The Evening Blues - 4-9-21



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The Counts

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features funk band The Counts. Enjoy!

The Fabulous Counts - Dirty Red

“There's a fine line between audacity and idiocy.”

-- Jim Butcher


News and Opinion

What a stupid, rotten, lying bastard Howard Dean has become. I guess all that ridiculous brewhaha about "the Dean scream" that sunk his campaign served a good purpose. Yeeeeaggggh!

Howard Dean Pushes Biden to Oppose Generic Covid-19 Vaccines for Developing Countries

Howard Dean, the former progressive champion, is calling on President Joe Biden to reject a special intellectual property waiver that would allow low-cost, generic coronavirus vaccines to be produced to meet the needs of low-income countries. Currently, a small number of companies hold the formulas for the Covid-19 vaccines, limiting distribution to many parts of the world.

“IP protections aren’t the cause of vaccination delays,” Dean claimed in a column for Barron’s last month. “Every drug manufacturing facility on the planet that’s capable of churning out Covid-19 shots is already doing so.”

“Creating a new medicine is a costly proposition,” wrote Dean. “Companies would never invest hundreds of millions in research and development if rivals could simply copy their drug formulas and create knockoffs.”

Dean’s claim that global vaccine manufacturing is already at capacity is patently false. Foreign firms have lined up to offer pharmaceutical plants to produce vaccines but have been forced to enter into lengthy negotiations under terms set by the intellectual property owners. The waiver, however, would allow generic drug producers to begin copying the vaccine without delay. ...

The strident opposition to the waiver, which is supported by an international coalition of human rights organizations as well as a growing cohort of congressional Democrats, may surprise Dean’s liberal supporters. But while Dean boasts a long history of support for single-payer health insurance coverage and government intervention into lowering domestic drug prices, he has reversed his positions on virtually every major progressive health policy issue since moving to work in the world of corporate influence peddling.

US increasingly concerned by Russian military threat to Ukraine

The US has said it is increasingly concerned over Russian militarisation along Ukraine’s border, as the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, travelled to the eastern frontline. The number of Russian troops at the border with the former Soviet republic is now greater “than at any time since 2014”, when war in eastern Ukraine first broke out and Russia seized the Crimea region, the White House press secretary, Jen Psaki, said in Washington.

“The United States is increasingly concerned by recent escalating Russian aggressions in eastern Ukraine, including Russian troop movements on Ukraine’s border,” Psaki said on Thursday. “These are all deeply concerning signs.”

Her comments came after the Ukrainian president visited the eastern frontline where fighting between the Ukrainian army and Russian-backed separatists has intensified in recent weeks. ...

During his frontline visit, Zelenskiy thanked the soldiers “for protecting our land” and said “there is indeed an escalation” in eastern Ukraine. “All commanders understand that snipers are targeting our guys,” Zelenskiy said, adding that 26 Ukrainian troops had been killed since the start of the year, compared with 50 in all of 2020.

US considering sending warships to Black Sea amid Russia-Ukraine tensions

The United States is considering sending warships into the Black Sea in the next few weeks in a show of support for Ukraine amid Russia's increased military presence on Ukraine's eastern border, a US defense official told CNN Thursday.
The US Navy routinely operates in the Black Sea, but a deployment of warships now would send a specific message to Moscow that the US is closely watching, the official said.
The US is required to give 14 days notice of its intention to enter the Black Sea under a 1936 treaty giving Turkey control of the straits to enter the sea. It is unclear if a notice has yet been sent.

The Defense official also said the Navy is continuing to fly reconnaissance aircraft in international airspace over the Black Sea to monitor Russian naval activity and any troops movements in Crimea.

On Wednesday, two US B-1 bombers conducted missions over the Aegean Sea.

Although the US does not see the amassing of Russian forces as posturing for an offensive action, the official told CNN that "if something changes we will be ready to respond." Their current assessment is that the Russians are conducting training and exercises and intelligence has not indicated military orders for further action, the official said, but noted that they are well-aware that could change at any time.

Glenn Greenwald Breaks Second Biggest Corruption Story Of Our Time

Republicans delay Biden administration’s funds to Palestinians

Congressional Republicans put a hold on $75 million of the newly reinstated US aid to the Palestinians, two sources in Washington confirmed on Thursday. ...

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), used their respective positions as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and lead Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to stop the USAID’s notification about the reinstated funding from reaching the committees, which means the aid will not start on April 10 as planned. ...

On Wednesday, the State Department announced a financial package of $290m. for the Palestinians, including security and humanitarian aid, as well as funding for UNRWA, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees and their descendants.

Risch and McCaul said, shortly after the announcement, that “resuming assistance to the West Bank and Gaza without concessions from the Palestinian Authority undermines US interests.

How Cuba Beat the Pandemic: From Developing New Vaccines to Sending Doctors Overseas to Help Others

Fauci Admits PPE Shortages Under Trump Increased Covid Death Toll of Frontline Healthcare Workers

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the top infectious disease expert in the U.S., admitted in an interview with The Guardian Thursday that major shortages of masks, gloves, and other personal protective equipment under the Trump administration contributed to the deaths of more than 3,600 healthcare workers during the first year of the coronavirus pandemic.

"During the critical times when there were shortages was when people had to use whatever was available to them. I'm sure that increased the risk of getting infected among healthcare providers," said Fauci, who served as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases under former President Donald Trump and remains in that role under President Joe Biden. ...

According to a yearlong joint investigation by Kaiser Health News and The Guardian, more than 3,600 healthcare workers died of Covid-19 during the first 12 months of the crisis—with lower-paid workers such as nurses, nursing home employees, and support staff far more likely to lose their lives than physicians.

"Many of these deaths could have been prevented," the outlets noted. "Widespread shortages of masks and other personal protective gear, a lack of Covid testing, weak contact tracing, inconsistent mask guidance by politicians, missteps by employers, and lax enforcement of workplace safety rules by government regulators all contributed to the increased risk faced by healthcare workers."

Amnesty Int’l: COVID-19 Exacerbates Inequality in Americas as U.S. Policy Drives Refugees to Border

Archegos Fund Collapse REVEALS Fakery Of Wall Street

Biden proposes global reforms to end ‘profit shifting’ to tax havens

President Joe Biden has proposed sweeping global tax reforms that would limit the ability of multinational corporations to shift profits overseas, while taking steps to forge a landmark agreement on a worldwide minimum tax rate.

The proposals are designed to tackle the very low rates of tax paid by the digital giants Google, Facebook and Apple, and major brands like Nike and Starbucks, which have become adept at using complicated webs of companies to shift profits out of major markets like the UK, where most of their revenues are earned, and into low-tax jurisdictions like Ireland and the Caribbean. Economists estimate that the sums lost to exchequers around the world from profit-shifting have risen as high as $427bn (£311bn) annually.

The Biden plan, described as “seismic” in its potential impact, is seen as a dramatic shift, distancing the US from decades of prioritising the tax sovereignty of nations. The world’s largest economy has long resisted calls for the global treaties that tax reformers argued were needed to ensure that powerful multinational companies pay their fair share of taxes.

Under the plan promoted by Washington, set out in a document sent to 135 countries negotiating tax reforms at the OECD on Wednesday, tech companies and large conglomerates would be forced to pay taxes to national governments based on the sales they generate in each country, irrespective of where they are based.

The Biden administration also threw its weight behind work to establish a global minimum tax rate, which would see some of the world’s biggest economies agree on a minimum rate of tax on company profits. The current rate of corporation tax in the US is 21%, compared with 19% in the UK and 12.5% in Ireland, one of the lowest among EU nations. Countries could impose higher corporation tax rates, but not go below the agreed threshold. The agreement is designed to stop countries luring businesses by offering tax discounts.

Bernie Confronted Over Never Using His Leverage In Senate

New Data PROVES Universal Programs Are Best Way To Close Racial Wage Gap

Alabama warehouse workers on track to reject forming Amazon’s first US union

Vote counting kicked off on Thursday in a consequential unionization drive at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama, an effort seen as one of the most important labor fights in recent American history.

While results have not yet been finalised, it appeared Thursday evening that warehouse workers were on track to reject unionization by a 2-1 margin, with almost half the votes counted. Vote counting will resume Friday morning.

Of the received ballots, workers so far have voted 1,100-463 against forming a union at the warehouse in Bessemer. The election will determine if workers in Bessemer will form the first labor union at an Amazon warehouse in the US.

The Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU), which is organizing the Bessemer workers, said that 3,215 votes were sent in – about 55% of the nearly 6,000 workers who were eligible to vote. The union said hundreds of those votes were contested, mostly by Amazon. The union would not specify how many votes were being contested.

Stuart Appelbaum, the president of the RWDSU, struck a grim tone Thursday in a statement ahead of the results: “Our system is broken, Amazon took full advantage of that, and we will be calling on the labor board to hold Amazon accountable for its illegal and egregious behavior during the campaign. But make no mistake about it; this still represents an important moment for working people and their voices will be heard.”

Emails Reveal Amazon Pushed USPS for Private Box at Alabama Warehouse as Union Vote Began

Leaders of the effort to unionize workers at Amazon's Bessemer, Alabama fulfillment center were outraged following the revelation Thursday that the tech titan pressured the United States Postal Service into installing a private mailbox outside the warehouse just as employees began voting on the measure.

Last month, the advocacy group More Perfect Union first accused Amazon of violating federal labor law by having a mailbox installed outside the Alabama facility in order to collect the ballots of employees voting on the Retail, Wholesale, and Department Store Union (RWDSU)-led effort to unionize the warehouse's 5,805 workers.

As the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) began counting votes Thursday, More Perfect Union published emails obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request that show Amazon pressing USPS to install what the group called "an illegal ballot drop box during the union election."

Although the emails are heavily redacted, More Perfect Union learned that starting a month before the Bessemer warehouse workers began casting their ballots, Amazon officials repeatedly called USPS' strategic account manager seeking the installation of a private box.

After considering the request, USPS informed Amazon that a "private box may not be utilized." However, after further consideration, the Postal Service decided to grant the company—its largest corporate client—the request. On February 3, USPS emailed Amazon officials saying it would send a manager to the Bessemer facility "to find an ideal location" for the mailbox "that is near the employee entrance."

That same day, Amazon demanded that the Postal Service install the mailbox by February 7—one day before the warehouse workers began voting. USPS replied that "maintenance will complete the installation by Monday" February 8.

More Perfect Union said that "the mailbox was critical for Amazon's strategy because it wanted to pressure employees to bring ballots to work that they'd received at home in the mail."

"By doing this, they could then pressure and monitor employees to submit 'no' votes," the group said. "In short, Amazon violated a directive from the federal government when it placed a mail ballot drop box at the entrance of its Alabama warehouse."

The mailbox, which bore no USPS identification, was installed inside a tent in a parking lot outside the warehouse, with a banner reading, "Speak for yourself! Mail your ballot here."

The Washington Post—which is owned by Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos—reports one of the reasons why the mailbox is so controversial is that NLRB, which is supervising the Bessemer unionization vote, had denied the company's request to install boxes at the facility, citing concerns for worker safety amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

RWDSU president Stuart Appelbaum accused Amazon of voter intimidation.

"Even though the NLRB definitively denied Amazon's request for a drop box on the warehouse property, Amazon felt it was above the law and worked with the Postal Service anyway to install one," Appelbaum said in a statement reported by the Post. "They did this because it provided a clear ability to intimidate workers."

Officials from both the USPS and Amazon denied any nefarious intentions behind the box's placement.

USPS spokesperson David Partenheimer told the Post that the drop box was "suggested by the Postal Service as a solution to provide an efficient and secure delivery and collection point," with Amazon spokesperson Heather Knox adding that "this mailbox—which only the USPS had access to—was a simple, secure, and completely optional way to make it easy for employees to vote, no more and no less."

According to RWDSU, a total of 3,215 ballots were received from Amazon's Bessemer workers. NPR reports that as of Thursday evening, the unofficial vote count stood at 1,100 against unionizing and 463 in favor.

How Biden Easily Silences The Left

West Virginia Republicans seek to criminalize removal of Confederate statues

Nearly 158-years after its founding West Virginia – a state forged from the fires of America’s civil war – remains stuck between north and south. Now lawmakers are considering a bill that would protect Confederate monuments from removal or renaming. Supporters claim they are protecting everyone’s history. Opponents call the bill “traumatic and mentally exhausting”.

At a moment of national reckoning on race, the debate is fierce. “We were the Union. West Virginia was born out of seceding from Virginia, if i’m not mistaken,” said Delegate Sean Hornbuckle, one of the state’s few Black lawmakers. “We’re advocating for people who wanted to kill us.”

The bill being considered by West Virginia’s Republican-controlled legislature would criminalize the removal of Confederate statues unless that removal is first approved by the state’s historic preservation office.

Last year some 168 Confederate symbols were removed in cities and states across the US according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the majority after the killing of George Floyd by Minneapolis police. The national shift has clearly given impetus to the West Virginia bill. “We’ve seen a lot of attacks on historical monuments and names, and I think West Virginia is uniquely situated, historically, to have an interest in that,” said delegate Chris Phillips, a Republican and the bill’s lead sponsor.

The West Virginia Monument and Memorial Protection Act of 2021 seeks to prevent city councils, county commissions, boards of education, universities and any other public entity from removing statues or renaming structures dedicated to people who participated in a United States military conflict – unless the removal or renaming has been approval by the West Virginia State Historic Preservation Office.

George Floyd died from lack of oxygen caused by restraint, lung expert testifies

A leading pulmonary expert has told the Derek Chauvin murder trial that George Floyd was killed by a lack of oxygen because a knee was pressed into his neck while he was held facedown in handcuffs. As the trial entered its ninth day of testimony, Dr Martin Tobin, a pulmonary and critical care specialist for 40 years, told the jury that the 46-year-old Black man was caught in a “vice” between Chauvin and the street as the breath was squeezed out of him.

“Mr Floyd died from a low level of oxygen and this caused damage to his brain,” he said. Tobin said that in turn caused Floyd’s heart to stop.

Asked about the cause of the oxygen deprivation, Tobin said that Floyd’s breathing became increasingly shallow because of how he was being held on the ground by Chauvin and two other police officers for more than nine minutes. “He’s turned prone on the street, that he has the handcuffs in place combined with the street, and then that he has a knee on his neck, and that he has a knee on his back,” the doctor said.

Tobin gave graphic testimony about Floyd’s desperate struggle to breathe as the position he was held in meant he could barely use one of his lungs at all. “It was almost to the effect that if a surgeon had gone in and removed the lung,” he said.

The evidence is central to the prosecution’s attempts to head off defence claims that Floyd died from a drug overdose or heart attack or a combination of the two. Tobin said it “was a very dangerous mantra” for the police officers to interpret Floyd saying more than 20 times “I can’t breathe” as evidence that he was in fact able to do so.

Pro-Cop PAC Tried to Fundraise by Blaming George Floyd for His Own Death

A political action committee working to elect pro-police candidates to state and local office apologized last week for sending a fundraising email that blamed George Floyd for his own death. The Protect Our Police PAC formed in Philadelphia last June after nationwide protests against police brutality with the goal of ousting Larry Krasner, the city’s reformist district attorney. In the nine months since its inception, the group has backed candidates across at least 15 states. This is not the first time the committee has come under criticism for distributing racist materials.

“Our founding fathers knew the importance of a fair justice system, but unhinged radical cop haters are taking every opportunity to pervert the law to advance their agenda. That’s exactly what’s happening in Minnesota to officer Derek Chauvin,” read the April 1 email. “Let’s get one thing clear: George Floyd tested positive for COVID-19 and was high on a lethal dose of fentanyl when he died May 25th, 2020… but the mainstream media doesn’t want you to know that!” Sent from the organizationwide POP PAC account, the email was signed by President/Treasurer Nick Gerace, a former Philadelphia police officer.

In a statement on Friday, Gerace blamed the message on a marketing firm, saying that the email did not reflect his values or those of the PAC and that the group had since terminated its relationship with the firm. ...

Last Thursday’s email lamented “months of violent looting and riots that caused over a billion dollars in damages, hundreds of small business closures, dozens of untimely deaths, and millions of dollars profited from left-wing organizations like Black Lives Matter.” Now, it went on, “Chauvin is facing trial for a murder he did not commit — leftist radicals want to make an example out of an innocent man that followed the protocol he learned in his training. They want to ruin his life for political gain.”

The next day, after the Philadelphia Inquirer reported on the email’s contents, Gerace condemned Chauvin’s actions, saying they “were examples of bad policing and poor training that directly caused George Floyd’s death, in my opinion.” The email’s “messaging and innuendo” were “not in line with our mission and I vehemently denounce it,” he continued. “We can do better. We will do better. We must do better.”



the horse race



Trump BLASTS GA LAW Showing Why GOP Is Totally Screwed

Republicans Are Poised to Gerrymander Their Way Back to the Majority

If Democrats manage to escape the traditional midterm curse and don’t drop a single vote from 2020 to 2022, they would still lose control of the House of Representatives simply as a consequence of Republican gerrymandering following the census. Unless, that is, there’s a change to current laws or an overwhelming Democratic wave on par with 2006 or 2018.

The decisive impact of gerrymandering is well understood by campaign operatives and party leaders but is barely acknowledged in national political conversations — the elephant’s weapon in the room, so to speak — even as analytic focus narrows to the details of particular voter suppression bills.

Yet Democrats are in a peculiar position: With control of both chambers of Congress and the White House, they have the opportunity to ban gerrymandering, restore a semblance of democratic balance to House races, and at the same time give themselves a fighting chance to hold on to the lower chamber. But it’s far from a guarantee that the party will do it. Democrats may choose instead to voluntarily march themselves into a political abyss for no reason other than their own inertia and lack of imagination.

The bill that could stop this, the “For the People Act,” has already passed the House of Representatives as H.R. 1. The dawning reality of the upcoming gerrymander heightens the importance for Democrats of passing the Senate version and signing it into law. To do so would require reforming the filibuster, as Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has vowed to oppose the bill with everything he has. Sen. Joe Manchin, the deciding Democratic voter on filibuster reform, penned a Washington Post op-ed on Wednesday swearing that he would never vote to eliminate or “weaken” the filibuster, but a reform he suggested previously — mandating that senators actually occupy the floor in order to use it — could strengthen it as an institutional device, forcing engagement by the minority.

Media Manage to Both-Sides Georgia GOP’s Suppressing Democracy

Georgia’s new voting law—one of the first in a crowded field of breathtakingly brazen state voting bills the GOP is pushing across the country—has made national headlines. As voting rights reporter Ari Berman (CounterSpin, 3/16/21) has explained, these bills are essentially “an effort to overturn the election by other means.” But despite Republicans’ obvious—often explicitly stated—goal of rigging future elections more successfully than they have in the past, many of those national media outlets can’t give up their commitment to both-sidesing the story, giving cover to the anti-democratic campaign.

In its initial report on Georgia’s new voter suppression law, the New York TimesNick Corasaniti (3/25/21) explained that Georgia’s Republican Gov. Brian Kemp highlighted his history of

fighting for stronger voter identification laws, which Democrats have denounced as having an outsize impact on communities of color. Mr. Kemp said that protests against the bill were pure politics.

Who’s to say which side readers should believe? Don’t ask the Times. Corasaniti seemed incapable of sorting out truth from fiction, noting later that opponents of the bill called “for a boycott of major corporations in Georgia that they said had remained silent on the voting push, including Coca-Cola.” It’s not hard for a reporter to verify that claim; it’s their job, in fact.

The piece offered this context for understanding the GOP’s motivation:

Seeking to appease a conservative base that remains incensed about the results of the 2020 election, Republicans have already passed a similar law in Iowa, and are moving forward with efforts to restrict voting in states including Arizona, Florida and Texas.

It’s a neat little trick to shift blame—the party is simply being responsive to its constituents! Never mind that it was the party that drilled the lie of the stolen election into the heads of their base. As Vox‘s Zack Beauchamp (4/6/21) points out, laws like Georgia’s aren’t just premised on the lie of election fraud; they serve to ratify that lie.

In a later analysis, the New York Times‘ Nate Cohn (4/3/21) downplayed the impact of Georgia’s law on voting rights, arguing that both sides “misunderstand” the effect that making it harder to vote has on turnout. As voting rights expert Charlotte Hill quickly pointed out, Cohn’s argument is on very shaky ground for a number of reasons, not least of which is that it misses the disparate impact such restrictions can have on different groups—like minority or youth voters, who disproportionately vote Democratic.

To Cohn, those outraged over laws aimed at suppressing and manipulating the vote are as much to blame as the suppressors themselves for the lack of “bipartisan compromise” on such laws:

The perception that voting laws have existential stakes for democracy or the political viability of the two parties has made bipartisan compromise extremely difficult. The virtue of bipartisanship is often and understandably dismissed as naïve, but voting laws are a rare case where bipartisanship has value of its own. Democracy, after all, depends on the consent of the loser.

One might add that democracy depends on the right and ability of people to vote. The whole impetus for these bills, of course, is the lack of consent of the losers; telling the only party willing to play by the rules of democracy that it needs to “compromise” with the authoritarian party is a great way to further erode democracy, which makes that media mantra not just wrong but dangerous.

Even where reporters called it straight, Times headline writers still couldn’t always bring themselves to do so. In an analysis  (3/25/21) in which reporters wrote without equivocation that “the new barriers will have an outsize impact on Black voters, who make up roughly one-third of the state’s population and vote overwhelmingly Democratic,” the paper went with the sub-headline:

The state’s new Republican-crafted law is set to restrict voting access in ways that Democrats and voting rights groups say will have an outsize impact on Black voters.

Some headlines were even worse, giving no indication of the import of the law. ABCNews.com (3/25/21), for instance, ran with this headline: “Kemp Signs Sweeping Elections Bill Passed by Georgia Legislature. Here’s What’s In It,” followed by the equally uninformative subhead: “The nearly 100-page bill overhauls multiple areas of election law in the state.”

In that piece, the issue was explained with perfect false balance:

Democrats and voting rights advocates have blasted the bill as a voter-suppression tactic and legislative “power grab” in response to former President Donald Trump and GOP allies peddling false conspiracy theories about a stolen, fraud-filled election for months. But Republicans contend the bill increases accessibility and is meant to streamline elections, provide uniformity and address a lack of confidence in Georgia’s elections “on all sides of the political spectrum,” a notion Democrats dispute.

Similarly, CBSNews.com (3/26/21) reported: “Conservative groups hailed the legislation’s passage, while liberals voiced their concern. ”

Remarkably, in an over 1,000-word article describing what the headline termed an “election overhaul,” NPR (3/25/21) failed to bring up who will be impacted by the changes or how—let alone whether provisions that primarily target minority and low-income voters are legal. Reporter Stephen Fowler managed to cover one of the most egregious efforts to disenfranchise Black voters in recent history without using the words “Black” or “minority”—and using the word “rights” only to note that some previously-planned restrictions were removed because of opposition from “voting rights groups,” among others.

Indeed, while much of the coverage of Georgia’s law has quoted opponents comparing it to Jim Crow laws that ensured white supremacy after Reconstruction, very little of it made any reference to the Voting Rights Act (or white supremacy, for that matter). Though the Roberts Court gutted critical parts of the VRA in its Shelby v. Holder decision in 2013, the provision prohibiting discriminatory voting laws (Section 2) still stands. The current Court, now tilted even further to the right, is expected to rule on Section 2 shortly.

It’s a key point that has paved the way for the current GOP push—as well as the Democrats’ push for a new federal voting rights act—but only two of the above articles even mentioned it. One, Cohn’s piece, referenced it only to tout an unpublished grad student paper arguing that Shelby v. Holder didn’t reduce Black turnout.

And so, rather than making this a story about racist, anti-democratic attempts by the Republican party to disenfranchise Black and other minority voters as part of its ugly turn toward a white nationalist authoritarianism, too many journalists normalize those efforts with bloodless “he said, she said” accounts of “election overhauls.”



the evening greens



Third of Antarctic ice shelves ‘will collapse amid 4C global heating’

More than a third of the vast floating platforms of ice surrounding Antarctica could be at risk of collapsing and releasing “unimaginable amounts” of water into the sea if global temperatures reach 4C above pre-industrial levels, UK scientists say.

Researchers from the University of Reading said that limiting the temperature rise to 2C could halve the area at risk and avoid a drastic rise in sea levels.

The findings, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, suggest that 4C warming could leave 34% of the area of all the Antarctic ice shelves – amounting to about half a million square kilometres – at the risk of collapse.

Ice shelves are permanent floating sheets of ice that connect to a landmass; most surround the coasts of Antarctica.

Ella Gilbert, a research scientist in the University of Reading’s meteorology department, said: “Ice shelves are important buffers, preventing glaciers on land from flowing freely into the ocean and contributing to sea level rise. When they collapse it’s like a giant cork being removed from a bottle, allowing unimaginable amounts of water from glaciers to pour into the sea.

Deb Haaland visits sacred site Trump shrank

The interior secretary, Deb Haaland, paid a historic visit on Thursday to Bears Ears national monument, the Utah site sacred to Native Americans that was downsized by President Donald Trump.

Haaland is a member of the Laguna Pueblo and the first indigenous cabinet member, and her trip came amid calls for the monument to be recreated in its original form, or even expanded, by Joe Biden. ...

Biden outlined a 60-day process to review the reduction of the Bears Ears and Grand Staircase-Escalante monuments in an executive order signed on his first day in office. On her trip, Haaland met with tribal and state leaders, including Senator Mitt Romney, to help formulate her recommendations to Biden.

But the visit was also a symbolic moment in the nation’s narrative. Biden’s appointment of Haaland as interior secretary stands in stark contrast with the department’s history. One early interior secretary, Alexander Stuart, once declared the United States’ mission was to “civilize or exterminate” indigenous people.

At a gathering of Pueblo leaders on Tuesday, Haaland called her visit the beginning. “I believe that we have the opportunity of a lifetime to protect our environment and our way of life to give our children opportunities and to build economies for generations to come,” according to a report in Indian Country Today.

California pledges half a billion dollars to battle the threat of wildfire season

California leaders have announced a $536m plan to address the growing threat of wildfires across the state, as a drought threatens to bring on yet another destructive, deadly fire season. The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, along with the state’s senate and assembly leaders announced the new plan at a news conference Thursday near Shaver Lake – a small town at the foothills of California’s Sierra Nevada mountains that was devastated by the Creek fire last fall. ...

The new plan will include more than $350m in funds to improve forest management efforts and thin out fire-fueling vegetation. An additional $25m will fund grants to help homeowners make their properties more fire-resistant.

Newsom also referenced the importance of embracing prescribed burning techniques, which were practiced by California tribes for centuries before European settlers banned and eschewed the practice. Fire is a natural and necessary part of the state’s natural landscape, but for years, rather than embracing beneficial fires, California suppressed it. A build-up of overgrowth and vegetation has helped fuel extreme mega-blazes. The Karuk Tribe, wildfire researchers, and environmental groups have been pushing the governor and state leaders to fund and elevate historic forest management practices.


Also of Interest

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

US Mulls Sending More Warships to Black Sea To ‘Send Message’ to Russia

War Clouds Over Russia and Ukraine? Ask Brussels

U.S. Iran Conflict In Iraq Put On Pause

Pentagon campaign to recruit Vietnam as military ally against China exposed delusions of US war strategy

Fact-Checking is Dead, Killed by Snopes over Biden’s Broken Promise of $2,000 Checks

American Suicide Numbers Dropped Last Year

Macron announces closure of elite school that hothoused French leaders

Landmark Case Could End Biden’s Student Debt Prison

Joe Arpaio: inside the fallout of Trump’s pardon

Merry Clayton: 'Gimme Shelter left a dark taste in my mouth'

3,000-year-old ‘lost golden city’ of ancient Egypt discovered

Politician Humiliates Intercept Reporter For Pushing Establishment Propaganda

Rising: Top 55 Corporations Paid ZERO Taxes, Got $3 Billion From Fed Gov In 2020

Matt Stoller's DIRE WARNING: Don't Let McKinsey Anywhere NEAR Infrastructure Bill


A Little Night Music

The Counts - Medley - Play It Again/For Out/Counts' Blues

The Counts - Funk

The Counts - Funk Pump

Fabulous Counts - Get Down People

The Counts - Thinking Single

The Counts - What's Up Front That Counts

The Counts - Since We Said Goodbye

The Counts - Pack of Lies

The Counts - Why not start all over again

The Counts - Magic Ride

Fabulous Counts - Jan Jan

Fabulous Counts - Lunar Funk


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Comments

It is obvious why Israel won't participate in the ICC investigation.

How many events are similar to this?

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

How many events are similar to this?

the similar events are countless.

have a great evening!

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7 users have voted.

@humphrey

Maybe the Israelis are actually helping those in the Occupied Territories - despite the severe crowding - particularly in Gaza - far more limited resources for healthcare and far less vaccination so far... the death rate (according to Statista as of March 30) there is significantly lower than in Israel: 593 per million versus 693 for Israel although West Bank and Gaza were trending higher for the latest 7-day reporting period.

For perspective, though - even at Israel's higher death rate their total listed deaths, 6279 out of a population just over 9 million works out to a whopping .0007% overall death toll. Which is still over thirty times higher than what is being reported for, say, Ethiopia, Sri Lanka, Nicaragua... the latter which never went to any sort of lockdown.

Doesn't seem unreasonable to question whether that is worth paying for the privilege of conducting an experiment with an unproven product on (almost) your entire population - which is what Israel is effectively doing.

In total, more than 160,000 Palestinians in the occupied territories have tested positive for the coronavirus since March 2020, with more than 1,700 deaths related to COVID-19, according to the U.N’s figures. But those numbers might not tell the whole story: among those who are tested, the rate of infection in the occupied territories is 30%, compared to 7.4% in Israel, says Barghtoy.

Many had feared that COVID would especially devastate the Gaza strip—one of the world’s most densely populated areas, with an ill-equipped health system. As of Jan. 14. Gaza’s health ministry had reported almost 47,000 cases and 464 deaths due to the virus. That’s an alarming number, but still lower per-capita than the more than half a million cases Israel’s Health Ministry reported on Jan. 12.

source

While there are some countries that have gone to severe lockdowns and/or contact tracing and achieved low death rates - Australia, South Korea and Vietnam, for example - others that could or would not and relied mostly on cheap existing therapeutics or traditional medicine have achieved far better results than many of those who have gone the lockdown and no therapeutics route.
For example, Bangladesh (58 deaths per million) compared to the UK (1896 per million). Having a younger versus older population would account for *some* of the difference, but still...

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mimi's picture

messages? I am
Crazy
hmmm ...

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joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

no wonder they can't get me my mail on time. Smile

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Shahryar's picture

the other day I wrote that some people seem to hate AOC, Bernie (see above...I've gotten to really dislike Jimmy Dore), Ilhan Omar et al more than those who are worse. In my rant I hoped to indicate that those people are moderates and our sense of betrayal should be more a sense of realization. Once we identify them as moderates and not lefties then we can have less of a special hatred towards them.

However....I admit that when I see pictures of Bill Clinton I get irate. While I think Trump was, by far, the worst President in my lifetime I hate Clinton the most. I'm trying to analyze this. Is it because he is supposedly a Democrat? I think he's the second biggest @$$h#$%^ of the bunch, starting from Truman (don't remember him as Prez).

I will never forget Clinton on TV supporting Lieberman's "independent" run. Clinton yukked it up, saying "what's wrong with two Democrats running?" I guess he didn't feel the same about Jill Stein getting votes (i,e., someone supposedly on the left)....because he's an @$$^*&!.

So Trump was the worst. I hate him and am thrilled he's out even though the new boss is....well, you know. But I hate Clinton the most and possibly because he destroyed the Democratic Party. It's awfully hard to rank the Presidents since Carter. They've been uniformly terrible.

I'll have to say it's something like this:
The worst: Trump
next worst: Clinton
worst after that: Reagan

All the rest are just miserable excuses for a President. Daddy Bush, Jr Bush, Obama, now Biden. They all were "better" than those other three.

My point is that while I don't dislike AOC and Bernie the way some here do, I understand the point that they're supposed to be better and that might be why I hate Clinton so much. I identified as a Democrat then and he betrayed us all. Hillary Clinton likely would have been second on the list had she won since Trump wouldn't be on it and Bill would be #1 as the worst.

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Azazello's picture

@Shahryar @Shahryar @Shahryar
or Bottom 3 I guess. Objectively, Geo. W. Bush must take the prize as Worst President Ever for setting the Middle East on fire with the connivance of Prince Bandar bin Sultan.
Like you though, I am a lifetime "Democrat" so, in my mind, Bill Clinton is the worst ever. Ronald Reagan as Salesman-in-Chief for Neoliberalism rounds out the Top 3.

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12 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

@Shahryar

on domestic issues, i think clinton is clearly the worst, taking the worst ideas of his predecessors and adding some new innovations of his own and creating a concrete basis for the neoliberal siege of our system. on foreign policy, i think that obama was the worst displaying a flagrant disregard for the constitution, international law and basic human decency. further, obama made an effort to codify his worst policies to make them available to his successors.

imo, counting everything but personal scandals, i think that obama is the all around worst president of the modern age - and he has a lot of close competitors.

i don't hate bernie or aoc. i would probably enjoy a conversation with either of them, but there are many things that they have done that disappoint me and occasionally make me angry, which i would be delighted to discuss civilly with them.

edit to add this which popped up in my youtube feed for algorithmic reasons i can't imagine. it features david bowie and jimmy page:

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dystopian's picture

@joe shikspack geeeezzz, I wished my algorhythm worked that good! Wink

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6 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

here's another one that it coughed up recently:

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snoopydawg's picture

@Shahryar

He’s nowhere close to Clinton. Trump didn’t gut welfare. Increase the prison state. Make it so young people are in debt for life. Send millions upon millions of jobs overseas. Didn’t set it up so that banks could crash the global economy. Didn’t kill 500,000 Iraqi kids. What else? Not sure on the bankruptcy bill. Maybe it was during Bush? But I wonder if people would hate Trump as much if the democrats hadn’t lied about Russia Gate and if the media hadn’t covered him so much? Biden is doing basically everything Trump did and then some, but the media isn’t covering it. And now democrats are taking advantage of Russia Gate propaganda by using the manufactured consent it brought them. If we go to war people aren’t going to be against it. The article on Russia and Ukraine is taking that manufactured consent and outright lying to people. Bet those that believe Russia Gate will believe that Russia is the aggressor.

Sorry if that’s a rant, but it was in there. What did Trump do that was worse than other presidents? Obama killed two Americans without due process and Trump killed one without it too. Separating children was heinous yes. But so was what Obama’s deportation did. How many of the families he deported had kids that ended up in foster care? Im not disagreeing with you at all just so that’s clear. I’m genuinely curious.

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Shahryar's picture

@snoopydawg

Perhaps you're right, that Clinton was the worst. Reagan was horrible. Depending on what I'm looking at I could agree that Obama was the worst. Maybe history will record Trump as just a clown but, you know, some of those Nazis are very fine people. Cheney was a monster. Daddy Bush = Putin. One's CIA, the other's KGB.

The biggest double crosser was Obama. We knew Clinton was bad news from the start but there was Obama with his speeches about teaching kids about art and civics.

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@Shahryar is LBJ, Reagan, Clinton, Obama, and in 5th, Truman.
Trump was embarrassingly uncouth, but dropped bombs, droned, imprisoned, starved the poors, because his predecessors paved the way.
LBJ Viet Nam the hoax of Gulf on Tonkin. Friends I grew up with are dying horribly from Agent Orange. A friend from high school got drafted, died his first day in Nam.
Reagan, trickle down, a disaster theory mostly very rich and extremely poor rely upon, because Saint Ronnie.
Clinton: made things worse, like foreign trade agreements. Accomplished much of Reagan's agenda.
Obama: he kicked up every g^d thing all his predecessors enabled him to do.
As did Trump, as will Biden, as will Kamala. And drones. And on and on. A despicable man.
Truman was the haberdasher poor ass guy who created the CIA and regretted it. And perpetuated the Cold War.
Eisenhower fought the good fight, then kept it up with countries in Asia that could not winningly fight back.
I omitted both Bushes because they were, to my mind, transitions. The Homeland Security crap was already written prior to 9/11. Neither of them had an original idea or plan.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

ggersh's picture

The fact that Russia sends troops to it's border is bad, bad, bad, while the usa sending ships to the Black Sea which is good, good, good. I take it that the GWOT has failed in that that in itself isn't capable of continuing our military posture(buildup).

Jayapal is a conduit for Biden to co-opt the progressives, yep see AOC while it's Jayapal doing the dirty work. AOC happily obliges.

Two R's can stop the Palestinians from getting aid, why is it I never hear of one progressive stopping anything in clowngress?

vp Harris claims next war is going to be over water.....we're fucked

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t833cvVNXpg]

Stay safe everyone and have a great weekend!

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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

heh, didn't you read the part of the rulebook that says that the "indispensable, exceptional nation" gets to make the rules?

i don't know what it is about the people in congress who call themselves progressives. they all can talk a big game, but don't seem to have any guts at all.

have a great weekend!

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snoopydawg's picture

@ggersh

what if all the water problems poor people have is to save the water for the elites and making poor people have to buy water which drives up profits for nestles? I see environmental racism as a way to make poor people sick and diseases which drives up profits for the medical industrial complex. And so on down the line. The gig economy might destroy social security if people don’t pay enough into it. I’m not sure how that works.

On a side note...every weekend there is a car that is very loud and it races all around me. It might be more than one car, but I’m going to find out this summer. I’ll drive the convertible around till I find it and go from there. But it’s annoying as hell.

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ggersh's picture

@snoopydawg as for the car enjoy, they don't make them like that anymore.

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3 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

https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/547437-border-czar-roberta-j...

Roberta Jacobson, the White House’s southern border czar, will step down from her post at the end of the month in a surprising move but one the administration said was pre-planned.

Jacobson, who was U.S. ambassador to Mexico under former President Obama, agreed to join the administration as a border coordinator for President Biden’s first 100 days in office, a period ending later this month.

“Ambassador Roberta Jacobson’s leadership in serving as the Special Assistant to the President and Coordinator for the Southwest Border at the National Security Council has been an invaluable contribution to the Biden-Harris Administration and to the United States,” White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in a statement announcing her departure.

Sullivan said Jacobson will leave her post “having shaped our relationship with Mexico as an equal partner, having launched our renewed efforts with the Northern Triangle nations of El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, and having underscored this Administration’s commitment to reenergizing the U.S. immigration system.”

I have no doubts that it was preplanned (Wink! Wink!) as things are running so smoothly at the border.

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@humphrey

continuing to treat the border as a prison wall
caging kids and showing no compassion
as bidden says, nothing will change

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

well then, i guess everything is all fixed now. Smile

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Azazello's picture

Ain't it funny that, as soon as Uncle Joe gets in there good that doggone Putin starts acting up again with his damned aggressions.
I hate to pile on AOC but this is too funny, reminds me of A&C, Who's on First.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1utNx-eJ3Yk&t=19s width:500 height:300]

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

joe shikspack's picture

@Azazello

yep, that doggone putin, moving troops around inside his own country and raising hell. i just can't imagine how joe biden can sleep at night knowing soldiers from moscow and vladivostock might converge near sochi.

thanks for the video, have a great weekend!

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Azazello's picture

@joe shikspack
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EzK02LDkpIc width:400 height:240]

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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.

snoopydawg's picture

@Azazello

the video at his home? He said that cops told him that he had threatened AOC. All he said was that her answer was underwhelming. I’ll look for the tweet. I think I posted it 2 nights ago.

Throw it to home!

This is great.

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snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

Got visited by cops because of her.

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@snoopydawg Some pundits are pointing at Twitter for claiming a violent threat and setting the visit of the cops.

You know, one of the mandatory classes all high school students must pass is a class on the practical application of rights and abuses of those rights by the cops. The guy never should have spoken to the cops and as Greenwald advised, told them to fuck off. Unfortunately many people think (including me at one time) that the police act in good faith, and are surprised when a cop tries to screw them over.

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snoopydawg's picture

@MrWebster

I 1st saw that tweet from Richard and in the thread lots of people fess up.

The United States is also torturing its political prisoners. Some of the people who were at the capital and are inside waiting trial say that guards are beating them. Then of course there is Assange. What we’re doing to Palestinians, Iranians, Venezuelans, and gawd only knows where else and of course there are 400,000 people in Yemen at the brink.

Thank Dawg. She just brought me her shoe. No squeaky!

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enhydra lutris's picture

stay well, and have a wonderful weekend

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6 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 --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

thanks, have a great weekend!

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Raggedy Ann's picture

Things are warming up around here and none too soon for me. I'm weary of the cold and long for the heat. Soon.

Enjoy the evening and weekend! Pleasantry

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"The “jumpers” reminded us that one day we will all face only one choice and that is how we will die, not how we will live." Chris Hedges on 9/11

joe shikspack's picture

@Raggedy Ann

we are on a warming trend here, even though it is cold and wet tonight. i am looking forward to a few weeks of pleasant weather before it gets really hot which i will get tired of long before the heat season is over. oh, well. maybe by late summer it will be safe to take a trip north to cool off.

have a great weekend!

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snoopydawg's picture

to page on its website so people can turn on and in their fellow Americans. I asked kos about it but he hasn’t answered me.

Wasn’t there once a time when the labor board would have come down on Amazon for what it did? Congress has sat back and watched as Amazon abused its workers and the only one who has said anything is Bernie, but he’s just focusing on wages. Be nice if someone gave a crap about American workers.

One squeaky down, the one in the unidolphin is still going strong. I swear I’m going to start squeaking myself soon. I swear she uses it to talk back to me. She got rambunctious and I hollered at her and she said, "squeak, squeak!" Lmao.

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https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-says-he-wants-k-8-schools-open-five-d...

Feb. 17, 2021 8:53 am ET

WASHINGTON—President Biden said he expects a “significant percentage” of K-8 schools to reopen five days a week within his first 100 days in office, after the White House said last week that its pledge to open schools would be met by in-person instruction one day a week.

The president said in a town-hall meeting televised by CNN Tuesday that many schools may seek to remain open during the summer, and he urged that teachers be vaccinated to speed the return to in-person learning. “We should move them up in the hierarchy,” he said.

White House press secretary Jen Psaki said last week that the administration’s pledge to reopen most K-8 schools by the end of 100 days would be satisfied by having in-person instruction at least one day a week in most schools by then. She later said this wasn’t a ceiling, but a bar they were trying to exceed.

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snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

and it started with kids so if Biden is still pushing to open schools then his suffering hasn’t lead to any empathy yet. I keep seeing tweets about Biden’s empathy because of all his suffering. Well I’d my kid couldn’t afford surgery and I had to borrow it from a friend and then I got to be president I’d sure as hell get every Person health care. Especially when I knew that many people could use so mental help. Every person in congress sees all our suffering and turn a blind eye to it while giving it to themselves.

ETA.

Damn Google. They censored status quo again and said next time it’s permanent. Lots of media sites use his photographer's videos. They are still on their websites, but not on status quo's. When democrats are telling social media gurus to crack down on fake news then they are breaking their oath to the constitution. It’s not hard to understand.

CONGRESS SHALL MAKE NO LAWS.....you know... that thing. Yeah I’ve forgotten the rest.

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snoopydawg's picture

@snoopydawg

Every person involved in this heinous act must be fired or something. This is out of line to say the least. This was why they censored Santis. He questioned whether kids needed masks. But don’t dare Fauci is the message. I got dinged by Twit a few days ago and had to delete my tweet if I wanted back on. I don’t remember what I said, but my next one mentioned Goebbles and got past.

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dystopian's picture

Thanks for the news and blues Joe! Appreciate your hard work! Have a good weekend!

Take care all!

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4 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

have a great weekend!

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snoopydawg's picture

Sen. Jim Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), used their respective positions as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and lead Republican of the House Foreign Affairs Committee to stop the USAID’s notification about the reinstated funding from reaching the committees,

If they can block bills when they are in the minority then does that mean that democrats could have done that when they were? I really don’t know how congress works. Someone here probably does. I want to know for when in 2 years democrats loose the senate I can inform people about it just to expose them. Some more.

Heh...this might put me back in Twitter jail.

Does anyone believe that government didn’t have a plan for epidemics? Of course they do because that’s what they do. Plan for every emergency and prepare because they have to save their donors. They just didn’t want to give us what they had.

So Fauci bears no responsibility for the deaths that happened because no PPE? Maybe no one died between the time he told us not to wear masks and the time he told us wear them. Dunno.

The donor class didn’t want to hurt the economy and so they kept us working without proper protection. Lots of people working at meat factories had no protection and were left to fend for themselves. Toss the dice. Lots of people shouldn’t have been sent home to die, but they did because people couldn’t afford to pay the gigantic bills if they were admitted to hospital.

Think about that. Think what kind of people could do what they are doing? Was every leader involved in it or is it just our nefarious plot? Gah. I haven’t finished reading this yet and it’s horrible. Might have to finish tomorrow.

Thanks for the EBs, Joe. Have a great weekend!

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

If they can block bills when they are in the minority then does that mean that democrats could have done that when they were?

where there's a will, there's a way. yes, there are lots of ways that a determined minority can gum up the works. and progressives don't do those sorts of things because they are utterly spineless.

So Fauci bears no responsibility for the deaths that happened because no PPE?

it's more complicated than that and there are a lot more responsible parties.

yes, the government plans for emergencies, including pandemics.

i remember reading some articles (like this one) back during the height of the ppe and ventilator shortage. the government does stockpile those sorts of things, but apparently after the last bunch of emergencies (katrina, swine flu) depleted the supply, obama and the tea party republicans fought over the budget and the stockpile was inadequately replenished.

it was a matter of priorities.

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@snoopydawg https://thehill.com/policy/international/547417-gop-lawmakers-block-bide...

Top Republicans with oversight on foreign affairs are blocking the Biden administration from sending specific aid to the Palestinians, two congressional sources confirmed to The Hill on Friday.

The move represents an effort to carry on the hard-line policy of the former Trump administration which eliminated all funding for Palestinians.

Senator James Risch (R-Idaho) and Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas), the ranking members of their respective committees on foreign affairs, issued an "info hold" on $75 million in economic and development assistance, according to one of the congressional sources.

The funding is part of an estimated $235 million in total assistance to the Palestinians that was announced earlier this week by the Biden administration.

The move by Risch and McCaul is expected to delay delivery of the money, but a congressional aide didn’t expect it to have a lasting impact.

There is more at the link.

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5 users have voted.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-is-the-keystone-xl-pipeline-and-why-di...

President Biden’s decision to revoke a permit for Keystone XL likely spells the end of a saga spanning more than 12 years over the pipeline meant to carry Canadian crude to the U.S.

Here is a brief history of the long-contested project, which has now faced judgment from three U.S. presidential administrations, and a look at what likely comes next.

What is the Keystone XL Pipeline?
Keystone XL is an expansion of an existing pipeline, called Keystone, that carries Canadian crude into the U.S. It was first proposed in July 2008 by TC Energy Corp. , then known as TransCanada Corp., a pipeline company based in Calgary, Alberta, and ConocoPhillips , which was a joint owner until 2009.

Today we learn this.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/09/politics/dakota-access-pipeline-biden-adm...

The Biden administration will not shut down the controversial Dakota Access Pipeline while an environmental review is conducted, a blow to the environmental and tribal groups that have rallied against the project for years.

Government attorney Ben Schifman told a federal judge on Friday that the Army Corps of Engineers, which handles permits for the pipeline, "is essentially in a continuous process of evaluating" and gathering information. An attorney representing the Standing Rock Sioux tribe, which has been challenging the pipeline, said he is "deeply disappointed."
"The company gets to keep the benefits of operating the pipeline that was never properly authorized while the community has to bear the risks," said attorney Jan Hasselman. "It's not right. It's a continuation of a terrible history."

The Biden administration had been under enormous pressure from the pipeline's opponents to reverse the Trump administration's support of the project. A federal judge had put on hold further proceedings while the new administration got up to speed.

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(just in case anyone missed the extensive mainstream coverage)

Although "trained Marxist" and BLM co-founder Patrisse Khan-Kullors has not openly stated that she is changing her position on the abolition of private property, until that happens she is not apparently planning to spend the intervening time in some burnt out urban slum in solidarity with the downtrodden.

It seems her tastes run more to exclusive, predominantly white, wealthy enclaves, and for only $1.4 million, Topanga Canyon must have just been too good to pass up...

BLM Co-founder cashes in.

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3 users have voted.