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This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Fenton Robinson. Enjoy!

"What chiefly governs the [U.S.] military budget is the need to spend enormous sums of money in a useless way. The allegedly powerful Pentagon is simply a receptacle for wasteful expenditure, just as a city dump is the receptacle for the refuse of a city."

-- Walter Karp

News and Opinion

America's Military-Industrial Complex Squanders $1.7 Trillion on a Lame Fighter Jet While the President Begs for Infrastructure Cash

A Ferrari is surely a wonderful sports car, but let's be honest: Most of us couldn't afford the day-to-day maintenance, let alone the sticker price, and these beautiful creatures are hard to drive on America's pothole-plagued streets, and a massive pain in the butt to repair when they break down. So you can imagine the raised eyebrows earlier this year when a top U.S. Air Force general compared the F-35 Lightning II stealth fighter jet—decades and hundreds of billions of dollars into a lifetime that will cost taxpayers $1.7 trillion—to that Italian dream machine.

"I want to moderate how much we're using those aircraft," Gen. Charles Q. Brown, the Air Force chief of staff, told Pentagon reporters about the Lockheed Martin-built fighter in February. "You don't drive your Ferrari to work every day, you only drive it on Sundays. This is our high end, we want to make sure we don't use it all for the low-end fight … We don't want to burn up capability now and wish we had it later."

In so many words, Brown was admitting that one of the most expensive weapons systems known to humankind is a failure—to be kept under a heavy tarp in a padlocked garage six days a week. His words riled critics like William Astore, a retired Air Force lieutenant colonel who today writes frequently about Pentagon waste. That's because the F-35 was sold to the public in the early 1990s not as a luxury item but as a lower-cost, everyday workhorse fighter jet. He said the flaws now deeply embedded in America's military-industrial complex—the Pentagon's demands for the newest gadgets and a defense contractor's skill at upping the ante—"is how you end up with a Ferrari instead of a Camry ... or even an Audi."

The massive swing-and-a-miss that is the F-35—which already has the Pentagon dreaming of a new, new next-gen fighter that might actually be cheaper and easier to use—is just one symptom of a much greater problem: In spending more on war-related costs than the world's next 10 nations combined, the U.S. wastes billions on weapon systems that are ineffective and often not even needed. This dollar drain hasn't let up even as America's highways fill up with those Ferrari-foiling potholes and bridges collapse, while the world's richest nation falls behind on everything from high-speed rail to solar energy to teaching our kids. ...

another great day for the $1.7 trillion airplane that can't fly in the rain and also sometimes shoots itselfhttps://t.co/FcIrczMEBH

— Doug (@averyvery) March 26, 2021

The Biden administration could find hundreds of billions of dollars to deal with America's more pressing needs at home, as critics like Astore have noted, with simple moves like a) ending its sudden skittishness on carrying out the president's 2020 campaign promise to end the war in Afghanistan as soon as humanly possible and b) trimming the Pentagon's annual budget back down to the roughly $600 billion level it was at before its massive boost under President Trump, who was so eager to please the generals, no questions asked. On the F-35, it's too late to kill the project (for one thing, we've already sold it to our so-called allies like the United Arab Emirates) but we could save hundreds of billions by building fewer.

US, Iran say they'll begin indirect talks on nuclear program

Hopes rise of breakthrough on US return to Iran nuclear deal

A potential breakthrough in the apparently deadlocked efforts to bring the US back into the nuclear deal with Iran is on the horizon after secret diplomatic talks in Frankfurt this week. The joint commission, the body that brings together the existing signatories to the deal, will meet virtually on Friday to discuss the outcome of Monday’s meeting amid growing optimism that unexpected progress has been made. ...

The private discussions have focused on agreeing a framework whereby the US could start to lift sanctions in return for specific and verifiable steps by Iran to come back into full compliance with the deal. ...

Some observers fear Biden does not understand the urgency of making progress ahead of Iran’s June presidential elections, where hardliners opposed to the principle of the deal are likely to triumph in a low-turnout election.

Chomsky Now Agrees With Jimmy Dore On Biden

Dire situation in North Korea drives 'collective exit' of diplomats

Russian diplomats fleeing North Korea have described acute shortages of medicines and other basic goods in the country, indicating a crisis fuelled by one of the world’s strictest quarantine regimes amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In a letter posted online on Thursday, employees of the Russian embassy in Pyongyang described a “collective exit” of foreign diplomatic staff that they predicted would “unfortunately not be the last” due to unbearable conditions in the North Korean capital.

“It is possible to understand those leaving the [North] Korean capital. Hardly everyone can stand the unprecedented total restrictions [on individuals], the sharp deficit of essential goods, including medicines, the lack of any possibility to resolve health problems,” members of staff at the Russian embassy wrote. ... All but three foreign aid workers had evacuated the country as of last December, according to reports, and last week the United Nations said it had no international staff members left in the country.

Brazil Diplomat Celso Amorim on Bolsonaro, Lula & Why Biden’s Foreign Policy Is So “Disappointing”

Mexican press freedom dispute erupts as Amlo attacks US and domestic critics

A growing row over press freedom has engulfed Mexico after the country’s nationalist president maligned a routine US human rights report which highlighted his government’s failure to protect journalists – and the behaviour of some officials against media members.

Andrés Manuel López Obrador, commonly called Amlo, condemned Mexico’s mention in the state department’s annual human rights report as an unwelcome intervention in Mexican matters. But Amlo also singled out press freedom group Article 19, which was cited as a source, in an outburst reflecting his disdain for civil society groups.

“They’re supported by foreigners. And all the people who are associated with Article 19 belong to the conservative movement, which is against us,” Amlo alleged on Wednesday, once again labeling his supposed opponents “conservative” despite his own conservative leanings on social and economic issues.

“We’re not meddling by opining on human rights violations in the United States. We’re respectful,” said Amlo, referring to his professed foreign policy of non-intervention. “We can’t opine on what happens in another country so why is the US government opining on questions that are purely Mexican matters?”

A government spokesman subsequently tweeted Article 19’s sources of financing, while supporters and pro-government media even accused the group of promoting a coup. “Financed by the US, Article 19 nourishes a coup against Mexico,” blared the front page of La Jornada newspaper on Thursday.

Aung San Suu Kyi and Australian adviser accused of breaking secrets law

Aung San Suu Kyi and her Australian economic adviser are among several people charged with breaking Myanmar’s colonial-era official secrets law, in an escalation of the campaign against the deposed civilian leader by the junta that overthrew her government two months ago.

Her lawyer revealed the fresh accusations as the UN security council was warned that Myanmar was at risk of civil war and an imminent “bloodbath” if military rulers continued to violently repress the protest movement that has emerged since the coup.

Aung San Suu Kyi and other members of her National League for Democracy (NLD) have been detained since the coup, and the junta had earlier accused her of several minor offences including illegally importing six handheld radios and breaching coronavirus protocols.

Her chief lawyer, Khin Maung Zaw, said Aung San Suu Kyi, three of her deposed cabinet ministers and a detained Australian economist, Sean Turnell, were charged a week ago in a Yangon court under the official secrets law, and he learned of the new charges two days ago. A conviction under the law can carry a prison sentence of up to 14 years.

David Sirota: Why Is It Always The Corporatists Who Play Hard Ball?

Global Billionaires Have Grown $4 Trillion Wealthier During Pandemic

A new analysis out Thursday morning shows that the world's 2,365 billionaires have seen their collective fortunes grow by $4 trillion during the coronavirus pandemic, a staggering windfall that prompted demands for a global wealth tax aimed at curbing inequality and funding key priorities such as the lagging international vaccination effort.

Conducted by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) on behalf of the Patriotic Millionaires and Millionaires for Humanity, the new report draws on data from several sources to demonstrate that the wealth of the planet's billionaires jumped 54% amid the global Covid-19 crisis and resulting economic collapse.

"Their combined wealth rose from $8.04 trillion to $12.39 trillion between March 18, 2020 and March 18, 2021," the report notes. "At the global level, the wealthiest 20 billionaires have a combined $1.83 trillion in wealth—with an increase of $742 billion, or 68%, over the pandemic year. In comparison, the 2019 GDP of Spain was $1.3 trillion."

Oren Cass REVEALS Truth Behind Wall Street's Claim That They Add Value To US Economy

Rahm Emanuel Headlines Event For Group Fighting $15 Minimum Wage

As disgraced former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel reportedly keeps floating his name for a Biden administration appointment, he is recycling an old Republican plan to let states opt out of a higher minimum wage. Now, he is slated to headline the annual conference of one of the major corporate lobbying groups fighting against congressional Democrats’ $15 minimum wage legislation.

The National Restaurant Association, the lobbying group which led the fight to block a minimum wage increase in the COVID-19 relief bill passed last month, will be hosting Emanuel as a keynote speaker for the group’s virtual conference on April 20, an event entitled: “Seeking Unity: Conversations on How We Can Come Together.” The speaking slot follows Emanuel’s Washington Post op-ed last month arguing that omitting a minimum wage increase from the American Rescue Plan was not a big deal, and asserting that Democrats should work with Republicans on a plan that does not guarantee $15 nationwide. ...

The idea of a minimum wage increase that states can opt out of has been proposed by Republicans in the past. Former President George W. Bush campaigned on the concept more than 20 years ago. “Aides say Bush backs increasing the federal minimum wage but only if states can opt out if they find it would hurt their economies,” the Los Angeles Times wrote in September 2000. ...

Conference agendas show Emanuel is also a regular on the D.C. speaking circuit. The Harry Walker Agency, the speakers bureau that exclusively books Emanuel now, does not disclose his speaking fee, but suggests booking Emanuel in tandem with Karl Rove. An old AAE Speakers bio page for Emanuel, since deleted, listed his fee last year as $50,000-$100,000, according to the American Prospect. If that number is correct, Emanuel would earn at least three times more for one quick speech than a minimum wage worker earns over the course of an entire year.

US fossil-fuel companies took billions in tax breaks – and then laid off thousands

Fossil-fuel companies have received billions of dollars in tax benefits from the US government as part of coronavirus relief measures, only to lay off tens of thousands of their workers during the pandemic, new figures reveal. A group of 77 firms involved in the extraction of oil, gas and coal received $8.2bn under tax-code changes that formed part of a major pandemic stimulus bill passed by Congress last year. Five of these companies also got benefits from the paycheck protection program, totaling more than $30m.

Despite this, almost every one of the fossil-fuel companies laid off workers, with a more than 58,000 people losing their jobs since the onset of the pandemic, or around 16% of the combined workforces.

The largest beneficiary of government assistance has been Marathon Petroleum, which has got $2.1bn in tax benefits. However, in the year to December 2020, the Ohio-based refining company laid off 1,920 workers, or around 9% of its workforce. As a comparative ratio, Marathon has received around $1m for each worker it made redundant, according to BailoutWatch, a nonprofit advocacy group that analyzed Securities and Exchange Commission filings to compile all the data.

Phillips 66, Vistra Corp, National Oilwell Varco and Valero were the next largest beneficiaries of the tax-code changes, with all of them shedding jobs in the past year. In the case of National Oilwell Varco, a Houston-headquartered drilling supply company, 22% of the workforce was fired, despite federal government tax assistance amounting to $591m.

Other major oil and gas companies including Devon Energy and Occidental Petroleum also took in major pandemic tax benefits in the last year while also shedding thousands of workers.

Complaining About Corporate Tax Hike, McConnell Says GOP Will Fight Biden Infrastructure Plan Every Step Of The Way

Objecting specifically to the plan's call for a corporate tax increase, Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said Thursday that no members of his caucus will support President Joe Biden's newly released infrastructure package. ...

"That package that they're putting together now, as much as we would like to address infrastructure, is not going to get support from our side," McConnell told reporters Thursday. "Because I think the last thing the economy needs right now is a big, whopping tax increase."

Vowing to fight Biden's proposal "every step of the way," the Kentucky Republican went on to lament that "but for one seat in Georgia, I would be setting the agenda," referring to Democratic runoff victories in January that wrenched control of the Senate from the GOP.

McConnell's gripe about the corporate tax increases proposed in Biden's plan was echoed by other Republicans on Wednesday as the president outlined his proposal in a speech in Pittsburgh.

Much more at the link:

Last-Minute Trump Rule Would Let Vaccine Makers Hike Prices Unchecked

Pfizer, Moderna, and other coronavirus vaccine makers have said repeatedly that they intend to hike prices on vaccines as early as this year, as the potential need for additional booster shots and future demand could lead to an unprecedented financial windfall.One estimate projects that if Pfizer raised the price of its coronavirus vaccine from $19.50 to $175 per dose, as one Pfizer executive recently suggested, and if every adult American were to take it, the cost would be $44.7 billion — nearly 10 percent of all U.S. drug spending.

But the federal government, which funded crucial biomedical research to develop the patented messenger RNA technology behind the leading Covid-19 vaccines, is on the verge of eliminating a legal mechanism to control the prices of key medical products, including vaccines. Next week, the National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, will wrap up a comment period to modify the rules governing the Bayh-Dole Act, a law that regulates the transfer of federally funded inventions into commercial property. Under the current interpretation of the law, the government may “march in” and suspend the use of patents developed via government-funded inventions if it determines that the products are excessively priced.

The rulemaking is the latest flashpoint in a decades long battle to control drug prices. The drug industry has fought successfully to prevent “march-in” rights in the past; the government has never managed to exercise them. But over the last year, a growing number of Republicans and Democrats, including newly appointed Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Beccera, have called for the use of march-in rights to rein in drug prices.

In the twilight weeks of Donald Trump’s presidency, his administration released a NIST rule designed to undercut the Bayh-Dole Act and weaken the government’s authority to march in and seize control of a patent when drugmakers fail to make medicine “available to the public on reasonable terms.” That phrase has long been the law’s most contentious provision. It invokes a term of art that multiple federal courts have ruled relates to pricing and market-related decisions. The legislative history of the Bayh-Dole Act includes arguments that clearly state pricing considerations as a factor in determining “reasonable terms.” The proposed rule, however, tightens the law’s definition to remove price as a factor — a change long demanded by industry.

I await the woke community's awakening to the fact that Barack H. Obama is a monster and a pariah. He is certainly no more worthy of social approval than former slave owners and mass murderers.

Illinois Latinos criticize plan to rename school after 'deporter-in-chief' Obama

Plans to rename an Illinois school after Barack Obama have run into a protest from local members of the Latino community who are angry about the former president’s record on the issue of deportation. Leaders and members of the Waukegan Latino community are pushing back against a local school board’s proposal to rename the city’s Thomas Jefferson middle school, according to WGN Chicago.

Waukegan is a city just north of Chicago with a population that is more than 50% Latino.

The move to change the school’s name stems from the fact that Jefferson was a slave owner, and echoes similar proposals across the country in the wake of a racial reckoning caused by Black Lives Matter protests. Opposition to naming this school after Obama stems from the deportation of 5 million people during his presidency, most of whom were Latino.

“Today, I want to urge the board to drop the names of Barack and Michelle Obama from consideration,” Oscar Arias, a graduate of Waukegan public schools and city resident, told the city’s school board Tuesday night. “Barack Obama’s presidency is filled with hostility against the immigrant community.”

Virginia court rules Charlottesville can take down Confederate statues

Virginia’s highest court ruled on Thursday that the city of Charlottesville can take down two statues of Confederate generals, including one of Robert E Lee that became the focus of a white nationalist rally in 2017 that turned extremely violent and ultimately deadly.

The state supreme court overturned an appeal court decision that had been previously made in favor of a group of residents who sued to block the city from taking down the Lee statue and a nearby monument to fellow general Thomas J “Stonewall” Jackson. Charlottesville’s city council voted to remove both.

White supremacist and neo-Nazi organizers of the August 2017 “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville said they went to the city to defend the statue of Lee. ...

City officials praised the ruling in a statement Thursday and said they plan to redesign the park spaces where the statues are located “in a way that promotes healing and that tells a more complete history of Charlottesville”.

Charlottesville’s mayor, Nikuyah Walker, praised the court ruling and those in the community who had pushed for the statues’ removal “for their steadfastness and perseverance over the past five years. For all of us, who were on the right side of history, Bravo!”

More details at the link:

Chauvin's supervisor says there was no justification to keep knee on George Floyd’s neck

Derek Chauvin’s police supervisor has told his murder trial that there was no justification for the officer to keep his knee on George Floyd’s neck for nine minutes.

Sgt David Pleoger, who arrived at the scene shortly after Floyd was taken away by ambulance, said that Chauvin and other officers holding down the 46-year-old Black man should have stopped using force once Floyd stopped resisting.

“When Mr Floyd was no longer offering up any resistance to the officers they could have ended their restraint,” he said.

Video recording showed that Chauvin kept pressing his knee into Floyd’s neck even after the detained man pleaded that he could not breathe and then stopped moving. Two other officers were also holding Floyd down. ...

Pleoger is among a number of officers expected to be called as witnesses for the prosecution including the chief of the Minneapolis police department, Medaria Arradondo, who, in a highly unusual move, will give evidence against his own former officer. Arradondo fired Chauvin shortly after Floyd’s death.

Will Georgia’s Voting Law Be Repealed as Big Business Joins Critics Opposing “Jim Crow” Suppression?

Krystal and Saagar: Cuomo Got $4 MILLION Book Deal While Covering Up COVID Deaths

Rapid global heating is hurting farm productivity, study finds

The climate crisis is already eating into the output of the world’s agricultural systems, with productivity much lower than it would have been if humans hadn’t rapidly heated the planet, new research has found. Advances in technology, fertilizer use and global trade have allowed food production to keep pace with a booming global population since the 1960s, albeit with gross inequities that still leave millions of people suffering from malnutrition.

But rising temperatures in this time have acted as a handbrake to farming productivity of crops and livestock, according to the new research, published in Nature Climate Change. Productivity has actually slumped by 21% since 1961, compared to if the world hadn’t been subjected to human-induced heating.

With the global population set to rise to more than 9 billion by 2050, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization has estimated that food production will have to increase by about 70%, with annual crop production increasing by almost one 1bn tonnes and meat production soaring by more than 200m tonnes a year by this point. ...

“The impact already is larger than I thought it would be,” said Ariel Ortiz-Bobea, an economist at Cornell University who led the research. “It was a big surprise to me. The worry I have is that research and development in agriculture takes decades to translate into higher productivity. The projected temperature increase is so fast I don’t know if we are going to keep pace with that.”

While farming has generally become far more efficient in recent decades, it is increasingly menaced by heatwaves that exhaust farm workers and wither certain crops. Extreme weather events and drought can also affect the output of a farm, particularly smaller operations in poorer countries. In 2019, scientists who analyzed the top 10 global crops that provide the majority of our food calories found that climate change is reducing the worldwide production of staples such as rice and wheat. Again, less affluent countries are suffering worst from this situation.

Net gains: how India trawlers’ plastic catch is helping to rebuild roads

For years, plastic caught by fishing communities on the Kollam coast in India’s southern state of Kerala was thrown back into the water, damaging aquatic ecosystems and killing fish. But fishers are spearheading an innovative initiative to clean up the ocean – along with their daily hauls of fish, they pull in and collect the waste that gets enmeshed in their nets. Bottles, ropes, toys, shoes, discarded fishing nets and polythene bags are sorted, washed, shredded, before being recycled into material added to asphalt to help to build local roads.

In 2017, the Keralan government’s harbour engineering department (HED) launched its Suchitwa Sagaram (Clean Sea) initiative, providing nylon bags to the 1,000-odd fishing boats for the crew to collect the rubbish. The plastic is processed onshore and fed into a shredding machine, then sold on to roadbuilders. Nearly 3,000 fishers and boat owners in Kollam are involved in the initiative. Now the programme is expanding to other harbours and with one million people working in the fishing industry in Kerala, of whom 25% are directly involved in fishing, scaling up the project could have a real impact.

Washing and sorting the collected plastic is also providing jobs to a small group of local women in a traditionally male-dominated sector. “Most of the garbage is too mangled to recycle in traditional ways. So we shred it into strips and sell it to local construction companies, who mix it with asphalt to construct roads. This helps us pay the women’s salaries. This road surface is increasingly popular as it makes the roads more resilient to India’s extreme heat,” says VK Lotus, an engineer with the HED.

Also of Interest

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

Thomas Frank: Liberals want to blame rightwing 'misinformation' for our problems. Get real

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/04/twitter-and-youtube-manipulation...

Biden Is Playing an Apocalyptic Game of Chicken With China

"America Is Back" Collides With A Multipolar Reality

Archegos Blowup Calls Attention to Questionable Listing Standards at New York Stock Exchange

Right-Wing State Legislators Make Unprecedented Attack on Trans Kids

Indigenous Youth Take to DC Streets With Demands to #ShutDownDAPL and #StopLine3

The robots are coming to small businesses – and for business owners

Arabian coins found in US may unlock 17th-century pirate mystery

Democracy Now: Oregon Governor Kate Brown Pushes Expanding Vote-by-Mail to Counter GOP Voter Suppression Efforts

Brazil's Bolsonaro says he is not politicizing the military after shakeup

A Little Night Music

Fenton Robinson - Crazy Crazy Loving

Fenton Robinson & The Dukes - Tennessee Woman

Fenton Robinson - From My Heart

Fenton Robinson with The Dukes — Crying Out Loud

Fenton Robinson - I Believe

Fenton Robinson - Blue Monday

Fenton Robinson - Checking On My Woman

Fenton Robinson - Baby Please Don't Go

Fenton Robinson - You Don't Know What Love Is

Fenton Robinson - Little Turch

Fenton Robinson - I´ve Changed