Ongoing excavations at Wroxeter, the largest Roman city in the U.K., unearthed a stunning, unexpected work of art.
— Read on news.artnet.com/art-world/excavations-roman-ruin-dolphin-mosaic-2524273
-
-
The Louvre hosts an incredible collection of artworks. Some are extremely famous, but there are also some hidden gems. Don’t miss them!
— Read on www.dailyartmagazine.com/hidden-gems-at-louvre/ -
“This is a which side are you on election.” Shawn Fein, president of the UAW.
THURSDAY 15 AUGUST 2024 #2
AFTERNOON NEWS NOTES
Democracy Now 8/14/24
• UAW has filed charges against Trump and Musk for threatening to fire striking employees. This is a federal crime under National Labor Relations Act. The two men laughed about the prospect of firing workers on strike.
• Shawn Fain, president of the UAW, said Trump and Musk and people like them do not care about workers. They need to be held to account. They laugh about firing people. “This is a which side are you on election.”
• Elon Musk is giving tens of millions of dollars to support Donald Trump.
• The following if an interview with WSJ reporter, Dana Mattiolli, author of “The Everything War.”
• Musk had for years been a Democrat, but he “broke with the Democrats.” Musk said that he had been a Democratic voter. During the Biden administration, there was a break involving Tesla. Tesla factories are not unionized. Musk was not invited to Biden-held meetings about electric cars.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/05/business/tesla-snub-white-house-event/index.html
• The super-pac Musk is involved with brought in staff from DeSantis’ failed former campaign.
(Note: This super pac is also now under investigation)
https://wskg.org/news/2024-08-14/elon-musks-super-pac-under-investigation-in-several-swing-states
• There was some concern that the super-pac, America pac, was just gathering information about voters when it set up a website asking voters to register and then did not send them any literature. But after journalistic investigation, it was found that right before literature was supposed to go out, Ameripac fired the vender responsible. They had to hire back the vendor before forms were finally sent.
• Musk never wanted to be the face of this PAC and took actions to hide his involvement. Musk was so controlling, he wanted to video people knocking on doors for his superpac to see what they were saying.
• Trump called for Fein to be fired at a rally. Now Fein is suing him.
• Musk has a very contentious relationship with Fein. Musk has a history of negative comments about union activity. Tesla is one of the only US automakers who is not unionized.
• The Republican Party has been courting union workers and trying to “make itself appear to be more pro-union.”
• Teamsters President Shawn Obrien, talked at the Republican Convention. He spoke negatively about Amazon.
(Note: This was a highly controversial decision to speak at the RMC. The speech itself was rousing, but O’Brien gave credit to people like J.D. Vance and Josh Hawley, who are not labor supporters.)
• Amazon has a GDP larger than many countries. Amazon is like the “modern day standard oil.” It’s tactics are “anti-competitive.” Amazon has had a bumpy history with Democrats, Biden has been really tough on Amazon. FTC head Lena Kahn brought an historic monopoly lawsuit. She made “enemies on both sides of the aisle.”
• Everybody was nervous about Amazon. Amazon “penetrated industry after industry.”
• Their business practices were driven by this toxic culture. Amazon “lied, spied, cheated its way to the top.”
• Amazon won in the marketplace because it “had it’s fingers on the scale.”
• Lena Kahn, FTC, sued Amazon for illegally suppressing competition.
• Kahn found that Amazon was mistreating its customers by charging increased fees to small businesses. 50% of what small businesses pay goes to Amazon. Amazon was also found to have used secret algorithms to raise prices for consumers, using illegal tactics. Rival sites cannot compete.
• In 2017, Kahn wrote an extremely significant article which was published in the Yale Law journal on the ‘Amazon paradox.” Amazon, had “evaded government scrutiny.”
Big donors have called for Harris to fire Kahn. (Note: Podcast “Bad Faith” interviewee pointed out that public calls to fire Kahn only make it more difficult for Harris to do so.)
• Jake Tapper interviewed billionaire donor, Reid Hoffman, Linkedin, who wants to fire Kahn. Hoffman tried to minimize his role as a donor by saying he was, instead, an “expert.” During the interview, Hoffman said that the relationship between donor and expert should be “kept secret.” He then corrected himself and said “kept separate”.
• There is a lot of pressure to get Kahn fired. She has become a “lightening rod.” “She has taken a very close look at their companies.” Biden has been an advocate of Kahn’s. Vance and Gaetz are also supporters of Kahn. (Note: ?)
• There could be a breakup of Amazon, which would be “historic.”
How Amazon “Lied, spied, cheated its way to the top.” Democracy Now Interview.
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/8/14/dana_mattioli_amazon_the_everything_war
Vanity Fair interview with Mattioloi
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/story/inside-amazon-business-practices
Follow-Up from Wednesday
Maria Butina
https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/maria-butina-and-the-open-secrets-of-the-russia-scandal
The Times of Israel, 8/16/24, Wheels of Justice
After ten months, there are no indictments filed against hundreds of terrorists captured on October 7 and during the ongoing war.
- There are estimated to be 1,584 of these unlawful combatants being held by Israel.
- Even though new laws are being introduced to prosecute these individuals, there are already laws on the books that allow the death penalty to be applied to them (though this has never been done with this type of offender).
- The existing likely ways of prosecuting the criminals include 1) a criminal trial in Israel’s civil courts; 2) a trial in the IDF’s military court system where Palestinian terror suspects are often prosecuted, and 3) a special court established by new legislation.
- It appears that the method of prosecution has still not been decided upon.
- In an interesting turn, Yuval Kaplinsky, former head of the International Law Department, used the example of Netanyahu’s own trial to illustrate the problems with prosecuting in the civil courts.
- Netanyahu’s criminal trial has lasted over four years with the defense not having presented a case. Kaplinsky predicted that trials for the Oct. 7 terrorists would take 20 years.
- Kaplinsky also asserted that the death penalty would only glorify the terrorists.
- Kaplinsky advocates amending a law which would allow long-term detention without trial, which can be renewed ever few years. He uses the example of the US and it’s indeterminate sentencing of the Guantanamo Bay prisoners.
- Conservative legal scholar Rafael Biton, however, noted that trials would create an important historical record. He noted the impact of the Nuremberg trials.
- Biton argues that it was a collective crime and the individuals should be prosecuted collectively.
-
WEDNESDAY 14 AUGUST 2024
WASHINGTON, DC – NOVEMBER 15: Former Trump Administration White House advisor Steve Bannon speaks to the press on his way out of federal court on November 15, 2021 in Washington, DC. Bannon was charged on Friday with two counts of contempt of Congress after refusing to comply with a subpoena from the House Select Committee investigating the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) Peter Navarro is evidently out of jail now, taking over Steve Bannon’s show on AMVO. This is necessary because Bannon himself is finally in prison. Bannon won’t be there anywhere near as long as he should be. Navarro is talking about “Jews coming home.” He is talking about coming home to the Republican Party. He is also talking about the “sociopaths” in the corporate news.
According to Navarro, Walz is “Tampon Tim.” Harris is “incompetent.”
Navarro is talking on a set with palm fronds blowing in some breeze. I have no idea why. Last week, Velshi did a show where behind every guest was a set with two arrows going up and down the margins of the screen while they were talking. This left the viewed trying to listen while also trying to figure out why these arrows were going up and down. I just don’t understand it. It reminds me of a skit Al Franken did years ago to take the piss out of the running news feed the channels now have going on all the time at the bottom of the screen. Franken was reading the news while someone read the news at a lower volume at the same time. This is what it is like. It is so distracting. Is the theory now that people can selectively tune in and out extraneous information? I cannot. I cannot even work in a room with music going on. I can either work or I can listen to music, but I can’t do both. Our cats, however, can be laying at the foot of the bed, nearer the TV than we are, and a bomb could go off and they don’t bother to even come to a more aware level of consciousness. The only exception to this is if there is a doorbell ringing on the screen.
Oh, boy, another Wednesday. I got a steroid shot in my knee yesterday and I feel like I fought WWII by myself this morning. I can barely walk. I could barely walk yesterday, and so… I went into the doctor’s office with a typed-up list of concerns and background information. This time, it didn’t work very well. Doctors treat one specific part of your body, knee, shoulder, finger. So, you have to go to a different doctor for every tiny thing that’s wrong with you, but nobody is looking at the whole picture, nobody but the patient and they won’t listen to you. People are always repeating the mantra that we have the best health care system in the world. We do not. It is a for-profit organization, churning money, re-routing money from you and insurance companies to them. All profit should be taken out of the medical profession. You can either make money or treat patients, you cannot do both. Britain is well on its way under Conservative political control, to destroying the wonderful national health service, given to the country after WWII by Labour. When, when will people wake up and stop letting the right rob us blind?
O.K. Well, I should get to the news, find out if Israel has been attacked by Iran yet. I assume that if this had happened, it would be on CNN or MSNBC, but that is a stupid assumption. It costs too much money for the corporate press to cover real world events. It’s much cheaper to ask every single person with a college degree what they think might happen at the Democratic Convention, or if Trump might be “upset” about the Harris campaign. What a useless press we have.
I saw the other day where the dreadful, former actress, former right wing shill, Caitlan Collins said on some talk show that CNN covers the news objectively. The audience laughed out loud. She said it wasn’t a laugh line. The host corrected her and said it wasn’t MEANT to be a laugh line.
I’m still waiting for Lawrence O’Donnell of MSNBC to be fired for the devastating criticism he delivered over the press coverage of Trump’s “press conference.” He pointed out what a ridiculous, irresponsible performance reporters at this press conference put in essentially by asking stupid questions and doing no follow-up questions. I don’t think they will fire him immediately. They will wait until they can come up with some kind of excuse like they did with Keith Olbermann. Olbermann was an absolutely brilliant journalist and anchor who made MSNBC a lot of money. Firing him was one of the worst decisions they have ever made.
Note: Olbermann has a podcast that is well worth listening to.
Ukraine
Reuters (Faulconbridge, 8/14/24) is reporting that Ukraine is moving deeper into Russia. Note: I just do not see why the US will not give the Ukrainians the weapons it needs and the permission to win the war. It is infuriating to watch the country be destroyed because the US administration is too weak to allow Ukraine to respond appropriately to a Russian invasion. I was listening to a reporter on a podcast, talking about a conference of NGO’s and rich people talking about how to “reconstruct” Ukraine. You could hear the stress and frustration in her voice as she complained that we wouldn’t have to be having big conferences talking about plans of how to “reconstruct” Ukraine if we just gave them the weapons and the permission to win the war and stop it.)
- Thousands of Ukrainian troops went across the Russian border in the Kursk region on August 6.
- Putin called it a “major provocation.”
- The Ukrainian drone attack included four Russian airfields.
- There is a nuclear power plant about 22 miles from the fighting.
- Reuters is quoting Maria Butina, described now as a “Russian lawmaker” about the incursion. (Note: Jesus.)
- The inclusion forced nearly 200,000 Russians to evacuate the border regions.
- There are definite advantages of changing the narrative about the war. Western countries are changing focus, turning to the problems in the Middle East and Asia. Ukraine needed to demonstrate that it could mount a successful campaign to counter the widespread impression that the war had stale mated.
- Fears are, however, that Ukraine will need to weaken its defenses at other strategic points to fight the Russian incursion.
Domestic US News
- Ilhan Omar has won a much contested primary challenge fight for Minnesota’s house seat (USA Today, Pitofsky, 8/14/24).
- Two other progressives (Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush) lost their primary elections faced with tons of money to fund a challenger by pro-Israel sources.
International News Notes
- Turkey’s President Erdogan called Netanuahu a “bloodsucking vampire” and praised Hamas as an “organization of liberators.” (NYT, 8/14/24).
-
MONDAY 12 AUGUST 2024
MORNING NEWS NOTES: Trump hacked, Hamas says no to Thursday, arms to Middle East
Trump campaign hack, Iran threatens to attack, Ukraine incursion into Russia,
Election Hacking
The hacking into the 2016 election was not taken seriously, even by Obama, who knew about it at the time. So certain were he and the other establishment Democrats that Hillary was going to win, he reportedly told his staff that Hillary could deal with the problem after she was in office. I will never understand this and I will never forgive it. The Obama administration allowed Mitch McConnell to bully them out of telling the American people. I will never forgive them for that move either.
But, unfortunately, the Harris campaign has just brough on a new batch of former Clinton and Obama people. I can’t see how this will bode well. It always surprises me to see these political analysts on corporate television opining about how this or that campaign should conduct itself when they have been part of two or three major campaign losses.
The Guardian is reporting this morning that Microsoft released a report on Friday saying it had discovered evidence of Iranian hackers trying to break into the email account of a “high-ranking” official on the US presidential campaign. The U.S. has not confirmed that hacking took place (much like they did in 2016).
And, in 2016 the Trump campaign both solicited and accepted the hacking assistance from Russia.
(Note: There’s a beautiful, fat, proud, young cardinal male on our birdfeeder.)
Israel
The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) is reporting that the U.S. has sent a missile submarine to the Middle East as tensions grow about a possible attack by Iran directly on Israel (WSJ 8/12/24)l.
Israelis order more Gaza evacuations (Reuters)
Hamas has announced that it rejects an invitation to participate in an Egypt, Qatar and the US round of negotiations over Gaza planned for Thursday (Axios)
-
Iran has insisted on its right to an “appropriate and deterrent response” against Israel as the Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, told his US counterpart that Tehran was making preparations for a large-scale military attack.
It comes as the US announced it had ordered the deployment of the USS Georgia, a nuclear-powered guided-missile submarine, to the Middle East, amid mounting concern over the determination by Iran and its proxies to retaliate for Israel’s assassination of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, in Tehran.
With fears that an attack may be imminent, the Israel air force commander, Maj Gen Tomer Bar, issued an order forbidding career officers from travelling abroad for holidays, a day after it was reported that soldiers travelling in Georgia and Azerbaijan had been told to return to Israel immediately.Guardian 8/12/24
-
The Trump campaign has pointed to a report released Friday by Microsoft in which the company said it had discovered evidence that Iranian hackers had tried to break into the email account of a “high-ranking official” on a U.S. presidential campaign in June, which was around the same time Vance was selected as Donald Trump’s running mate.
The company has declined to name the campaign, but a person familiar with Microsoft’s work confirmed that the report’s reference was to the Trump campaign.
U.S. officials have not confirmed the campaign was hacked, and the campaign did not provide evidence of the breach or Iranian involvement.
Rep. Eric Swalwell (Calif.), a top Democrat on the House Homeland Security Committee’s cybersecurity subcommittee, said he was seeking a briefing from the Department of Homeland Security.
“Yes, Trump is the most despicable person ever to seek office. He also sought foreign hacking in a past election. But that doesn’t mean America ever tolerates foreign interference,” he posted on X.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, urged officials to quickly declassify any information on the possible foreign nature of the hack reported by the campaign. -
But on Friday, Kirby offered some of the sharpest and angriest criticism ever directed at a member of the Israeli government by an American official. While discussing efforts to secure a deal for the release of the hostages held in Gaza, Kirby said that Israel’s far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich will be responsible for the deaths of the hostages, among them American citizens.
Smotrich, a far-right extremist with an incredibly low approval rating among Israelis, has been a vocal opponent of the ongoing hostage negotiations. -
Law, Power, and Justice 