Nancy Pelosi: The Dessicated Ambitions And Oxygen Thievery Of An Eighty Year Old Poodle

prospect |  Pelosi rolled back student debt relief in the HEROES Act after learning that it would cost $100 billion more than expected. This was a $3.2 trillion messaging bill not designed to become law, yet an additional 3 percent cost was considered unacceptable. Pelosi also declined to add “automatic stabilizers” that would maintain expanded benefits until economic stress dissipated, blaming a Congressional Budget Office scoring quirk that made the cost appear artificially larger.

So with over 30 million out of work, the important thing to Pelosi was that her pie-in-the-sky, going-nowhere bill was “reasonable,” based on some ineffable standard of reason. It matches the worldview of a Democratic leader who, just two years ago, made a lugubrious elegy on the House floor after the death of Pete Peterson, who bankrolled the deficit hysteria industry for decades and relentlessly targeted Social Security for cuts. (Ball does reveal that Pelosi told Obama during his “grand bargain” talks that she would support his aims, “even if it meant agreeing to entitlement cuts.”)

Devotion to deficit hawkery in normal times is unwise policy. It’s downright fatal during an economic crisis, where relief could be yanked away from needy families prematurely simply because of an unwillingness to challenge CBO’s scoring model. But here we finally see the contours of Pelosi’s governing framework, not just on the budget, but on everything.

Pelosi believes that the nation’s resources are scarce, and what sadly passes for the modern welfare state must be protected at all costs, rather than raised to greater heights. The goal is, at best, a less bad world than Republicans want. It’s a defensive crouch dating back to Pelosi’s initial entry into Congress under President Reagan, and it has dominated her thinking ever since.

Progressives who dream too big are to be sat in a corner, and anti-government conservatives are to be bargained with and mollified. Official Washington’s approval is craved. Pelosi hosts an annual ideas conference at her own vineyard for a group of elite donors. That’s who gets to scale the fortress she has built around her desiccated ambitions. Her thoughts today on activism date back to something she said during her first campaign: “Someday they will realize just how insignificant they are.”

Pelosi demands total control; you can argue that she never groomed a successor for this purpose, to keep everyone reliant on her. She finds this to be the best method to gain leverage over the legislative process. But to what end is this leverage employed? Pelosi fights intensely to obtain power, but she seems to consider power so fragile and fleeting that it shouldn’t be used for very much.

The Great Reset Presages The Rise Of Organized Global Authoritarianism

wikipedia  |  The International Trade Organization (ITO) was the proposed name for an international institution for the regulation of trade.

Led by the United States in collaboration with allies, the effort to form the organization from 1945 to 1948, with the successful passing of the Havana Charter, eventually failed due to lack of approval by the US Congress. Until the creation of the World Trade Organization in 1994, international trade was managed through the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT).

The Bretton Woods Conference of 1944, which established an international institution for monetary policy, recognized the need for a comparable international institution for trade to complement the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.^[1] Bretton Woods was attended by representatives of finance ministries and not by representatives of trade ministries, the proposed reason why a trade agreement was not negotiated at that time.^[2]

 

In early December 1945, the United States invited its war-time allies to enter into negotiations to conclude a multilateral agreement for the reciprocal reduction of tariffs on trade in goods. In July 1945, the US Congress had granted President Harry S. Truman the authority to negotiate and conclude such an agreement. At the proposal of the United States, the United Nations Economic and Social Committee adopted a resolution, in February 1946, calling for a conference to draft a charter for an International Trade Organization.

A Preparatory Committee was established in February 1946, and met for the first time in London in October 1946 to work on the charter of an international organization for trade; the work was continued from April to November 1947.^[3]

 

That Reset Diagram Is WONDERFUL -So Much Bullshit In So Small A Space - It Might Be A Record.

nakedcapitalism |  That said, the World Economic Forum seems especially worthy of attention, both as a newsworthy event, and as the home ground of “Davos Man,” a phrase coined by Samuel P. Hunting (of all people) in “Dead Souls: The Denationalization of the American Elite” (2004):

The rewards of an increasingly integrated global economy have brought forth a new global elite. Labeled ‘Davos Men’, ‘gold-collar workers’ or . . . ‘cosmocrats’, this emerging class is empowered by new notions of global connectedness. It includes academics, international civil servants and executives in global companies, as well as successful high-technology entrepreneurs. Estimated to number about 20 million in 2000, of whom 40 percent were American, this elite is expected to double in size by 2010. Comprising fewer than 4 percent of the American people, these transnationalists have little need for national loyalty, view national boundaries as obstacles that thankfully are vanishing, and see national governments as residues from the past whose only useful function is to facilitate the elite’s global operations. In the coming years, one corporation executive confidently predicted, “the only people who will care about national boundaries are politicians.” Involvement in transnational institutions, networks and activities not only defines the global elite but also is critical to achieving elite status within nations. Someone whose loyalties, identities and involvements are purely national is less likely to rise to the top in business, academia, the media and the professions than someone who transcends these limits. Outside politics, those who stay home stay behind. Those who move ahead think and act internationally. As sociologist Manuel Castells has said, “Elites are cosmopolitan, people are local.”

“Why don’t they just move?” being the quintessential question of Davos Man, aspirational or no, or has been until recently. Perhaps now Davos Man (or, today, Person) is hearing the faint, far-off sound of blades being sharpened, and is about to display adaptability. Or will, if the WEF has anything to do with it. If so, that’s interesting and something to think about. (FOX is already excited; they seem to think that the WEF is going to bring about socialism. Pas si bête.)

In this post I’m going to take a brief look at the WEF’s upcoming 2021 potlatch, dubbed “The Great Reset,” first at its ideological, and then at its institutional characteristics. As I said, this post will be quite superficial, since I’m not a global elites maven. Indeed, reading the WEF site made me feel like I was trapped in a large and luxurious conference hotel where all the signage was in a language that looked like English, but wasn’t. So I hope readers will chime in. No yarn diagrams, please!

The Linkage Between Davos And L'Affaire Epstein

BusinessInsider |  Former Reddit CEO Ellen Pao says Ghislaine Maxwell was rubbing elbows with Silicon Valley's elites in 2011 — and Pao believes people suspected Maxwell's ties to child trafficking at the time and didn't care.

Maxwell was arrested last week and is awaiting trial for four criminal charges related to procuring and transporting minors for illegal sex acts. Prosecutors say Maxwell participated in a sex trafficking operation alongside her partner Jeffrey Epstein.

Pao, a former partner at venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins, said Maxwell was at the firm's holiday party in 2011, more than two years after Epstein was first convicted of soliciting sex from a 14 year old. Maxwell was Epstein's long-time girlfriend and associate at the time but did not face any criminal charges prior to her 2020 arrest.

"[Maxwell] was at the Kleiner holiday party in 2011, but I had no desire to meet her much less have a photo taken with her," Pao wrote in a tweet, screenshotted and reposted by reporter Lachlan Markay. "We knew about her supplying underage girls for sex, but I guess that was fine with the 'cool' people who managed the tightly controlled guest list."

Pao set her Twitter account to private Monday morning after sending the tweet. When reached for comment by Business Insider, Pao shared two additional tweets that she subsequently posted clarifying her remarks. In one tweet, Pao linked to a Daily Mail report published in March 2011 in which Epstein's victims accused Maxwell of participating in the abuse.

"To be clear, the press had described her as supplying underage girls for sex, but she had not been charged so I guess it would be more accurate to say we 'suspected' v 'knew,'" Pao wrote.

According to a 2011 Business Insider report, the Kleiner Perkins holiday party that year drew esteemed guests including former Vice President Al Gore, Apple VP of Engineering Mike Abbott, and former HP chairman Ray Lane.

A Kleiner Perkins spokesperson declined to comment.

Ghislaine Claims To Have The Kompromat On Jailbait-Loving Davos Men...,

dailymail |  Ghislaine Maxwell has a secret stash of Jeffrey Epstein's twisted sex tapes and will use the footage as an insurance policy to save herself, a former friend exclusively revealed to DailyMail.com.

Maxwell, 58, was arrested at her hideout in Bradford, New Hampshire last Thursday. She was charged with six federal crimes, including enticement of minors, sex trafficking and perjury.

The British socialite was arguably Epstein's closest friend and she is alleged to have acted as his madam, accused of securing underage girls for the multi-millionaire, who reportedly kept evidence of his perverted sex acts against the minors.

When officials raided Epstein's Manhattan townhouse after his arrest last July, they found thousands of graphic photos that included images of underage girls and a safe filled with compact discs labeled 'nude girls', according to authorities.

Maxwell's former friend explained: 'Ghislaine has always been as cunning as they come. She wasn't going to be with Epstein all those years and not have some insurance.

'The secret stash of sex tapes I believe Ghislaine has squirreled away could end up being her get out of jail card if the authorities are willing to trade. She has copies of everything Epstein had. They could implicate some twisted movers and shakers.'

They added: 'If Ghislaine goes down, she's going to take the whole damn lot of them with her.' 

The former friend continued: 'Not only did Epstein like to capture himself with underage girls on camera – he wanted to make sure he had something to hold over the rich and powerful men who took advantage of his sick largesse.'

'I'll bet anything that once it comes out that Ghislaine has those tapes these men will be quaking in their Italian leather boots.

'Ghislaine made sure that she socked away thumb drives of it all. She knows where all the bodies are buried and she'll use whatever she had to save her own a**.'

World Economic Forum Controlaspecies Mandala

The Hon. Bro. Minister Can't Truss It

The Honorable Minister Farrakhan is spitting truth to power
✊🏾 pic.twitter.com/Fu96ESSfAO

— Tariq Nasheed 🇺🇸 (@tariqnasheed) July 4, 2020

 

jonathanturley |  It is bad enough when you become a political rally cry for the right as a man trying to destroy our economy or instill fear into the nation.  Now, Dr. Anthony Fauci is being called a mass murderer who, with the cabal of Bill and Melinda Gates, are seeking to “depopulate the Earth.” That is hardly the most deranged thing that Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, 87, has uttered, but it may be the most dangerous. Farrakhan is encouraging people to refuse vaccinations, a problem that is already causing world health leaders concerns in Africa.  This is viewed as the new “epicenter” for the pandemic with Africans facing a threat with the need to protect hundreds of millions of Africans. 

Health officials will need their cooperation but they have now heard from Farrakhan who has declared that, if they want to live, “Do not take their medication.”

In this Fourth of July remarks, Farrakhan declared that

“They’re making money now, plotting to give seven billion, five-hundred million people a vaccination. Dr. Fauci, Bill Gates and Melinda — you want to depopulate the Earth. What the hell gave you that right? Who are you to sit down with your billion to talk about who can live, and who should die?

… I say to my brothers and sisters in Africa, if they come up with a vaccine, be careful. Don’t let them vaccinate you with their history of treachery through vaccines, through medication.” 

He added “That’s why your world is coming to an end quickly, because you have sentenced billions to death, but God is now sentencing you to the death that you are sentencing to others.”

Mechanisms Of Covid Spread Still A Complete Mystery

SMH |  "The explanation could only be that these agents don't come or go anywhere. They are always here and something ignites them, maybe human density or environmental conditions, and this is what we should look for."

Dr Jefferson believes that the virus may be transmitted through the sewerage system or shared toilets, not just through droplets expelled by talking, coughing and sneezing.

Jefferson and Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine, have called for an in-depth investigation similar to that carried out by John Snow in 1854, which showed cholera was spreading in London from an infected well in Soho.

Exploring why so many outbreaks happen at food factories and meat-packing plants could uncover major new transmission routes, they believe. It may be shared toilets coupled with cool conditions that allow the virus to thrive.

The Tonnies slaughterhouse in Germany was the centre of a major outbreak last month, and in May, Melbourne's Cedar Meats also recorded a cluster of cases.

"We're doing a living review, extracting environmental conditions, the ecology of these viruses which has been grossly understudied," said Dr Jefferson.

"There is quite a lot of evidence of huge amounts of the virus in sewage all over the place, and an increasing amount of evidence there is faecal transmission. There is a high concentration where sewage is four degrees, which is the ideal temperature for it to be stabled and presumably activated. And meat-packing plants are often at four degrees.

"These meat-packing clusters and isolated outbreaks don't fit with respiratory theory, they fit with people who haven't washed their hands properly.

9/3/15 REDUX: School Choice A Funded Vestige Of Integration Avoidance

politico |  In May 1969, a group of African-American parents in Holmes County, Mississippi, sued the Treasury Department to prevent three new whites-only K-12 private academies from securing full tax-exempt status, arguing that their discriminatory policies prevented them from being considered “charitable” institutions. The schools had been founded in the mid-1960s in response to the desegregation of public schools set in motion by the Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954. In 1969, the first year of desegregation, the number of white students enrolled in public schools in Holmes County dropped from 771 to 28; the following year, that number fell to zero. 

In  Green v. Kennedy (David Kennedy was secretary of the treasury at the time), decided in January 1970, the plaintiffs won a preliminary injunction, which denied the “segregation academies” tax-exempt status until further review. In the meantime, the government was solidifying its position on such schools. Later that year, President Richard Nixon ordered the Internal Revenue Service to enact a new policy denying tax exemptions to all segregated schools in the United States. Under the provisions of Title VI of the Civil Rights Act, which forbade racial segregation and discrimination, discriminatory schools were not—by definition—“charitable” educational organizations, and therefore they had no claims to tax-exempt status; similarly, donations to such organizations would no longer qualify as tax-deductible contributions.

Paul Weyrich, the late religious conservative political activist and co-founder of the Heritage Foundation, saw his opening. 

In the decades following World War II, evangelicals, especially white evangelicals in the North, had drifted toward the Republican Party—inclined in that direction by general Cold War anxieties, vestigial suspicions of Catholicism and well-known evangelist Billy Graham’s very public friendship with Dwight Eisenhower and Richard Nixon. Despite these predilections, though, evangelicals had largely stayed out of the political arena, at least in any organized way. If he could change that, Weyrich reasoned, their large numbers would constitute a formidable voting bloc—one that he could easily marshal behind conservative causes. 

“The new political philosophy must be defined by us [conservatives] in moral terms, packaged in non-religious language, and propagated throughout the country by our new coalition,” Weyrich wrote in the mid-1970s. “When political power is achieved, the moral majority will have the opportunity to re-create this great nation.” Weyrich believed that the political possibilities of such a coalition were unlimited. “The leadership, moral philosophy, and workable vehicle are at hand just waiting to be blended and activated,” he wrote. “If the moral majority acts, results could well exceed our wildest dreams.” 

But this hypothetical “moral majority” needed a catalyst—a standard around which to rally. For nearly two decades, Weyrich, by his own account, had been trying out different issues, hoping one might pique evangelical interest: pornography, prayer in schools, the proposed Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution, even abortion. “I was trying to get these people interested in those issues and I utterly failed,” Weyrich recalled at a conference in 1990. 

The  Green v. Connally ruling provided a necessary first step: It captured the attention of evangelical leaders , especially as the IRS began sending questionnaires to church-related “segregation academies,” including Falwell’s own Lynchburg Christian School, inquiring about their racial policies. Falwell was furious. “In some states,” he famously complained, “It’s easier to open a massage parlor than a Christian school.” 

One such school, Bob Jones University—a fundamentalist college in Greenville, South Carolina—was especially obdurate. The IRS had sent its first letter to Bob Jones University in November 1970 to ascertain whether or not it discriminated on the basis of race. The school responded defiantly: It did not admit African Americans. 

Although Bob Jones Jr., the school’s founder, argued that racial segregation was mandated by the Bible, Falwell and Weyrich quickly sought to shift the grounds of the debate, framing their opposition in terms of religious freedom rather than in defense of racial segregation. For decades, evangelical leaders had boasted that because their educational institutions accepted no federal money (except for, of course, not having to pay taxes) the government could not tell them how to run their shops—whom to hire or not, whom to admit or reject. The Civil Rights Act, however, changed that calculus. 

Bob Jones University did, in fact, try to placate the IRS—in its own way. Following initial inquiries into the school’s racial policies, Bob Jones admitted one African-American, a worker in its radio station, as a part-time student; he dropped out a month later. In 1975, again in an attempt to forestall IRS action, the school admitted blacks to the student body, but, out of fears of miscegenation, refused to admit  unmarried African-Americans. The school also stipulated that any students who engaged in interracial dating, or who were even associated with organizations that advocated interracial dating, would be expelled.

The IRS was not placated. On January 19, 1976, after years of warnings—integrate or pay taxes—the agency rescinded the school’s tax exemption. 

For many evangelical leaders, who had been following the issue since  Green v. Connally, Bob Jones University was the final straw. As Elmer L. Rumminger, longtime administrator at Bob Jones University, told me in an interview, the IRS actions against his school “alerted the Christian school community about what could happen with government interference” in the affairs of evangelical institutions. “That was really the major issue that got us all involved.”

5/11/16 REDUX: Public School Choice Tied To Neighborhood You Can Afford (Hidden Structure)

WaPo |  "We always think, well, we’re never going to have integrated schools as long as we have such highly segregated neighborhoods," she says. "I want to point out maybe we’ll never have integrated neighborhoods if we have segregated schools."

If we found ways to integrate schools — as former District Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) controversially proposed two years ago — that might take some of the exclusivity out of certain neighborhoods. School quality is capitalized into housing prices, making those neighborhoods unaffordable to many families. Imagine, for instance, if all the public schools in the District or the Washington region were integrated and of comparable quality. Families might pay more to live in Northwest to be near Rock Creek Park. But you'd see fewer home-bidding wars there just to access scarce school quality. More to the point, homes families already paid handsomely to buy might lose some of their value.

Politically, the two topics that most enrage voters are threats to property values and local schools.  So either of these ideas — wielding housing policy to affect schools, or school policy to affect housing — would be tough sells. Especially to anyone who has secured both the desirable address and a seat in the best kindergarten in town. Parents in Upper Northwest, for instance, deeply opposed the idea of ending neighborhood schools in Washington. And Gray's proposal never came to pass.

But, Owens says, "I feel more hopeful in studying these issues today than I did five years ago." At least, she says, we are all now talking more about inequality and segregation.

9/12/13 REDUX: Killing Public School Integration Reset And Cloaked The Structure Of American Racism

NYTimes | In many northern cities, the 1974 United States Supreme Court decision Milliken v. Bradley killed any hopes of integrating the public schools. That ruling, involving Detroit and its suburbs, said that a mandatory plan to achieve integration by busing black children from Detroit across district lines to mainly white suburbs was unconstitutional. The result accelerated white flight to the suburbs, leaving the schools in urban centers even more segregated than they had been. 

Most famously, this happened in Boston, where court-ordered integration resulted in a busing plan that wound up mainly moving children of color around the city. 

But busing had greater success in some places, particularly those where the plans were carried out countywide, reducing the chances of white flight. They included Louisville-Jefferson County, Raleigh-Wake County and Charlotte-Mecklenburg County. 

This week’s Retro Report video, “The Battle for Busing,” follows the story of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg district, which became a national model for racial integration for 30 years only to resegregate about a decade ago, after a court ruling lifted the mandatory integration plan.

When the Charlotte busing plan began in 1971, there were whites who threatened to go to jail before they would let their children attend schools with blacks. The open racism voiced by whites in the Retro Report’s archival footage is vicious and ugly; students were injured when fistfights broke out between whites and blacks. 

But by 1974, the district was being singled out in the news media as a national model, particularly West Charlotte High, which had previously been all black. The impact of integration was visible almost immediately at the school. When whites arrived, the facilities were upgraded, said a former chairman of the school board, Arthur Griffin. A gravel parking lot was paved, and the football stadium and the gymnasium were renovated. 

Over the years, researchers like Prof. Roslyn Mickelson at the University of North Carolina, Charlotte, conducted studies concluding that children of any race who attended diverse schools were more likely to succeed, in areas like graduating, avoiding crime and attending college. 

But in the end, the same federal courts that had ushered in integration helped kill it. In the late 1990s, Judge Robert D. Potter of Federal District Court essentially said that the Charlotte district had met its constitutional duty by successfully creating a single school system serving all children regardless of race and that no more need be done.

In a few years’ time, West Charlotte High, which had been roughly 40 percent black and 60 percent white in the 1970s, became 88 percent black and 1 percent white. And it wasn’t just Charlotte. Today, nearly two-thirds of the school districts that had been ordered to desegregate are no longer required to do so, including Seminole County, Fla. (2006); Little Rock, Ark. (2007); and Galveston County, Tex. (2009). 

The New York City system is more segregated than it was in the 1980s: half the schools are more than 90 percent black and Hispanic. For more about the nation’s “steady and massive resegregation,” see this Reporter’s Notebook from Retro Report. 

This week’s Retro Report is the 10th in our documentary project, which was started with a grant from Christopher Buck. Retro Report has a staff of 12 journalists and 6 contributors led by Kyra Darnton. It is a nonprofit video news organization that aims to provide a thoughtful counterweight to today’s 24/7 news cycle. The videos are typically 10 to 12 minutes long.

Nah Jim, Black America Didn't "Opt Out" - White America Violently Rejected Integrating Black Children

I was fetching around for a way in which to try and integrate today's dismissals of both BLM and the black political mainstream, with tomorrow's refresher course on American racism and living memory history. Tomorrow is REALLY important.  That said, I suspect that even here, short attention span theater predominates - such that a simple succinct six minute turn that Irami Osei Frimpong offered - will have been lost even on my audience.

For sure what has been lost is the fundamental, core living memory experience of racism that shaped my life, largely i'm guessing, because it had little to no impact on any of your lives. What I'm referring to is public school desegregation attempted in the 70's and flatly and legally and politically rejected by white Americans of all socioeconomic and political persuasions. 

Kunstler entirely misses this in his haste to blame black folks for their exclusion and alienation from the American mainstream. See, I and a number of my peers, my immediate personal cohort, were among the lucky and durable ones who integrated public and private schools during the 70's, survived, got tough, and thrived, all the while learning everything there is to know about white America. 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, don't get me wrong. I'm not crying about anything, I'm not playing a victim card, and I sincerely believe and exemplify the ethos "that which does not kill you". But the simple fact of the matter is, that when white Americans refused to accept integration of public schools and shifted themselves in very dramatic macro-scale fashion in response to the prospective horror of little Cindy Lou sitting next to young Tyrone in the 3rd grade, well..., that kind of set the mold for much of what has followed over the next 50 years.

kunstler |  That business was the full participation of Black citizens in American life. The main grievance now is that Black Americans are still denied full participation due to “systemic racism.” That’s a dodge. What actually happened is that Black America opted out and lost itself in a quandary of its own making with the assistance of their white dis-enablers, the well intentioned “progressives.” 

Let me take you back to the mid-20^th century. America had just fought and won a war against manifest evil. The nation styled itself as Leader of the Free World. That role could not be squared with the rules of Jim Crow apartheid, so something had to change. The civil rights campaign to undo racial segregation under law naturally began in the courts in cases such as Brown v. Board of Education (1954). So-called public accommodations — hotels, theaters, restaurants, buses, bathrooms, water fountains, etc. — remained segregated. By the early 1960s, the clamor to end all that took to the streets under the emerging moral leadership of Martin Luther King and his credo of non-violent civil disobedience.

Many acts of non-violent street protest were met by police using fire-hoses, vicious dogs, and batons to terrorize the marchers. This only shamed and horrified the rest of the nation watching on TV and actually quickened the formation of a political consensus to end American apartheid. That culminated in the passage of three major federal laws: the Public Accommodations Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Fair Housing Act of 1968.

Meanwhile, something else was going on among Black Americans: not everybody believed in Dr. King’s non-violence, and not everybody was so sure about full participation in American life. Altogether, Black America remained ambivalent and anxious about all that. That full participation implied a challenge to compete on common ground. What if it didn’t work out? An alternate view emerged, personified first by Malcolm X, who called MLK an “Uncle Tom,” and then by the younger generation, Stokely Carmichael, the Black Panthers and others retailing various brands of Black Power, Black Nationalism, and Black Separatism. It amounted, for some, in declining that invitation to participate fully in American life. “No thanks. We’ll go our own way.” That sentiment has prevailed ever since.

So, the outcome to all that federal legislation of the 1960s turned out not to be the clear-cut victory (like World War Two) that liberals and progressives so breathlessly expected. The civil rights acts had some startling adverse consequences, too. They swept away much of the parallel service and professional economy that Blacks had constructed to get around all the old exclusions of everyday life. With that went a lot of the Black middle-class, the business owners especially. In its place, the liberal-and-progressive government provided “public assistance” — a self-reinforcing poverty generator that got ever worse, especially in big cities where de-industrialization started destroying the working-class job base beginning in the 1970s.  Fist tap Big Don.

Removing Statues A Distraction That Obfuscates The Actual Structure Of American Racism

gatestoneinstitute |  The idea that in the United States there is "structural racism" (defined by the Aspen Institute as "a system in which public policies, institutional practices, cultural representations, and other norms work in various, often reinforcing ways to perpetuate racial group inequity") has led, it seems, to a form of obsessive expiation. Films have been removed from streaming services. Gone with the Wind will now be shown with five-minute disclaimer. (One minute would not have been enough?)

The film is probably just first on a lengthening list. A reporter from Variety recently listed "10 Problematic Films That Could Use Warning Labels". They include Forrest Gump: for a brief moment, the title character is described, in an ironic fashion, as having been named after a member of the Ku Klux Klan. Consumer product brands, such as Uncle Ben's Rice and Aunt Jemima syrup are abruptly having their names and logos changed. Princeton voted to expunge the name of Woodrow Wilson from its public policy school. Demands have been made that universities and corporations show that they are not racist by declaring their support for Black Lives Matter. Many have bowed to the demand.

Of course there is still some racism among individuals, but the idea that the United States today is a society where "structural racism" exists is contradicted by decades of political decisions to repair the damage and, as in, for example, affirmative action programs, to favor equality for all Americans. As Ayaan Hirsi Ali, an American author who fled her homeland of Somalia, wrote:

"The problem is that there are people among us who don't want to figure it out and who have an interest in avoiding workable solutions. They have an obvious political incentive not to solve social problems, because social problems are the basis of their power. That is why, whenever a scholar like Roland Fryer brings new data to the table—showing it's simply not true that the police disproportionately shoot black people dead—the response is not to read the paper but to try to discredit its author."

For many years, American films dealing with racial questions have been explicitly hostile to any racial discrimination, and it would be impossible to find a book put out by a U.S. publishing house supporting racial discrimination, unless it dates from an era long gone. Rewriting history by falsifying it is simply an attempt to replace history with propaganda. Removing films and other information that do not correspond to a predetermined vision of history has long been the practice of totalitarian despotisms. Dictating that universities and corporations face severe consequences if they refuse to bowdlerize the past is simply a fascistic, tyrannical means of coercion. Worse, the submissive attitude of so many universities and corporations is what enables the bullying to continue.

1/23/14 REDUX: Respectable Negroe Politics NEVER Question The Existing Economic Order

libcom |  Coexisting with this egalitarian ideology was the Civil Rights movement's appeal to a functionalist conception of social rationality. To the extent that it blocked individual aspirations, segregation was seen as restricting artificially social growth and progress. Similarly, by raising artificial barriers such as the construction of blacks' consumer power through Jim Crow legislation and, indirectly, through low black wages, segregation impeded, so the argument went, the free functioning of the market. Consequently, segregation was seen not only as detrimental to the blacks who suffered under it, but also to economic progress as such. Needless to say, the two lines of argument were met with approval by corporate liberals.[31]

......

Outside the South, rebellion arose from different conditions. Racial segregation was not rigidly codified and the management sub-systems in the black community were correspondingly more fluidly integrated within the local administrative apparatus. Yet, structural, generational and ideological pressures, broadly similar to those in the South, existed within the black elite in the Northern, Western, and Midwestern cities that had gained large black populations in the first half of the 20th century. In non-segregated urban contexts, formal political participation and democratized consumption had long since been achieved: there the salient political issue was the extension of the administrative purview of the elite within the black community. The centrality of the administrative nexus in the "revolt of the cities" is evident from the ideological programs it generated.

Black Power came about as a call for indigenous control of economic and political institutions in the black community.[33] Because one of the early slogans of Black Power was a vague demand for "community control," the emancipatory character of the rebellion was open to considerable misinterpretation. Moreover, the diversity and "militance" of its rhetoric encouraged extravagance in assessing the movement's depth. It soon became clear, however, that "community control" called not for direction of pertinent institutions — schools, hospitals, police, retail businesses, etc. — by their black constituents, but for administration of those institutions by alleged representatives in the name of a black community. Given an existing elite structure whose legitimacy had already been certified by federal social-welfare agencies, the selection of "appropriate" representatives was predictable. Indeed, as Robert Allen has shown,[34] the empowerment of this elite was actively assisted by corporate-state elements. Thus, "black liberation" quickly turned into black "equity," "community control" became simply "black control" and the Nixon "blackonomics" strategy was readily able to "coopt" the most rebellious tendency of 1960s black activism. Ironically, Black Power's supersession of the Civil Rights program led to further consolidation of the management elite's hegemony within the black community. The black elite broadened its administrative control by uncritically assuming the legitimacy of the social context within which that elite operated. Black control was by no means equivalent to democratization.

Permitted Negroe Politics - NEVER Question The Existing Economic Order

fivethirtyeight |  It’s not surprising that prominent Black political figures aren’t aligned on every issue — and there’s nothing new about that at all. But these particular divides are illustrative of major shifts happening within Black politics, by which I largely mean the world of activists, elected officials and other power brokers in the United States who are Black.¹ We are in an era where one man (Barack Obama) is no longer the center of Black politics. So among the major power centers are the activist movement linked to Black Lives Matter that is as skeptical of Black elected officials as non-Black ones; a rising left wing of the Democratic Party that includes many Black voices; and a Black establishment that is arguably more powerful than ever before on Capitol Hill.

There are now, in my view, at least seven fairly distinct camps among Black political figures — concentrated in the Democratic Party but also stretching into the GOP. These groupings — which come from my own reporting and talking to experts, rather than any specific data set — are mostly informal. But the idea is to explain some common patterns and themes we are seeing, not necessarily to perfectly describe the politics of any particular person or faction in the party. I should also emphasize that these camps do not correspond exactly to rank-and-file Black voters, although I will talk about some places where there is overlap between activists and voters.

I have tried to order the camps by size, from largest to smallest. They are:

Mars Will Not Be Without Its Own Hypnotically Exotic Delights...,

universetoday |  This movie was created using an imagery from Mars Express’ High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC).  The images are normally taken looking straight down (nadir), and the video combines topography information from the stereo channels of HRSC to generate a three-dimensional landscape, which was then recorded from different perspectives, as with a movie camera, to render the flight shown in the video.

Korolev Crater is 82 kilometers (50 miles) across and at least 2 km (1.25 miles) deep. This well-preserved crater is located the northern lowlands of Mars, just south of a large patch of dune-filled terrain that encircles part of the planet’s northern polar cap (known as Olympia Undae).

That’s not snow you’re seeing, but this crater is constantly filled with water ice, and its central mound is about 1.8 kilometers (1.1 miles) thick all year round. It’s one of the largest reservoirs of non-polar ice on Mars.

This view reminds me of a flight I took where I flew over Meteor Crater in Arizona USA. But for comparison, Meteor Crater is less than a mile across (.737 miles/1.186 km) and just 560 feet (170 m) deep.

You may be thinking, how can this ice remain stable in Korolev Crater; doesn’t water ice sublimate away in Mars thin atmosphere? Just like dry ice does here on Earth, water ice on Mars usually goes from solid to gas with the low atmospheric pressure. (Mars has approximately 8 millibars while on Earth the average, atmospheric pressure at sea level is 1013.25 millibars, or about 14.7 pounds per square inch.)

Who Is The Target Of This Epstein Appeasement And Why Right Now?

tatler |  The news comes following a public back and forth between the US Department of Justice and Prince Andrew’s legal team over the royal’s alleged lack of cooperation in the ongoing investigations into Epstein. But one of the US prosecutors leading the enquiries, Geoffrey Berman, has now been sacked from his role as Attorney for the Southern District of New York by Donald Trump after refusing to stand down.

According to the Times, the US Attorney General, William Barr, asked President Trump to remove Berman – who had also overseen the prosecution of a number of Trump’s associates. Berman initially responded by stating that he had ‘no intention of resigning’ after Trump ally Barr unexpectedly announced that Berman was ‘stepping down’.

Earlier in June it was reported that the US Department of Justice had asked the Home Office to help it question Andrew over his links to Epstein. The Duke of York’s legal team accused the DoJ of ‘breaching their own confidentiality rules’, claiming that the royal had ‘offered his assistance as a witness’ on at least three occasions this year.

Berman retaliated by stating that Andrew had ‘yet again sought to falsely portray himself to the public as eager and willing to cooperate.’ He added that in fact, the Duke ‘has not given an interview to federal authorities, has repeatedly declined our request to schedule such an interview, and nearly four months ago informed us unequivocally – through the very same counsel who issued today's release – that he would not come in for such an interview… If Prince Andrew is, in fact, serious about cooperating with the ongoing federal investigation, our doors remain open, and we await word of when we should expect him.’

It was subsequently reported that Andrew would not cooperate with the Epstein investigation unless American investigators offer him ‘an olive branch’. The Duke of York has consistently denied any wrongdoing in regards to his links with his former friend.

Detained "Insidious Creature" Fitna Squeal Like A Pig Caught Under The Gate

dailymail |  Speaking to The Sun, Epstein's former employer Steven Hoffenberg said the paedophile's ex-girlfriend Maxwell 'knows everything' and will 'totally co-operate' after her arrest. 

Hoffenberg, a convicted fraudster who employed Epstein at Towers Financial in the 1980s, said 'there's a lot of people very worried' about what Maxwell could reveal. 'She's going to cooperate and be very important. Andrew is definitely, definitely concerned,' Hoffenberg said. 

On Thursday, a source close to the Duke of York's legal team told DailyMail.com that he was 'bewildered' by prosecutors' remarks that they wanted to speak to him.  

'The Duke’s team remains bewildered given that we have twice communicated with the DOJ in the last month and to-date, we have had no response.'

On Thursday, Acting US Attorney Audrey Strauss said the investigation into Epstein's decades of abuse is ongoing and that she'd 'welcome' Prince Andrew 'coming in to provide a statement', prompting speculation that he may among people investigators may focus their attention on next.

'We would welcome Prince Andrew coming in to talk to us. We would like to have the benefit of his statement. Our doors remain open. We would welcome him coming in and giving us an opportunity to hear his statement,' she said. 

It opens the door to questions of jurisdiction and whether or not US Attorney Strauss may charge for alleged incidents that happened in London and not America. Among the claims in the indictment is that Maxwell groomed one of the victims in London. At her press conference, Strauss said some of the sexual abuse also happened at Maxwell's house in London. 

US attorney Lisa Bloom, who represents one of Maxwell's accusers, said 'all others accused of enabling Jeffrey Epstein's predations must immediately be brought to justice as well'.  

'Maxwell's brutal, ruthless behaviour caused my client tremendous pain,' Ms Bloom said in a statement, adding that she and her client applauded the socialite's 'long overdue arrest'. 

One Epstein accuser, Michelle Licata, has previously voiced hopes that prosecutors looking into Epstein were 'going to start digging into his life... and start pulling out this spider web of people that were related to it', according to the New York Post. 

Former federal prosecutor Jessica Roth told Bloomberg: 'There is no way for prosecutors to present a case against her without going into all the evidence they had against Epstein, because the charges here are intertwined.

'The original indictment against Jeffrey Epstein made it clear that he didn’t act alone and that the government had evidence that other people were also involved.' 

Celebrating Maxwell's arrest, Prince Andrew's accuser, Roberts said last night: 'Thank you to the FBI, Southern District of New York and anyone involved in the arrest of this insidious creature. Hope the judge throws the book at her. So so so happy- she’s finally where she belongs.'

Q Gillum: "What We Gone Do Boss?!?!?!"

kmbc |  Mayor Quinton Lucas is calling on a special session of the Missouri General Assembly to address violent crime in Kansas City.

On Friday, Lucas released a letter she sent to Missouri Gov. Mike Parson calling the situation in Kansas City a ‘crisis point.’ In the letter, he asks Parson to call for a special session of the assembly to allow state senators and representatives to vote on legislation to enhance witness protection funding in Missouri.

“We need state legislative action on several items we have previously discussed to address our problem,” Lucas said in the letter. “While we will continue to pursue a broad set of social services and other tools to address violent crime now and in the future, specific action from Jefferson City can help us apprehend and incarcerate murderers currently walking the streets of Kansas City and protect witnesses in our neighborhoods who are frequently scared to speak.”

[ READ FULL LETTER FROM LUCAS ]

Lucas said additional help is also needed to provide more tools for law enforcement and prosecutors to “interrupt conspiracies to commit murder and other violent acts, particularly offenses committed by felons using deadly weapons.”

“Kansas City is too fine a city, and Missouri too fine a state to allow violent criminality to define our way of life,” Lucas wrote. “We will persevere through these challenges, but our children, our law enforcement community, and all Kansas Citians need change quickly."

Coincidence Theory: Ghislaine Maxwell Headed To The MCC Epstein Kill Box

bloomberg |  Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime friend of Jeffrey Epstein arrested Thursday for helping him sexually abuse underage girls, could wind up in the same jail where he committed suicide last year.

Maxwell, 58, was arrested early Thursday morning in New Hampshire and is set for an afternoon hearing in federal court there. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan, who are handling the case, are opposing bail and seeking to have her held in custody before trial.

“We will be seeking detention,” Acting U.S. Attorney Audrey Strauss in Manhattan said in a press conference announcing charges. Prosecutors said Maxwell helped Epstein entice girls as young as 14 into sex from 1994 through 1997, then lied about it under oath in 2016.

Prosecutors warn that Maxwell has a “strong incentive” to flee if she’s not detained because she faces years in prison. “That risk is only amplified by the defendant’s extensive international ties, her citizenship in two foreign countries, her wealth, and her lack of meaningful ties to the United States,” they wrote in a detention memo. “In short, Maxwell has three passports, large sums of money, extensive international connections, and absolutely no reason to stay” in the U.S.

Back to New York

Unless the judge in New Hampshire releases her on bail, Maxwell will either be held overnight in a local jail there or transported immediately back to New York, said Jack Donson, a consultant who formerly worked for the federal Bureau of Prisons. In New York, she would likely be transferred to one of two federal lockups, the Metropolitan Correctional Center in Lower Manhattan or the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn.