The Evening Blues - 2-12-21



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Debbie Davies

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues guitarist Debbie Davies. Enjoy!

Debbie Davies - I Wonder Why

“Tell the innocent visitor from another world that two people were killed at Sarajevo, and that the best that Europe could do about it was to kill eleven million more.”

-- A.A. Milne


News and Opinion

Biden Says He Will Bring a ‘Responsible End to Wars’

Speaking at the Pentagon on Wednesday, President Biden said he will work with Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to bring a “responsible end” to US wars. “I will work with Secretary Austin and leaders around the world to bring a responsible end — a responsible end to wars that have dragged on for far too long, while continuing to ensure that terrorist threats cannot endanger the security of the American people.”

Biden’s comments come as he has an opportunity to end the almost 20-year-old war in Afghanistan. The US-Taliban peace deal signed in February 2020 paved the way for a May 1st withdrawal. While the administration hasn’t made an official announcement, all signs indicate that US troops will remain in Afghanistan beyond the deadline.

Biden’s language of bringing a “responsible” end to wars could mean he doesn’t think now is the right time to leave Afghanistan. Last week, a congressionally mandated report was released that warned against the May 1st withdrawal. The study repeated the usual talking points hawks use to justify staying in Afghanistan. It said the withdrawal would cause a civil war, even though fighting is raging now between the Taliban and the US-backed government. The only thing keeping US troops in Afghanistan beyond May 1st would accomplish is more US casualties.

Dems Plan To Make GOP PAY For Opposing Coronavirus Relief

Worth a full read:

Same Old Third Way

For a moment, it looked like the Democratic Party’s Wall Street-boosting think tanks might stop hawking austerity during the historic, deadly COVID-19 pandemic. “Clearly, there’s a need,” Jim Kessler, an executive vice president at Third Way, told the Washington Post last month in response to President Joe Biden’s first coronavirus relief proposal. ...

Unfortunately, everything has now gone back to normal: Third Way is boosting a campaign by billionaire-funded economists and millionaire TV pundits to deny $1,400 COVID survival checks to tens of millions of middle-class Americans. Meanwhile, its well-heeled executives are helping Republicans undermine the push to raise the minimum wage to $15. A few years ago, Third Way admitted that most of its funding comes from finance industry donors. Its corporate donors include PepsiCo, Facebook, and chemical giant Dow, according to company filings.

In late January, Third Way’s Kessler gave a ringing endorsement of a shoddy study by Opportunity Insights, a Harvard University think tank, that has been used to try to build the case for limiting direct payments to middle-class families. Opportunity Insights is funded by billionaire foundations, including one that has been a generous donor to Third Way — the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Opportunity Insights study found that middle and upper-class families didn’t immediately spend the entire $600 survival checks authorized by Congress in December. The economists used their findings to argue that survival checks should be cut off for individuals earning more than $50,000 per year and couples earning more than $75,000 per year. By comparison, the first two COVID survival checks of $1,200 and $600 were sent in full to individuals who made less than $75,000 per year and couples who made less than $150,000. The changes they recommended could deny or reduce aid to nearly half of Americans, according to census data.

As the American Prospect’s David Dayen and economist Claudia Sahm pointed out earlier this week, the study has massive flaws that were never disclosed in any of the articles hyping its findings.

David Sirota: Neera Tanden's Mean Tweets DISTRACT From Her Corporate Corruption

Medicare for All the 'Only Way Forward,' Concludes Lancet Panel in Study Detailing Death and Misery Inflicted by Trump

A panel of policy experts and medical professionals convened to examine the healthcare legacy of Donald Trump concluded in a detailed report released Thursday morning that the former president's sweeping regulatory rollbacks and full-scale assault on America's already decimated public health infrastructure severely undermined the nation's fight against Covid-19 and caused tens of thousands of preventable deaths.

Described as the first comprehensive look at the consequences of the former president's four years of corporate-friendly privatization efforts, deep cuts to public health programs, and abandonment of international cooperation in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic, the new study by the Lancet Commission on Public Policy and Health in the Trump Era argues that while the Republican's tenure was in some ways uniquely destructive, his agenda built upon years of "damaging neoliberal policies" pursued by his predecessors.

"The disturbing truth is that many of President Trump's policies do not represent a radical break with the past but have merely accelerated the decades-long trend of lagging life expectancy that reflects deep and long-standing flaws in U.S. economic, health, and social policy," reads the report, the product of years of research by dozens of leading health experts from the U.S., U.K., and Canada.

The 49-page assessment notes that while Trump and his GOP allies failed in their effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the number of U.S. residents without health insurance coverage soared by 2.3 million during the former president's first three years in office largely due to his assault on Medicaid, a program that has long been in the crosshairs of Republican lawmakers.

"Over the past four years," the report notes, "the Trump administration gradually advanced its market-based agenda, including efforts to divert funds from the Veterans Health Administration (VA) to purchase private care for veterans and, most prominently, by pushing forward the creeping privatization of Medicare that started with the Reagan administration."

The Trump administration's sprawling attack on America's public health programs helped set the stage for the White House's disastrous response to the coronavirus pandemic, which hit the nation after many of the former president's healthcare rollbacks had taken their toll, leaving millions of additional Americans vulnerable to the virus and its widespread economic consequences. As of this writing, the virus has killed more than 471,000 people in the U.S.

"Instead of galvanizing the U.S. populace to fight the pandemic," the report states, "President Trump publicly dismissed its threat (despite privately acknowledging it), discouraged action as infection spread, and eschewed international cooperation. His refusal to develop a national strategy worsened shortages of personal protective equipment and diagnostic tests."

Stressing that the Trump administration impacted public health through a variety of means, the Lancet panel's study estimates that the former president's gutting of environmental regulations was responsible for 22,000 excess deaths in 2019 alone.

Trump's massive tax cuts for the rich and corporations, moreover, contributed to decades of soaring income and wealth inequality, a trend that has further stratified U.S. society and left large segments of the population unable to afford the basic necessities of life—including adequate healthcare, food, and housing. The commission also pointed to the president's racism, xenophobia, and attacks on women's reproductive rights as immensely damaging to U.S. public health.

Beginning to undo some of the devastation inflicted by Trump and those who laid the groundwork for his ascendancy will require much more than a return to a status quo under which tens of millions were uninsured, hungry, and poor, the experts behind the study argue.

"Trump's disastrous actions compounded longstanding failures in health policy in the USA," said panel member Dr. Kevin Grumbach, Hellman Endowed Professor and Chair of the Department of Family and Community Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. "We know what it will take to create a healthy society. We just need the political will to do it."

Among the panel's list of policy recommendations is Medicare for All, a system that would "cover all residents under a single, federally financed plan providing comprehensive coverage" at a lower cost than the current fragmented, for-profit system. President Joe Biden opposes Medicare for All and has instead proposed more incremental reforms like a public option, an approach the commission warns would leave many with "onerous co-pays... and deductibles, and millions of people would remain uninsured."

Ralph Nader on Corporate Crime, Holding Boeing Accountable for 737 MAX Deaths & Biden’s First Weeks

US buys 200m Covid-19 vaccine doses as Biden says Trump 'did not do his job'

The US has finalized an order for 200m more vaccine doses – 100m doses each from Pfizer and Moderna – to be delivered by the end of July, Joe Biden confirmed on Monday.

Speaking at the National Institutes of Health on Thursday, the president touted his team’s early efforts to expand access to coronavirus vaccines, and criticized Donald Trump’s strategy for distributing vaccines, saying the last administration did not order enough doses or mobilize enough people to administer shots.

“While scientists did their job in discovering vaccines in record time, my predecessor – I’ll be very blunt about it – did not do his job in getting ready for the massive challenge of vaccinating hundreds of millions,” Biden said.

With demand for the vaccine far outstripping supply, Americans are struggling to get appointments for their inoculations, leaving Biden with an acute problem less than a month after taking over from Trump.

Top Republicans call for Cuomo's ouster following nursing home revelation

New York Republicans assailed Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s administration on Thursday night in response to new revelations about his stonewalling the release of information about nursing home deaths, with several calling for him to resign or be impeached.

The New York Post reported that top gubernatorial staffer Melissa DeRosa told Democratic state legislators in a meeting on Wednesday that the administration “froze” when asked to release data about the number of nursing home residents who had died of Covid-19. A March directive from Cuomo calling on nursing homes to admit patients who tested positive for the coronavirus has been blamed for contributing to high death rates.

DeRosa said the administration resisted the release of data because of former President Donald Trump’s attempts to turn the tragedy “into a giant political football,” according to the Post. “Because then we were in a position where we weren’t sure if what we were going to give to the Department of Justice, or what we give to you guys, what we start saying, was going to be used against us while we weren’t sure if there was going to be an investigation," DeRosa said, according to the Post.

Nearly every top Republican in the state pounced on the Post's report, subjecting Cuomo to a barrage of criticism arguably unparalleled at any point during his decade in office. "For over six months, day after day, in briefing after briefing, Governor Cuomo stood before New Yorkers and lied about his directive that contributed to the deaths of thousands of seniors,” said Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro, Cuomo’s 2018 challenger. “In the coming days he will cynically try to convince us that it was for our own good — that it was someone else's fault. This is another lie. What is true, is Andrew Cuomo has proved himself unworthy of our trust, and unfit for public office."

“Prosecution and impeachment discussions must begin right away,” state GOP Chair Nick Langworthy said.

Brazil: missionaries 'turning tribes against coronavirus vaccine'

Medical teams working to immunise Brazil’s remote indigenous villages against the coronavirus have encountered fierce resistance in some communities where evangelical missionaries are stoking fears of the vaccine, say tribal leaders and advocates.

On the São Francisco reservation in the state of Amazonas, Jamamadi villagers sent health workers packing with bows and arrows when they visited by helicopter this month, said Claudemir da Silva, an Apurinã leader representing indigenous communities on the Purus river, a tributary of the Xingú.

“It’s not happening in all villages, just in those that have missionaries or evangelical chapels where pastors are convincing the people not to receive the vaccine, that they will turn into an alligator and other crazy ideas,” he said by phone.

That has added to fears that Covid-19 could roar through Brazil’s more than 800,000 indigenous people, whose communal living and often precarious healthcare make them a priority in the national immunisation program.

Biden Seeks Julian Assange Extradition

US government appeals UK ruling against Julian Assange's extradition

The US government has appealed a UK judge’s ruling against the extradition of the WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange, according to a justice department official.

The appeal made clear that Joe Biden intends to have Assange stand trial on espionage- and hacking-related charges over WikiLeaks’ publication of hundreds of thousands of US military and diplomatic documents.

The justice department had until Friday to file an appeal against the ruling on 4 January that Assange suffered mental health problems that would raise the risk of suicide were he extradited to the US for trial.

“Yes, we filed an appeal and we are continuing to pursue extradition,” a justice department spokesperson, Marc Raimondi, told AFP.

Chicago's Black and Hispanic police use force less than white officers – study

Chicago’s Black and Hispanic officers carry out fewer stops and arrests and use force less often compared to their white colleagues under the same working conditions, new research suggests.

In the populous, diverse midwestern city, such marked differences in officer behavior represent a promising sign that transforming the demographic composition of police departments could improve how US law enforcement interacts with minority communities.

“There’s clear evidence that deploying officers of different demographic profiles to the same environment will lead to different treatments of civilians,” Dean Knox, an assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, said in a briefing about his and his co-author’s new article in the journal Science. ...

By contrasting actions taken by Chicago police working the same patrol assignments, shifts, days of the week and months between 2012 and 2015, Mummolo’s team was able to perform a relatively apples-to-apples comparison between officer groups from different demographic profiles.

Their analysis found that Black officers made about 15 fewer stops – including fewer discretionary stops, such as for “suspicious behavior” – than white officers in the same working conditions per 100 shifts, a dramatic drop in enforcement activity.

Hispanic officers also executed fewer stops, while Black, Hispanic and female officers all made fewer arrests and used force less often than their white counterparts.

Another day, another outrage:

Charges dropped against Buffalo police who shoved 75-year-old protester to the ground

Criminal charges have been dropped against two police officers seen on video last spring shoving a 75-year-old protester to the ground in Buffalo, New York, prosecutors said Thursday.

A grand jury declined to indict the Buffalo officers Robert McCabe and Aaron Torgalski on felony assault charges, ending the matter, said John Flynn, the Erie County district attorney. ...

The case concerned the longtime activist Martin Gugino, who was shoved by officers clearing an area of the city from demonstrators protesting the police killing of George Floyd last June. New cameras covering the protests captured the incident on video, which subsequently went viral and sparked widespread outrage.

Gugino, pushed backward, started bleeding after hitting his head on the pavement. He spent about a month in the hospital with a fractured skull and brain injury.

Wisconsin judge sides with fascists and denies motion for rearrest and bail increase for killer Rittenhouse

On Thursday, a Wisconsin circuit court judge denied a request by Kenosha prosecutors for a warrant to rearrest and increase the bail of the fascist killer Kyle Rittenhouse by $200,000. The motion was filed after it was revealed that the teenage shooter had violated his release agreement by concealing his whereabouts from the court. Judge Bruce E. Schroeder abruptly shut down the virtual hearing after he sided with Rittenhouse and his attorney Mark Richards and repeatedly interrupted Assistant District Attorney (ADA) Thomas Binger’s attempt to explain that the accused murderer was “thumbing his nose” at the terms of his bond. ...

Although Judge Schroeder permitted Rittenhouse’s victims to speak, it became clear in the course of the hearing that he had absolutely no intention of ruling in favor of the ADA’s motion against the right-wing shooter. In the noteworthy conclusion to his ruling, Judge Schroeder acknowledged that Rittenhouse was in violation of the court order regarding his whereabouts and demanded that the residence of the accused shooter be disclosed. However, Judge Schroeder ruled that this information was only to be provided to himself and the Kenosha County Sheriff’s office. It was to be kept concealed from ADA Binger, “unless you offer good reason” to have it, the judge said.

In justifying this extraordinary decision, Schroeder expressed his hostility to the protesters against police violence that Rittenhouse has been charged with firing upon, wounding and killing. Claiming he wanted to keep everyone “safe,” Schroeder went on a diatribe, saying, “You remember what went on six months ago here? I’ve got two broken windows right here in this courtroom. The doors are all still covered with plywood. A good share of the community is still boarded up after millions of dollars of property damage in this ghastly event.”

Given that a survivor of Rittenhouse’s shooting spree of death and permanent injury was in the hearing, these were very revealing statements as to the political sympathies of Judge Schroeder.

Adam Schiff’s Tough-On-Crime Background Complicates His Push to Be California AG

As California Gov. Gavin Newsom considers who to appoint as attorney general, criminal and racial justice groups are pushing back against Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff’s pitch for the job, citing his record of being “not only supportive of, but deeply invested in, creating our current system of incarceration.”

Schiff is lobbying Newsom to be appointed as the state’s next attorney general, with help from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as first reported by Axios. The House Intelligence Committee chair rose to national stardom for his role leading former President Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial.

Early this month, as rumors swirled that Schiff was being considered for the role, 36 criminal and social justice groups wrote an open letter to Newsom expressing their “strong opposition” to Schiff’s appointment. The letter cited Schiff’s record authoring and supporting legislation that would have grown the system of mass incarceration and increased the criminalization of poverty, both as a California state senator from 1996 to 2001 and as a U.S. representative since 2001. Signatories include the Black Lives Matter Los Angeles and Long Beach chapters, the Anti Police-Terror Project, the California Public Defenders Association, the National Lawyers Guild San Francisco Bay Area chapter, and Sunrise Movement Los Angeles.

“We are standing at a crossroads of either advancing progressive justice reform or really entrenching systemic and institutional racism, classism, and oppression,” Melinah Abdullah, co-founder of Black Lives Matter Los Angeles, a professor and former chair of the department of Pan-African Studies at California State University, Los Angeles, and one of the signatories, told The Intercept. “And we believe that Adam Schiff represents the latter.”

Nathan J. Robinson, Fired for a Tweet



the horse race



Impeachment Trial: Democrats Warn That Trump Would Use Political Violence Again If Not Convicted

Impeachment trial: Democrats rest case with warning that Trump remains a threat

House impeachment managers rested their case against Donald Trump on Thursday, concluding that the deadly Capitol assault he stands accused of inciting was the culmination of a presidency beset by lies and violent rhetoric, and warning gravely that he would remain a threat to American democracy if not convicted and barred from holding future office.

With an impassioned appeal to the senators, who are serving as both jurors and witnesses to the alleged “high crime” at the heart of Trump’s second impeachment, the nine managers chosen to prosecute the House’s case declared Trump “overwhelmingly guilty” of inciting the 6 January riot.

“If you think this is not impeachable, what is? What would be?” congressman Jamie Raskin, the lead impeachment manager, asked the senators seated silently before him. “If you don’t find this a high crime and misdemeanor today, you have set a new, terrible standard for presidential misconduct in the United States of America.”

Over the course of two days, they offered a methodical account of Trump’s months-long campaign to convince his supporters the election had been stolen. When all other attempts to overturn his electoral defeat failed, Trump summoned his loyal supporters to Washington for a rally on 6 January, his last stand. Hours before Congress met to certify Joe Biden’s victory that day, Trump exhorted the crowd to “fight like hell” and “stop the steal”.

“When President Trump stood up at that podium on 6 January, he knew that many in that crowd were inflamed, were armed, were ready for violence,” said the congressman Joe Neguse, one of the managers. “It was an explosive situation and he knew it.”

Where Are the Witnesses? Ralph Nader Says Democrats’ Impeachment Case Is “Prescription for Defeat”

Analysis Reveals Trump Operation Paid $3.5 Million to Organizers of Rally That Led to Deadly Capitol Attack

A new political spending analysis released Wednesday shows that former President Donald Trump's 2020 campaign and its joint fundraising committees paid more than $3.5 million to the individuals and firms involved in organizing the January 6 "Stop the Steal" rally that presaged the deadly attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Investigators at OpenSecrets, a project of the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics that examines how money influences U.S. elections and public policy, analyzed recent Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings and found "newly identified payments... [that] show people involved in organizing the protests on January 6 received even larger sums from Trump's 2020 campaign than previously known."

The findings come in the midst of the Senate impeachment trial that will determine whether or not Trump will be convicted for inciting the violent insurrection carried out by a mob of his supporters.

Anna Massoglia, one of the campaign finance researchers who unearthed more than $3.5 million in direct payments from the then-president's political operation to the January 6 organizers, wrote that there are "unanswered questions about the full extent of [Trump's] ties" to the incendiary demonstration that preceded the pro-Trump mob's invasion of the halls of Congress.

"Recent FEC filings show at least three individuals listed on permit records for the Washington, D.C. demonstration were on the Trump campaign's payroll through November 30, 2020," Massoglia noted. "The Trump campaign paid Event Strategies Inc., a firm named in a permit for the rally that also employed two individuals involved in the demonstration, as recently as December 15, just three weeks before the attacks on the U.S. Capitol."

And yet, "because the campaign used an opaque payment scheme that concealed details of hundreds of millions of dollars in spending by routing payments through shell companies where the ultimate payee is hidden," Massoglia wrote, "the American public may never know the full extent of the Trump campaign's payments to organizers involved in the protests." ...

Despite their attempts "to distance themselves from the rally," the Associated Press reported last month that members of the Trump campaign "played key roles in orchestrating the Washington rally that spawned a deadly assault on the U.S. Capitol... undercutting claims the event was the brainchild of the president's grassroots supporters."

In a statement shared with AP, Trump's failed reelection campaign claimed that it "did not organize, operate, or finance the event," and that if any former employees or independent contractors participated, "they did not do so at the direction of the Trump campaign."

The AP's review of records, however, found evidence to the contrary. Megan Powers, whose LinkedIn profile said she was still the Trump campaign's director of operations into January 2021, "was listed as one of the two operations managers for the January 6 event." And "at least three of the Trump campaign aides named on the permit rushed to obscure their connections to the demonstration."

WashPo Blames Capitol Protest On Economic Despair

GOP Senators Accused of Violating Oaths by Meeting With Trump Lawyers During Trial

Provoking criticism that ranged from "jury tampering" and "another violation of their oath" to "such bullshit," multiple Republican senators met with Donald Trump's attorneys late Thursday—the third day of the former president impeachment trial over his incitement of the January 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol.

"We were discussing their legal strategy and sharing our thoughts," said Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), according to CNN correspondent Manu Raju, who reported that Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Mike Lee (R-Utah) also participated in the meeting.

When asked by Raju whether it was appropriate to meet with the senators, who are jurors, Trump lawyer David Schoen said: "I think that's the practice of impeachment. There's nothing about this thing that has any semblance of due process whatsoever."

Krystal Ball: Is Biden's Son-In-Law Trying To CASH IN On The Coronavirus Crisis?



the evening greens


'A clear danger': oil spill in California city revives calls to cut ties with Chevron

Emergency crews in Richmond, California, are rushing to clean up an estimated 600 gallons of oil that spilled from a Chevron refinery into the San Francisco Bay. Details on the spill are still scant, but the emergency has reinvigorated calls from residents and environmentalists for the city to change its relationship with the refinery.

The spill at the Chevron Wharf, which poured unabated for nearly two hours on Tuesday, cast a brownish sheen across the waters of the north-eastern part of the bay where harbor seals haul out, migratory birds skim the water, and residents live and recreate. ...

Sprawling across close to 3,000 acres on the peninsula hillsides overlooking the Pacific, Chevron’s Richmond refinery churns out 245,000 barrels of crude oil a day. The refinery is older than the city itself, which is located 12 miles from San Francisco and counts roughly 110,000 residents. Tuesday’s spill is just the latest incident in a long history of environmental and public health hazards associated with the oil company in Richmond.

The refinery is one of California’s largest polluters, casting toxins into the sky and sea even during normal operations. State records show the refinery released nearly the same amount of greenhouse gas emissions in 2018 that it did a decade prior.

In 2012, an explosion released black clouds of toxic smoke into the air that sent more than 15,000 people to the hospital. In the last five years, the refinery has been hit with 147 formal enforcement actions, according to documents from the US Environmental Protection Agency. Late last year, Chevron agreed to a settlement with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District for 29 violations issued between 2016 and 2018. Recent increases in flaring – when excess gases are burned off – have also caused community concern.

California's rainfall is at historic lows. That spells trouble for wildfires and farms

There’s a race on in California, and each day matters: the precipitation during winter that fuels the snowpack in the Sierra Nevada and fills groundwater supplies has been slow to start, and faltering at best.

Northern California remains stuck in one of the worst two-year rainfall deficits seen since the 1849 Gold Rush, increasing the risk of water restrictions and potentially setting up dangerous wildfire conditions next summer. The current precipitation is only 30% to 70% of what the state would expect to have seen during a normal year – with no more big rainfall events on the horizon for February.

Precipitation in the form of rain – and snowfall at higher elevations – is critical because it refills reservoirs, packs away snow for spring runoff to feed drier parts of the state, and helps stem the risk of wildfires. It also allows California’s agriculture to continue producing important crops.

This year, the state saw a very delayed start to its annual rainy season, which is typically heaviest from January to March. Wildfires sparked as late as January. It’s a sign that the window of time where rainfall and snow can add to the state’s water reserves is shrinking, says John Abatzoglou, a climatology researcher at the University of California, Merced – and that window may be even narrower in the future.

A study published this week showed that the onset of rains each fall has shifted back by a month over the past 60 years. That corresponds as well to drier fall weather, and an increase in the chance for fires to have devastating impacts, Abatzoglou says. Most of the state’s water comes from an astonishingly low number of precipitation events – just three to five winter storms do the work of building up the snowpack and filling reservoirs. That makes California uniquely vulnerable. “In years where you miss out on one or two of those, you’re probably going to struggle to get close to normal,” says Abatzoglou.

Study Warns Emissions Cuts Must Be 80% More Ambitious to Meet Even the Dangerously Inadequate 2°C Target

A new study warns that countries' pledges to reduce planet-heating emissions as part of the global effort to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement must be dramatically scaled up to align with even the deal's less ambitious target of keeping temperature rise below 2°C—though preferably 1.5°C—by the end of the century.

A pair of researchers at the University of Washington found that the country-based rate of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions cuts should increase by 80% beyond current nationally determined contributions (NDCs)—the term for each nation's pledge under the Paris agreement—to meet the 2°C target.

The study, published Tuesday in the journal Communications Earth & Environment, adds to the mountain of evidence that since the Paris agreement—which also has a bolder 1.5°C target—was adopted in late 2015, countries around the world have not done enough to limit human-caused global heating.

"On current trends, the probability of staying below 2°C of warming is only 5%, but if all countries meet their nationally determined contributions and continue to reduce emissions at the same rate after 2030, it rises to 26%," the study says. "If the USA alone does not meet its nationally determined contribution, it declines to 18%."

"To have an even chance of staying below 2°C," the study continues, "the average rate of decline in emissions would need to increase from the 1% per year needed to meet the nationally determined contributions, to 1.8% per year."


Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Are We Watching the Trial of Trump or the Invisible Hand of the Koch Machine?

Maine Hospital Vaccinates Out-of-State Union-Busters as Vulnerable Residents Forced to Wait

Freedom Rider: Forced Labor in the U.S.

Fight to vote: the escalating attack on US voting rights

'It Is Not a Budget Item,' Democrat Kyrsten Sinema Falsely Says as She Joins Joe Manchin in Opposing $15 Wage

Afghanistan - Bounties - Silly Talk

The Guardian Reveals Its True Face by Sacking Progressive Columnist Nathan Robinson for Criticizing US Military Aid To Israel

'If white people were still here, this wouldn’t happen': the majority-Black town flooded with sewage

Dramatic discovery links Stonehenge to its original site – in Wales

Chick Corea, Grammy-winning jazz musician, dies at 79

Saagar Enjeti: TENS OF THOUSANDS Leave GOP After January 6

Rising: The View AMBUSHES Van Jones For Working With Trump On Criminal Justice

Ken Klippenstein EXPOSES Hypocrisy Of HALF BILLION National Guard Deployment To DC

Krystal and Saagar: Media BOOSTS QAnon To Save Failing Ratings

Krystal and Saagar: Majority Of Americans For FIRST TIME Say US System Of Government Not Sound


A Little Night Music

Debbie Davies - Howlin' At The Moon

Debbie Davies - Done Sold Everything

Debbie Davies - Blue And Lonesome

Debbie Davies - If You Love Me Like You Say

Debbie Davies - Tryin' To Keep It Real

Debbie Davies - All I Found

Joe Louis Walker & Debbie Davies - 747

Debbie Davies - 24 Hour Fool

Albert Collins, Johnny Gayden and Debbie Davies - Black Cat Bone

Albert Collins & Debbie Davies - I Ain't Drunk (I'm Just Drinkin')


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Comments

Lookout's picture

...but at least we're avoiding the ice storms to our north and west. We got 0.6" of cold rain yesterday and today. Can handle that lots better than ice.

The impeachment theater isn't really interesting to me. Partisans love or hate it according to their perspective. Moot anyway.

Trumps more real crime?

On Thursday, the British medical journal The Lancet published its official report, three years in the making, on the Trump administration’s health care record.

The report is, appropriately, dominated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The Lancet found the Trump administration directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of people during the pandemic, and that over 200,000 people would still be alive if the United States had a COVID-19 mortality rate similar to that of other developed countries.
...
The Lancet concludes, “The disturbing truth is that many of President Trump’s policies do not represent a radical break with the past but have merely accelerated the decades-long trend of lagging life expectancy that reflects deep and longstanding flaws in US economic, health, and social policy. These flaws are not only evident in faltering longevity … but also in the widening gaps in mortality across social class.”

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/02/12/pers-f12.html

We did get a (Moderna) vaccine yesterday. our big news on a personal level. Must admit my arm is a little sore today, but improving. Hope to return to my music scene in April or so.

Thanks for the music and news. Onward we go through the fog. I wish us all the best given the circumstances. Have a good one anyway!

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10 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

@Lookout Most of my friends only had minor pain with the first shot. We are coming up on our second dose and so far most people say it is far worse. Expect aches and chills for about 6-12 hours. Not looking forward to that next week.

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7 users have voted.
Lookout's picture

@Mickt

better than COVID however.

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7 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

snoopydawg's picture

@Mickt

Said he felt a little faint, but that was all. Or he could have been hungry. With him who knows, but he said he feels fine.

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@Lookout

it's pretty chilly here, down in the low 20's. we are supposed to get some more snow tomorrow, though not much. maybe later next week we will get some of that nasty ice that they've been getting south of us. i guess i better hit the grocery store again this weekend.

the impeachment theatre isn't all that interesting to me since it's being used for partisan purposes rather than to address the issues that trump created. i really don't have a dog in this fight since i'd be delighted to see both parties dry up and blow away.

one of the kids got his second shot a couple of days ago. it was harder on him than the first shot, but he was back to normal the next day. not a big deal in the scheme of things.

i hope all goes well for you guys.

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4 users have voted.

back in the Prescott, AZ daze.
She spelled it with one b.
From Ohio. Govt. worker
in the water branch
in the high desert.
Go figure.

Tryin' to keep it real -- good!
thanks Joe

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7 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

have a great weekend!

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3 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

a great weekend! Here in Chitown I'm gearing up for record low temps w/more snow on the way. After having an extrememly mild DEC/JAN, Feb has brought upon us a pretty bad winter.

But temps aren't the only chilly shit going down these days

and

https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/li8r9x/remember_when_the_...

https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/limegl/for_wall_street_me...

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21 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

joe shikspack's picture

@ggersh

i hope that you're staying warm and toasty.

tracey is right, impeachment might have been a great remedy for trump's criminally bad handling of the covid emergency or any number of other things. hopefully, cuomo will get impeached for his failures and cover-up.

thanks for the amusing stuff. these were pretty good, too:


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10 users have voted.
Azazello's picture

From The Saker: The headless chicken and the bear
In case you had forgotten: What Collapsed the Middle Class

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13 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

Lookout's picture

@Azazello

of the failure of Russiagate. The bear will smack the headless chicken. Thanks.

The death of the middle class has been on going for decades.

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8 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Pricknick's picture

@Azazello
Maybe somebody here can figure out a translation for this part:
https://vva.mil.ru/upload/site21/Ndz0E2BEpk.pdf
I've been trying for the last two days and can't find a translation.

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5 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Azazello's picture

@Pricknick
Theory and Practice of something or other.

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5 users have voted.

We wanted decent healthcare, a living wage and free college.
The Democrats gave us Biden and war instead.

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

thanks for the links.

i thought that the collapse of the middle class article was very well put together. thanks and have a great weekend!

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5 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

It’s a synopsis of Putin's speech at Davos and how he told them to shove their great reset.

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/great-reset-putin-says-not-so-fast

Lots of yada yada about why DeJoy HAS to go, but not too many WHY is he still there and what happened to the bill from democrats that was going to roll back the 2006 future funding requirements. Democrats are not doing anything that they said they would nor are they doing much that is different from what Trump did.

I’m going trolling for outrage. IF I find any I’ll report back.

Smile

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7 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

And it’s not bad. Not sure how much is true but it makes sense.

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4 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

mimi's picture

I can say other than I feel everything is FUBAR. I don't want to add to that condition by making lousy comments. Biden is a tragedy to watch moving into the same old, same old directions and certainly by that he saves the American soul, the way we know it to be. Soul in an ice box.

Change of the soul ... if we just had it.
[video:https://youtu.be/JuFAwcoG8VI]

Stay all healthy, warm and well fed and have a good night.

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9 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

thanks for the tune!

yeah, i don't expect biden to "save the soul of america," either. but he does emote well.

have a great weekend.

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3 users have voted.
Benny's picture

Hadn't heard of the featured artist before. I'll have to check her other stuff out.

Free-flow comments from me. One is that Jim Hightower had Marcia Ball on his Chat and Chew show that you can find on Free Speech TV. I saw it on FB, and I thought they were going to talk more politics, so I asked them what they thought about the NRA moving to Tejas. He read my question, but decided to ask Marcia more about her musical background and some songs about Molly Ivins.

This tweet made me smile.

Have a good evenin' everyone.

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9 users have voted.

One equal temper of heroic hearts, Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will. To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.--Tennyson

joe shikspack's picture

@Benny

debbie davies was albert collins' rhythm guitarist for quite a while. she has some serious chops if you are into guitar blues. there's a ton of her material up on youtube.

i think that i'd probably rather talk to marcia ball about music than politics, too. Smile

i am also proud to say that i am not a friend of the war criminal henry kissinger as well. it's something that most of the world can take pride in.

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6 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

Chick Corea RIP:

be well and have a good one

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9 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris

Return to forever..

[video:https://youtu.be/15IHNYq6stw]

had that sound to stimulate the brain

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8 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

thanks for the tune!

have a great weekend!

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6 users have voted.

@enhydra lutris hi, the conversation over on HN sorta devolved on to a discussion about grief bacon, but there was also a link to this recording of Chick painting personality portraits on the piano keys. Genius, I think.

Chick makes a spontaneous composition for two audience members
[video:https://youtu.be/iVsWELIJ96o width:500]

Peace and Love
and Music
thank you

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6 users have voted.

Van de Veen's, previous job was as a Personal Injury Lawyer in Philly.

Jake Tapper said this guy usually is representing bicyclists hit by vehicles on the Shuchyil sp? Expressway.

He seemed like a thug to me. In constant attack mode.

Trump reportedly very pleased. A constitutionally ignorant president represented by a similarly ignorant lawyer. Perfect.

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10 users have voted.

NYCVG

joe shikspack's picture

@NYCVG

heh, it sounds like trump got appropriate representation, then. i guess that's good.

oh, it's schuylkill. (pronounced skookll in philly)

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5 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

but congress has no shame. None.

We won’t let you have MFA, but in case you die...

Are you kidding? Too much money involved for it to just go poof.

Speaking of not being embarrassed. This wasn’t the worst one either.

Bets on Cuomo going to prison? Now if this had happened in Russia....

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8 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i guess that it's nice that aoc and chuckie went in together on a nice gift for the funeral industry. usually our government focuses on enriching the foreign funeral industry, but gosh i'm so happy that they are putting america first. i suppose that their generosity would be diminished if they actually did something to limit the viral spread or immunize the public rapidly.

biden/devos 2024!

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4 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

1st the bailouts and subsidies for Blackstone, then the ACA, more tax cuts on top of all the other ones, another huge transfer of money, and now each industry is getting subsidized till they can go completely private. Yee haw.

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4 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/12/nyregion/new-york-nursing-homes-cuomo...

Cynthia Nixon opposed NY Gov. Cuomo in 2018. She lost, but Nixon got 1/2 million votes, more than Cuomo and his opponent in 2104 Zephyr Teachout combined, received. That was the beginning.

Also, In 2018 AOC shocked the country with her defeat of Joe Crowley. Every election since, the Progressives in NYC and State have gained strength. Now, the NY State Assembly and the NY State Senate have veto-proof Supermajorities, and King Cuomo II, no longer the super-hero of Covid that he pretends to be, is on the ropes. The Progressive movement is removing and eroding his power bit by bit.

Before I write or read another whining essay about how lame this country is and how overwhelming the odds are against change when the rot is so deep, I will remember what is happening right here in my beloved City.

If I believed that a total collapse of the American Empire would bring about a revolution that would restore justice and a better life for all of us, then I'd despise incrementalism as much as so many here do. But I'd be hard pressed to think when in history that has happened. If you can, please share.

Local ground up action is what will make a difference. Take the Cities. Take the States. Govern the state when a census comes around again. Fix the gerrymandering. Bit by bit make the change.

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11 users have voted.

NYCVG

snoopydawg's picture

Brunch might get interrupted if they notice this news.

They have privatized almost every service in prisons that used to be free. No more books just kindles. Now no more mail, but whatever will be worse, but can cost prisoners money.

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11 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i guess that the thirteenth amendment is going to need an update.

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4 users have voted.
dystopian's picture

Hi all, Hope everyone is doing well!

Hey Joe where ya goin' with that horned fur helmet in your hand? Wink Been too busy lately. That John Lee Hooker was awesome, what a pioneer of a player. Thanks for all the work and great sounds! Have a great weekend.

Be well all!

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7 users have voted.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

joe shikspack's picture

@dystopian

Hey Joe where ya goin' with that horned fur helmet in your hand?

heh, i'm off to the water buffalo lodge to see the grand poobah. Smile

have a great weekend!

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5 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

What did we read about last night with social media going through the courts? This seems to fit here.

5B967EED-5A8D-49AD-BBEA-DC8AA0F7D1AF.jpeg

Pelosi looked at that fight and ran away from it and sold us out instead. Schumer, Feinstein, McConnell and a slew of other congress swamp creatures that have served in congress for decades getting rich, richer and more evil every year. They all took part in the dismantling of the United States. Job well done I’d say.

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9 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

i hope that letitia james is one hell of a litigator. she has certainly chosen a well-armed opponent.

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3 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

and then add in the Uber crap out of California I think it’s pretty much game over for worker’s rights here. Or damn near the end.

I was wondering why other countries supported their citizens while we did not. Maybe it’s because those country’s leaders still have some fear of their citizens while ours does not. Seems so simple.

Have a great weekend and thanks for the news. We have some storms lined up and hoping for a lot. We need 9 feet to end up even.

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6 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

Maybe it’s because those country’s leaders still have some fear of their citizens while ours does not.

you might be correct.

i wonder what it would be like to live in a nation where the government respected its citizens.

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6 users have voted.
lotlizard's picture

@joe shikspack  
which is why the establishment wants to crucify everyone involved, from Trump on down.

It’s the same inversion as the Reddit WallStreetBets story: where would they be if the insider money people all the way up to the sacred Fed itself had to fear mere retail investors?

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4 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

Lots of folks that probably did not have criminal intent when they made plans to go to the rally that day will be spending a decade or more in prison. If they actually want Trump held accountable they will bring criminal charges, but he was probably just the bait to set up the patriot act 2. But willingly and knowingly or just an empty headed patsy? The last phone call with McCarthy might be changing everything. Dems are finally calling witnesses. Let's see who they do call and why.

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3 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.

lotlizard's picture

@snoopydawg  
Senate recess is more important!

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2021/feb/13/donald-trump-impeac...

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2 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@lotlizard

yeah the senate is not in session next week again in the middle of an epidemic and huge economic depression. Gawd damn it get those kids in school and we will talk about thinking of getting you some relief when we get back from vacation. Good lord are the f'cking centrists ever going to wake up? I think this impeachment cave is showing yes. See my links.

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4 users have voted.

Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.