemble the aftermath of a battle, with thick green shrubbery now a carpet of white ash, and chunks of debris falling from the sky.
More than 760,000 hectares (1.8m acres) have already burned across the Brazilian Pantanal in 2024, as fires surge to the highest levels since 2020, the worst year on record. From January to July, blazes increased by 1,500% compared with the same period last year, according to the country’s Institute for Space Research.
“The impact is devastating. Animals are dying, wildfires are vanishing huge areas,” says Gustavo Figueirôa, a biologist at SOS Pantanal, a non-governmental organisation. “We expect it is only going to get worse.”
Stretching across Brazil, Bolivia and Paraguay, the Pantanal covers 16.9m hectares (42m acres) and harbours rich biodiversity. It is one of the world’s main refuges for jaguars and houses a host of vulnerable and endangered species, including giant river otters, giant armadillos and hyacinth macaws. Its ecosystem is also unique. Every year its “flood pulse” sees it swell with water during the rainy season and empty throughout the dry months. But the climate crisis, droughts and weak rains have disrupted this seasonal pattern, turning the land into a tinderbox.
With the blazes starting unusually early this year – in late May and early June, before the annual fire season between July and September – experts predict 2024 will be the most devastating in decades. “The wildfires are a signal – nature is raising a flag,” says Pierre Girard at the Federal University of Mato Grosso. “We had fires before but now thousands and thousands of hectares burn every year. We are losing the battle.”
Hurricane Beryl supercharged by ‘crazy’ ocean temperatures, experts say
Hurricane Beryl, which slammed into Texas on Monday after wreaking havoc in the Caribbean, was supercharged by “absolutely crazy” ocean temperatures that are likely to fuel further violent storms in the coming months, scientists have warned.
Beryl left more than 2m people without power after making landfall near Houston as a category 1 storm, after having rampaged through the Caribbean as a category 5 hurricane, with wind speeds reaching 165mph (265km/h), killing 11 people.
There has never been a category 5 Atlantic hurricane this early in the year before, with most major storms forming closer to September. Beryl, however, rapidly accelerated from a minor storm to a category 4 event in just two days.
This deadly intensification was aided by unusually hot ocean temperatures along much of Beryl’s path, scientists say, with seawater heated by the climate crisis helping provide the storm with extra energy over the past 10 days. ...
While ocean temperatures around the world have been steadily marching upwards as the planet heats due the burning of fossil fuels, the past year has been “off the charts”, according to Brian McNoldy, a climate scientist at the University of Miami.. Last year was the ocean’s hottest on record, with marine heatwaves sweeping 90% of the globe’s oceans. This surge in heat has barely paused, with sea surface temperatures records tumbling every single day for 12 months in a row until March.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
NATO’s Endgame Appears to Be Nuclear War
Israeli Official Says It’s Clear Netanyahu Doesn’t Want a Deal With Hamas
Meta expands hate speech policy to remove more posts targeting 'Zionists'
Columbia removes three deans over text messages with alleged ‘antisemitic tropes’
‘How Do We Control Palestinians? We Make Them Feel Like We Are Everywhere’
Saudis Warned G-7 Over Russia Seizures With Debt Sale Threat
Spy cop who led special branch admits wrongly accusing activist of bomb plot
Nobody for President: This Absurd Election Choice Should Have Us Thundering in the Streets
Don’t Call It Degrowth, Call It the “No Bullshit Society”
Report Names Institutions Behind $4.3 Trillion in Climate-Wrecking Investments
“Peace, Not NATO”: German MP Decries NATO’s 75 Years of War & Hypocrisy
A Little Night Music
George "Harmonica" Smith - Blowing The Blues
George Smith – Tell Me Mama
Little George Smith – Telephone Blues
George Harmonica Smith - On my mind
Little George Smith – Oopin' Doopin' Doopin'
George Smith – Last Night
George 'Harmonica' Smith – Got My Mojo Working
George Smith – You Better Watch Yourself
Muddy Waters & George Harmonica Smith - Walking thru the park
![Share](/sites/all/modules/addtoany/images/share_save_171_16.png)
Comments
Well looky here…
.
There’s that Goose and Gander thing again.
Wasn’t that the excuse Obama gave for bombing the hospital in Afghanistan?
"They were treating the Taliban."
Good gravy the hypocrisy is off the charts and I’m fcking sick of it.
Hey Rembrandt where Israel insisted that it was Hamas who bombed the first hospital? Now they admit doings it, but because Hasan is hiding in them.
BTW most of the replies to Biden’s tweet are people telling him to remove the limits Ukrainians has for the long range bombs. I wonder how many of them protested against the Iraq war back when they were anti war? This time they believe the lies. Just sad.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
evening snoopy...
how about that gander? logical consistency is not something that americans are good at. i blame it on the media.
i was complaining about the humidity last night, i spoke too soon. it was 93% this afternoon and it's about 84% now. my fingers are sticking to the keys. a northern vacation may be coming soon.![Smile](https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/smile.gif)
have a great evening!
Count Smirkula strikes again
with a bucketful of lies.
Sure…Israel has stopped blocking aid trucks from entering Gaza and all those skinny children have gotten plump and sassy. I can barely stand to listen to him. The judge is right. This administration and state department are the most despicable, stupid and worse ever in the history of America.
I’m guessing that you never get used to the humidity? I don’t know how anyone could live with it. The Central Valley in California was very humid for me and it’s because of the canals and hot they flood the orchards to water them. Took me 3 years to figure that out…
If you have central air does that keep the inside of your house drier?
Tomorrow is our hottest day this week. 106. Lol…I drove to Park City with the top down…kinda sweltering. Sam stayed home.
PS Blinken submitted a report on genocide, but failed to mention anything about Gaza. I’ll refrain from saying what I’m thinking about him.
https://www.commondreams.org/news/state-department-gaza
The judge gave him crap for eating with the Ukraine Nazis and then going to Israel and saying,
"I come here as a Jew!"
Groan.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
heh...
smirkula is pretty good at dodging the questions and quickly calling on the next reporter before a follow-up can point out his hypocrisy.
i guess that you can get used to the humidity here in the sense that you expect it, but as i get older i am less tolerant of the heat and humidity than i used to be so i stay indoors more with the ac on when necessary.
air conditioning (even window units) does pull humidity out of the air and make breathing far more pleasant.![Smile](https://caucus99percent.com/sites/all/modules/smiley/packs/kolobok/smile.gif)
Doubt there are any anti-Iraq war
folks in Biden's camp. He voted for that war right along with Clinton.
I’m not talking about his administration
But his supporters. A history you might not be aware of.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Doubt there are anti-Iraq war
people -- at least not in any numbers -- among his supporters. Granted the number of anti-Iraq war people was small when the bombs started dropping, but not nearly as small as the numbers for GHW Bush's Desert Storm which was only 10%. OTOH, that level of support for GHW Bush evaporated much faster than it did for his son.
Oh hell yeah Biden’s goons are provoking Russia
.
Whoever is making decisions for Biden is sending nuclear capable weapons to Germany. Trump pulled us out of the INF that would have banned this move.
https://news.antiwar.com/2024/07/10/us-announces-it-will-deploy-previous...
You know the peacenik guy who didn’t start any new wars, but killed the Iranian general for Bibi, sent Lethal weapons to Ukraine and admitted 4 more countries to NATO. Gawd we are so screwed with our pick of presidents. Either will probably get us killed in a hot white blast!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
heh...
you have to wonder how the people of germany/europe feel about the u.s. painting nuclear targets on them. i hope they get uppity.
The AfD, & new left counterpart “BSW—Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance”
are the only anti-war parties in Germany polling above the 5% proportional-representation cutoff.
The BSW split off from the “Die Linke—The Left” party and, like the right-wing populist AfD, opposes both NATO-sponsored wars and NGO-sponsored mass undocumented economic migration.
More power to both of them — I hope they can both serve their respective followerships as effective antidotes to all the German post-WW2 establishment’s lies.
evening lotlizard...
one would hope that these parties will take up informing the public of their enhanced target status and who is responsible for it.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the Es. Merkins have strangely
compartmentalized minds. The read and watch vast quantities of detective, true crime, and mystery drama and will go on at length about all the possible motives of all of the potential culprits, but if somebody says "hey, the Ruskies bombed a children's hospital", none of them think to ask stuff like why?,what for? how does that help them win the war?, etc. They never seem to consider cui bono or motive in the real world, only in fiction. It's just weird.
be well and have a good one
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 --
evening el...
i guess once the media have identified a person or country as evil, then thinking is no longer required.
have a good one!
Yeah, but
that would require people to use critical thinking skills, but for some reason they haven’t been used in years. As I mentioned the replies to Biden’s tweet are from pro Ukraine - anti Russia folks. And shitlibs are jumping from just because the F-16s are finally going to Ukraine. They’ve long wanted Biden to set up a no fly zone and for some reason they don’t understand that means war.
But those are good questions people SHOULD be asking. So after a year Putin just decided to bomb another hospital?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
A meme for the masses
"If genocide is not a deal-breaker for you, there is something wrong with you." - Nick Cruse
evening cass...
that's a good one. a little irony might be a good tool.
Interesting Wilkerson presentation
He makes an argument similar to that in James Douglas book JFK and The Unspeakable. The one Ray McGovern had on his book shelf behind him all the time so it would show in his video interviews.
Wilkerson mentions Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis as two key events giving rise to Pentagon and intelligence dissatisfaction with JFK leading to his assassination. He didn't mention the NSM 263 and JFKs decision to withdraw regular US forces from Vietnam in Oct. 1963 (NSM 263). John Newman suggests this was a decisive factor leading to his assassination. There is an excellent review of events in this respect just before JFK's death in this book review-
Exit Strategy: In 1963, JFK ordered a complete withdrawal from Vietnam
I found these differing perspectives on the current China- Philippines dispute interesting.
Hope he's right. Here's a Chinese perspective on their relations generally-
Thanks for the EBs Joe!
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
well, it would be stupid of the u.s. to go to war with china over the disputed ownership of a shoal in the south china sea. but then again, when has the stupidity of an act of war ever stopped the u.s. from engaging in it? particularly when the mic are spoiling for a fight?
i dunno, i'd say the situation bears watching.
Jimmy is doing some truth telling!
heh...
i hope that rogan's audience was listening carefully. maybe taking a few notes.
LOL!
Edited to add a little context:
Ain’t that the truth?
Clooney is now saying that Biden should step down. And fck the donors who just days before the debate were pretending that Biden was all there. The media played their part in covering for Biden after he wandered off during the Normandy ceremony only to have to change their tune just days later.
Caitlin ridiculed all those who saw Biden’s true self at the debate, but now they are pretending that they really didn’t see it. Just take a look at shitlib central. Day after they were aghast at what they saw, but not they’re calling for censorship of any anti Biden diary.
I’d be sad for Biden if he hadn’t been such an arrogant prick his whole time in congress…but he definitely was.
Oh yeah and Obama didn’t need to drag Biden off the stage like he did. So why did he do it?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Lol…
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Is George Clooney even a real person?
he seems more like a clone of something ; ).
Evening joe and bluesters
I love how Smith references his fellow harmonica brothers in Blowing The Blues, and how classically blue, Telephone Blues is.
On another note, I think one of the most significant things we can do as individuals is to use and buy less plastic. Given more conscious thought, it is possible. In many ways we are at the mercy of ‘plastic’ producers, and although it is an uphill battle, the more we take responsibility the more opportunity there is for change. In some ways 'necessity is the mother of invention’ is still alive, will hopefully persist, and ultimately will continue to influence producers.