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"Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war that we know about peace, more about killing that we know about living."

-- Omar N. Bradley

News and Opinion

An excellent piece. Here's a bit to get you started:

Scott Ritter: Nuclear High Noon in Europe

On Monday, Oct. 17, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization kicked off Operation STEADFAST NOON, its annual exercise of its ability to wage nuclear conflict. Given that NATO’s nuclear umbrella extends exclusively over Europe, the indisputable fact is that STEADFAST NOON is nothing more than NATO training to wage nuclear war against Russia. Nuclear war against Russia. The reader should let that sink in for a moment.

Don’t worry, NATO spokesperson Oana Lungscu reassured the rest of the world, the purpose of STEADFAST NOON is to ensure that NATO’s nuclear war-fighting capability “remains safe and effective.” It is a “routine” exercise, not linked to any current world events. Moreover, no “real” nuclear weapons will be used — just “fake” ones. Nothing to worry about here.

Enter Jens Stoltenberg, NATO secretary general, stage right in the nuclear theater. In a statement to the press on Oct. 11, Stoltenberg declared that, “Russia’s victory in the war against Ukraine will be a defeat of NATO,” before ominously announcing, “This cannot be allowed.” To that end, Stoltenberg stated, the STEADFAST NOON nuclear drills would continue as scheduled. These drills, Stoltenberg said, were an important deterrence mechanism in the face of Russian “veiled: nuclear threats.” But they weren’t related to any current world events.

Enter Volodymyr Zelensky, stage left. Speaking to the Lowy Institute, a nonpartisan international policy think tank in Australia, the Ukrainian president called for the international community to undertake “preventative strikes, preventive action” against Russia to deter the potential use of nuclear weapons by Russia against Ukraine. While many observers interpreted Zelensky’s words to imply a request for NATO to carry out a preemptive nuclear strike against Russia, Zelensky’s aides were quick to try and correct the record, saying he was simply asking for more sanctions.

Enter Joe Biden, center stage. Speaking at a fund raiser on Oct. 6, the president of the United States said that, “For the first time since the Cuban missile crisis, we have a direct threat of the use of a nuclear weapon if in fact things continue down the path they are going.” Biden went on: “We’ve got a guy I know fairly well. He’s not joking when he talks about potential use of tactical nuclear weapons or biological or chemical weapons because his military is, you might say, significantly underperforming.” Biden concluded: “I don’t think there’s any such thing as the ability to easily use a tactical nuclear weapon and not end up with Armageddon.”

While it has been made abundantly clear by the White House that Biden’s comments were his personal view, and not based on any new intelligence regarding Russian nuclear posture, the fact that a sitting U.S. president was speaking about the possibility of a nuclear “Armageddon” should send chills down the spine of every sane individual in the world.

War hawk mofos in Congress propose bill to more rapidly bankrupt the U.S. and fill the pockets of defense contractors. I wonder if Reed and Inhofe have stock in the defense industry.

Defense contractors eye long-term profits from Ukraine war

As Russia’s attack on Ukraine drags on, the world is dealing with a lot of uncertainty. At every stage, predictions about the war have done poorly when met with the cold, hard reality of modern conflict. But one thing has been certain from the start: the U.S. defense industry is going to cash in.

A recent example of this came last week when Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.) proposed a new amendment to this year’s National Defense Authorization Act. The proposal would give the Department of Defense wartime powers that would free it to buy huge amounts of artillery and other munitions using multi-year contracts, according to Defense News.

Here’s the important part: the amendment would also authorize the Pentagon to skip competitive contracting for Ukraine-related deals (including billions of dollars worth of contracts to refill U.S. stockpiles), and it would waive other provisions aimed at stopping weapons makers from overcharging taxpayers.

As an unnamed congressional aide told Defense News, the move would allow contractors to produce far more than Ukraine needs. Instead, we’re buying for a two-front war. “It’s hard to think of something as high on everybody’s list as buying a ton of munitions for the next few years, for our operational plans against China and continuing to supply Ukraine,” the source said.

Drone game changer, rolling blackouts. Final warning to Turkey. Europe energy crisis 'good.'

Russia Defences in Kherson, Evacuating Civilians, Advancing Kharkov, Bakhmut; UK Defence Chief to DC

Plucked from the Guardian propaganda rag:

Financial toll on Ukraine of downing drones ‘vastly exceeds Russian costs’

The cost to Ukraine of downing the “kamikaze” drones being fired at its cities vastly exceeds the sums paid by Russia in sourcing and launching the cheap Iranian-made technology, analysis suggests. ...

With the price of the Iranian-made Shahed-136s standing at €20,000 to €50,000 for each vehicle, the total cost to Russia of the failed drone attacks unleashed on Ukraine in recent weeks is estimated by military analysts at the NGO Molfar to be between $11.66m (£10.36m) and $17.9m (£15.9m).

Ukraine has deployed a host of weaponry to bring down the drones, including MiG-29 jets, C-300 cruise missiles, Nasams ground defence systems and small-arms fire. The estimated cost to Ukraine stands at more than $28.14m (£25m), according to the analysis, which is based on open sources. The data includes drones launched between 13 September and 17 October.

Iran has denied providing Russia with weaponry for its war in Ukraine.

The answer to the headline question is obvious. Because they don't give a f*ck about anybody.

Why Did the Army Wait Nearly 4 Years to Tell This School About Radioactive Contamination?

A new report by an environmental testing group found excessive levels of radioactive contamination at a suburban Missouri elementary school. Hidden in the report was a stunning revelation: the Army first knew about a radioactive cancer-causing substance right next to the school in 2018 but didn't tell the school district superintendent until 2022. 

Jana Elementary School sits next to Coldwater Creek, where the government started dumping radioactive waste related to the Manhattan Project in the 1940s. For the last few decades, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has been in charge of the clean up.

In 2018, the Army Corps began testing the area close to the school, which serves over 400 students in the St. Louis suburb of Florissant. It was at this point, according to the new report by Boston Chemical Data Corps, that the Army Corps first detected thorium—a radioactive material linked to increased risk of lung, pancreatic, and bone cancer—near the school in 2018.

The report found that it wasn't until four years later, in January of 2022, that the Army Corps informed the school district superintendent about its findings. Sources explained that the superintendent failed to immediately notify parents about the radioactive thorium. It wasn't until parents and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment filed Freedom of Information Act requests that the full picture of the results of the Army's report began to emerge.

So why did it take so long?

"That's the million dollar question," Christen Commuso, an advocate with the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, told Responsible Statecraft. "The second these radioactive substances enter your body, you're exposed for life, so every second of exposure counts."

Despite the health risks, the Army appears to have stonewalled the publication of its findings. At an open house organized by the Army Corps in 2021, the first in several years, parents of children of Jana Elementary School were eager to know if their child was exposed to radioactive waste.

One parent asked, "since Jana Elementary is a public school, why have details of sampling not already been released to the public?" After a long pause, the Army Corps official told her to submit a FOIA request.

"If anyone wants to obtain those types of documents they have to put in a FOIA request in order to obtain those types of documents," the official said. "Those are not automatically put out for the public when it comes to specific areas."

That parent was Ashley Bernaugh, the head of the parent-teacher association. Taking the Army's advice, she submitted a FOIA request to try to get the results of their testing. When she finally received a response, it was a simple map with no information. "I had no way to interpret the map other than knowing there were red triangles and orange circles," Bernaugh said.

Boston Chemical conducted follow-up indoor testing in August, which revealed the extent of health risks posed to children and teachers. The playground, library, kitchen, classrooms, and ventilation system had an excess amount of lead, radium, thorium, and other toxins.

Despite these new findings, it isn't legally required to clean up the radioactive waste at the school according to its own standards set in 2005. "When the Army Corps took over in 2005 they actually increased the amount of thorium they were allowed to leave behind," Commuso said. "This is nonsensical, no level of radioactive bomb waste is acceptable for a child to go to school in," said Commuso.

The Corps also has no mandate to clean up lead, which Boston Chemical found to be at rates 22 times the expected amount in the kindergarten play area. According to the Center for Disease Control, there is no safe blood lead level for children.

The Boston Chemical report also found some shortcomings within the Army's testing. Despite knowing there were dozens of highly radioactive sites just 300 feet away from the school, the Army didn't bother testing the school buildings. "The Army Corps' tests are incomplete and inadequate as no samples were collected from the school buildings themselves, nor were they collected from surface soils immediately surrounding the school buildings," the report said.

In a statement to Responsible Statecraft, the Army Corps refuted the findings of Boston Chemical's report. "The Boston Chemical Data Corp report is not consistent with our accepted evaluation techniques and must be thoroughly vetted to ensure accuracy," wrote Phil Moser, Program Manager of the Army Corps' St Louis environmental remediation program. "Our team will evaluate the Boston Chemical Data Corp report and methods used to create these results."

The military has a well-documented pattern of abdicating environmental responsibility. Late last year, a jet fuel leak contaminated the drinking water for thousands of service members at Joint Base Pearl Harbor-Hickam, which has yet to be resolved. Meanwhile, "forever chemicals" known as PFAS are contaminating the drinking water on at least 328 military installations, while Congress continually underfunds cleanup efforts.

The community around Jana Elementary is all too familiar with broken promises of cleanup, forcing parents to navigate difficult decisions for their children.

"Our school is full of radioactive waste because other folks didn't do their due diligence 80 years ago, 40 years ago, 20 years ago, all the way up until today," Bernaugh said. "We don't deserve this, we have an exceptional school community full of teachers who truly love their kids."

To Bernaugh, money isn't the problem, it's a lack of priorities. "We know the Department of Energy and Pentagon have the funding, they have a bigger budget than some countries' economies," she said "They could put in a new school in moments if needed, it's just a matter of political will."

French government to use constitutional powers to force through budget

The French government is to use special constitutional powers to force through its 2023 budget without a parliamentary vote, sparking accusations of “authoritarianism” from the opposition and underlining President Emmanuel Macron’s weakened domestic position since his centrist grouping lost its absolute majority in elections last spring.

“It is our responsibility to make sure our country has a budget”, the prime minister, Élisabeth Borne, told parliament as she put an end to several days of heated debate over the government’s pro-business budget, which ministers said would protect people from the cost of living crisis while avoiding tax increases.

The leftwing opposition bloc in parliament announced it would call for a no-confidence motion in the government, something seen as largely symbolic and having little chance of passing. ...

Resorting to the unpopular constitutional decree known as article 49.3 risks exposing Macron to claims of running roughshod over parliament despite his repeated promises to create a more inclusive form of governance.

It also sets the stage for a difficult battle over Macron’s intended pensions overhaul, which would push back the retirement age to 64 or 65. He has said he wants to move fast to introduce pensions changes, but opposition parties are positioned for another parliamentary standoff.

French refinery strikes lose steam as workers return to more sites

French police assault workers marching against inflation and in support of refinery strike

Over 300,000 workers and youth marched yesterday in France in a day of action to protest inflation and the Macron government’s attempts to crush a nationwide refinery strike. Strikes were called in refineries, nuclear plants and energy, as well as education and transport. Several thousands marched in Bordeaux, Le Havre, Lille, Marseille, Lyon, Toulouse and Rennes, while union officials counted 70,000 attendees at the march in Paris.

With approximately 25 percent of French gas stations low on at least one type of fuel due to the continuing refinery strike, protests in solidarity with the refinery workers spread to high schools. Over 100 were blockaded by students, including dozens in Paris and Mulhouse.

Continuing the violent repression unleashed on the 2018-2019 “yellow vest” protests against social inequality, French riot police repeatedly assaulted peaceful protesters in Paris. ...

This savage police violence, intended to terrorize and discourage legal, constitutionally protected social protests, makes clear there is nothing to negotiate with Macron. His government, and the union bureaucrats who support his policies, are hostile to the workers and support policies of inflation, austerity and imperialist war that are impoverishing the working class.

British Prime Minister Liz Truss resigns after six weeks in office

Suella Braverman forced to resign as UK home secretary

Suella Braverman has been forced to resign as UK home secretary, throwing Liz Truss’s premiership into further chaos and angering the Tory right. The Guardian was first to reveal that Braverman was departing, and that Grant Shapps, the former transport secretary who strongly backed Rishi Sunak in the Conservative leadership race, was replacing her.

Braverman, a leading rightwinger, was sacked by the prime minister because she sent an official document from her personal email to a fellow MP, in a serious breach of ministerial rules. The draft written statement on migration was deemed highly sensitive because it related to immigration rules, which potentially have major implications for market-sensitive growth forecasts from the Office for Budget Responsibility.

However, Braverman’s departure is a further serious blow to Truss’s authority, coming as a growing number of Tory MPs – including her net zero tsar – threatened to rebel in a fracking vote, she U-turned once again on the pensions triple lock, and she suffered a mauling from Keir Starmer at prime minister’s questions.

Shapps’s appointment raised eyebrows in Westminster as he was believed to have been involved in attempts to get rid of the prime minister.

Biden DENIES Political Motivation For Tapping Oil Reserve

Pffffffttttt!!! Here Mr. Crocodile, here's a fish - now don't you bite my arm!

Biden implores US oil companies to pass on record profits to consumers

Joe Biden has called on oil companies to pass on their massive profits to consumers as he announced the release of 15m barrels of oil from the US strategic petroleum reserve.

Biden is fighting to keep gas prices in check ahead of November’s midterms. He blamed Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine for the global spike in oil prices and said his administration was doing all it could to keep prices in check. “Gas prices have fallen every day in the last week,” said Biden. “That’s progress, but they’re not falling fast enough. Gas prices are felt in almost every family in this country. That’s why I’ve been doing everything in my power to reduce gas prices.”

He called on US oil companies to help. In the second quarter of 2022, the six largest US oil companies reported profits of $70bn, said Biden. “So far, American oil companies are using that windfall to buy back their own stock, passing that money on to shareholders, not consumers,” he said. “My message to all companies is this: you’re sitting on record profits. And we’re giving you more certainty. You can act now to increase oil production. You should not be using your profits to buy back stock or for dividends – not while the war is raging.” ...

Biden faces political headwinds because of gas prices. AAA reports that gas is averaging $3.87 a gallon, down slightly over the past week, but up from a month ago. The recent increase in prices stalled the momentum that the president and his fellow Democrats had been seeing in the polls ahead of the November elections.

An analysis Monday by ClearView Energy Partners, an independent energy research firm in Washington, suggested that two states that could decide control of the evenly split Senate, Nevada and Pennsylvania, are sensitive to energy prices. The analysis noted that gas prices over the past month rose above the national average in 18 states, which are home to 29 potentially “at risk” House seats.

Biden could do this. But the corrupt bastard won't.

Group Calls for US Ban on Gasoline Exports to Combat Big Oil Price Gouging

The advocacy group Food & Water Watch on Wednesday urged the Biden administration to protect U.S. consumers from fossil fuel industry profiteering by moving to reinstate a long-standing ban on oil exports.

As Americans have paid near-record prices at filling stations across the country this year—the American Automobile Association reports that gasoline is currently averaging $3.84 per gallon nationally, with five Western states paying $5 or more—consumer advocates have accused Big Oil of intentionally inflicting "pain at the pump" in order to boost profits at consumers' literal expense.

As Common Dreams reported in July, eight fossil fuel companies raked in $52 billion in record second-quarter profits, a 235% increase over the previous year.

"The fossil fuel industry has made obscene profits throughout a deadly global pandemic and will continue this profiteering at the pump by promoting fuel exports when supplies are tight," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement.

"This is highly profitable for them," she added, "and absolutely disastrous for American families struggling with sky-high inflation."

In addition to pushing a windfall profits tax to combat both corporate avarice and the climate emergency, progressives are calling on U.S. President Joe Biden to reimpose a fuel export ban, which was in effect for 40 years until lifted in 2015.

"These corporations are simply deciding to make more money—no matter the pain it causes here at home," said Hauter. "The White House should take proactive steps to ban gasoline exports to protect American consumers from Big Oil's price gouging."

Proponents of an export ban say the policy would lower U.S. gas prices, and point to the crucial role that booming exports have played in exacerbating domestic fuel costs.

As the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen noted in June, the 2015 law ending the U.S. export ban contains a provision enabling the president to unilaterally "impose export licensing requirements or other restrictions on the export of crude oil from the United States for a period of not more than one year, if the president declares a national emergency."

Earlier this month, White House officials tasked the U.S. Department of Energy with studying the potential impacts of reinstating the fuel export ban. This, after U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm said in September that the administration was not considering such a ban, while urging fossil fuel producers to increase domestic inventories of gasoline and diesel to combat high prices.

Nationwide Landlord Collusion Scheme SCREWING Renters

Mobile abortions take off ‘on wheels, at sea’ to fill gaps left by shuttered clinics

When the decades-long campaign to restrict abortion access in the US started ramping up, Meg Autry, knowing a full assault on abortion rights was inevitable, began thinking about the gambling boats she’d seen growing up on the Mississippi River.

The huge vessels looked like regular casinos on the inside. Despite the fact that gambling was steadily being prohibited in the US in the 1950s, the boats were a creative solution: Because the river’s waters were regulated differently from land, the casinos weren’t illegal.

What if Autry, an obstetrician-gynecologist, could use that same logic to skirt abortion laws, she wondered? For the last five years, Autry has pursued the idea of setting up an abortion clinic on the seas.

She has now raised millions of dollars towards that effort. She hopes to launch the boat by the summer of 2024 in the Gulf of Mexico, providing surgical abortions to people traveling from a swath of states where the procedure is now banned. ...

To deal with the gap in care, organizations like Autry’s are springing up around the country, offering abortion care in international waters, on wheels and through abortion pills mailed from overseas. [More at the link. -js]

EPA sued over lack of plan to regulate water pollution from factory farms

Dozens of advocacy groups have filed a lawsuit against the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), claiming the federal department has failed to come up with a plan to regulate water pollution from factory farms. The suit claims the agency has yet to respond to a 2017 legal petition from more than 30 environmental groups demanding that the EPA tighten its Clean Water Act enforcement for factory farms, also known as concentrated animal feeding operations (Cafos), where thousands of animals are sometimes confined.

The agency has never explained how it plans to crack down on water pollution that often contains manure, antibiotics and chemicals, the groups argue. Federal rules require government agencies to respond to petitions “within a reasonable time”.

“Given the magnitude of the health and environmental threats, competing priorities do not justify further delay,” the lawsuit argues.

Livestock and poultry create about 1.4bn tons of manure a year, according to the US Department of Agriculture. Factory farms often store manure in ponds that can overflow into streams, lakes or rivers and leach into groundwater. Manure causes nitrogen and phosphorus in water, tainting drinking water and causing toxic algal blooms that can be deadly to aquatic life. Waste-polluted water can irritate skin and cause gastrointestinal and respiratory problems, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The agency itself has said that three-quarters of factory farms discharge pollution, said Emily Miller, an attorney for advocacy group Food & Water Watch, the lead petitioner. But EPA has essentially let companies decide whether they want to comply with the Clean Water Act, she said.

Florida issues warning over flesh-eating bacteria in wake of Hurricane Ian

Officials in just one of the Florida counties recovering from Hurricane Ian are warning that a potentially deadly microbe informally known as flesh-eating bacteria has infected 29 people and killed four as of Friday, bringing the total killed across the state to 11.

The bacteria, Vibrio vulnificus, which often lives in warm, brackish waters, can spread when there is extensive flooding, as was caused by Hurricane Ian. It can enter the body through direct contact with an open wound and can lead to skin breakdown, ulcers and even death, according to the Lee department of public Health. Cases among healthy people are generally mild, the Fort Myers News-Press reported. ...

The number of cases in Lee county is nearly as high as the total number reported across the entire state last year – 34 cases and 10 deaths. In 2017, when Hurricane Irma caused severe flooding, there were 50 cases reported statewide and 11 deaths, according to a statewide tally.

Lynx, wild horses and vultures return to eastern Spain in latest rewilding project

Black vultures, lynx and wild horses are among the animals being reintroduced to eastern Spain with the launch of a rewilding project spanning 850,000 hectares (2.1m acres) in the Iberian highlands east of Madrid.

Rewilding Europe’s 20-year landscape recovery scheme, which covers an area more than five times the size of Greater London, aims to make the land wilder and more nature-friendly. The protected area is the southern part of the Iberian Chain, a mountain range that stretches 500km (300 miles) from the north-west of the country to the Mediterranean in the south-east.

It is a landscape of canyons and valleys, dominated by pine, oak and juniper forests, as well as steppe and agricultural areas. As a result of decades of land being abandoned as people moved to the cities, it is among the least populated areas in Europe; since the 1950s, populations in many places have more than halved. Consequently, species such as deer, ibex and wild boar have already started to come back.

“There are less than around two people per square kilometre, which makes it very special because you can see nature in a different way,” said Pablo Schapira, team leader at Rewilding Spain, one of the organisations leading the project. “It’s very rare to find these kinds of places in Europe.”

‘Buckle up’: US backers of Just Stop Oil vow more Van Gogh-style protests

The US funders of a climate activist group that poured tomato soup over Van Gogh’s Sunflowers at the National Gallery in London have vowed similar attention-grabbing stunts will take place in various countries in the weeks ahead.

On Friday, two young activists from the Just Stop Oil group entered the gallery, opened two tins of Heinz tomato soup and hurled them over the painting, which is protected by a pane of glass. As onlookers exclaimed “Oh my gosh!”, the activists glued themselves to the wall beneath the painting.

The protest, which has drawn applause and sharp criticism, is just the latest one bankrolled by the Climate Emergency Fund, a US network set up in 2019 to fund dramatic forms of protest in an attempt to spur action on the climate crisis. The organization said it will seek to build on the shock of the Van Gogh souping to support further protests across Europe and the US.

“More protests are coming, this is a rapidly growing movement and the next two weeks will be, I hope, the most intense period of climate action to date, so buckle up” said Margaret Klein Salamon, executive director of the Climate Emergency Fund.

“In terms of press coverage, the Van Gogh protest may be the most successful action I’ve seen in the last eight years in climate movement. It was a breakthrough, it succeeded in breaking through this really terrible media landscape where you have this mass delusion of normalcy. It’s time to wake up.”

Also of Interest

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

Europe Under Control of the U.S. Mafia

American Advisor to Ukraine Commander Thinks Russia Wants Talks to Return to ‘2014 Lines’

War and Regrets in Ukraine

Diesel Crisis Deepens As Inventories Fall To Dangerous Levels

Emmy-winning producer James Gordon Meek had his home raided by the FBI. His colleagues say they haven’t seen him since.

Feds sued for withholding records on JFK assassination

‘Seattle icon’: dog who rode bus solo to the park dies aged 10

Ready for my close-up: beetles and bacteria in Nikon Small World photomicrography 2022 – in pictures

BBC'S Secret Plan For TOTAL UK BLACKOUT

Senator Knew Bush Was Lying About WMDs But Said Nothing

AOC HUMILIATED Over Funding Nuclear War

Liz Truss resigns, regime change success

A Little Night Music

Don & Dewey - Bim Bam

Don & Dewey - Mammer Jammer

Don & Dewey - Leavin' It All Up to You

Don & Dewey - Soul Motion

Don & Dewey - Koko Joe

Don & Dewey - Just A Little Lovin'

Don & Dewey - Stretchin' Out

Don & Dewey - Kill Me

Don & Dewey - Slummin'

Don & Dewey - Get Your Hat