artist: jean-léon gérôme
(the last one is here; thd has two new comments up.) My offerings; the first resonates with me especially given the evil barbarity being unleashed on the first Americans around Standing Rock, as well as the many assassinations of blacks and other rabble class citizens by police.
‘No More American Thanksgivings’, by Glen Ford on Tue, 11/22/2016 (a reprise from Nov. 27, 2003)
“The core ideological content of the holiday serves to validate all that has since occurred on these shores – a national consecration of the unspeakable, a balm and benediction for the victors, a blessing of the fruits of murder and kidnapping, and an implicit obligation to continue the seamless historical project in the present day.”
(more, much more is here.)
FDR’s Thanksgiving Day Proclamation, Nov. 19, 1938
“I, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Thursday, the twenty-fourth of November, 1938, as a day of general thanksgiving.
Our Fathers set aside such a day as they hewed a nation from the primeval forest. The observance was consecrated when George Washington issued a Thanksgiving proclamation in the first year of his presidency. Abraham Lincoln set apart “a Day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.”
Thus from our earliest recorded history, Americans have thanked God for their blessings. In our deepest natures, in our very souls, we, like all mankind since the earliest origin of mankind, turn to God in time of trouble and in time of happiness. “In God We Trust.”
(the rest is here.)
‘White Helmets ‘deserve an Oscar’ for mannequin challenge performance in Syria war zone’, Vanessa Beeley is interviewed on RT.
21stcenturywire.com has more about similar fake news reports; mintpressnews.com doesn’t hold back on their indictment of their ilk, including a Q&A w/ state department spox Mark Toner; it’s of seriously aarrgg-worthy length. One really has to know/consider more to read either.
love, peace, and solidarity to all,
Debbie Downer
davidly
Greyson Smythe
LeMoyne
juliania2
ohiobarbarian
stephenadavis1
wendyedavis
café babylon 
With the scholastic fantastic mavin Betsy DeVos being selected as the new education sec, no telling how many new versions of T-Day history will be on the radar before the weekend is over. Remaking the language and tales of global Amerikan exceptionalism will be entertaining, I’m sure. Mor education choices on the horizon.
Are they all going to eschew their salaries and bennies to pretend to have no strings to tie them down to doing whatever they damn well want to the rest of us?
With the fed panel ruling the 2011 WI redistricting unconstitutional last week, is there any sort of consequences for the legislators for failing to uphold the WI constitution they swore an oath to uphold?
i guess the main ‘trump’ mebbe cabinet choices i’ve read was diane ravitch at CP mentioning three. dunno that she’d mentioned devo, but michelle rhee: yes. rhee declined, wouldn’t want the huge salary cut, i expect. i bingled, and found this about her as per ravitch. guess all i can say is that at east he didn’t tap tfa grifters deray mcKesson or brittany packnett. ;-)
as to your final question, i’d guess Nah. i guess i’m not flipping my zoris on T as much as so many are, esp. considering the trajectory O had us on, and hellgirl mebbe would have had. i’m glad she lost, sad he won. but so many years of neoliberalism were bound to bring him, i reckon.
g’ night, nonquixote, and may you have…time dreams tonight and many other nights..
morning, all. last night before sleep time, what seemed to be scores of coyotes within hearing range set up a mighty ruckus. eventually, they all made their way to jut south of the house in the hay meadow, and screamed and shrieked with abandon. chillingly and oddly, there were a couple who howled more in the way of wolves, which sound raises the hair on humans skins. thrilling it was, but ever so curious, as well. moving on:
‘DAPL protesters for Sophia Wilansky burn US flag, occupy Times Square‘ at RT
“Activist Mike Bento of NYC Shut It Down explained the protesters’ reasons for burning the flag just prior, saying, “in the spirit of saying ‘f**k Thanksgiving,’ we would like to acknowledge the history that has brought us here. We know that the United States is a nation of lynchers and thieves who stole African people and stole indigenous land. So we do not celebrate genocide, which is what Thanksgiving represents for oppressed people. It should come as no surprise that the federal government gave $3 million dollars in military aid to North Dakota. Some of that aid went to a concussion grenade that has blown off our comrades’ arm … We must break this allegiance to the settler-colonial state … we do this act as a symbol of breaking that allegiance.”
i’m on an old macbook running safari. “a secure connection could not be established” to several sites, e.g., tarzie’s. wendy, steve jobs thinks you are “safe”. the nyt is safe, the nfl is safe, best buy is safe.
nice to be w/friends when possible. peace ya’ll
well, hay-ull, mcnuggets; me and jobs used to be BBFs back in the day. whooosh; i’m as safe as best buy? woooot!
nice to know you’re w/ friends. our daughter just phoned, that was nice. when we took her as a foster babby, know what her name was? princess dancing sky. can you imagine going thru life as a ‘princess’? we’ll try to reach our son in el paso this evening.
love and peace to you, mon frère.
wd, deray and packnetty are disqualified immediately for service in the Trump administration by their association with #blacklivesmatter. They would have been shoe-ins for the Clinton administration.
Timothy Snyder, professor of history, Yale University published this little list of suggestions for surviving the next administration (regardless of who the electoral college ultimately decides to put in on December 19):
Americans are no wiser than the Europeans who saw democracy yield to fascism, Nazism, or communism. Our one advantage is that we might learn from their experience. Now is a good time to do so. Here are twenty lessons from the twentieth century, adapted to the circumstances of today.
1. Do not obey in advance. Much of the power of authoritarianism is freely given. In times like these, individuals think ahead about what a more repressive government will want, and then start to do it without being asked. You’ve already done this, haven’t you? Stop. Anticipatory obedience teaches authorities what is possible and accelerates unfreedom.
2. Defend an institution. Follow the courts or the media, or a court or a newspaper. Do not speak of “our institutions” unless you are making them yours by acting on their behalf. Institutions don’t protect themselves. They go down like dominoes unless each is defended from the beginning.
3. Recall professional ethics. When the leaders of state set a negative example, professional commitments to just practice become much more important. It is hard to break a rule-of-law state without lawyers, and it is hard to have show trials without judges.
4. When listening to politicians, distinguish certain words. Look out for the expansive use of “terrorism” and “extremism.” Be alive to the fatal notions of “exception” and “emergency.” Be angry about the treacherous use of patriotic vocabulary.
5. Be calm when the unthinkable arrives. When the terrorist attack comes, remember that all authoritarians at all times either await or plan such events in order to consolidate power. Think of the Reichstag fire. The sudden disaster that requires the end of the balance of power, the end of opposition parties, and so on, is the oldest trick in the Hitlerian book. Don’t fall for it.
6. Be kind to our language. Avoid pronouncing the phrases everyone else does. Think up your own way of speaking, even if only to convey that thing you think everyone is saying. (Don’t use the internet before bed. Charge your gadgets away from your bedroom, and read.) What to read? Perhaps:
The Power of the Powerless by Václav Havel,
1984 by George Orwell,
The Captive Mind by Czesław Milosz,
The Rebel by Albert Camus,
The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, or
Nothing is True and Everything is Possible by Peter Pomerantsev.
7. Stand out. Someone has to. It is easy, in words and deeds, to follow along. It can feel strange to do or say something different. But without that unease, there is no freedom. And the moment you set an example, the spell of the status quo is broken, and others will follow.
8. Believe in truth. To abandon facts is to abandon freedom. If nothing is true, then no one can criticize power, because there is no basis upon which to do so. If nothing is true, then all is spectacle. The biggest wallet pays for the most blinding lights.
9. Investigate. Figure things out for yourself. Spend more time with long articles. Subsidize investigative journalism by subscribing to print media. Realize that some of what is on your screen is there to harm you. Bookmark PropOrNot or other sites that investigate foreign propaganda pushes.
10. Practice corporeal politics. Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them.
11. Make eye contact and small talk. This is not just polite. It is a way to stay in touch with your surroundings, break down unnecessary social barriers, and come to understand whom you should and should not trust. If we enter a culture of denunciation, you will want to know the psychological landscape of your daily life.
12. Take responsibility for the face of the world. Notice the swastikas and the other signs of hate. Do not look away and do not get used to them. Remove them yourself and set an example for others to do so.
13. Hinder the one-party state. The parties that took over states were once something else. They exploited a historical moment to make political life impossible for their rivals. Vote in local and state elections while you can.
14. Give regularly to good causes, if you can. Pick a charity and set up autopay. Then you will know that you have made a free choice that is supporting civil society helping others doing something good.
15. Establish a private life. Nastier rulers will use what they know about you to push you around. Scrub your computer of malware. Remember that email is skywriting. Consider using alternative forms of the internet, or simply using it less. Have personal exchanges in person. For the same reason, resolve any legal trouble. Authoritarianism works as a blackmail state, looking for the hook on which to hang you. Try not to have too many hooks.
16. Learn from others in other countries. Keep up your friendships abroad, or make new friends abroad. The present difficulties here are an element of a general trend. And no country is going to find a solution by itself. Make sure you and your family have passports.
17. Watch out for the paramilitaries. When the men with guns who have always claimed to be against the system start wearing uniforms and marching around with torches and pictures of a Leader, the end is nigh. When the pro-Leader paramilitary and the official police and military intermingle, the game is over.
18. Be reflective if you must be armed. If you carry a weapon in public service, God bless you and keep you. But know that evils of the past involved policemen and soldiers finding themselves, one day, doing irregular things. Be ready to say no. (If you do not know what this means, contact the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and ask about training in professional ethics.)
19. Be as courageous as you can. If none of us is prepared to die for freedom, then all of us will die in unfreedom.
20. Be a patriot. The incoming president is not. Set a good example of what America means for the generations to come. They will need it.
Item 20 likely is true regardless of the decision on December 19.
And Jill Stein is asking for an audit of three states. Don’t think that it is totally about blocking Trump, if that at all. Wonder what she knows about how Green votes were tallied in those three states as compared to poll worker estimates? Any delay in rolling out the “Reich” if that is the plan of Bannon and company is likely welcome.
Juan Cole asks if Erdogan will join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and leave NATO. I wonder whether Trump will do that or threaten to if they don’t pony up with more funds for NATO.
Last note that Squanto was said to know English because he had been captured and served as a slave in England before he somehow arrived back. (Did some voyage take him as a translator?) Lots of historical holes have been poked in this bit of Yankee schoolbook mythology mainstreamed into the common school movement to “tie America together” in one culture.
my jest to nonquixote was just that…a jest. in the main, i was trying to be be polite, as i really have a hard time getting as woofed up as most projecting what his presidency will look like. it’s the reason i blog about anything but that: issues plus Us/nato/cia cover organizations, the burgeoning multi-polar world and the hysterical responses from the imperium, etc.
gotta say i’m w/ mumia on this one: “if it takes a trump to put clintonite (2 of them plus obama) neoliberalism in the grave, so be it”. it was inevitable, and the death throes of capitalism seem to be at hand. exactly the time of nationalistic demagogues as had been foretold, according to some writers who claim to know. look at europe: quite similar. people will only be oppressed economically for so long before they revolt, this time at the ballot box, later, who can say?
did clinton offer any sort of healthy alternative? nope.full.stop. at least, imo. but oh: now dems want to do away w/ the electoral college, esp. those soros-funded compromised NGOs like avaaz and the rest. issue after issue calling out ‘the sky is falling’ like school privatization and ‘climate change: game over’, has the O admin doing the same thing, only smiling pretty. abortion may be less so, but in the end, i reckon i think what we got what we sorta deserve. what major fight was there to change the debate commission’s 5% rules? (maybe that’s what stein is raising money to do?)
i got a bit nervous over an email i’d gotten last week from ccr saying they would get back to us about ‘what’s next’ for them. i breathed a sigh of relief today when they said that they would battle for constitutional *issues* as they arose. no polemical projections, thankfully, even though i know they must have their own personal fears. but then they’ve had shitloads of cases against bush- and obama-era state exported fascism and unitary executive orders to contend with, so they might be reflecting on that as well.
ah well, thanks for the list; so many ‘how to survive a trump presidency’ are out there now. i’d quibble w/ a few of these items if i had the energy, but even if i did, i’d want to question the yale author about them. guess we’ll be seeing what, if any, checks and balances damp down his plans (or purported loose-cannon and changing plans), and which civil servants oppose him, if any.
hoe you and miz thd having a healthy and good day, amigo. we heard from our son a well, and that was a fine thing.
I found it interesting that a Yale professor was proffering these. Motives?
What is emergining is a Pence Presidency on domestic policy. Foreign policy is still up in the air to predict (the Nikki Haley appointment was to promote a Trump supporter to governor before the 2018 SC election). CIA and DOJ is looking horrible. If Sheriff Clarke is the DHS Secretary, that puts on of the major perpetrators of police brutality in charge of suppressing protests. Not that Jeh Johnson has been the paragon of justice.
Yes, indeed, the ability to carry out his orders depends on the bureaucracy’s willingness to salute and follow. There are frictional forces even in authoritarian regimes.
Had a great day today walking in the wetlands where the beeches and hickories were bright yellow with fall leaves.
Jeremy Scahill on how NSA/CIA malware escaped into the local police and corporate market.
https://www.democracynow.org/2016/11/21/jeremy_scahill_tigerswan_security_linked_to
yeah, tiger swan; adorable name for killer mercenaries, no?
the guardian has erdogan saying that of course he’ll consider the SCO, but that was only after the eu parliament overwhelmingly voted to suspend negotiations of turkey’s joining the eu. non-binding vote, of course, and one article at the guardian saying: “but of course ankara is a staunch ally of ours”, or some great caveat. erdogan’s also saying that ankara might pull out of the visa-free deal… sticks. sticks. oh phooey; i need to go dig up a piece RT had on (ahem) which US figures were behind the putsch. wild ride stuff.
RT has this insane film footage from indigenous rising of the makeshift bridge to turtle island hill. talk about an iconic photo! the reverse of so many spaghetti westerns in which the iduns come over the rise and…. or the ending of
powwow highwa.thunderheart, protecting members from the fibbies.yeah, here it is: ‘Former NATO commander ‘behind failed coup against Erdogan’ – Turkish daily’, from RT
“The former commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, retired US Army General John F. Campbell, was the mastermind behind the failed military coup in Turkey, the Yeni Safak daily has reported, citing sources close to investigation. The paper is known for its loyal support of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was the target of the coup attempt. According to Yeni Safak, Campbell “also managed more than $2 billion in transactions via UBA Bank in Nigeria by using CIA links to distribute among the pro-coup military personnel in Turkey.”
According to the paper, “Millions of dollars of money has been transferred from Nigeria to Turkey by a group of CIA personnel. The money, which has been distributed to an 80-person special team of the CIA, was used to convince pro-coup generals. After taking money from their bank accounts, the CIA team hand-delivered it to the terrorists under the military dresses.” [military dresses?]
The Turkish government and President Erdogan are using this as a pretext to put pressure on the US in an effort to get Gulan extradited, the founder and director of the Centre for Turkey Studies and Development in London, Ibrahim Dogus, told RT.”
but this is artful dodging:
“Washington later dismissed accusations that Campbell was the mastermind behind the coup, with White House press secretary Josh Earnest calling the allegations against the general unsubstantiated.”
thing is, it’s only too plausible. the sour note is ‘a nigerian bank’. how many e-mail scams involving ‘nigerian banks’ are out there? i got one yesterday as a matter of fact.
mornin’ ya’ll from lovely charlotte, where we are all saying, “meh, global warming ain’t so bad.” if this warm weather doesn’t boost the consumer economy, what more can the invisible hand do? lower gas prices????
it’ll be a sour fun to listen to the talking heads explain how unemployment can be so low & the DOW at 19k and all the blah blah BS about the economic recovery even as the lifeboat of Black Friday sales is sinking lower than last year. i makes this call b/c some joints, like outdoor outfitter REI are closing their doors Friday to encourage people to get off their fat cans & waddle up a trail or some such. I take that as a sign they are not expecting much in sales today & so have to do some “i’m a good samaritan” capitalist posturing. we’ll see.
DATELINE: charlotte, mcnuggets? kewl. glad it’s warm there; me, i’ve been freezin’ my kneecaps off here. ’round these parts, the invisible hand could lower the price of propane, but yanno, keepin’ those shoppers’ autos rollin’ down the highway’s more important than…the rabble class stayin’ warm. say, can i interest you in some new solar shingles? pay for themselves jig-quick…well…mebbe not.
can ya yell at the radio: “the fed’s negative interest rates might just have somethin’ to do with the fake optics of the bullish dow? oh, dang me; that reminded me of this great song. ‘sergeant dow jones…’
a free range organic turkey was just one portion of my substantial thanksgiving fare. homemade kimchi. etc., no complaints. i didn’t hop into a wal-mart or costco or best buy, so this may be more anecdote than data, but the mum und dud shops look pathetic & resigned.
this is w/in charlotte city limits. but, you know, suburbia. lots of churches.
were the big box parking lots jammed, or didn’t you pass any? question: didn’t black friday once mean shopping for christmas presents? yes, i know it’s now about getting out of the red.. but grabbing that youtube above meant having to wait five seconds or so to disable it, and it was sears, screaming about 47% off washer/dryers. huge refrigerators, and the like.
so now it’s just a mega-version of the presidents day white sales? how that came to be is an enigma to me, in any event. as an aside, i doubt i’ve been in any sort of city for two decades, maybe longer. they give me the utter willies; too much input too damned fast.
ah, fascist modi’s help-meets have been busy working.
@wikileaks Nov 24 “India’s #Modi overtakes #Assange & #Trump in TIME Person of the Year poll”
Results: http://time.com/4570597/person-of-the-year-readers-poll-results-2016/?xid=tcoshare …
and the Imperium and friends seem to be pretty serious about countering russian propaganda. the eu had just voted to treat putin like isisl.
@cordeliers “Extensive media blacklist craftily mixes junk sites w/ excellent news & commentary; eg BAR and Moon of Alabama.” http://www.propornot.com/p/the-list.html
way more excellent new sites than those, of course. orwellian.
thd, i can’t remember if this is the thread on which you’d noted that stein was asking for money for recounts in three states, i speculated, tra la la. but boy, was i wrong. from 100 flamingos:
“Earlier today people were passing around a link to Green Party Presidential candidate Jill Stein’s attempt to collect millions of dollars to “ensure the integrity of elections” — basically, it’s a recount. And as if people weren’t already tapped dry despite this fabulous Obama recovery, they’re being asked to fund it themselves — and five million dollars has been collected! Maybe this is to appease those cosmopolitan Clintonites who might want to grab her pussy in new and terrifying ways. But it certainly does seem like even the great green hope is not only actually lesser-eviling us, she’s buying into the Cold War Russophobia. Coming back in from that Moscow cold. And fuck that.”
followed by this tweet:
now tarzie had reblogged this, and when i’d clicked into the internal link, it didn’t really say anything about ‘foreign agents’. but tarzie dug it out of the wayback machine, and it turns out that she’d deleted that bit. he also noted that touting ‘our democracy’ without mentioning the greens being allowed into the debates twice (nor did any other non-duopoly parties w/ the crapitalistic debate commission’s rules) was rubbish. she’d long said that russia had no part in the podesta files leaks, etc.
so those three states are one in which the red queen lost by a percentage point. pffffft. i wanna know: et tu, baraka?
moar white helmet detractors. the indicter isn’t on the prop-o-rnot list, but ♫it will be soo-oon.♪♪
Commendante” Fidel Castro has died at the age of 90.
RIP commendante”, you were never cowed by the U.S. imperium, never.
That alone speaks volumes about your character; I’m sorry I never got to meet you…
i’d just seen it. my stars, the man was a force of nature. yes, adios fidel. the wee bit of coverage i’ve read so far said he survived the wrath of ten US presidents, loads of assassination attempts. telesur is loaded w/ homages, histories, and speeches.
travel well, amigo.
Yes, the news of Castro’s death is very telling; a veritable read of the world view of the man.
It should be paid attention to; it’s a mark of position in the world of bullshit.
The opinions expressed will be an important tell.
Very important in the overall world we live in…
when i’d initially bingled to find moar coverage, i came upon a reuters piece (iirc) that had spoken about castro’s waning power as ‘democracy’ burgeoned around the world’, then a few sentences later conflated ‘democracy’ with of course…’capitalism’. that conflation always kills me, but it’s what our rulers mean to convey, isn’t it? socialism…bad. free markets…good.
yeah, i get up way too honking early most days, dagnabbit. say, though, i saw a recipe for butternut/coconut/curry soup at one of the thai food sites i visit. squashes are inexpensive right now, so i pureed some of them and froze them. good on pasta, too, but mr. wd’s gonna buy some shrooms today so i can make the zzzoup. sounds so warming, doesn’t it?
Oh yeah, sounds great; coconut curry soup is delicious.
Thais love pumpkin in many dishes, including your soup.
An amusing anecdote: The owner of the company I first worked for, used to come into the office and say,fuck, fuck, fuck, when he was upset and the girls in the office would say; where’s the chicken?
The joke is; fuk is a gourd used to make soup; usually including chicken.
And the asshole I worked for, never got the joke.
fuk a duk, that’s funny, v arnold.
Here is a short bit from a not very long eulogy at scoop.co.nz by Julie Webb-Pullman, who is a kiwi blogging from Gaza – lots at the above link on that needful place, good for Scoop to carry this:
“. . .The reason Fidel Castro survived as President, that he and his country got through such unprecedented hardship, is that he had the support of the vast majority of Cubans. Why?
It was not just that he always stood firm against imperialism whatever the cost, at times being the only world leader to do so. It was also because of the humanity of the man, his empathy for the vulnerable, the poor, and the suffering, and his commitment to fight for the dignity of all.
Some simple but little-known examples from daily life: Fidel made one of his first actions the creation of icecream parlours in the middle of the major cities, with subsidized prices, so every family could afford to take their children there for a treat.
Another was to guarantee a birthday cake from the state for every child until age six – a magnificent confection covered in icing that one sees almost daily in Havana being delivered by bicycle, motorbike or on foot. . .”
Here’s Julie’s website:
http://gaza.scoop.ps/2016/11/fidel-heart-of-gold/
[Sorry for so many posts – my cricket got rained out :( But there’s always tomorrow :) ]
a fine and warm tribute, juliania. julie’s site looks so…dedicated to gaza justice. it’s new to me; thank you. never be sorry for posts, please. now once in awhile comrade axe…maybe. ;-)
i’d meant too show you a couple of wikileaks publications on castro. i’ll put them in at the bottom of the thread. did you have an awesomely grand thunder storm last night? rolling thunder here so long and loud that it actually pinged visual images for me of a dome of rippling thunderheads w/ the lightning lighting them up underneath. then crash: came driving snow pellets!
Thanks wendye. I thought so too, and was amazed scoop featured it top of the page, have a better opinion of them for that. No thunder here, just a steady rain after which much wind. Sounds exciting!
You’re an early riser WD. Surprised at your early response.
Cheers
castro dead, maybe a good time to “break the camp” at #NODAPL & pen everyone into a no speech zone?
parking lots not jammed at the big box stores. i always tho’t black was about getting into the black in the books. out & about again today. we’ll see.
grim humor, indeed. mr. wd wonders who will be the enforcer cops on federal land? feds: u.s.marshals plus ‘swan song’/s mercenaries? or the same staties, leos, and national guard? yes, black entries in the virtual ledgers; i must have said it wrong.
travel safely, jason.
I’ve had mixed feelings about Jill Stein’s call for donations to do recounts, not wishing to see the ‘same as but worse’ get a lock on overturning the ‘official’ count.
I went to her website to see – it doesn’t have the
look of a hastily compiled reaction to the current scenario, nor does it anywhere mention ‘Russian involvement’, and I am wondering if after the last dispiriting totals (last election I mean) she started putting all of this together.
So then I asked myself, is this not what we would very much (without the stress of who won or preference of candidate) want to see? And I said to myself, yes, at least I would.
Zero Hedge is critiquing the enormous inflow of funds, suspecting ‘someone’s’ involvement. But hey, who might that be? I’m not seeing Hillary’s gang coming eagerly forward to join Jill in the effort. You’d really think they would, wouldn’t you?
Oh, whoops, there they are -a little late, but there they are:
Nov 26’16(CNN) – Hillary Clinton’s campaign has issued its most detailed comments on the recount effort in several states, saying that it has decided to participate in Green Party candidate Jill Stein’s bid to have votes counted again in Wisconsin. But, in a post on Medium, Marc Elias, the campaign’s counsel, said the campaign’s own investigation has not uncovered any evidence of hacking of voting systems. He wrote that while the campaign was not going to contest the results, it has decided now to take part in the effort to “ensure that it is fair to all sides.”
Wow, now that’s – well, that’s – underwhelming.
Lambert at NC says it is all moot because deadlines have passed – so maybe just Wisconsin? Leftover funds to be used to better the system. Jill has paper ballots in there, that would be nice.
once i realized that she was ‘demanding’ some say in just those three states where clinton lost to #notmypresident by less than one percent, it seemed more clear that she was sheep-dogging for the red would-be queen. so yes, the clinton campaign will grudgingly toss stein a bit of bone…just to help her out, yanno.
as an aside, i saw a headline this a.m. on our email server saying that it was O who’d prevailed upon her to concede. how rich is that? and did his orders come from above? not god in heaven, ya silly woman… the other’ above’. lol.
here’s the wayback tarzie found, just ‘foreign’, not particularly russian. weird and just.plain.wrong. a bernie, no? why did she change it? what part, if any, did ajamu baraka have in any of it? oh, and lambert seems to be quite wrong on the dates (see the link) *if* WI’s a done deal, that is.
https://web.archive.org/web/20161124070929/http://www.jill2016.com/recount_splash
Well, that’s possible, wendye. I tend to doubt it. Said queen’s own investigators had raised questions about ‘irregularities’ in those three states, so my question is, why didn’t she ask for a recount herself? Or join Jill enthusiastically when she announced? Pregnant pause, don’t you think? After all, reports suggest she was plenty miffed not to have won.
Just my feeling there’s no love lost between those two ladies, but of course, just my feeling.
And no, Lambert, it does not seem to be moot. Just reading at stuff.co.nz that –
“. . .If Stein’s campaign wishes to file recount petitions in the other states as promised, she must do so by Monday to meet Pennsylvania’s deadline, and Wednesday to meet Michigan’s deadline. . .”
Could be an interesting few weeks. I’m guessing there will be all sorts of ‘obstacles’ to getting those recounts done. And my take on the money pouring in is that a lot of it comes from the jilted Hillary lovers. Foolish, jilted, but persistent.
And of course, I’ll be very unhappy if it puts the wrong ‘I’m with her’ in the White house, but it is what it is. If we had a better system it would not be so hard, (or so expensive) to do recounts. The system does need fixing.
To answer on your “Why did she change it?” about the foreign agents, I’m guessing she did so because she realized that claim (by clinton’s people) to be false. So I don’t see any problem with doing that – she was using the Clinton team’s claim of irregularities to forward a legitimate inquiry into the three states in question – those were the three they had targeted.
My question is, why were the Clinton campaign then so reluctant to join her, Jill’s, effort? After all, they were the ones who raised a legitimate issue, and they waited till her effort was on the brink of success. Would it not have been more helpful to join right in from the getgo and get this baby washed, wrapped and tied with a bow? I mean, this is what we expected way back in 2000, we gullible fools, when that election got stolen right out from under us. Instead, the Clinton folks organized all sorts of disruptive false efforts – this is the legitimate one, for crying out loud. This is what you do if you suspect chicanery!
I’ve been suspecting it since this century began. Unfortunately my state couldn’t manage to do a recount. And if there aren’t any ‘irregularities’, that would be a very good thing – expensive, but good to know.
dunno how to answer for certain, but i’ll start w/ using clinton’s campaign verbiage as an indicator that stein would rather have C in the WH than trump. there may have been many back-channel communications, even with soros as to the timing of all this. post #not my president demos, the fact that she’d already conceded, and that she didn’t want to be tagged w/ asking for the recount.
of course the women aren’t friendly, nor allegedly were the queen of diamonds and the bern, but that didn’t stop him from going wildly on tour w/ her and praising her to the heavens because: trump, we’re to to assume.
at a few sites i’d read that stein actually had mentioned russian hacking, true or not, but it would surprise me. but no one ever mentioned ‘when’ those interviews were, perhaps as she was deciding (likely w/ help) to call for peeps to fund the recounts. ooopsie, gotta go, mr wd is home w/ the groceries. best to you.
Yes, consortium news has a good array of the questions this situation raises, and the only way I can actually take one side or another is to use the old ‘justice is blind’ scales and put pro and contra on there for a long view – sort of gives me a headache trying to decide, which is why I’m glad not to be in politics.
Here’s one pro that I’d had in the back of my mind I guess, from the CN article:
” One theory is that the recount will expose cheating by both the Republicans and Democrats – and thus reflect badly on the two-party system which has marginalized the Greens and other third parties.”
As far as I can see, both Clinton and Trump are abhorrent to Stein – she’s called the former out on all the horrors and does say she’s worse than Trump on war. Hard to see she’d prefer him to Trump.
Oh well, maybe all the cheating can put them both behind bars, and we can try it again, do it over? (Don’t worry, I wasn’t born here so I guess I’m out. Maybe wendye, though.)
joe lauria does raise good questions, and when thd had first mentioned her raising money for recounts, i’d mentioned perhaps it was by way of figuring out how far the count for greens was, hoping it might have shown a larger trend of ‘we could have gained the 5% threshhold for the next election.
but as w/ lauria, i find it hideous that she’d included ‘foreign agent hcks’, etc. in her reasons, cited ‘protecting our democracy, etc. what sort of democracy? one in which she and johnson aren’t even allowed into the debates she failed to mention? did she mention the massive voter suppression in NC and other states? i know well how you tend to give folks the benefit of the doubt, juliania, but on this one i simply can’t.
bruce dixon gave your and thd’s reasoning a shot, but my stars: did you look at the comments under lauria’s questions. most aren’t buying it, but at least dixon chronicled some of the past stolen elections. well, those thoughts didn’t blend much, i apologize. my eyes are weary, my brains are made of gingerbread, even more than usual. i’ve been reading more and watching videos from indigenous rising. my heart is so heavy…
What financial milestones for financing of DAPL are the authorities working to make sure that Energy Transfer meets? How much have they already spent in security for the persistence of the Oceti Sacowin camp and the failure to trigger a violent response.
The elders pray at the sacred site on Turtle Island. The TVA and authorities declare that not open to the public and surround it by razor wire. What a mindless and reflexive exercise of authority. And the Morton County Sheriff certainly has jumped with both feet into the reality of post-truth/truthiness civilization.
No doubt Jeh Johnson wants to do the job rather than have Sheriff Clarke of Milwaukee County do it.
And the arrival of the veterans no doubt plays into it. Yet another opportunity to provoke violence to provide the heavy hand of “teaching a lesson” to protesters.
On the vote audit (not really a recount except in certain precincts), the interest of the technical experts is to see how widespread the incidence of bad totals was. WI, MI, and PA are the subject of interest because they are the only ones close enough to steal (close enough to be dismissed as just an acceptable error rate in counting). At last count, the number of votes total to swing 37 electoral votes were 14,000. If the sort of error that the experts uncovered in three precincts in Outagamie County WI are more widespread, they would have to be very widespread and systematic to change the totals enough flip WI. If they are widespread and systematic, they likely represent the tampering that an audit is supposed to identify.
I’m glad on principle that Jill Stein stepped up and that Clinton reluctantly will do the minimum required to ensure a successful audit. I expect that it will not change the electoral vote count on its own.
Constitutionally, the electoral college is not committed to any candidate, although many states and most candidates try to tie the hands of electors with unenforceable pledges. What the Electoral College would be wise to do this year is to have long deliberations before voting so that the vote is not a kneejerk, irrelevant, and automatic vote. First of all, that would stiff the media who think they name the President with their calls on election night. Second, it would present an argument for the value of an electoral college, something more in doubt now than ever. Third, it might actually provide a way out of a divided country. How that might turn out is very difficult to see right now, but it would be consistent with the tone of 2016. It is unlikely to result in a Hillary Clinton Presidency. Not with the number of folks ready to pick up arms to oppose another “illegitimate” President.
What Stein gets is props to the Green Party for not seeking through inaction to bury Democrats, the bum rap against Nader in 2000. That might not be worth a great deal yet. But the recount might also find additional Green votes that were miscounted and could affect any downticket races in those three states or the ability for the Greens to be listed on the ballot without having to jump through the “new party” hoops every two years.
What is currently distressing is the absence of an opposition party coalescing with enough power to slow down the GOP juggernaut. Democrats are trying to avoid making a case and just depend on their base demographics. Apparently they don’t realize that the donkey died in 2014, the Democratic establishment lost legitimacy with Wasserman-Schultz’s and Podesta’s behavior in 2016 even before the leaked emails emphasized what the scuttlebutt was telling. And their prospects with business-as-usual is to continue to circle the drain and watch state after state have their legislatures have total Republican capture, then institutionalizing that into the courts.
Thanks, TarheelDam. Trump has come out guns blazing, not endearing himself to us principled folk. I saw someplace, oh, it was Greg Palast (who says Stein gave him a heads up before she announced her plan) – that “she acted when Clinton turned silent, because ‘only candidates may formally demand a recount and we have standing.'”
I like your long view of things.
Adding this morning this link:
http://blackagendareport.com/recount-2016
A poster at NC on the Stein recount discussion this morning put this up – best reply to all the aspects we were considering, and though it is long it is an easy read through of the historical reasons for the action, with many points to ponder along the way.
Does stream down some black clouds (no lightning yet) on my earlier hopeful optimism about Donald Trump, but supports the recount as what has been an aspect of the party’s thrust into the political arena for a long time.
NC’s put my post into moderation, so I’ll just post what I had extracted from the above link here for now:
“The Stein campaign and the Green Party are filing for recounts because persuasive evidence exists that the vote totals were tampered with in several states. The researchers who uncovered these anomalies brought them to Democrats first. But since both capitalist parties are on the same team, Democrats were uninterested. But the Green Party and Jill Stein are NOT on their team.
While we don’t much care which of the two capitalist candidates win, Greens care very much about the integrity and security of the election process. We have candidates in local races across the country in 2017 and 2018 to protect.
Hundreds of Green candidates will be running for local office around the country as mayors, aldermen, school board members and the like. They need to know the votes their neighbors cast for them will actually be counted. If vote totals in multiple states can be manipulated in a presidential election, the same thing can and likely will happen in local races, often at the hands of Democrats.”
Lambert’s letting a lot of pejorative stuff on Greens and Jill Stein through – glad he at least put this link on record.
yes, i’d noted up yonder that bruce dixon was on the same page as you and thd; but thank you. i hadn’t known you’d have been unfamiliar w/ him. he’s a green, and was on the ‘green shadow government’ when it formed, although it was the last we’d ever seen of then, remember?
other BAR contributors had been voting green since ajamu baraka is one of them, and quite arguably: a red. ;-) i was at least hoping he’d be one human rights socialists leading charges against any trumpian malfeasance, and hope he was not part of this.
but please remember, w/ all the bucks stein’s raised ‘with the miniscule help from the clinonistas’, they may meet monday and wednesday deadlines.
i am underwhelmed, myownself.
i’m not getting the drift of your first paragraph’s questions, but i assume they’d still be relevant now that sunoco has bout energy transfer? we hear lots of different figures on how many millions have been spent on militarized brutality of protectors, though. last one was 3, but w/ recent events it might have doubled, eh? would it be jeh who’d decide which federal ‘law enforcement’ would clear oceti sakowin? at wounded knee it was US marshals and seemingly anyone they’d wanted to deputize.
now one has to be very concerned that the grandmothers who have said this will be their last stand might just make it so. as mr. noted, even some of the lakota warriors who’d literally staked themselves out…diminished over time, many choosing life, even though it meant subjugation. he was listening to a video he can’t find again of a man being a modern crazy horse, really, that w/ adequate prayer and spiritual strength, neither mace nor bullets could fell him. bless his heart, as though he would be donning a ghost dance shirt. i only wish.
really i can’t go on with the stein recount discussion, but i would like to put in this video our daughter sent us. apparently indiginous rising media chooses when and if to post their work on twitter; we’ve seen a couple grand ones already, no? it’s hard to see if one isn’t on facebook (i’m not) but it is possible if you jigger the slidey-bar a bit.
“One does not sell the Earth the people walk upon.”
This short digital film features a historic moment that happened on the front line against the Dakota access pipeline. On November 5th, 2016 representatives of the Seven Council fires of the Oceti Sakowin gathered to reignite the sacred fire of the resistance camp and establish the “horn” of the nation, a camp layout where 7 lodges are placed in a circle formation.
This moment was marked by the entrance of over 200 horseback Riders and the arrival of 50 runners who traveled over 1,200 miles to Standing Rock from Arizona.
The last time such an event occurred was in the late 1800s! That’s The Power of this movement. That’s The Power of our prayer.
“Crazy Horse” Poem by the legendary John Trudell
Film by Indigenous Rising Media, a project by the Indigenous Environmental Network.
How much are they willing to be bled financially before they give up? At what point do their external financers cut them loose because of the opposition?
thank you for translating, but w/ all due respect, i think it’s not about a balance sheet, but all about an ‘object lesson’ to those who resist as far as i’ve read, the taxpayers have been footing the bill, not the pipeline purveyors. but w/ the senators saying this, it all should stand by way of defending capitalist corporatocracy.
“North Dakota Sens. John Hoeven (R) and Heidi Heitkamp (D) are calling on protesters to leave federal lands where they have been encamped to demonstrate against the Dakota Access Pipeline.
“The well-being and property of ranchers, farmers and everyone else living in the region should not be threatened by protesters who are willing to commit acts of violence,” Hoeven said in a statement on Friday, according to the Associated Press.”
http://thehill.com/policy/energy-environment/307567-senators-for-nd-call-on-dakota-access-protesters-to-vacate-camp
Heitkamp struck a more conciliatory tone, but similarly blamed protesters for an “escalation of violence.”…the hill
meanwhile, as cory morning star has long said, and telesur have said, while all eyes are on the dapl and standing rock, trudeau will rule on the enbridge baaken oil fields 3 arms of the pipeline connecting to the dapl pipeline. first his decision was tp be announced today, now monday, reuters reports. an no.i haven’t checked in w/ the hashtag, too weary for words. sleep well, dream well. sorry for typos.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/enbridge
Interesting the Senators’ presumption of violence and escalation of violence. Setting the narrative for suppression.
yep, hideous. ‘setting the stage’. mr. wd sent their response to me via email last night:
“We stand strong’: Standing Rock water protectors defy Army Corps’ threat of camp eviction (VIDEO)” (long, long video) (RT)
“Standing Rock activists said they would continue to stand their ground in the fight against the crude oil Dakota Access Pipeline, in defiance of a US Army Corps notice which stated that the location of a protest camp will be out of bounds from December 5.
(dallas goldtooth and) Apache Nation member Eryn Wise, of the International Indigenous Youth Council, said indigenous groups will “continue to make our stand” against the $3.7 billion oil project.
Speaking on behalf of her aunt, Ladonna Brave Bull Allard, a founder of the nearby Sacred Stone camp, Wise said, “right now our land is to be left unprotected if we are to leave this space … we are not going to allow that to happen.”
hoka hey.
thanks for the link, thd.
Beg pardon, wendye. I hadn’t read this far before I posted the last. And indeed, the movement has taken on a worldwide significance, reaching even(and especially) to Gaza.
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v38/n23/jan-werner-muller/capitalism-in-one-family
Jan Werner Muller, London Review of Books, Capitalism in One Family
The populism of Erdogan, Orban, and Trump.
they have others, of course, and the podesta/clinton yemeni files. can’t see that many folks have done much w/ them yet. new tisa, as well.
#NoDAPL-related items.
A tweet opines that the order to evict came from a US Army Corps of Engineers without the legal authority to call off the Morton County Sheriff and his imported law enforcers from outtastate.
Another tweet provides an alternative to coordination through Fusion Centers. Direct interstate coordination with counterparts under compact authorized by federal legislation for emergency management, passed in the Clinton administration for rapid disaster recovery (such as Hurricane Andrew). But now presto-chango applied to law enforcement and protest suppression.
Yet another tweet asserts that Obama has countermanded the Corps of Engineers eviction order as far as removal by force. Kinda vague. Like a feint. We will see in a week.
whooosh. yes, i guess we’ll see. this is the closest thing i could find, but it may simply conflate O admin w/ army corps. mainly i’m bringing it for another mind-bending surrealistic image (one inside the link). O, to be able to be there in more than spirit.
the rumor has kinda/sorta been confirmed, but may not bear out in actuality what’s been promised. ‘Army Corps Issues Statement: No Plans for Forcible Removal on Dec. 5 – Those Who Stay Face Citation or Arrest’, nativenewsonline.net the fusion center theory makes great sense, of course; multi-agency coordination. ugh.
Game changer. Sarkozy is out. Fillon is supportive of Trump’s tilt toward Putin and preservation of Assad regime. But brutal on domestic policy. Between Fillon and Le Pen.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/11/27/francois-fillon-set-face-marine-le-pen-winning-french-presidential/
thanks; i’ll have to catch up as i can. busy day again here, and i didn’t i mess it up by falling asleep? ;-) too much to read in snatches on breaks, but i did cruise by the roosian alligator poop place just now and saw pepe’s weighed in. great title, eh?
‘North Carolina Police Officer Cleared in Fatal Shooting of Keith Lamont Scott’, telesur
“The district attorney concluded that the police officer acted lawfully in the killing of the Black man, which sparked riots in the North Carolina city.
The courts ruled Wednesday that no charges will be brought against Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police officer Brentley Vinson in the fatal September shooting of Keith Lamont Scott, his attorney said Wednesday, as he “acted lawfully.”
christ.in.a.canoe.
Sometimes you want to get away. . .
I hope you will enjoy these two videos – here’s the first one (both are from an area that I and my two boys ‘settled’ for seven months – before the Southerlies drove us north:
https://www.odt.co.nz/news/dunedin/keeping-track-little-blue-penguins
And here’s the second one:
https://www.odt.co.nz/regions/southland/kea-culprits-road-cone-confusion
(This is very selfless of me – as I am unable to view videos at present.) I am hoping they are good – the wee critters are worth a look I know.
I shall cruise down to the library this afternoon and take a peek ;)
In the category for whatever it’s worth, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg expresses in what is framed in somewhat clinical terminology what is in actuality rather humane reason for not engaging militarily in Syria. We must of course look past the obvious pro-NATO-ness one would expect from its boss, swallow the use of a stated necessity of action in Afghanistan as counterexample, ignore, in fact, the misleading nature of implying that NATO isn’t already doing what he claims they would be better not to, and try to grok from a propagandist point of view the message he is sending in this interview with the Bild (Springer Press, for those who don’t know).
I’m just gonna translate this one paragraph:
“We are experiencing a dreadful human catastrophe in Syria. Sometimes it’s right to use military means, as in Afghanistan. But sometimes the cost of deploying military force would be greater than the benefit. With regard to Syria, the NATO partners have concluded that the use of military would make a terrible situation even more terrible.”
http://www.bild.de/politik/ausland/headlines/stoltenberg-interview-nato-49365784.bild.html