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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Sax Mallard

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago jazz saxophone player Sax Mallard. Enjoy!

^{Sax Mallard - Slow Caboose}

"All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed they must rely exclusively on force."

-- George Orwell

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News and Opinion

What a bunch of assholes. The lot of them.

Progressive Democrats retract Biden Ukraine letter after furious debate

The chair of the progressive caucus of the US House of Representatives, Pramila Jayapal, has retracted a letter sent by 30 of the members urging Joe Biden to engage in direct talks with Russia to end the war in Ukraine following a heated debate within the Democratic party about future strategy over the conflict.

In a statement issued on Tuesday afternoon, Jayapal made a dramatic U-turn, scrapping the letter that had been sent to the White House the previous day and implying it had all been a mistake. “The letter was drafted several months ago, but unfortunately was released by staff without vetting,” she said.

Jayapal went on to regret what she said was conflation of the progressive Democratic call for a diplomatic end to the Ukraine war with a recent statement by the Republican leader in the House, Kevin McCarthy, which threatened an end to aid for the stricken country should the Republican party take back the House in next month’s midterm elections.

Jayapal said: “The letter sent yesterday has been conflated with GOP opposition to support for the Ukrainians’ just defense of their national sovereignty. As such, it is a distraction at this time and we withdraw the letter.”

Jayapal’s retraction is the latest twist in a strange 24 hours of Democratic politics, which has seen the progressive caucus apparently lend its name to a call for direct talks with Moscow to end the war in Ukraine, followed by a fierce backlash and then staged walking back of the position.

House Progressives' FAKE Call To End Ukraine War They Keep Voting For

Pathetic progressives retract Ukraine negotiations letter

POLITICO Playbook: Inside the Democratic divisions on Ukraine

“For some of Ukraine’s most ardent backers, even talking about diplomacy amounts to appeasement,” GIDEON RACHMAN, the chief foreign affairs columnist for the Financial Times, noted last week.

Thirty House Democrats led by Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair PRAMILA JAYAPAL (D-Wash.) learned this lesson the hard way on Monday, after they sent President JOE BIDEN what they believed was a nuanced and carefully worded letter endorsing direct diplomacy with Russia to end the war in Ukraine. ...

The reaction was swift.

“VLADIMIR PUTIN would have signed that letter if asked,” one member of the House Democratic leadership told Playbook, “That bone-headed letter just put Dems in the same league as Kevin McCarthy, who said in the same week that Ukraine funding could be in jeopardy.”

Sen. CHRIS MURPHY (D-Conn.) cited “moral and strategic peril in sitting down with Putin too early.” Writing on Twitter, he said, “Sometimes, a bully must be shown the limits of his power before diplomacy can work.”

Rep. RUBEN GALLEGO (D-Ariz.), a member of the CPC who did not sign the letter, told Playbook it isn’t America’s role to force talks: “It’s up to the Ukrainians to determine their destiny, and the best way to do that is to support Ukraine in their fight for freedom, their fight for democracy.” ...

Given the risks of nuclear escalation, Rachman noted in his FT column that the lack of diplomacy was “both striking and worrying.” But Monday’s episode makes it clear that Washington is barely ready to talk about diplomacy, let alone pursue it.

European MPs Humiliate The U.S. On World Stage

Romanian Defence Minister Resigns, Pressured After Ukraine Comment

Romanian Defence Minister Vasile Dincu resigned on Monday, saying he could not collaborate with the country's president, amid pressure weeks after he said Ukraine's only chance to end the war was to negotiate with Russia.

European Union and NATO state Romania shares a 650-kilometre (400 mile) border with Ukraine, is host to a U.S. ballistic missile defense system and, as of this year, has had a permanent alliance battlegroup stationed on its territory.

Some 2.65 million Ukrainians have fled to Europe through Romania in the eight months since the war started.

"My gesture (resignation) comes as it is impossible to cooperate with the Romanian president, the army's commander-in-chief," Dincu said in a statement.

U.S Troops Sent To Ukraine Border

Sanctioned Iran general mockingly tells EU to ‘buy coal’ with his assets

A top Iranian general sanctioned by the European Union for allegedly supplying Russia with drones has mocked the bloc by telling it to “buy coal” for winter with his assets, media reported.

The chief of staff of the armed forces, Major General Mohammad Bagheri, was among three Iranian military officials put on recent EU and British sanctions lists.

Kyiv and its Western allies have accused Moscow of using Iranian-made drones in attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks. Tehran denies having provided Moscow weapons “to be used” in the war.

“They are allowed to identify and confiscate all the properties and assets of Major General Mohammad Hossein Bagheri in banks around the world and use them to buy coal for European citizens, a difficult winter is ahead,” Bagheri said in a message posted by local media, including Tasnim and Fars news agencies, late Sunday.

Worth a full read.

Poverty skyrockets in Ukraine

Poverty in Ukraine has increased more than tenfold since the outbreak of the US/NATO-Russia war, according to the latest data from the World Bank (WB). Officially, 25 percent of the country’s population is now poor, up from supposedly just 2 percent before February 2022. Both numbers are a huge underestimate, as Ukraine already had the lowest or near-lowest GDP per capita of any European country before the Russian invasion, and its government has long set an absurdly low poverty line in an effort to undercount the number of people living hand to mouth.

With officials predicting that the poverty rate could rise to as much as 60 percent or more next year, levels of deprivation are emerging in Ukraine that have not been witnessed on the European continent since the end of World War II. Unemployment is now running at 35 percent, and salaries have fallen by as much as 50 percent over the spring and summer for some categories of workers. The lowest paid segments of the workforce—students and unskilled laborers—are estimated to be surviving on a monthly wage of about $291. With its economy on track to contract by 35 percent this year, according to the International Monetary Fund, Ukraine’s public debt has now soared to 85 percent of GDP.

Basic goods and services are both unavailable and unaffordable for millions, as inflation, which stood at 24.4 percent as of September, eats away at workers’ salaries and pensions. A recently released joint study by the World Health Organization and Ukraine’s Ministry of Health found that 22 percent of people in Ukraine cannot access essential medicines. For the country’s 6.9 million internally displaced, that number rises to 33 percent. Eighty-four percent of survey respondents said that prices are too high, and 46 percent said that what they need is simply not on the shelves. The medications that are hardest to get—those that treat blood pressure, heart problems and pain, as well as sedatives and antibiotics—reveal a population struggling to cope with decades of poverty-induced ill health and the physical and psychological trauma of war.

While US and NATO officials are able to dispatch massive amounts of firepower to Ukraine’s front lines within a matter of weeks, the delivery of life-saving humanitarian goods is seemingly an impossible logistical challenge. ...

Among the most vulnerable are the elderly, immobile and disabled. Out of a prewar population of 44.13 million, Ukraine has 2.7 million people officially registered as having a disability. Thousands among them are housed in grossly underfunded and often horrific orphanages and nursing homes, where they are especially vulnerable to the ravages of war. Human Rights Watch and other nonprofit groups issued statements in August noting that authorities had overlooked many of those institutionalized in these settings in their evacuation plans, leaving them stranded. Reports surfaced of the mentally infirm chained to beds and undernourished children left to lie in their own waste. In September, the Western media carried news stories claiming that Russian forces were using these populations as “human shields,” failing to mention the fact that for the Ukrainian government they had long been human trash.

EU Ursula, seize not freeze. Boris: Cultural Learnings of America. 30 DEMS retract peace letter.

There's lots more interesting stuff at the link.

Colombian President Says the Unspeakable Out Loud: “The US is Ruining Economies Around the World”

Just over a month ago, Colombia’s recently elected left-wing President Gustavo Petro ruffled a few feathers by lambasting the US-led war on drugs from the podium of the UN General Assembly in New York. He also condemned the NATO-Russia proxy war in Ukraine, which raised serious questions about Colombia’s position as NATO’s only Latin American partner. Then last Wednesday, during a visit to Urabá Antioquia, close to Colombia’s northern border with Panama, he set his sights on US economic policy:

An economic crisis is undoubtedly brewing. The United States is practically ruining economies around the world. The German economy has already been destroyed by the war [in nearby Ukraine]. The Russians, Ukrainians and Europeans, first and foremost, have unleashed a war upon their own continent, which is a war for gas, for energy. And as a result of that war the European economy is sinking.

Powerful Germany is entering recession. And who would think it? England, which one day was the world’s dominant colonial power, is mired in a deep economic crisis. In Spain, the residents of towns and cities are up in arms. The same in France. And in the United States decisions are being taken to protect the United States, sometimes without thinking about the consequences elsewhere.

Petro places much of the blame for the “looming economic crisis” on the US Federal Reserve, whose aggressive interest rate hikes of the past seven months have propelled the dollar to its highest level since the year 2000.* Raising rates draws capital toward the US economy and away from higher-risk emerging markets. As capital inflows push up the dollar’s value, capital outflows pull down emerging-economy currencies, which makes it much harder for governments and companies to service their US-denominated debt.

Briahna Joy Gray: Will Republicans Save Us From Inflation?

Sherrod Brown Warns Fed Chair That Rate Hikes Put Working-Class 'Livelihoods at Risk'

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown on Tuesday reminded Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell of the central bank's legal obligations to all Americans, particularly working-class people, amid a wave of recent interest rate hikes that critics say ignore the root causes of inflation.

The Ohio Democrat, who chairs the Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs, sent a letter to Powell amid expectations that the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will approve another rate hike at a meeting next week—despite mounting criticism of the approach.

Highlighting that the Fed "is charged with the dual mandate" under U.S. law, Brown wrote to Powell that "it is your job to combat inflation, but at the same time, you must not lose sight of your responsibility to ensure that we have full employment."

"For the first time in decades, we have seen historic job growth, and workers have begun to see wage gains, gains that your prior actions to stabilize the economy helped achieve," he noted. "Yet, many workers and their families are struggling under the weight of inflation."

Citing Powell's remarks last month about inflation impacting middle- and lower-income households, the senator stressed that "the Federal Reserve's tools work to lower inflation by reducing demand for economic activities sensitive to interest rates. However, a family's 'pocketbook' needs have little to do with interest rates, and potential job losses brought about by monetary over-tightening will only worsen these matters for the working class."

Given that higher-income families "are better able to protect their wealth during economic downturns," Brown explained, "inflation and recessionary job losses increase the gap between upper- and lower-income households and widen the divide between racial groups."

"While, for now, the labor market remains relatively stable, we are starting to see job openings decrease and unemployment claims rise," he continued. "We must stay focused on addressing the root causes of inflation without putting workers' livelihoods at risk."

The senator's letter also emphasizes some key drivers of inflation that aren't impacted by rate hikes, from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and Russia's invasion of Ukraine, to the fact that "big corporations in concentrated industries have exploited this inflationary environment, increasing consumer costs and earning higher profit margins than before."

While celebrating efforts by Congress to tackle some root causes of current conditions—including passage of the Inflation Reduction Act and ocean shipping reforms—the letter also flags that other central banks are increasing interest rates, which could ultimately worsen the global economic situation.

"Protecting the world's most vulnerable populations and avoiding disruption that further increases the global wealth gap requires your continued caution," Brown warned Powell. "For working Americans who already feel the crush of inflation, job losses will make it much worse."

"We can't risk the livelihoods of millions of Americans who can't afford it," the letter concludes. "I ask that you don't forget your responsibility to promote maximum employment and that the decisions you make at the next FOMC meeting reflect your commitment to the dual mandate."

California sheriff’s office stops Black drivers five times more often than white people, data shows

Black drivers in California’s capital are nearly five times more likely than white motorists to get pulled over by sheriffs for traffic violations, according to a new report on racial profiling across the state.

Records from the county sheriff’s departments of Los Angeles, San Diego, Sacramento and Riverside show that Black Californians were disproportionately stopped across those regions in 2019, especially for minor infractions.

The state data, which was obtained by advocacy groups Catalyst California and the ACLU of Southern California through a state law to track racial profiling and released on Tuesday, also suggest that sheriff patrols spend significantly more time conducting these proactive stops than they do responding to calls for help.

The racial disparities appeared most severe in Sacramento, the state capital, where sheriff’s deputies pulled over Black drivers at a rate 4.7 times more than they stopped white drivers. In overall stops, which include pedestrians, Black residents were stopped at 4.1 times the rate of white people. In San Diego, Black residents were 2.2 times more likely than white residents to be stopped by deputies; in Los Angeles, Black people were 1.9 times more likely; and in Riverside, which is east of LA, they were 1.5 times as likely. ...

The authors of the report, called Reimagining Community Safety in California, also estimated the time sheriff’s deputies spent on stops. The patrol units in three counties appeared to spend most of their time on stops that officers initiated compared with stops or contacts with the public in response to calls for help, such as 911 emergencies: LA sheriffs spent 89% of patrol hours on officer-initiated stops and 11% on calls for service; Riverside spent 88% on stops and 12% on service calls; and San Diego spent 82% on stops and 18% on calls. The patrol time in Sacramento was more evenly split, with 42% of patrol hours spent on stops and 58% on calls.

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Fetterman & Oz Spar on Abortion, Student Debt & Economy in Closely Watched Senate Debate In Penn.

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US lawmakers call for more measures to protect against toxic lead in tap water

US legislators are calling for increased measures to protect American residents from toxic lead in their tap water. A group of up to 15 US senators asked the Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday to lower the levels of lead allowable in drinking water, require all lead pipes to be replaced in the next decade and ensure that low-income neighborhoods can benefit equally from the remediation efforts.

Lead water pipes have been banned across the US since 1986, but as many as 13m ageing lead pipes still connect homes to water in the US, leaving millions of Americans facing the risk of lead water contamination. “It is unacceptable that communities across America continue to be at risk from exposure to any level of lead in their drinking water, which can cause serious health and neurological problems,” said Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, one of the signatories, in a statement to the Guardian. ...

The senators’ letter to the EPA commended the Biden administration for securing $15bn in federal infrastructure funding to address lead pipes and praised the EPA for its increased attention to the issue. But the senators called for tighter regulations to protect Americans’ health – including an update of the nation’s drinking water standards, known as the Lead and Copper Rule.

Emperor penguins listed as endangered by US because of climate crisis

The emperor penguin, the tallest and bulkiest of all the world’s penguins, has been officially declared a threatened species by the US government due to the existential risk posed to the birds by the climate crisis.

The penguins, which are endemic to Antarctica, face almost complete annihilation from the loss of sea ice over the course of this century, a situation that has prompted the US Fish and Wildlife Service to place it on the endangered species list, it announced on Tuesday.

The waters around and beneath the sea ice are important to the penguins as an area for feeding and the ice itself is essential as a place for the animals to rest, to shelter during their annual molt and to escape from predators. But the loss of sea ice, due to global heating, threatens the habitat of these penguins, while ocean acidification is diminishing the supply of krill, a key food source.

The changes under way in the Antarctic threaten a regular repeat of situations such as the recent collapse of the second largest known emperor colony, when more than 10,000 chicks died in 2016 in Halley Bay when sea ice broke up early. The chicks were not yet ready to swim properly and drowned. The colony has yet to recover.

The emperor penguin colony population at Point Géologie, which was featured in the film March of the Penguins, has declined by nearly 50% since the 1970s.

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Also of Interest

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

The Mirage of Washington Intelligence

Media Continue To Push 'U.S. Officials Said' Claims Even When Those Are Obvious Lies

Chris Hedges: Why I Pray This Is My Last Book on the Subject of War

Wall Street Journal on “U.S.-Saudi Relations Buckle” Focuses on Personalities Over End of Unipolar Era

As Lula Leads Bolsonaro, Activists Warn of 'Blatant Disinformation' Online Before Brazil's Runoff

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A Little Night Music

Sax Mallard - Fine and Brown

Sax Mallard - The Mojo

Sax Mallard Sextet (vocal Andrew Tibbs) - You Can't Win

Sax Mallard - Teen Town Strut

Sax Mallard Sextet (vocal Andrew Tibbs) - Aching Heart

Mitzi Mars & Sax Mallard - Roll ‘Em

Mitzi Mars & Sax Mallard - I’m Glad

Roosevelt Sykes (w/Sax Mallard) - High As A Georgia Pine

Sax Mallard - The Bunny Hop

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