Cocks Coming Back Home to, well, not Roost, but to Gouge, Scratch, Cut, Swipe, Kill

Hmm, genocide and boat captains and mates murdered by accused sexual predator and alcohol abusing Cap’n Crunch Pete, a-okay, but cock fights in how many states, a federal crime?

This is yet more breaking news (sic) I have to contend with as I get ready to give a crowd a short-short master class on why media and the press are on life support with the plug almost completely pulled out by the, err, oligarchs, err, billionaires, err, multimillionaires?

Outlets that reach millions of news consumers are being denied access to rare briefings by Pentagon officials this week — sessions that are being held instead for Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s hand-picked media organizations.

It’s not as if there’s little to talk about, with both the Senate and House Armed Services committees opening investigations into U.S. military strikes against alleged drug couriers in the Caribbean Sea and eastern Pacific Ocean.

Hegseth’s team says the briefings are part of special orientation events for a newly credentialed Pentagon press corps, consisting primarily of conservative outlets that agreed to his new rules for operation. Pentagon press secretary Kingsley Wilson is due to meet reporters Tuesday and Hegseth will do so Wednesday.

Most mainstream outlets exited the Pentagon this fall rather than agree to the new rules. The Defense Department says they are “common sense” regulations designed to prevent the spread of classified information. Most news outlets are worried they would effectively be agreeing only to report news approved by Hegseth.

 

Oh, Google AI says only “underdeveloped nations let the cocks fight:

• Countries with legal cockfighting: Legal in some regions of India, Indonesia, the Philippines, and parts of Mexico. It is also a popular sport in Spain and certain Latin American countries.
• Countries where it is illegal: In contrast to the above, many developed nations like the United States and the United Kingdom have made it illegal due to animal welfare concerns. Colombia recently banned it along with bullfighting.

The origin of cockfighting dates back thousands of years, but it was during Ferdinand Magellan’s voyage to the Philippines in 1521 that modern cockfighting was first documented by his chronicler, Antonio Pigafetta, in the kingdom of Taytay. It’s a grisly and still-rampant blood sport, unnervingly present in the Volunteer State.

Most states banned cockfighting in the 19th century, and in the 21th century, Congress has made cockfighting a felony and banned it everywhere in the U.S. That federal legislative effort started in earnest in 2002 and it’s now a crime to fight animals in every part of the U.S. It’s also a crime to train birds for fighting, ship them across state, territorial or national lines, to traffic in the fighting weapons cockfighters attach to the birds’ legs, or to attend a fight or bring a minor to one.

Most recently a provision that outlawed cockfighting in the U.S. Territories was signed into law in the 2018 Farm Bill. We worked hard to secure the latest provision – banning animal fighting in the U.S. territories, including Puerto Rico and Guam – and it won bipartisan support from Reps. Scott DesJarlais, R-Jasper, Steve Cohen, D-Memphis, Chuck Fleischman, R- Ooltewah, Jim Cooper, D-Nashville, and then-Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Brentwood, who cast an ‘AYE’ vote to pass it.

Chickens . . . coming . . . home . . . to blowback, err, roost:

Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September.

“It is time to realize, however, that the real dangers to America today come not from the newly rich people of East Asia but from our own ideological rigidity, our deep-seated belief in our own propaganda.” ― Chalmers Johnson,Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire

Rahmanullah Lakanwal, who was arrested for shooting two National Guard soldiers last week in D.C., was briefly imprisoned in Afghanistan alongside other members of his Zero Unit team, according to five Afghan sources. The detention by local government forces came after Zero Units killed Afghan police forces in Kandahar they were supposed to be defending.

Notwithstanding their arrests, there were no longterm consequences for the Zero Units; the Afghan state had no authority over them and the Americans shielded them. During his few days in prison, which Lakanwal and his comrades had to face after the incident in Kandahar, they still received their pay from the CIA, sources said.

The CIA did not respond to a request for comment. Story by Emran Feroz and Abdul Rahman Lakanwal

The Ones We Left Behind

The Hmong ethnic group made up a large portion of the CIA’s “Secret Army” in Laos during the Vietnam War. The Hmongs conducted operations against the North Vietnamese Army and Vietcong guerrillas staging along the Ho Chi Minh trail, as well as against the Laotian Pathet Lao communists.

Hmong fighters were central to CIA operations between 1962 and 1975. Vast though they were, these ops were always regarded as secret. As a result, when the Pathet Lao rose to power, the CIA more or less disavowed the Secret Army.

 

A similar but more obscure story concerns Vietnam’s Degar people, better known as the Montagnards, a French term meaning “mountain people.” America’s collective amnesia about the Motagnards is odd, considering they featured prominently in stories by Time and in John Wayne’s The Green Berets.

The Montagnards are descendents of Polynesians who settled in Vietnam’s rugged central highlands. The Montagnards and Vietnamese never really got along. The mountain people sided with Saigon during the Vietnam War, but never trusted the southern regime.

Christ, it has been a while since I tuned into Aaron Mate and Katie Halper, and, well, no thanks. Their long  yammerings and side-mouthed jokes, well, not my cup of tequila these days, as I tire of the soft-shoeing so-called alt media and their secular attitudes. Have at it, though:

This America, the racists, along with France and Germany and UK and Israel (sic), so much pain and suffering in African countries, but now?

Chickens, uhh, coming back to roost? All those uniformed, err, soldiers of fortune, and blood lust hunters, uh? Hundreds of U.S. troops have been denied VA claims linked to 1980s duty in Panama amid toxic chemicals and Agent Orange remnants.

Steven Price grew up in Panama and enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1981. For his first base, he “signed up to go back home,” volunteering for duty at the Panama Canal Zone, where more than 10,000 soldiers were stationed in the 1980s.

He spent three and a half years in Panama, first as a radio operator and then as a linguist, deploying to Honduras and El Salvador. He was, he remembers, constantly amid toxic pesticides. To control insects, it the poisons were mixed with diesel to be sprayed from trucks. Duty in Panama also meant exposure to the remnants of herbicides, including Agent Orange, that had been routed through the bases in the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s on its way to combat in Vietnam.

Price left the Army in 1987. Now 66, Price is a 100% disabled veteran who was diagnosed with Chronic Lymphocytic Leukemia and Ischemic Heart Disease. In recent decades, Price and hundreds of other veterans of Panama discovered troubling information they were not privy to during their service, but became relevant as they were diagnosed with a range of health issues.

And where was he during the Obama Administration? Fred, come on, the country was always GOING backwards?

Fred Gray, who still practices law every day, will turn 95 a few days after the nation marks the 70th anniversary of the Montgomery Bus Boycott. But now, Gray worries that the progress he and so many others fought for against those problems is under threat and says that the nation is due for a second civil rights movement.

*****

This is the reality of Amerikkka, way before Ike’s Military Industrial Complex speech.

Rockefeller! Always something to do with those folk. Wall Street has overlooked a class of stocks that typically outperforms the market but is currently offering the best bargain in nearly 30 years, according to Ruchir Sharma, chair of Rockefeller International.

We are DEAD: There’s a ‘once-in-a-generation opportunity’ in these stocks right now, no matter how the AI boom ends, market veteran says

What is it about those chosen ones always sticking together?

Scarlett Johansson has defended her ongoing support for Woody Allen, who has been disavowed by much of the film industry over sexual abuse allegations made by his stepdaughter, Dylan Farrow.

The actress — who has starred in three movies directed by Allen in “Match Point,” “Scoop” and “Vicky Christina Barcelona” — is one of few names to have publicly stood by the filmmaker over the claims, first made in 1992 and brought up again in the wake of the #MeToo movement, claims that Allen has consistently denied and have been investigated and dismissed by New York authorities.

War, Wall Street, Worthless Workers, We the People: Oregon’s largest transit agency will reduce bus service on a handful of routes beginning Sunday. This is the first of three service cuts that Portland metro area’s TriMet expects to make over the next 13 months.

The immediate schedule change will reduce frequency on five bus lines after 7 p.m., when passenger loads are at their lowest. The lines affected are FX2, 35, 52, 77 and 81.

We can keep saying Banana Republic, but many I have been in have bus services!

Buses or bombs on our minds?

Service members’ uncertainty over whether they will be asked to carry out an illegal order or pressured to go against their training is likely to be exacerbated after The Washington Post and CNN late last week reported that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors aboard a boat allegedly carrying drugs in the Caribbean Sea this fall.

*****

Again, double taps:

White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt confirmed Monday that on Sept. 2, Hegseth authorized Adm. Frank Bradley to carry out a follow-up strike on an alleged drug boat in the Caribbean; the strike reportedly killed two people who were hanging onto the burning vessel, having survived an initial strike.

*****

Ghouls, man, these Anglo-Franco-Germanic-Saxon ghouls!

Klanada: Canada clinches deal to join Europe’s €150B defense scheme

“Welcome to SAFE, Canada!” Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said on social media. “When like-minded partners join forces on security and defence in a turbulent world, our countries grow stronger, our industries benefit and our citizens are safer.”

The timing aligns with a major SAFE milestone: Kubilius announced on X that all 19 participating EU countries had submitted their spending plans that will be financed by low interest SAFE loans.

He added that 15 members included support for Ukraine in their plans, involving “billions, not millions” — something the Commission has been keen to encourage.

*****

Lawyers, again and again, ruling the roost.

Fucking LAWYERS.

A federal appeals court said on Monday that Alina Habba had been serving unlawfully as the U.S. attorney in New Jersey, dealing a blow to the Trump administration and most likely setting up a showdown at the Supreme Court.

Ms. Habba is one of a number of U.S. attorneys whom the Trump administration has sought to keep in power through a series of unusual maneuvers even though she was neither confirmed by the Senate nor appointed by district trial court judges — the two traditional pathways. Defendants in New Jersey had challenged her authority as U.S. attorney, leading to Monday’s decision.

*****

Chickens coming home to, well, TikTok?

 

“Part of the problem for the shortage of manufacturing jobs is the lack of education and training. For example, learning to take a diesel engine out of a Ford Super Duty truck takes at least five years. The current system is not meeting the standard,” he noted.

Farley also pointed to the lack of investment in education for such jobs and lack of trade schools to conduct trainings. “We do not have trade schools. We are not investing in educating a next generation of people like my grandfather who had nothing, who built a middle-class life and a future for his family,” he felt.

CHICKENS coming home to ROOST?

Jews in Politics: At a campaign event in the Bronx last month, a congressional candidate quizzed a cheering crowd:

“What do you think would happen if the US ended all aid to Israel?”

At a Thanksgiving gathering with voters, another candidate in the same race fielded questions about affordability – but also about “moral leadership” when it came to Israel’s war in Gaza. A third candidate vying for the same seat devoted much of his campaign’s launch video to lambasting the current member of Congress representing the district over the funding he’s received from the pro-Israel lobby.

The incumbent in question – congressman Ritchie Torres – is one of the most staunchly pro-Israel advocates in Congress. Dalourny Nemorin, one of his challengers for the Democratic nomination to represent the district calls him the “poster boy” for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac. “Ritchie Torres cares more about Bibi than he does about the Bronx,” Michael Blake, another challenger, said in the launch video.

We are currently in the Age of Trump, where genocide in Gaza is unapologetically livestreamed. The Nobel Committee could have awarded the 2025 prize to Donald Trump or Benjamin Netanyahu, but the optics would have been too blatant. Instead, they selected a photogenic longtime war monger and coup collaborator, a full-throated proponent of violence, an habitual liar, a Trump sycophant, and an ardent Zionist.

That laureate is Venezuelan ultra-right politician María Corina Machado. As an added bonus for Washington, her award boosts the escalating US war against Venezuela. Marco Rubio, a senior US government official and key architect of the regime-change crusade, campaigned for her with the Nobel Committee. — Trump Commands Venezuela’s Heavens Closed

 

In striking contrast, the US Peace Prize – an arguably more honorable honor than the Nobel –was awarded on November 23 to Gerry Condon, a Veterans for Peace former president and current board member. He accepted the award “on behalf of many wonderful activists who work for peace and solidarity with people around the globe.”

Michael Knox, chair of the US Peace Memorial Foundation, presented the award. Since 2009, its honorees have included Christine Ahn, Ajamu Baraka, David Swanson, Ann Wright, Veterans For Peace, Kathy Kelly, CODEPINK, Chelsea Manning, Medea Benjamin, Noam Chomsky, Dennis Kucinich, and Cindy Sheehan.  — Roger D. Harris

 

Russia, anyone? China?

Maduro:

“I say it clearly to the world: The United States is planning to plunder Venezuelan oil… they want to seize the largest oil reserve in the world as if Venezuela were a land without a people.

That will not happen… not while I am leading this nation.”

Whitney Webb:

I’m excited to announce that Iain Davis’ new amazing book is available for pre-order via Papercut Publishing House, a new publishing company brought to you by Mark Goodwin and myself that will be publishing more books in the future as well as an upcoming Unlimited Hangout-affiliated print magazine.

Iain’s new book, due to print+ship later this month, is a masterpiece and a must read to understand the new “counter-elites” that have risen up on the wave of discontent of the Covid era and post-Covid era to ostensibly replace and challenge the previous crop of unelected elites. Using their own words and works, Iain artfully details the counter-elites’ philosophies, ambitions, and desired policies and what they actually portend, using their own words and writings as evidence for his arguments. Far from offering a favorable alternative to the digital tyranny that many rightfully oppose, these counter-elites have merely re-branded many of those same tyrannical policies, with the only meaningful difference being that they have optimized those policies even more for oligarchs like themselves. While many have worked to brand themselves as “libertarians,” their actual beliefs will shock you.

This is not populism and nothing these people offer is about promoting freedom, democracy or even free markets. All of those things will become relics of the past if the so-called counter-elites succeed. Iain has unmasked the would-be wardens of the digital gulag and there has never been a more important time to educate yourself about these dangerous ideas and just how intimately tied to the halls of power they have become.

 

Venezuelan citizens join local militias to defend their homeland from a US attack