The Evening Blues - 7-29-21
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features r&b singer LaVern Baker. Enjoy!
LaVern Baker - Tweedle Dee
“Capital must protect itself in every way…Debts must be collected and loans and mortgages foreclosed as soon as possible. When through a process of law the common people have lost their homes, they will be more tractable and more easily governed by the strong arm of the law applied by the central power of leading financiers. People without homes will not quarrel with their leaders. This is well known among our principal men now engaged in forming an imperialism of capitalism to govern the world. By dividing the people we can get them to expend their energies in fighting over questions of no importance to us except as teachers of the common herd.”
-- Taken from the Civil Servants’ Year Book, “The Organizer” January 1934.
News and Opinion
Eleven million US families face eviction as CDC moratorium expires
An historic and devastating wave of evictions and foreclosures looms, with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC) federal eviction moratorium set to expire at the end of this week, on July 31.
With just days to go, there is no indication the Biden administration is going to extend it. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki boasted in a press conference on Friday about vague efforts by the Biden administration to “help people with government-backed mortgages stay in their homes through monthly payment reductions and potential loan modifications.” Noticeably absent was any reference to the end of the moratorium or relief for renters. ...
Last year exceeded the $10 trillion mark in housing debt for the first time in history, according to the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report, reaching levels higher than those seen in the third quarter of 2008, which reached just under $10 trillion. This creates the obvious preconditions, paired with job losses, attacks on workers' wages and a new surge in the pandemic, for an immense foreclosure crisis.
Despite the CDC’s moratorium, which was issued on September 4, 2020 as state-level moratoriums expired, over 444,000 evictions have been ordered during the pandemic, with over 6,600 in the week preceding July 17, according to Princeton University’s Eviction Lab. According to the Eviction Lab, neighborhoods with the highest eviction filing rates have the lowest COVID-19 vaccination rates.
The housing crisis presents an immediate danger to public health, especially given the spread of COVID-19 among the homeless population, which many of those being evicted or foreclosed on will join.
Troops to stay put in Syria even as Biden seeks to end America’s ‘forever wars’
The Biden administration is pulling all American troops out of Afghanistan and formally transitioning to an advisory role in Iraq. But the U.S. military operation in Syria has seen no changes — and officials expect hundreds of troops to remain in the country for the foreseeable future.
Roughly 900 U.S. troops, including a number of Green Berets, will remain in Syria to continue supporting and advising the Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State — the same role they have played since the American-led intervention in 2014, according to a senior Biden administration official.
“I don’t anticipate any changes right now to the mission or the footprint in Syria,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive plans.
As President Joe Biden seeks to end America’s “forever wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan, the Pentagon’s quiet operation in Syria has, for the most part, flown under the radar. After seven years of conflict and two attempts by former President Donald Trump to pull American troops out, defense and administration officials tell POLITICO the administration now has no plans to make any changes to the U.S. military operation in Syria.
US stepping up airstrikes this week to support Afghan forces
The U.S. military has launched more than a dozen airstrikes in the past week in support of Afghan government forces in their fight against the Taliban, a sharp spike over the handful that were done in the previous six weeks, according to U.S. officials.
The Pentagon said Tuesday that both conventional warplanes and armed drones were used, but did not provide details. A U.S. official, however, gave some specifics and said there has been a significant increase in strikes since July 20, with the number sometimes reaching almost a handful a day.
The strikes, which include several conducted last week, indicate stepped up U.S. support after weeks of battlefield gains by the Taliban as U.S. troops complete their withdrawal. U.S. officials have said that the aircraft have been flown from bases outside of Afghanistan because the U.S. military pulled its combat planes out of the country.
Tunisia in turmoil as president purges officials and seizes judicial power
Tunisia’s president has launched a purge of senior officials, including prosecutors and judges, and taken on judicial powers, days after overthrowing the prime minister and imposing emergency law. Kais Saied’s crackdown has dragged the country deeper into uncertainty days after its elected parliament was suspended for a month in a shock move that brought a decade of faltering democracy to a sudden halt.
The actions of Saied, a relative newcomer to politics, have been widely labelled a coup, and there are fears that the north African state could end up with the sort of autocratic regime that ruled it for decades until the Arab spring.
Tunisia, where the revolutions began in 2010, had clung to hard-won democratic gains made during years of economic and political instability. Their abrupt end, and the muted response from inside the country and around the Middle East, has stunned proponents of the uprising and the transition to democracy. “This was the last poster child of the Arab spring,” said Suha Rached, a teacher from Tunis. “I don’t know what to feel now. It’s not even clear if it was worth it.”
Across the country, reactions have been largely low key. Mohammed Ali, 33, a resident of Ben Guerdane, said he and people he knew were in favour of the takeover. “I think what happened is good,” he said by phone. “I think that’s what all the people want.” He railed at the country’s biggest party, Ennahda, which he said had failed to improve the lives of the country’s citizens. “Everyone is fed up with them,” he said. “Ennahda help only themselves.”
He also said he did not believe true democracy existed anywhere, although he took part in the revolts that resulted in the country’s former dictator Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali fleeing the country in January 2011.
Five Cuban generals dead in recent days – is the Covid spike to blame?
Five mostly elderly and retired Cuban military generals have died in recent days in mysterious circumstances, the country’s communist regime has confirmed, adding intrigue to a new round of freedom protests taking place in the island and US.
There is no suggestion of foul play in the deaths of the five. ... But with Covid-19 surging across the island, and the average number of daily new cases in Cuba close to 8,000, almost eight times higher than the beginning of July, observers fear that the pandemic could be responsible. The youngest of the generals was 57.
Cuba’s government has not given an explanation or cause of death for any of the five.
House’s Resolve to Curb Surveillance State Faces Biggest Test Since Trump Presidency
In a huge win for surveillance reformers, the House Rules Committee agreed on Wednesday morning to another full chamber vote on a bipartisan proposal that would limit the federal government’s warrantless searches of Americans’ private data. The vote, expected later in the day, will now test rank-and-file lawmakers’ willpower to break with congressional leaders, who’ve killed similar measures in years past, and safeguard their constituents’ Fourth Amendment rights after the Donald Trump presidency brought greater attention across the political spectrum to the surveillance state’s excesses.
A group of Democrats and Republicans in the House of Representatives — Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.; Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash.; Thomas Massie, R-Ky.; and Warren Davidson, R-Ohio — introduced the proposal as an amendment to the Justice Department’s Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bill. The amendment would ban the government from using funds to conduct searches of Americans’ digital communications without court approval. Such extrajudicial monitoring became authorized in 2008 via the Section 702 provision of the FISA Amendments Act, which bolstered spying authorities first laid out in the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. ...
With bipartisan support, the House already passed similar amendments to Defense Department appropriations bills in 2014 and 2015 to close the Section 702 loophole, but they were ultimately excluded from the final legislation during conference negotiations with the Senate. Lofgren, Massie, and others put forward the proposal again in more recent years, but it failed to gather majority support. “What we’ve seen over and over again is that folks like Adam Schiff, folks like Nancy Pelosi, folks like Mitch McConnell are so deeply committed to maintaining the surveillance state and avoiding even the most modest reforms that they’ve effectively, from on high, scuttled these attempts at reform,” said Evan Greer, director of digital rights group Fight for The Future. ...
Republicans are also feeling the pressure to tackle surveillance reform. Although the Trump administration embraced federal law enforcement’s extensive powers to track journalists, the former president oversaw a potentially transformative shift in right-wing opinion by fomenting populist resentment against government surveillance when it suited his interests. Trump’s attacks on the FBI for wiretapping his 2016 campaign, and even Fox News host Tucker Carlson’s recent lamentations against alleged National Security Agency spying, may result in more conservative legislators voting to close the Section 702 loophole. “There’s no reason to think we’ve lost any Democrats on this issue, but it is very clear that we’ve won a whole boatload of Republicans,” said Sean Vitka, policy counsel at Demand Progress, an internet advocacy group. “It’s very plausible that 100 Republicans have moved into an opposed-to-FISA stance across the board.”
Ancient Gilgamesh tablet seized from Hobby Lobby by US authorities
A rare and ancient tablet showing part of the epic of Gilgamesh, which had been acquired by Christian arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby for display in its museum of biblical artefacts, has been seized by the US government.
The Department of Justice (DoJ) alleges that the 3,600-year-old “Gilgamesh Dream Tablet”, which originated in a region that is now part of Iraq, was acquired in 2003 by an American antiquities dealer, “encrusted with dirt and unreadable”, from the family member of a London coin dealer. Once it had arrived in the US, and been cleaned, experts realised that it showed a portion of the Gilgamesh epic, one of the world’s oldest works of literature, in the Akkadian language.
The DoJ alleges that the dealer then sold the tablet with a “false provenance letter”, saying that it had been inside a box of ancient bronze fragments purchased in a 1981 auction. It was then sold several times before Hobby Lobby bought it from a London auction house in 2014, and put it on display in the Museum of the Bible. The museum was conceived by evangelical Christian Steve Green, the billionaire president of Hobby Lobby.
The tablet was seized from the museum by law enforcement agents in 2019, and New York’s eastern district court ordered its forfeiture on Tuesday. The DoJ said that Hobby Lobby had consented to the forfeiture, “based on the tablet’s illegal importations into the United States in 2003 and 2014”.
“We Can’t Trust the Unvaccinated”: Dr. Leana Wen on Vaccine Mandates & How to Stop the Delta Variant
Another coronavirus variant has reached Florida.
A coronavirus variant discovered in Colombia is showing up among patients in South Florida, increasing infections and putting health officials on alert as calls grow louder for unvaccinated individuals to get inoculated.
Carlos Migoya, CEO of Jackson Health System, told WPLG in Miami earlier this week that the B.1.621 variant has accounted for about 10 percent of coronavirus patients, trailing behind delta, the now-dominant variant in the United States that has been ravaging the nation’s unvaccinated, and the gamma variant. B.1.621 has yet to receive a Greek-letter designation as more prominent variants have.
Migoya told the news station that he speculated B.1.621 is rising in South Florida because of international travel between Colombia and Miami, which serves as a gateway to Latin America. ...
The earliest documented samples of B.1.621 were noted in January, and at least 16 cases have been recently reported in the United Kingdom, where health officials have noted that the majority of cases linked to the variant were the result of international travel.
Public Health England noted last week that there is currently no evidence to indicate that the variant causes more severe disease or evades the efficacy of vaccines. Yet the agency has designated the variant to be under investigation as it continues to conduct lab testing to better understand the impact mutations have on the coronavirus.
Union advocates rally in New York to support striking Alabama coalminers
Coal miners and union advocates from across the country rallied in New York on Wednesday morning in support of Alabama miners who are four months into a strike against their employer, Warrior Met Coal.
Dressed in camouflage T-shirts with the slogan “We Are Everywhere”, members of the United Mine Workers Association (UMWA) gathered in midtown Manhattan in front of the headquarters of BlackRock, a hedge fund that is Warrior Met Coal’s largest investor.
Over 100 protesters chanted “No contract, no coal!” and “Warrior Met Coal ain’t got no soul!” as trucks and cars driving between the barricades enclosing the protesters honked in support.
Over 1,100 workers from two Warrior Met Coal mines in Brookwood, Alabama have been on strike since April amid union contract negotiations with the company. It has become one of the largest labor demonstrations seen in the deep south, a region that is typically hostile to labor disputes.
This Is Not a Climate Bill: Leah Stokes on Why Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Doesn’t Go Far Enough
The GOOD, BAD, And UGLY Of Biden's Infrastructure Plan
US Senate votes to advance infrastructure deal after bipartisan breakthrough
The US Senate voted on Wednesday to begin work on a $1.2tn bipartisan infrastructure deal after negotiators reached agreement on the major components of the package that is a key priority of Joe Biden. The agreement follows months of talks between Senate Democrats and Republicans.
Biden has hailed the deal as “historic” and promised to work with members of both parties to ensure the bill’s passage “because while there’s a lot we don’t agree on, I believe that we should be able to work together on the few things we do agree on. I think it’s important.”
Wednesday night’s vote was a key procedural victory that paves the way to begin work on the bill, which proposes $550bn in new spending on everything from roads and bridges to broadband and green energy.
The rare bipartisan showing on the 67-32 vote, with support from 17 Republicans, signaled the interest among senators, but it’s unclear if enough Republicans will eventually join Democrats to support final passage. The procedural step Wednesday night is expected to launch lengthy consideration.
Who does Kyrsten Sinema think she is, President Manchin?
As Bipartisan Infrastructure Deal Reached, Sinema Comes Out Against $3.5 Trillion Package
Ahead of an imminent vote in the Senate on moving forward with a bipartisan infrastructure plan, Sen. Kyrsten Sinema on Wednesday announced her opposition to a proposed $3.5 trillion reconciliation package—potentially jeopardizing both efforts.
As The Daily Beast's Matt Fuller put it: "If she stands by this, she'll kill the bipartisan deal too."
"House Democrats aren't going to go along with a bipartisan deal that comes at the exclusion of the reconciliation bill," Fuller tweeted. "So Kyrsten Sinema could single-handedly prevent any infrastructure investment."
In a statement about the reconciliation proposal, Sinema (D-Ariz.) said she has told Senate leadership and President Joe Biden that "while I will support beginning this process, I do not support a bill that costs $3.5 trillion—and in the coming months, I will work in good faith to develop this legislation with my colleagues and the administration."
Sinema's potentially fatal blow to all efforts to pass federal legislation on physical and human infrastructure—given progressive lawmakers' threats to condition their support for a bipartisan bill on simultaneously advancing a bold reconciliation package—came the same day the White House and a group of lawmakers, including the Arizona Democrat, announced an agreement on the details of the bipartisan measure. ...
While Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell reportedly responded to Sinema's statement on the $3.5 trillion proposal by calling her "very courageous," progressive lawmakers echoed advocacy groups' demands for advancing the reconciliation package—which, as Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) explained last week, is necessary. ...
Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-N.Y.) tweeted Wednesday that "without a reconciliation package that meets this moment, I'm a no on this bipartisan deal."
Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) highlighted flooding in both her district and Arizona, tweeting that "meanwhile in MI-13, folks are suffering repeated, devastating floods caused, in part, by failing infrastructure. This is nothing more than pointless grandstanding that will perpetuate suffering and the idea that we are just here for ourselves, not #ForThePeople." ...
Tlaib said Wednesday that it is "time for the White House to play hardball. We didn't elect Sinema as president and we won't let her obstruction put a Republican in the Oval Office in 2024. It's the reconciliation bill or GOP controlling every level of government again, period."
Krystal Ball CONFRONTS Bernie On Biden's Failed Promises
Democrats are excited to get out and sell themselves as the party of the police.
Democrats’ New Midterm Strategy: Knocking the GOP for Vote Against Police Funding
As the 2022 midterm elections draw closer, Democrats in Congress are taking on a new strategy: blaming Republicans for voting to defund the police. And according to Democratic aides, the change in messaging is coming straight from the office of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
Establishment Democrats have spent months under fire, from both Republicans, who claimed that Democrats wanted to weaken law enforcement, and from members of their party’s own progressive wing, who were critical of the way the party bent to some of those attacks. Now those same moderate Democrats are fighting back — namely by highlighting Republicans’ vote against the American Rescue Plan, Congress’s coronavirus aid package and Democrats’ only major legislative achievement this session.
Pelosi was instrumental in the passage of the American Rescue Plan, which allocated money toward pandemic relief, increased the child tax credit, and expanded health care coverage; President Joe Biden signed the package into law in March. Given that every Republican in Congress voted against it, the bill is also now providing Democrats with new ammunition.
Localities have started to spend the first rounds of funds released in the package to hire more police officers, retain existing officers, and keep other first responders from being laid off, which means that Democrats now “actually have the ability to talk about specific localities where people are being kept on the police force,” said one senior Democratic aide who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “And we’re able to talk about it more concretely as opposed to theoretically.” In addition, they added, the GOP response to the January 6 attack on the Capitol made it easier for Democrats to highlight the party’s hypocrisy. “Once Americans saw Republicans disrespect the officers who protected them on January 6, it became a lot easier for us to point out hypocrisy on policing.”
Ahead of the 2022 midterms, Democrats still plan to push the message that they are the party of economic recovery, but the attack on funding for law enforcement will certainly be a new part of their offensive strategy. “Members are excited to punch back,” the aide said. “Republicans have spent an entire year essentially lying about what Democrats support and what Democrats have voted for. The fact that Democrats have really settled on a line here to push back on it, and to really go on offense, excites Democrats.”
ZZ Top bassist Dusty Hill dies aged 72
Dusty Hill, bassist for ZZ Top, has died at the age of 72.
Hill, who had recently suffered a hip injury, died in his sleep, as confirmed by a statement on Instagram from bandmates Billy Gibbons and Frank Beard.
“We are saddened by the news today that our Compadre, Dusty Hill, has passed away in his sleep at home in Houston, TX,” it read. “We, along with legions of ZZ Top fans around the world, will miss your steadfast presence, your good nature and enduring commitment to providing that monumental bottom to the ‘Top’. We will forever be connected to that ‘Blues Shuffle in C.’ You will be missed greatly, amigo.”
His recent injury had meant that Hill was forced to miss performances as part of the band’s summer tour. There have been no further details on cause of death.
Every progressive in the house voted for this Republican to be Speaker in exchange for nothing. https://t.co/mTle9OePKc
— Briahna Joy Gray (@briebriejoy) July 28, 2021
Planet's Vital Signs Are Reaching Dangerous 'Tipping Points' Amid Climate Crisis, Scientists Warn
More than a year after the Covid-19 pandemic shut down economies around the world and sharply reduced worldwide travel - sparking speculation among some that emissions would plummet as a result—a coalition of scientists said in a paper published Wednesday that the planet is nonetheless reaching multiple "tipping points," with levels of sea ice melt, deforestation, and other markers revealing that urgent action is needed to mitigate the climate emergency.
"The extreme climate events and patterns that we've witnessed over the last several years — not to mention the last several weeks — highlight the heightened urgency with which we must address the climate crisis," said Philip Duffy, co-author of the study and executive director of the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Massachusetts.
The "World Scientists' Warning of a Climate Emergency 2021" which was published in the journal BioScience, states that 18 out of 31 planetary vital signs have hit record-breaking high or low points in recent years.
The paper detailed how despite fossil fuel use dipping slightly in 2020, levels of carbon dioxide, methane, and nitrous oxide "have all set new year-to-date records for atmospheric concentrations in both 2020 and 2021." The authors emphasized, however, that fossil fuel emissions and the global heating with which they're associated are far from the only indicator that the planet is in danger.
The researchers recorded other tipping points or near-tipping points in levels of ocean heat; ice mass; the deforestation of the Amazon, which serves as a vital carbon sink; ocean acidification, and the amount of ruminant livestock, which now number more than four billion and are a significant source of planet-warming gases.
"We need to stop treating the climate emergency as a stand-alone issue—global heating is not the sole symptom of our stressed Earth system," William Ripple, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University's College of Forestry and a co-author of the report, said in a statement.
The research was released two months after researchers in Germany and Norway released a study showing Greenland's ice sheet was "at the brink" of reaching a "tipping point," with trillions of tons of ice having flown into the sea.
The paper published Wednesday showed the rate of forest loss in the Brazilian Amazon reached a 12-year high of 1.11 million hectares deforested last year and that the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere reached 416 parts per million in April 2021—"the highest monthly global average concentration ever recorded," according to The Guardian.
The tipping points recorded in the analysis are all the result of "human overexploitation of the planet," Ripple said.
While emissions from people commuting to work and plane travel went down in 2020 as a result of stay-at-home measures for some, the report still showed "the consequences of unrelenting business as usual," he added.
"A major lesson from Covid-19 is that even colossally decreased transportation and consumption are not nearly enough and that, instead, transformational system changes are required," Ripple said.
To mitigate the rapidly worsening crisis, the authors said, global policymakers must set "a significant carbon price" and link it to financing adaptation measures in the developing world and climate action policies; begin a phase-out of fossil fuel extraction and move towards a ban; and pass policies aimed at restoring and maintaining carbon sinks and natural habitats that support biodiversity, like the Biden administration's recent decision to restore protections like the Tongass National Forest.
"Policies to alleviate the climate crisis or any of the other threatened planetary boundary transgressions should not be focused on symptom relief but on addressing their root cause: the overexploitation of the Earth," the researchers wrote.
One climate action organizer in Minnesota linked the findings to the Line 3 tar sands pipeline, which the Biden administration has so far permitted to continue.
"It’s not too late to stop Line 3 and enact a just climate transition," said Andrew Ulasich of the faith-based initiative Isaiah. "But time is short. Now is the time for action."
The paper noted some positive developments, including record-high levels of fossil fuel divestment by cities, financial institutions, universities, and other entities, and a record low level of fossil fuel subsidies.
The research was published as a follow-up to a 2019 paper in which thousands of experts declared the climate emergency, named the planet's vital signs, and called for six courses of action to mitigate the crisis: eliminating fossil fuels, slashing pollution, restoring ecosystems, shifting to plant-based diets, transitioning away from economies that prioritize indefinite growth, stabilizing the human population.
"We're going to have, as we're witnessing, significant human suffering, but if we make the big changes soon, we can limit that suffering," Ripple told Fast Company on Wednesday. "We want to give an update with these vital signs, but we also want to emphasize the importance of moving fast at this point, and thinking big."
Steven Donziger: Big Oil Has Tried To Demonize Me For 10 YEARS, Details Appeal & RESPONDS To Chevron
Washington state county is first in US to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure
A county in Washington state has become the first such jurisdiction in the US to ban new fossil fuel infrastructure, following a lengthy battle over the impact of oil refineries on the local community. In a vote on Tuesday night, Whatcom county’s council unanimously passed a measure that bans the construction of new refineries, coal-fired power plants and other fossil fuel-related infrastructure. The ordinance also places new restrictions on existing fossil fuel facilities, such as a requirement that any extra planet-heating gases emitted from any expansion be offset.
Whatcom county is located in the far north-west corner of Washington state, next to the Canadian border and abutting the Salish sea. The county hosts two of the state’s five oil refineries, with BP and Phillips 66 overseeing facilities at the Cherry Point complex that refines much of the oil from Canada and Alaska that is then distributed along the US west coast.
“There will be no new refineries, they won’t be able to get permits to export their product and while we will still have these dinosaur facilities already here it will be more challenging for them to expand,” said Todd Donovan, who is serving his second term on the council and was a major proponent of the new rule. “The future is clearly in renewable energy.”
The ban is the culmination of a years-long fight to curb fossil fuel activity in the county to help address the climate crisis and reduce air pollution. A huge coal export facility, which would have moved 50m tons of coal a year, was proposed for Cherry Point but was eventually blocked in 2016 following fears raised by the local Lummi Nation that it would have destroyed fisheries. Donovan said that people in the county had become increasingly alarmed about the environmental fallout of fossil fuel activity, including impacts upon fisheries and local orca whales.
“We just had our hottest day on record a few days ago, the salmon are disappearing, the glaciers are melting so much that you look at Mount Baker near here and you see bare rock where there used to be ice,” he said. “With all the fires and the heat, people are connecting the dots that this is climate change caused by fossil fuels. It has galvanized them.”
Why is a big oil company investing huge amounts of money in Wyoming wind?
As one of the US’s windiest states, Wyoming has enormous potential to help power the country’s green revolution, but renewable energy in the west has long been dogged by a fundamental problem of transmission. Wind and solar farms tend to be located in remote areas separated from populated cities by hundreds of miles of rugged terrain, a tangle of government regulations and resistance from landowners who don’t want power lines buzzing over their yards.
After more than a decade of trying, a corporation that made billions drilling for oil is poised to add a critical piece in the renewable energy puzzle. This month, TransWest Express LLC announced that it had acquired almost all the permits, permissions and partnerships needed to begin seeking customers for a 732-mile high voltage power line that would carry 20,000 GWh of renewable energy a year – roughly three-quarters of the energy needed to power Los Angeles – from southern Wyoming to a distribution hub near Las Vegas where it could tap into the grid that feeds Phoenix and Los Angeles. ...
If it comes to fruition, the TransWest Express would provide crucial alternatives while helping western states meet their ambitious renewable energy commitments. The company behind TransWest, Anschutz Corporation, amassed a fortune in the 19th century in the oil-rich shale deposits of Wyoming. Today, the Denver-based corporation controls the Washington Examiner, the Los Angeles Kings hockey team and the Coachella music festival. It’s also the largest private oil and gas company in Wyoming’s Powder River Basin, drilling on more than 155,800 hectares (385,000 acres). Anschutz , which has a deep rooting in fossil fuels, says it sees the potential in renewables and, specifically, the opportunity in overcoming the field’s debilitating transmission obstacle. But the path has been riddled with obstacles. “These big interregional connections across the whole grid system have not been built in decades,” said Kara Choquette, communications director for TransWest Express.
The price of navigating the west’s regulatory quagmire is a significant deterrent, but TransWest is backed by a fossil-fueled empire. Anschutz also has a vested interest in connecting Wyoming wind to larger markets, because it happens to be building what would be the largest windfarm in North America on a ranch in Carbon county: the Chokecherry and Sierra Madre Wind Project, which could come online in 2026. Since 2008, TransWest has spent tens of millions of dollars to secure permissions across private and public land in 14 counties and four states, Choquette said.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Leftwing rural teacher Pedro Castillo sworn in as president of Peru
Biden Is Not Ending The 'Forever Wars'. He Is Preparing The Path To New Ones.
“Rampant Issues”: Black Farmers are Still Left Out at USDA
Formerly Homeless Rep. Cori Bush Introduces Unhoused Bill of Rights
‘We will return’: the battle to save an ancient Palestinian village from demolition
Bolsonaro’s 1,000km Amazon railway will cause climate chaos. It must be stopped
Morocco team hails stone age tool site dating back 1.3m years
Kim Kelly: Media's SILENT On Miner Strike As They SURROUND BLACKROCK
Katie Halper: Joe Biden’s Pro-Union Stances Are Nothing But LIP SERVICE
A Little Night Music
LaVern Baker - Jim Dandy
LaVern Baker - Soul On Fire
Lavern Baker - You'd Better Find Yourself Another Fool
Lavern Baker - Bumble Bee
Lavern Baker - Love Me Right In The Morning
Lavern Baker - Jim Dandy Got Married
Lavern Baker - Tiny Tim
Lavern Baker- Saved
LaVern Baker - Voodoo Voodoo
LaVern Baker & Jimmy Ricks - You're The Boss
LaVern Baker - Oh, Johnny Oh, Johnny
LaVern Baker - Batman To The Rescue
Comments
Good evening, joe and bluzerz!
I love how the unvaccinated are now responsible for the vaccinated getting sick. It's laughable! Why are the vaccinated getting sick? Oh, yeah, maybe because all the vaccine does is mask symptoms and protects you from nothing. Everyone should just get covid and establish their own immunities. I'm sure I'm going to hear from a bunch of you who are the vaccine sheeple. What a joke on you!
Enjoy your evening!
"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
I'm pretty sure.......
that this falls under DBAD.
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
evening ra...
geez. i guess i better start bleating because i am fully and happily vaccinated. i am also happy that you are free to not get vaccinated if you choose not to.
i think that everybody should assess the situation, educate themselves as best they can with the resources that they have at hand and freely choose to do what they think is the right thing.
and it would be swell if we could all be polite, not only about everybody else's freedom to choose, but also to accommodate to what amount to really insignificant inconveniences (wearing a mask in public places when requested) as a social lubricant if nothing else.
LaVern Baker----R & B rules!!
Agree with you on being vaccinated. I am internally disabled/immuno-compromised. Did the Moderna vaccine and barely had any side effects. My big complaint is trying to sort needed Covid info from all the MSM white noise.
Rec'd for links and tunes.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.
What is most frustrating to me about Covid Discussion
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What is most frustrating to me about Covid Discussion is how the politicized bullshit tends to set up binary logic -- either you are pro vaccine or anti vaccine, to consider the most pertinent topic now.
Trump Derangement Syndrome is still the main culprit for phony dichotomies that leave out far more sensible and realistic ideas. Once Trump got quoted saying it was all a hoax, every question about the ongoing story from the authorities became a Trump Conspiracy Theory deserving of ridicule and worse -- anybody asking a question about the lockdown was deemed a bioterrorist bent on murdering human beings to help Trump get re-elected.
Regarding the vaccines, all I ever wanted was a straight story -- which does not exist any more in our depraved society. At first, the "warp speed" aspect bothered me and I was planning on getting vaccinated perhaps a few months into the campaign. But then I read what the Pfizer Executives were telling the "investment community" about the big opportunities they saw coming up: booster shots, the likelihood of the virus never going away and requiring shots forever. They were fucking salivating at the prospect of an endemic Covid 19.
"I trust this science." Uh huh. I trust the profit motive to explain corporate behavior.
Regarding the product itself, they were frank from the start about how this would not prevent people from getting the disease. Its claim, which most published data suggests to be accurate, is to reduce the harm of getting the disease. If you believe it will work without giving you worse side effects than the disease itself, it makes perfect sense to take the shot -- even if it wears off in less than a year. I have no beef against anybody who decides that the risk of incompletely tested medication harming them is less than the risk from the virus.
I have seen and heard people refer to their personal experience, saying I took the jab and I'm fine. Once again this is utterly irrelevant to the objection about the unapproved therapies. We do not know if side effects will develop a year or two later. That is why this shit is not approved -- the time frame of the testing is STILL GOING ON.
What has me shocked and more appalled than ever is to see all this contradictory bullshit like Raggedy Ann noted -- it is unvaccinated people who make vaccinated people get sick.
I agree that the pandemic is real. I do not agree that there is only one answer to the question of what to do about it. My tilting against windmills here is a determined and heartfelt effort to persuade people to realize that Science is not running this clusterfuck, and to suggest that it is is far worse than goofy theories about Vaccine is Poison.
Neither extreme should be suppressed. But only one extreme has the backing of the Federal Government and Silicon Valley in an effort not to refute but to silence the other.
I cried when I wrote this song. Sue me if I play too long.
Good Evening RA. That particular talking
point has gained an enormous amount of currency lately, but, sadly, it is not factual as stated. Nobody has proven that my truck will do 100 mph, but that doesn't mean it wont. Nobody has good evidence that the vaccinated haven't come down with asymptomatic covid because it is asymptomatic; that isn't proof that it doesn't protect against the virus, or even serious evidence that it doesn't. Also, it isn't 100% efficacious, few vaccines, treatments or therapies ever are, so that really tells us nothing either.
be well and have a good one
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 --
Aw geez, RA...
Read this sub thread from this afternoon:
https://caucus99percent.com/comment/538503#comment-538503
This covid vax/nonvax thing is going to get worse, much worse in meat world. I would hope that we can make this site a place where WE can at least get along with each other.
Please, in the future, withhold the shamimg/finger pointing/scolding.
Folks, if this shit gets out of control the only solution I can come up with is to ban all discussion of covid. Nobody wants that. All I ask is folks not attack each other, There'll be plenty of that elsewhere.
Thank you JtC
I find it a bit ironic that division grows at the same time conformity is being promoted, but natural in a way. I think people naturally respond to the pressure of conformity with defensiveness and defiance, maybe especially because there’s conflicting information which can be very difficult to process. Maybe we’ll all come out of it stronger, but in the meantime if we keep cool, and kindly leave room for all to be themselves, we’ll at least survive. This place is special.
Have you heard anything from Mollie that can be shared? I miss her voice.
Thanks Janis...
Unfortunately I haven't heard anything from Mollie. Hopefully she and Mr. M are doing well.
Thank you for asking. She's been on my mind lately.
A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.
Consider helping by donating using the button in the upper left hand corner. Thank you.
The Revolution that never was.
https://www.kktv.com/2021/07/29/pro-sanders-group-rebranding-into-pragma...
Looks like the dogs are finally eating the dog food.
Idolizing a politician is like believing the stripper really likes you.
evening dr jc...
heh, the revolution that was never ours...
these folks are acting pretty much like i'd expect a bunch of professional campaign workers to act. i guess they probably have comfy jobs now and they are ready to make political compromises in order to keep the money coming in.
nothing will fundamentally change.
I couldn’t watch the Bernie interview past Krystal
giving her 1st opinion after Bernie said something. Bernie knows that we don’t have time to dicker around with climate change and he knows damn well that the parliamentarian excuse was dead the minute she made her decision. Biden is nowhere near to being FDR and much closer to being the 3rd or 17th millionth Hoover. The squid has totally abandoned everything they ran on except they keep saying they are for it after bailing on the votes to get it. Omar just gave permission to give Israel billions more whilst millions are on the brink of eviction. Plus lots of money going gawd knows where to keep American hegemony running. Does Bernie ever object to that money that is unaccountable to us peons?
And any word on the $500 billion going to the banks? I suck at math, but that’s $15 trillion a month. Ain’t it? But just can’t afford to help students with crushing debt? BS!
That's some good snark!
Maybe modest like "Nothing will fundamentally change"?
Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.
i hate them all equally
but that doesn't mean I don't hate them individually. Pelosi is one I hate, for so many reasons. Pretty sad that San Francisco, with a reputation for real liberalism, keeps electing her. It's a little simplistic, though (in my opinion) to quickly pivot to be blaming "progressives". They all did it. That's why I hate them all.
Please
see my comment below on NYC forgiving student tuition and fees.
NYCVG
evening shahryar...
they are indeed a plague upon the earth. few of them are more disgusting than pelosi.
The agreement follows months of talks
moving at the speed of congress
it's a damn wonder they ever get
anything done.
Some committee dragged it out until
it was obvious nothing was to be done.
Infrastructure? No.
Bombs and sanctions?
No problem. Give 'em more!
question everything
evening qms...
well, i guess it would probably be wasteful of congress to rebuild infrastructure at this point when they intend to do nothing to mitigate the climate crises that await us.
This is from the NYTimes. I can't access the article but
This is the image that accompanied it.
The latest infrastructure plan.
Isn't bipartisanship just grand?
Rather like the map of Palestinian areas in Palestine since 1948
POTUS and Congress-critters pretend to want to bring peace to the class war, with a comprehensive contiguous concept.
But it always ends up being a sham. Bits and pieces. A tangled patchwork of Band-Aids and Bantustans.
Good to see you
Hope you have been doing well.
Hey Joe thanks for the blues and the news
So it seems that China doesn't necessarily agree with this and for good reason
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2021/07/china-cracks-down-on-tech-its-peop...
Here's a snippet, and the last line nails it!
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
evening ggersh...
heh, yep, china is doing a better job these days of raising living standards of their people and appearing to give a damn.
i guess we'll see how long it takes them to dominate the world.
More Breaking News!
Good evening Joe and Caucus 99. I have literally Breaking News from Israel and NYC.
First, Israel.
I just watched a live broadcast from Tel Aviv with the facts (as Israel Sees It) on Covid. I took notes so if there are errors in what I am reporting it is in the facts as they were stressed over and over. In Hebrew with translation from PM Bennet and 2 of his health Ministers.
In a nutshell: The RE-INFECTED are Vaccinated people over 60. Vaccination starts out with 95% efficiency and after 5 months the coverage efficiency drops to 81%.
NEW infections are from the UNVACCINATED.
New policy----starting Sunday in Israel, is that all people over 60 are advised to get a booster. (IDK if that includes non-Israelis. In Israel, who knows?)
I had difficulty believing a word they said.
The claim is that 4,000 elderly people got the booster and ther were no "Significant" side effects. What a significant side effect is, exactly was not explained.
--------------------------------------------------------------------
Now NYC. Once again Bill de Blasio has done what the federal government cannot or will not do. CUNY, will use Federal Stimulus cash to forgive student debt. CUNY includes all branches of the City University which includes prestigious 4 year schools like CCNY and Hunter as well as a network of community Colleges.
Add this to his record of M4A, 1/2 fare for the subways and busses, paid sick leave, and family leave, the list goes on.
This truly Progressive Hero of the Working Class and Poor in NYC has only 5 more months until our total descent into Fascism under King Andrew and a Republican Cop Bully who is pretending already that he is in charge.
------------------------------------------------------
Debt relief for CUNY students
By Michael Elsen-Rooney
"CUNY will use federal stimulus cash to forgive up to $125 million in student tuition and fees during the pandemic, university officials announced Wednesday.
The program will automatically wipe away any outstanding tuition and fees that qualifying City University of New York students owed between March 2020 and this past May. Officials said the program could reach up to 50,000 students, and called it the largest effort of its kind in the country."
( The NY DN shills for Cuomo and he complimented this implying he had a hand in it. It is very unlikely that Cuomo did anything but fight this and lose. But that's the reporting we get.)
If Cuomo actually approves of this move SUNY would be doing this too.
State University of New York, SUNY, is a vast network that Cuomo controls.
NYCVG
evening nycvg...
i guess we'll see what happens to israel's infection and death-by-covid rates. given the proliferation of variants, the necessity of booster shots seems a foregone conclusion. i suppose the question is when is the best interval.
good for cuny for the debt relief. i guess de blasio wants to make a big splash on his way out the door.
de Blasio
has been improving the life of low income NYC residents for 8 years. In more ways than I have time to list.
That is why he is HATED by the establishment---D & R.
Pre-K and 3 K for every Resident. not citizens, residents.
Pre-K and 3-K are all day meals free educational paradises for kids whose parent work and cannot afford private nursery schools. It's the single best thing you can, as a society, do to raise an entire generation up. (said by a person with years of experience and a masters degree in early childhood ed.)
de Blasio has nothing to prove. He knows whatever he achieves will be ignored or lied about as the political world talks about what is coming next.
NYCVG
De Blasio a Huey Long type populist figure—who woulda thunk? n/t
The Truth
about de Blasio is a well kept secret.
A politician who has improved life for Poor folks at the direct expense of the better-off, is a hated figure in an America hurtling towards fascism.
NYCVG
Vaccination does not ensure protection w/ comorbidities
so Complicated
and terrifying. I appreciate the info even though I am feeling some panic tonight.
There is no comfort in any view or opinion as far as I can see.
No certainty. Except that easy answers have eluded everyone, no matter the private opinions.
Trump withheld and denied the fact that the virus is airborne. Fauci lied about masks. What is known now that we will find out later?
Laugh at me if it makes you feel better, but I am restocking my mask supply. Not happy at all about this.
Life has been so lovely the past few weeks. Exercising on the Hudson River path,feeling the salty air on my face as I speed along, meals with friends in local restaurants, wearing lipstick! no mask and best of all planning to travel and see my grandchildren. All simple pleasures now threatened again.
This conversation is more than some academic dispute we are quibbling about. This matters.
NYCVG
The Hudson River
is an estuary so when the tide comes in you smell the Atlantic.
NYCVG
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the news and blues.
Still remember Tweedle Dee and Jim Dandy from when they first came out, my older brother rushed out and got them both hot off the press. Great singer.
The information in that "Bankers Manifesto" and "Civil Servants' Year Book" is deeply flawed and massively wrong. When you got nothing left to lose you don't necessarily get docile, you may very well get aggressive, antagonistic and even arrogant. Foreclosures only help banks if real estate has inflated and there is a strong real estate market. If the market is stalled and/or a lot of properties with loans in default are under water then banks must not even think of foreclosure, as we saw during the great sub-prime mortgage fraud and swindle. There's a nominal asset on the books that's well in excess of market and if you declare it to be in default you have to write it down to market. Both your P&L and youb Balance Sheet take big hits, your stock plummets and you get stuck for property taxes, another P&L hit, etc. There's much more, but I'll let it go at that.
Meanwhile it seems that the find in Morocco is a bfd -
Can't resist musical commentary:
be well and have a good one
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 --
evening el...
heh, just because it's wrong doesn't necessarily reduce the ardor with which it is embraced.
thanks for the kinky friedman, have a great evening!
Can’t believe Luke teed it up for Aaron again
More gloves coming off everywhere.
Good lord. But Daniel is the one going to prison. But Biden can’t cancel student loans? Please.
Wonder why more drone drivers haven’t talked about it yet. Lots have quit because it’s so abhorrently evil.
S Utah getting hit hard again.
Cedar city flooded again and left the town without power and Moab also got hit hard. East of the Wasatch is getting some needed rain today and yesterday. I watched the clouds boiling up over Mt Ogden. Pretty cool how fast they rose. And how fast they turned dark.
evening snoopy...
heh, good to see that luke harding is taking the fall he so richly deserves.
the uk (in)justice system is doing a fabulous job as a lapdog for the u.s. and preventing craig murray from testifying about the actions of the cia and its contractors against julian assange. bravo lapdogs, i'm sure you'll get a biscuit!
i hope that you are safe from damage from the heavy rains. take care!
More from Craig Murray
And yet I’m seeing too many people agreeing that ‘fake news' must be censored. As the good reverend Jane said, "people’s morality has been broken." I agree. Democrats and their media friends did a number on people’s minds and they have stopped standing for the issues that they believed in most of their lives. It’s very sad to see them doing it just because they were lied to openly about Trump/Russia and everything else. I guess that’s why Obama made it legal for the government to spread propaganda bull. How long had they planned on doing that?
heh...
more and more, i think that much of the public does not operate on fixed principles. partisan types seem to have the most mutable beliefs.
so glad not to be a partisan
because I believe in shit 24h/d.
Thanks for the EB.
Good Morning from Germany. Survive, all.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Speaking of Blues...
RIP Dusty Hill, bassist for ZZ Top.
I remember the first ZZ concert I attended. It cost $2.50 and was held in the city auditorium. I rocked out in the balcony, just a tween. But loved every moment as ZZ had already released their first album and was working on their second, so lots of material to perform.
.
This song is from ZZ's Tres Hombres .
Thanks for the news, especially Ball's interview of Bernie.
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
evening benny...
thanks for your memories. i remember sitting in my room with a cheap acoustic guitar and a record of la grange for hours as a late teen trying to figure out the leads.
have a great evening!
I never heard it directly on the X
But I heard it all indirectly, played it on endless repeat, cranked up real loud. Still treasure a perfect image in my brain of the first girl I ever fell in love with leaning up against a kitchen wall in my mama's house, wearing her ZZ Top concert tshirt and looking better to me than any lady in any of their videos. Who woulda guessed some lil ole band from Texas would do all that they did.
Hearty thanks to Mr. Dusty for making that Fender sound so damn good, condolences to all the other fans, and best wishes to everyone, as always.
I couldn't resist the temptation...
When Frank Beard took the stand, before I started questioning him, I did a pretend clearing of my throat that sounded like "ah haw haw haw".
EDIT: This reply dropped into the wrong place. It was meant as a reply downthread to joe.
Sorry.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Speaking of Blues...
RIP Dusty Hill, bassist for ZZ Top.
I remember the first ZZ concert I attended. It cost $2.50 and was held in the city auditorium. I rocked out in the balcony, just a tween. But loved every moment as ZZ had already released their first album and was working on their second, so lots of material to perform.
.
This song is from ZZ's Tres Hombres .
Thanks for the news, especially Ball's interview of Bernie.
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
My first concert with ZZ was free admission.
All I had to show at the door of the college student center was my ID.
The last time I saw them was maybe 10 years ago at the Cynthia Mitchell Pavillion in the Woodlands, Texas. I sat outside the concert seating in the park. I could see them, hear them. They opened for Tom Petty.
It was great.
I got to meet one of the band who came to court to testify on behalf of my client. he was her drug counselor/buddy. He was very kind, everyone was in awe of him.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
heh, my college was too cheap to give out free admission to concerts, but fortunately i discovered the power of radio station and newspaper credentials and got to see a lot of shows for free at venues all over town that i could never have afforded otherwise when i was a student.
cool that you got to meet one of the tops.
have a great evening!
I think that Peter Daou has it figured out.
Edited to add this video.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylebMZGkhEs]
evening humphrey...
heh, peter daou seems a lot quicker on the uptake post-epiphany.
have a great evening!
Pelosi must be against public schools
I mean, imagine if you didn't have kids but your tax money went to educate other people's kids!
ZZ Top Barbs and Barn Dance
How time flies when you were having fun! Went to one of the first of the ZZ Top performances at the Memorial Stadium in Austin around the early 1970’s. We left our poor dog in my sister’s apartment on the UT campus and got to hear ZZ Top as well as Bad Company, Joe Cocker and Santana. What a show. Don’t remember the price but was quite a memory.
ZZ Top came into a popular Mexican restaurant while we were eating and caused quite a stir but did not get to meet any of them personally. Great memories though.
Thanks for the rest of the blues and news and hopes for a brighter future but........
Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.
This ain't no dress rehearsal!
evening jb...
thanks for the memories and have a great evening!
think about this for a second and I consider myself progressive.