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This evening's music features r&b and gospel group The Valentinos. Enjoy!

“Up to a decade or two ago, the system production-nature (man's productive-exploitative relationship with nature and its resources) was perceived as a constant, whereas everybody was busy imagining different forms of the social organization of production and commerce (Fascism or Communism as alternatives to liberal capitalism); today, as Fredric Jameson perspicaciously remarked, nobody seriously considers possible alternatives to capitalism any longer, whereas popular imagination is persecuted by the visions of the forthcoming ‘breakdown of nature’, of the stoppage of all life on earth – it seems easier to imagine the ‘end of the world’ than a far more modest change in the mode of production, as if liberal capitalism is the ‘real’ that will somehow survive even under conditions of a global ecological catastrophe.”

-- Slavoj Žižek

News and Opinion

From a great interview with Michael Hudson posted over at Naked Capitalism. Worth a click, here's a taste:

NATO-Russia Proxy War – Revealing Signs of a Fading America: Michael Hudson

The war isn’t against Russia. The war isn’t against Ukraine. The war is against Europe and Germany. The purpose of the sanctions is to prevent Europe and other allies from increasing their trade and investment with Russia and China, because the United States saw that the centre of world growth is not in America now that it’s deindustrializing. Following neoliberal policies since the 1980s has ended up hollowing out the US economy. And how on earth can the United States maintain prosperity if it’s lost the ability to do wealth creation?

The only way of maintaining prosperity if you can’t create it at home is to get it from abroad. And the attempt, beginning a year ago, by President Biden and by the US neocons, was to block Nord Stream 2, and failing that, to block all energy trade and other trade with Russia. So that the United States could monopolize it itself. One of the main tools for the last hundred years of US control of the world economy has been by the oil industry. Controlling world energy trade. Energy is the key to the GDP, the productivity of every country, and the thought of energy trade passing out of US control into that of other countries threatened the United States’ ability to turn off other countries.

So the provocation of war in Ukraine and the provocation of a US response has enabled the US to say, ‘look at how awful Russia is doing, it’s defending itself’. Defending itself against the United States is a declaration of war. Because it means that you are breaking away from the dollarized system, and so by the thought that other countries have the potential of becoming independent was viewed by the United States as a challenge to the United States’ ability to dictate their policies and to use dollar diplomacy to take control of their commanding heights.

The fear of the United States of course is that the environmental movement would be able to move to stop global warming by slowing the carbon fuels, oil and gas, and so by creating this crisis in Europe, the United States has greatly…it bases its foreign policy on accelerating global warming. Accelerating coal and oil as the fuels of the future. I think President Biden in Poland today is promising Polish coal to replace Russian oil. And American coal. That’s why President Biden has Senator Manchin from the coal industry lobby, as head of the environmental and energy agency.

So what you’re seeing is not the US backfiring and shooting itself in the foot by creating a world crisis. That’s the idea! Because it realizes that in the world crisis, energy prices are going to go way up, benefiting the US balance of payments. The oil companies that control the world oil trade, once they exclude Russia from it, agricultural crop prices will go way up, benefiting the United States as an agricultural exporter, especially if they prevent Ukrainian and Russian wheat exports. This is going to create a debt crisis for third world countries whose debts are coming due. And the United States can use this debt crisis to force them, or attempt to force them, if they go along with it, to continue privatizing and selling off their public domain to US buyers so they can sell off their patrimony in order to get the money to pay the debts to pay for the higher oil and food imports.

The US strategy is to create exactly the world crisis that you are presented as being accidental. You can be sure that these people read the newspapers enough to know that this is the obvious result of what they’re doing. Look at what they’re doing as deliberate. Don’t assume they’re dumb. They’re smart, they’re evil, but they’re not dumb.

Russia to ‘drastically’ cut military activity near Ukraine’s Kiev

Russia has “drastically” reduced its military activity near Kiev and Chernigov as talks with Ukraine enter the “practical” stage, the deputy minister of defense Alexander Fomin announced on Tuesday.

Speaking to the press following the talks with the Ukrainian delegation, Fomin said that “a decision was made to drastically, in several times, reduce the military activity on the approaches to Kiev and Chernigov.”

“We expect that relevant key decisions will be taken in Kiev and the conditions for further normal work will be created,” he said.

US Dismisses PEACE TALKS, Warmongering Media DOUBLES DOWN On Russia-Ukraine: Ryan Grim

Fresh off The Guardian's propaganda catapult:

Russia vows to ‘radically reduce’ military activity in northern Ukraine

Russia has pledged to drastically cut back its military activity in northern Ukraine to help advance peace talks, but experts and western diplomats expressed doubts that the move was more than a ploy to dress up setbacks on the ground.

Russia’s deputy defence minister, Alexander Fomin, said after talks in Istanbul on Tuesday that Moscow wanted to “increase mutual trust, create the right conditions for future negotiations and reach the final aim of signing a peace deal with Ukraine”, and that the Kremlin would “radically reduce military activity in the direction of Kyiv and Chernihiv”.

Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a video address early on Wednesday: “We can say the signals we are receiving from the talks are positive but they do not drown out the explosions of Russian shells. “The Russian army still has significant potential to continue attacks against our state,” he added. “Therefore we are not reducing our defensive efforts.”

Having failed to seize the Ukrainian capital and force an early capitulation, Moscow said last week it was shifting its focus to expanding the territory held by pro-Russia separatists in the eastern Donbas region. The defence minister, Sergei Shoigu, said hours before the talks the “main goal” was now the “liberation” of Donbas.

The US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, said he had not seen anything indicating that talks were progressing in a “constructive way” and suggested Russian indications of a pullback could be an attempt by Moscow to “deceive people and deflect attention”.

U.S. training Ukrainian troops in Poland, Biden seems to reveal

President Joe Biden appeared to reveal that the U.S. is training Ukrainian forces in Poland — stating for the first time since the war began that American troops are actively teaching Ukrainians to fight and kill Russians. The United States has been providing billions of dollars in weapons and other assistance to Ukraine, with much of that aid going through Poland. The president spent part of last week in the country, meeting with U.S. troops stationed in the southeast and delivering a speech about the West’s unity in the face of Russian aggression.

But to date, the Biden administration has painstakingly made the case that that is as far as they’ll go. On March 22, Jake Sullivan denied that Americans were “currently” training Ukrainians. “We do, of course, have U.S. troops defending NATO territory,” he continued.

That’s not what Biden said Monday. After delivering remarks about the White House’s new budget request, Biden answered a reporter’s question about comments he made when meeting the 82nd Airborne in Poland, in which he implied American forces would be going to Ukraine. Biden denied that’s what he meant, adding: “We’re talking about helping train the Ukrainian troops that are in Poland.” ...

A senior administration official said that U.S. troops help Ukrainian forces in Poland load weapons the West gives them to drive back to Ukraine. As they do so, they provide verbal instruction on how to use the weaponry, like anti-aircraft missiles, but don’t lead Ukrainian forces through physical drills.

American news outlets admitting that Mariupol is in Russian hands, accompanied by the usual unconfirmed propaganda.

Mariupol is 'in the hands' of Russia, mayor says

Russian forces now control the majority of the Ukrainian port city of Mariupol, CNN reported Monday. ...

The New York Times reported Sunday that Mariupol was "close to falling." According to the Times, Zelensky told the city's remaining defenders they may need to flee and said Ukraine's military cannot muster "a sufficient number of tanks, other armored vehicles, and ... aircraft" to "break the blockade in Mariupol." ...

Mariupol lies on Ukraine's southern coast between the separatist-controlled Donbas region and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed in 2014. If Mariupol falls, Russia will have successfully seized a "land bridge" connecting the two.

Ukraine officials blame Russian 'provocations' for not opening humanitarian corridors

Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Olga Stefanishyna said Sunday that her country will not open humanitarian corridors to evacuate Ukrainian civilians for the foreseeable future due to the possibility of Russian “provocations.”

Stefanishyna said in an interview with the BBC that there was “no development or progress” on issues related to humanitarian corridors out of Ukraine, because Russia refuses to guarantee a smooth evacuation for Ukrainian civilians.

Gas for rubles. Who will blink first?

US Oil Companies Set to Reap Up to $126 Billion in Extra Profits Amid War on Ukraine

A new analysis released Tuesday estimates that U.S. oil and gas corporations are poised to rake in windfall profits of up to $126 billion this year as they exploit Russia's deadly assault on Ukraine to raise prices at the pump.

Conducted by Oil Change International, Greenpeace USA, and Global Witness, the analysis uses a database that tracks the fossil fuel industry's production economics to assess how much money the industry is set to make as a result of high global oil prices.

"Under conservative estimates, we find the U.S. upstream oil and gas industry will collect a windfall of $37 to $126 billion in 2022 alone," the groups' report states.

The higher-end profit estimate is dependent on oil prices spiking to $120 per barrel this summer and remaining elevated as the West moves to restrict Russian oil imports—a major opportunity for U.S. fossil fuel companies, particularly as the Biden administration looks to ramp up gas exports to Europe.

If oil prices average $88 per barrel, the new analysis finds, the U.S. oil and gas industry would reap $37 billion in additional profits in 2022.

The report notes that the top beneficiaries of the windfall would be industry giants ConocoPhillips, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and ExxonMobil.

"It is unconscionable that U.S. upstream companies like Chevron, Occidental, and ExxonMobil, who receive federal tax subsidies totaling millions of dollars every year, are now set to make billions of dollars more from these high wartime gas prices," Tim Donaghy, the research manager at Greenpeace USA, said in a statement Tuesday.

"American consumers don't get a break from high prices just because we drill more here at home," added Donaghy. "Instead, we get more air and water pollution and higher public health risks. The only way to achieve true energy independence is to cut our ties with fossil fuels entirely."

Collin Rees, the U.S. program manager at Oil Change International, argued that the new findings bolster the case for a windfall profits tax of the kind congressional Democrats introduced earlier this month.

Matt Taibbi on Cancel Culture & Tech Censorship

Cathay Pacific plans world’s longest passenger flight, avoiding Russia

Cathay Pacific is planning the world’s longest passenger flight by rerouting its New York to Hong Kong service over the Atlantic instead of the Pacific, the airline has said, in a new path that steers clear of Russia.

The flight path will cover “just under 9,000 nautical miles” (16,668km, or 10,357 miles) in 16 to 17 hours, Cathay said in a statement to Agence France-Presse.

On Tuesday evening, Cathay listed on its website a New York-to-Hong Kong flight for 3 April – a non-stop journey it said would stay in the air for 17 hours and 50 minutes. ...

Cathay declined to be drawn on the reasons for its flight path giving a wide berth to Russia’s airspace, through which it has previously flown, according to Bloomberg.

Many airlines have cancelled routes to Russian cities or are avoiding its airspace over Moscow’s invasion of neighbouring Ukraine last month.

U.S. Prepares to Arrest Surge of Migrants at Southern Border but Welcome 100,000 Ukrainian Refugees

Macron kickstarts re-election campaign as Le Pen gains ground

The French president Emmanuel Macron is aiming to kickstart his re-election campaign this week with walkabouts outside Paris and a big rally in the capital, after the diplomatic pressures of the war in Ukraine limited his canvassing at home – leading to a dip in the polls and worries of a low turn-out.

Macron, 44, is hoping next month to be the first French president to win re-election in 20 years, but he has recently dropped two to three points in the polls as the gap between him and the far-right candidate Marine Le Pen narrows. While he remains favourite, the next 10 days of campaigning are seen as fraught and risky amid anger over the cost of living, disillusionment with the level of campaign debate and politics in general. ...

Macron, after sweeping to power in 2017 promising to transform France with a new brand of politics that was neither left nor right, is polling at about 27% in the first round, followed by Le Pen on about 17%. Le Pen is gaining ground after campaigning hard on France’s cost of living crisis.

But if Macron faces Le Pen in the final round runoff on 24 April, the result is predicted to be much closer than when he won five years ago with 66%, with one poll this week putting Macron at 53% to Le Pen’s 47%.

A third candidate, the hard-left Jean-Luc Mélenchon, is also steadily rising, and abstention could be as high as 30%. Of those who say they will vote, four in 10 are still not sure for whom – adding to a greater degree of unpredictability.

Even Fox News CAN'T BELIEVE GOP Sen Wants To Tax The Poor

Well, there it is. Manchin is helping out his buddy Joementia to make sure that nothing fundamentally changes:

Manchin Blasted for Opposing Biden's Plan to Tax US Billionaires

Just a day after U.S. President Joe Biden officially unveiled a plan to boost taxes on wealthy Americans, Sen. Joe Manchin on Tuesday signaled that he intends to block progress on yet another White House priority.

Former Democratic Michigan gubernatorial candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed tweeted that the West Virginia Democrat "would rather tax people who *work for their money* [than] people whose money makes money for them."

Despite his previous support for hiking taxes on rich individuals and companies, Manchin—who's spent much of the past year obstructing his party's Build Back Better package and other legislation—made clear to reporters that he's not onboard with the tax plan in Biden's $5.8 trillion budget proposal for the next fiscal year.

"The Billionaire Minimum Income Tax will ensure that the very wealthiest Americans pay a tax rate of at least 20% on their full income, including unrealized appreciation," the White House explained. "This minimum tax would make sure that the wealthiest Americans no longer pay a tax rate lower than teachers and firefighters."

The tax only targets the top 0.01% of American households, or those worth over $100 million, and could generate about $360 billion over the next decade—with $215 billion coming from the top 10 billionaires. However, Manchin took issue with Biden's plan to go after unrealized capital gains.

Bloomberg reports that Manchin called Biden's idea a "tough one" and suggested that you can't be taxed "on things you don't have."

"You might have it on paper," he noted, while insisting that "there are other ways for people to pay their fair share, and I think everyone should pay."

"You can't tax something that's not earned—earned income is what we're based on," he also said, according to The Hill's Alexander Bolton. "Everybody has to pay their fair share, that's for sure. But unrealized gains is not the way to do it, as far as I'm concerned."

Critics of the senator's comments pushed back, highlighting how the measure would go after those who use their wealth to avoid paying taxes.

As writer and activist David Atkins put it: "Manchin is apparently eager to tax the obscenely rich in every way except the ones by which they actually make their obscene money."

Senate Finance Committee Chair Ron Wyden (D-Ore.)—who reportedly wants to hold hearings to build support for Biden's plan—also countered Manchin's comments.

Wyden told Business Insider on Tuesday that "there is no question that in any way this topic comes up, the billionaires have something of immense value."

Records show long gap in Trump phone logs as January 6 violence unfolded

The House committee investigating the January 6 insurrection at the US Capitol is reportedly looking at a “possible cover-up” of White House records focusing on Donald Trump’s phone logs from that fateful day, which bear an unexplained gap of seven hours and 37 minutes covering the period when the violence was unfolding.

Documents obtained by the Washington Post and CBS News put flesh on the bones of one of the great mysteries of January 6: why White House phone logs contain holes in the record despite evidence the then president busily made calls at the height of the insurrection.

The documents reveal that Trump’s diary shows an entry at 11.17am when he “talked on a phone call to an unidentified person”. The next entry is not until 6.54pm – 457 minutes later – when Trump asked the White House switchboard to place a call to his communications chief, Dan Scavino.

Between those times Trump addressed a rally on the Ellipse, exhorting supporters to “fight like hell”; hundreds of Trump followers overran police barricades and stormed the Capitol building; and Mike Pence, the vice-president, who had been overseeing the certification of Joe Biden’s victory in the presidential election, was forced to go into hiding.

In an echo of history, the investigation by the January 6 committee of a possible cover-up was revealed by Bob Woodward of the Washington Post, who made his name, with Carl Bernstein, by breaking the story of Watergate and bringing down a president, Richard Nixon. Woodward’s journalistic partner on this occasion was Robert Costa, his co-author of Peril, a book on the end of the Trump presidency that was released last year. The pair reported that the long gap between call logs was of “intense interest” to elements of the January 6 committee. They quoted an unnamed member of the panel who said they were investigating a “possible cover-up”.

New York court urged to uphold order for Donald Trump to face questioning

The attorney general of New York state is asking an appeals court to uphold a lower-court ruling requiring Donald Trump to answer questions under oath, after a civil investigation uncovered evidence he may have misstated the value of assets like golf courses and skyscrapers on financial statements for more than a decade.

In papers filed late on Monday, the office of Letitia James said it had every right to question Trump, who is appealing against the lower-court ruling, as it seeks to determine whether the misrepresented values shown to lenders, taxing authorities and other business interests constituted fraud and, if so, who committed that fraud.

James is also seeking to uphold a ruling forcing Trump’s two oldest children, Ivanka and Donald Trump Jr, to testify. Both have been executives at the Trump Organization.

The filing on Monday said Donald Trump “personally certified the accuracy of the statements for the years prior to 2016, at which point his assets were placed in a revocable trust” while Donald Trump Jr “was responsible for the statements for the years 2016 to 2020”, while his father was president.

CNBC reported that one “glaring example” of such practices mentioned in the filing saw “financial statements for the Trump Organization from 2010 to 2012 ‘collectively value’ rent-stabilized apartment units it owned at $49.59m, which was ‘over 66 times the $750,000 total value the outside appraiser had assigned to these units’.”

Kim Iversen: Trump BEATS Biden, Harris Ticket In 2024 Matchup Poll

Pfffftttt!!!

Pelosi says she ‘fears for democracy’ if Republicans retake Congress

The Democratic speaker of the US House, Nancy Pelosi, said she “fears for democracy” if Republicans retake the chamber in November.

“It is absolutely essential for our democracy that we win,” Pelosi said in an interview during the 2022 Toner Prizes for political journalism on Monday night.

“I fear for our democracy if the Republicans were ever to get the gavel. We can’t let that happen. Democracy is on the ballot in November.”

Parties that control the White House usually receive a rebuke from voters in the first midterms after a presidential election. With Joe Biden’s poll numbers in the gutter and his administration facing strong economic headwinds and grappling with the crisis in Ukraine, Republicans are widely favored to win back the House and perhaps the Senate this year.

AOC: Dems Set For Midterms IMPLOSION, Biden GOT PLAYED

Climate groups say a change in coding can reduce bitcoin energy consumption by 99%

Bitcoin mining already uses as much energy as Sweden, according to some reports, and its booming popularity is revitalizing failing fossil fuel enterprises in the US. But all that could change with a simple switch in the way it is coded, according to a campaign launched on Tuesday.

The campaign, called Change the Code Not the Climate and coordinated by Environmental Working Group, Greenpeace USA and several groups battling bitcoin mining facilities in their communities, is calling on bitcoin to change the way bitcoins are mined in order to tackle its outsized carbon footprint.

Rival cryptocurrency etherium is shifting to another system – “proof of stake” – that it believes will reduce its energy use by 99%. In the proof of stake model, miners pledge their coins to verify transactions; adding inaccurate information leads to penalties.

With the value and use of cryptocurrencies rising, the campaign’s organizers argue bitcoin must follow suit or find another, less energy intensive, method. “This is a big problem. In part because of where the industry stands now but also because of our concerns about its growth,” said Michael Brune, campaign director and former executive director of Sierra Club. ...

“Coal plants which were dormant or slated to be closed are now being revived and solely dedicated to bitcoin mining. Gas plants, which in many cases were increasingly economically uncompetitive, are also now being dedicated to bitcoin mining. We are seeing this all across the country,” said Brune. Brune added: “It’s particularly painful to see this in the electric sector because that is precisely the place where the US has made most of its progress in the last decade,” he said. “There’s no way we can reach our climate goals if we are reviving fossil fuel plants.

Also of Interest

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

Is Putin’s War Legal?

Ukraine SitRep - Part II Of Russia's Military Operation Unfolds

Sure, Ukraine Is The First War The US Hasn’t Lied About: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Report: Russia Willing to Let Ukraine Join EU If It Stays Out of NATO

Ukraine War Cannot Justify Biden's Too-Damn-High Pentagon Budget

‘Our top search term is nuclear’: US bunker sales soar as anxiety over Russia rises

US-Mexico Relations Hit New Low Over Russia-Ukraine Conflict

Meet the Censored: Chris Hedges

As Consumers Pay, Oil CEOs Refuse to Testify to Congress About Soaring Prices

US Natural Gas Production and LNG Exports Amid Urgent Demand for LNG from Europe

The Corporate Threat In Dems’ Must-Win Senate Race

Pluto’s peaks are ice volcanoes, scientists conclude

Did The Supply Chain Crisis KILL Globalization?

Biden Calls For Regime Change In Russia

Negotiations in Turkey, more fog of war (with Glenn Diesen)

A Little Night Music

The Valentinos - Lookin' For A Love

The Valentinos - Teenage Dream

The Valentinos - I'm Gonna Forget About You

The Valentinos - Baby, Lots Of Luck

The Valentinos - Everybody Wants To Fall In Love

The Valentinos - Darling Come On Home

The Valentinos - What About Me

The Valentinos - Lets Get Together

The Valentinos - It's All Over Now