Welcome to The Now

 The former president is notorious for not paying people he owes money to, and now it may cost him the ability to reach the masses:

 Like Flint, Michigan and others before it, another American city has such poor water conditions they can't flush or floss : (CNN)Already dealing with flooded streets, residents of rain-battered Jackson, Mississippi, are now contending with little or no water pressure in their homes after the city's main water treatment facility failed Monday, leaving them without enough water to flush toilets or fight fires, Gov. Tate Reeves said. The governor said he will declare a state of emergency for the state's largest city and state authorities are scrambling to begin distributing water to 180,000 residents. The city's troubled water system has been plagued with issues for years. In February 2021, a winter storm shut down Jackson's entire water system, leaving tens of thousands of residents without water for a month amid the Covid-19 pandemic. On Monday evening -- as Jackson residents were dealing with record-setting rain that resulted in the Pearl River cresting at a danger...

  From the one and only Chris Hedges : On August 24, the Biden administration announced yet another massive military aid package to Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion. It will take months, and in some cases years, for this military equipment to reach Ukraine. In another sign that Washington assumes the conflict will be a long war of attrition it will give a name to the U.S. military assistance mission in Ukraine and make it a separate command overseen by a two- or three-star general. Since August 2021, Biden has approved more than $8 billion in weapons transfers from existing stockpiles, known as drawdowns, to be shipped to Ukraine, which do not require Congressional approval. [SNIP] The militarists who have waged permanent war costing trillions of dollars over the past two decades have invested heavily in controlling the public narrative. The enemy, whether Saddam Hussein or Vladimir Putin, is always the epitome of evil, the new Hitler. Those we support are always heroic defenders of...

 Sabby Sabbs breaks this down: 

 Because one-in-six Americans currently cannot:

 

 

 

 Mainly because teachers are not valued. An educated working class asks too many questions.

 Here's a story of how a person from rural Michigan ended up creating his own local broadband company.

 I'm speaking of course about how China is forgiving 23 loans for 17 African countries : The Chinese government has announced that it is forgiving 23 interest-free loans for 17 African nations, while pledging to deepen its collaboration with the continent. This is in addition to China’s cancellation of more than $3.4 billion in debt and restructuring of around $15 billion of debt in Africa between 2000 and 2019. While Beijing has a repeated history of forgiving loans like this, Western governments have made baseless, politically motivated accusations that China uses “debt-trap diplomacy” in the Global South. The United States has turned Africa into a battleground in its new cold war on China and Russia. And Washington has weaponized dubious claims of Chinese “debt traps” to try to demonize Beijing for its substantial infrastructure projects on the continent. For its part, China has pushed back against the US new cold war. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi held a meeting with leaders...

 We know the drill... First, Russia is weak: R ussian paratrooper says that his country's justification for attacking Ukraine is a lie . The message: "Russia's own soldiers know that their government is wrong!" Second, Russia is a threat: " The United States on Tuesday urged its citizens to leave Ukraine, saying it believed Russia was preparing to target civilian and government infrastructure in the next few days as the war reaches the six-month mark ." The message: "Big bad Russia will destroy anyone in their way, innocent or not!" If there is so much dissention in the Russian army, would they be able to execute a large attack? Either Russia is a paper tiger that can be ignored, or they are a threat to the world. Or maybe, just maybe, they are looking out for their interests like America does. 

What else can you call it when the person behind this : Liz Truss is the foreign secretary who, barking a few months ago at Sergei Lavrov, Russia’s foreign minister, turned out not to know parts of Russia from parts of Ukraine . Liz Truss is the Tory political candidate whose economic platform, as Britons face their worst crisis at least since the 1980s and possibly since 1945 when this is over, begins and ends with a plan to lower taxes . may end up leading the UK?

  Not the type they warn you about in the media to be certain .

  Assuming that they weren't petty during the height of COVID: This week, the Bureau of Prisons told NPR that 442 people who were released during the pandemic have now returned to prison. Only 17 people out of more than 11,000 who were released committed new crimes, mostly drug related ones, while they were out. More than half, some 230 people including Eva Cardoza, got sent back for alleged alcohol or drug use. Other cases involved technical violations. Sakira Cook of the racial justice group Color of Change explained what that means. "It could be as simple as failing to answer the phone when your probation officer calls you. It could be as simple as the ankle monitor giving an incorrect signal about your location," Cook said. Cook has personal experience with that last problem: a relative recently left federal prison on home confinement, only to get an ankle monitor that didn't work. Fortunately, she said, the probation officer understood the situation. Kevin Ring ...

  At least this one ex-employee thinks so : Twitter has major security problems that pose a threat to its own users' personal information, to company shareholders, to national security, and to democracy, according to an explosive whistleblower disclosure obtained exclusively by CNN and The Washington Post. The disclosure, sent last month to Congress and federal agencies, paints a picture of a chaotic and reckless environment at a mismanaged company that allows too many of its staff access to the platform's central controls and most sensitive information without adequate oversight. It also alleges that some of the company's senior-most executives have been trying to cover up Twitter's serious vulnerabilities, and that one or more current employees may be working for a foreign intelligence service. The whistleblower, who has agreed to be publicly identified, is Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, who was previously the company's head of security, reporting directly to the...

 Journalist Robert Scheer talks about this with Katie Halper: Remember: these people are of the same caliber who told kids in the 50's that hiding under desks would protect them from a nuclear fallout. 

 Or rather, they can't get an accurate one : The first analysis of how Connecticut’s police officers use force in the course of their duties provides some insights, but officials on Thursday warned about drawing conclusions because of a lack of standards in data collection and incomplete participation among police departments. The report, issued by the University of Connecticut’s Institute for Municipal and Regional Policy, collected data from nearly 1,300 use-of-force reports submitted by 60 police departments across the state for incidents in 2019 and 2020. Connecticut is only the second state in the country, after New Jersey, to start collecting and independently analyzing use-of-force reports from all of its police departments. But in a presentation to the Police Officer Standards and Training Council before the report was released to the public on Thursday, the institute’s director, Ken Barone, cautioned against drawing too many conclusions from the data or trying to compare d...

  Especially when it comes to "sacred" institutions like the FBI .

 ...but only if you criticize one of the bosses:

 NPR does a story on RIP National Debt, a group dedicated to doing exactly what the name implies . 

 

 

  And not a moment too soon : Two former Pennsylvania judges who orchestrated a scheme to send children to for-profit jails in exchange for kickbacks were ordered to pay more than $200 million to hundreds of people they victimized in one of the worst judicial scandals in U.S. history. U.S. District Judge Christopher Conner awarded $106 million in compensatory damages and $100 million in punitive damages to nearly 300 people in a long-running civil suit against the judges, writing the plaintiffs are “the tragic human casualties of a scandal of epic proportions.” In what came to be known as the kids-for-cash scandal, Mark Ciavarella and another judge, Michael Conahan, shut down a county-run juvenile detention center and accepted $2.8 million in illegal payments from the builder and co-owner of two for-profit lockups. Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, pushed a zero-tolerance policy that guaranteed large numbers of kids would be sent to PA Child Care and its sister facility...

 There are those willing to push those in power in order to get change (revolutionaries) and those who believe that working with those in power is the best way to get change (reformists). And then there are those who are more caught up in personalities than polices:

Like, a lot : New York (CNN Business)Nearly three quarters of US farmers say this year's drought is hurting their harvest -- with significant crop and income loss, according to a new survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation, an insurance company and lobbying group that represents agricultural interests. This year's drought conditions are taking a harder toll than last year's, as 37% of farmers said they are plowing through and killing existing crops that won't reach maturity because of dry conditions. That's a jump from 24% last year, according to the survey. July was the third-hottest on record for the US and ranked in the top 10 for every state in the West except for Montana, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. The US Department of Agriculture's weekly weather and crop bulletin ending the week of August 6 reported "rapidly intensifying drought gripped the central and southern Plains and mid-South, depleting topsoil moistu...

 Instead of addressing Jimmy Dore on his criticisms of the Democratic Party (and by extension her), Nina Turner decided to attack him as "anti-black." Well, Jimmy responds: As for Nina Turner? Well, she's gonna be alright:

 Looks like when disposable income is at a premium, places like Target and Walmart pay the price. 

 As in, "putting Americans in such dire financial conditions that joining the military is the most viable option" is starting to loose it's luster , and it's not just the Army .

  The NBA will not have any games on Election Day . Now why can't the government declare Election Day a federal holiday?

 According to a 2017 Boston Today report, " of the workers entering Boston, 95,000 drive alone, 83,000 take transit, and 36,000 carpool ." Well as of Friday, one of the most used lines will be down for 30 days (just in time for schools to start): Massachusetts Governor Charlie Baker is asking everyone to "be patient" with the MBTA's unprecedented move to shut down the Orange Line for a month for repairs starting Friday because it will affect everyone in the Boston area. Baker, MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak, MassDOT Undersecretary Scott Bosworth and Highway Administrator Jonathan Gulliver held a news conference at the state transportation building in Boston Monday to warn the public to pay attention to the changes. The shutdown of the entire Orange Line will start at 9 p.m. Friday, August 19 for upgrades and repairs. It will last until September 19. The move will not only affect subway riders, it's also expected to have a huge impact on the Boston area f...

  The Democrats were banking on using Liz Cheney as the poster child of "we can work with them" Republicans, but with her loss they are running out of such characters. Most of the elected Republicans are either all the way in for Trump, support him tepidly, or are essentially agnostic. Very few Republicans were publicly going after Trump in the way Cheney did.  We know that the Democrats were also propping up Trump-favored Republicans in GOP primaries in hopes of scaring their voters convincing people that the GOP has gone full Trump. Is is basically the tactic Hillary Clinton used on a presidential scale in 2016; the same presidential election she lost. The Democrats are supporting any anti-Trump Republicans (no matter their record) in the public yet privately supporting pro-Trump Republicans. Sooner or later, Democratic voters will realize they are supporting a party more invested in the existence of their opposition than in helping their base. Meanwhile, the GOP is beco...

  A lifelong Democrat can switch parties so she can vote for Liz Cheney to "save" democracy . Let's be clear about a few things: If American democracy depends on one congressional seat, America is in trouble. If American democracy depends on the only congressional seat Wyoming, America is in real trouble. If American democracy depends on Liz Cheney winning a congressional seat , America is in serious trouble. Where are the Democrats calling this voter a traitor for switching parties? Where are the accusations of working with the enemy or inciting a "red-brown alliance?" Why is it OK for Democrats to work with elected Republicans, but not with Republican supporters/voters? If Democrats and Republicans are such enemies, why is it so easy to switch parties? Why is it easier to go from Democrat to Republican (or vice versa) than to register a third party?

 As in, "send the cops into another state because I feel slighted" petty. 

  You take the good/you take the bad; you take them both and there you have : After two decades of insurgency, the Taliban exhausted the world's most powerful military and their NATO allies, which agreed to withdraw from the country in a deal signed in February 2020. As Western troops were concluding their withdrawal last summer, the Taliban oversaw the rapid surrender, defeat or co-option of Afghan security forces — forces they saw as aiding a foreign occupation. Today, the Taliban's particular interpretation of Islamic law is being imposed in fits and starts, largely over women and girls: Most girls cannot attend secondary schools. They may not travel long distances without a male guardian. Women report being hounded out of their jobs. They've been ordered to cover their faces in public, although the rule is only applied to women on television so far. There are changes perhaps less noticed outside of Afghanistan: Afghans are living in relative security for the first time ...

  Not even those behind the vaccine : Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said on Monday he had tested positive for Covid-19 and was experiencing very mild symptoms. Bourla, 60, said he had started a course of the company’s oral Covid-19 antiviral treatment, Paxlovid, and was isolating and following all public health precautions. “I am confident that I will have a speedy recovery,” Bourla said in a statement. Now that everyone's done with using COVID as a political weapon, it's time to downplay it so people can get back to work and school .

 Continued fallout from Nancy Pelosi's ill-advised trip: AIPEI, Taiwan (AP) — China announced more military drills around Taiwan as the self-governing island’s president met with members of a new U.S. congressional delegation on Monday, threatening to renew tensions between Beijing and Washington after a similar recent visit by U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi angered China. Pelosi was the highest-level member of the U.S. government to visit Taiwan in 25 years, and her trip prompted nearly two weeks of threatening military exercises by China, which claims the island as its own. In those drills, Beijing fired missiles over the island and into the Taiwan Strait and sent warplanes and navy ships across the waterway’s midline, which has long been a buffer between the sides that split amid civil war in 1949. The latest trip began Sunday with little notice ahead of time. The delegation was due to leave late Monday. China accuses the U.S. of encouraging the island’s independence through t...

 

So much so that supposedly left-leaning politicians will subtlety support the very politicians they say are a danger to democracy:     

 Second Thought weighs in:

  CDC announces changes to COVID protocol .

 Looks like the price at the pump is making shoppers opt for places that are closer to home .

 What is Governor Greg Abbott of Texas doing? He's busing immigrants to New York City : New York City Mayor Eric Adams is criticizing Texas Gov. Greg Abbott for sending busloads of migrants to the city, saying that Abbott "used innocent people as political pawns to manufacture a crisis." "Unlike Governor Abbott, New York City will always do our part," Adams said via Twitter, after his office posted images of the mayor greeting migrants and refugees arriving at the Port Authority bus terminal in midtown Manhattan. "This is horrific when you think about what [Abbot] is doing," Adams said on Sunday, according to the Gothamist website, which reports that more than 4,000 immigrants had arrived from Texas so far. New York isn't alone: Abbott's office says Texas has already sent more than 6,100 migrants on buses to Washington, D.C., as NPR reported. Both cities are now the main targets in Abbott's program to send people who recently crossed the U...

 If America thought that trying to make Russia and China into the new international boogeymen was going to influence foreign affairs in its favor, they greatly overestimated their importance on the world stage : NEW DELHI, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Indian companies are using Asian currencies more often to pay for Russian coal imports, according to customs documents and industry sources, avoiding the U.S. dollar and cutting the risk of breaching Western sanctions against Moscow. Reuters previously reported on a large Indian coal deal involving the Chinese yuan, but the customs data underline how non-dollar settlements are becoming commonplace.  India has aggressively stepped up purchases of Russian oil and coal since the war in Ukraine began , helping to cushion Moscow from the effects of sanctions and allowing New Delhi to secure raw materials at discounts compared to supplies from other countries. Russia became India's third-largest coal supplier in July , with imports rising by ove...

  When the military admits something , it means that they don't care that you know: (CNN)The Pentagon announced Monday that the US has sent anti-radar missiles for Ukrainian aircraft to target Russian radar systems, marking the first time the Defense Department has acknowledged sending the previously undisclosed missile to Ukraine. Colin Kahl, the under secretary of defense for policy, said at a press briefing that the US had sent "a number" of the missiles without specifying how many the US has provided or when they were sent. Kahl did not explicitly say what type of anti-radiation missile was sent. A defense official told CNN the type of missile sent was the AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) . Produced by Raytheon, HARMs have a range in excess of 30 miles, according to the US Air Force, making them one of the longer-range weapons the US has provided to Ukraine. The missiles can be used to target Russian anti-aircraft radar systems, such as the S-400, which...

Combine racist policies with a lack of infrastructure needed to generate generational wealth and top it off with a recession, and you get financial trouble for minorities .

 Don't let anyone tell you that anti-Muslim behavior has been tampered in the US :  Albuquerque, New Mexico (CNN)Everyday life is now permeated by fear after four Muslim men were inexplicably gunned down in Albuquerque, a mosque leader said. "Incredibly terrified. Panicked. Some people want to move from the state until this thing is over. Some people have moved from the state," said Ahmad Assed, president of the Islamic Center of New Mexico. "Businesses are closing ... early. Students won't leave their homes," he said. "It's affecting people from coming over to the mosque to conduct their services, their prayers. So, in every aspect of daily life that we're used to or accustomed to following, it's impacted it in every way possible." On Friday night, 25-year-old Naeem Hussain was found dead by Albuquerque police. He became the third Muslim man killed in the city within two weeks, and the fourth since November. Hours before his death, Hus...

 Just in case someone tries to convince you that "things are back to normal": When the pandemic started, Tomeka Kimbrough-Hilson knew she had a small growth inside her uterus. She was first diagnosed with uterine fibroids back in 2006 and had been able to have the non-cancerous mass removed through outpatient laser surgery. Over the years, she'd also been able to manage her symptoms with medication and changes in her lifestyle. But when those symptoms – a bloated belly, irregular periods, nausea – returned in 2020, Kimbrough-Hilson was unable to get an appointment with a specialist. "March 27th came and everything got shut down," says Kimbrough-Hilson, 47, of Stone Mountain, Georgia. "I wasn't at the tier of care that needed [immediate attention], because of all the precautions that had to be taken." But even after the lockdown in spring of 2020 was lifted, Kimbrough-Hilson, a mother of five who works in the health insurance industry, was unable t...

 And no, it doesn't involve the phrase "shot innocent person": VINCENT, Ala. — A racist text message sent by a police officer has prompted officials in a small Alabama town to disband their police department and fire the police chief and assistant chief. Vincent Mayor James Latimore on Thursday confirmed that Police Chief James Srygley and Assistant Chief John L. Goss had been dismissed, al.com reported. The Shelby County Sheriff's Office on Friday condemned the two officers' actions and said it stands with the city "in providing emergency law enforcement related service to the citizens (of Vincent) at this time." In the message, which recently surfaced on social media, someone identified as "752″ texts: "What do y'all call a pregnant slave?" An unidentified recipient responds twice: "?" and "??" "752″ answers: "BOGO Buy one, get one free" "This has torn this community apart. It doesn't matt...

  Oh, Pfizer, you devil! Aug 8 (Reuters) - Pfizer Inc is boosting its pipeline with a $5.4 billion deal for blood disorder drugmaker Global Blood Therapeutics (GBT.O), the latest in a series of acquisitions to combat a potential slowdown in COVID-19 products demand as cases fall. Pfizer said on Monday it will pay $68.50 per share, representing a premium of 7.3% to Global Blood stock's Friday closing and a 42.7% premium to Thursday's closing, before the Wall Street Journal reported that Pfizer was in advanced talks to acquire the company. Pfizer has enjoyed an unprecedented rise in sales since the global rollout of its COVID-19 vaccine, developed with BioNTech. Sales have, however, started to slow since last year. But flush with cash from sales of its COVID-19 vaccine, Pfizer has been on the lookout for acquisitions that could bring in billions in annual sales by the end of the decade.

 They can try to convince that Russia is the sinister aggressor or innocent Ukraine and that Israel is the innocent target of Palestine-connected troublemakers, but when Russia and Israel both attacking their respective targets, it's hard to get people to root for one and not the other.  Imagine if the parties were switched in these stories. Imagine if the story in Ukraine was "Ukrainians given 15 minutes" to move out before being bombarded with Russian missiles, or that Russia was claiming that Ukraine was using homes and hospitals as "command centers." Now imagine if Palestinians announced after going to the wreckage of Israeli bombs being dropped, that most of the weapons being used seem to be made in America or designed by American companies.   How would the American political pundits respond? So far, they are holding to the narrative that Russia/Palestine are bad, and Ukraine/Israel are good. But with Israel and Russia operating in more similar ways towar...

 Apparently, many of them have enough outlets to ignore the likes of Reuters and AP . 

Good thing Jimmy Dore isn't giving them any peace:  

 A majority of American voters want a party that's neither Democrats nor Republican, and the duopoly has taken notice.  The tactic has long been to ignore their existence (having influence/control of the media helps) but polls cannot be denied forever. The next-most-beloved tactic is a combination of infiltration, acquisition, and outsourcing. While the country has have third-parties for a while (see Green Party and Libertarian Party) two newer parties have entered the scene: [Movement for a] People's Party and the Forward Party. Like the Green Party and Libertarian Party, the two new parties are not perfect alternatives to the duopoly at the moment.  The People's Party was born out of disappointment with Bernie Sander's two failed presidential campaigns, and is headed by Nick Brana. While there is enthusiasm for the young party, they have no candidates and their only consistent spokesperson is Brana, which is... problematic .   The Forward Party is identified a...

 As we near the mid-terms and after that the inevitable politics-as-sports push to support either Democrats or Republicans for 2024, people will get in front of cameras and microphones and try to convince you that there are stark differences between the parties.  Now while anyone who's been through at least three difference presidents ( or just pays attention ) can debunk this (for pretty much the lifespan of every American, none of us have experience three back-to-back-to-back Democratic or Republican presidents) we sadly have a country full of short memories and easily propagandized psyches.  Case in Point: the 1984 Presidential Election : Reagan won in an electoral college landslide and with 58% of the popular vote. As in most elections, you can trace some of that other 42% to counties that are heavily urban, but as the map suggests, Reagan enjoyed crazy crossover appeal. (Let's pause here real quick to remind everyone that Reagan was the last major politician before ...

 Mr. Jones has been caught in two big lies in real time during his court case , which has hurt him more than being an all-in conspiracy theorist. Being skeptical of the government is healthy (and in some cases necessary) but the lengths Jones has gone , combined with his fabrications, has undermined him in the long run.  

  Out of Reach website . The Opportunity Atlas website. 

 There's no mistaking it; the Democrats are creating their own enemy in order to scare people into voting for them : (CNN)In the final days of Rep. Peter Meijer's close fight for his party's nomination, the Michigan Republican and his allies are slamming Democrats for meddling in Tuesday's GOP primary. An outside group supporting Meijer -- one of the 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach former President Donald Trump -- launched a new ad over the weekend criticizing the Democratic establishment for helping the freshman congressman's Trump-backed opponent. "Fox News confirms it: Nancy Pelosi and the Democrats are spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to elect their hand-picked candidate for Congress in the Republican primary, John Gibbs ," the ad warns. "West Michigan must say no to Nancy Pelosi's handpicked candidate for Congress." And in a Monday morning post for the Common Sense Substack, Meijer rails against the Democratic Congre...

  Nancy Pelosi is problematic . 

  Just saying :