---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The 5 Royales

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b vocal group The 5 Royales. Enjoy!

^{The 5 Royales - Tell The Truth}

"The legislature, like the executive, has ceased to be even the creature of the people: it is the creature of pressure groups, and most of them, it must be manifest, are of dubious wisdom and even more dubious honesty. Laws are no longer made by a rational process of public discussion; they are made by a process of blackmail and intimidation, and they are executed in the same manner. The typical lawmaker of today is a man wholly devoid of principle..."

-- H. L. Mencken

---

News and Opinion

Dennis Kucinich: where are the pro-peace Democrats?

Biden's Foreign Policy Is Sinking the Congressional Dems—and Ukraine

President Joe Biden is undermining his party’s Congressional prospects through a deeply flawed foreign policy. Biden believes that America’s global reputation is at stake in the Ukraine War and has consistently rejected a diplomatic off-ramp. The Ukraine War, combined with the administration’s disruptions of economic relations with China, is aggravating the stagflation that will likely deliver one or both houses of Congress to the Republicans. Far worse, Biden’s dismissal of diplomacy prolongs the destruction of Ukraine and threatens nuclear war.

Biden inherited an economy beset by deep disruptions to global supply chains caused by the pandemic and by Trump’s erratic trade policies. Yet instead of trying to calm the waters and repair the disruptions, Biden escalated the U.S. conflicts with both Russia and China.

Biden attacked Republican House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy for expressing doubts on another large financial package Ukraine, declaring: “They [House Republicans] said that if they win, they’re not likely to fund—to help—continue to fund Ukraine, the Ukrainian war against the Russians. These guys don’t get it. It’s a lot bigger than Ukraine—it’s Eastern Europe. It’s NATO. It’s real, serious, serious consequential outcomes. They have no sense of American foreign policy.”  Similarly, when a group of progressive congressional Democrats urged negotiations to end the Ukraine War, they were excoriated by Democrats following the White House line and forced to recant their call for diplomacy.

Biden believes that American credibility depends on NATO expanding to Ukraine, and if necessary, defeating Russia in the Ukraine war to accomplish that. Biden has repeatedly refused to engage in diplomacy with Russia on the NATO enlargement issue. This has been a grave mistake. It stoked a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia in which Ukraine is being devastated, ironically in the name of saving Ukraine.

The whole issue of NATO enlargement is based on a U.S. lie dating back to the 1990s. The U.S. and Germany promised Gorbachev that NATO would move “not one inch eastward” if Gorbachev would disband the Soviet Warsaw Pact military alliance and accept German reunification.  Convenientl—and with typical cynicism—the U.S. reneged on the deal. 

In 2021, Biden could have headed off the Ukraine War without sacrificing any single vital interest of the U.S. or Ukraine. U.S. security absolutely does not depend on NATO enlarging to Ukraine and Georgia. In fact, NATO enlargement deeper into the Black Sea region undermines US security by putting the U.S. into a direct confrontation with Russia (and a further violation of the promises made three decades earlier). Nor does Ukraine’s security depend on NATO enlargement, a point that President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged on numerous occasions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned the U.S. repeatedly since 2008 to keep NATO out of Ukraine, a region of vital security interests for Russia. Biden has equally resolutely insisted on NATO enlargement. Putin made one last diplomatic try at the end of 2021 to stop NATO enlargement. Biden completely rebuffed him. This was dangerous foreign policy.

As much as many American politicians don’t want to hear it, Putin’s warning about NATO enlargement was both real and apt. Russia doesn’t want a heavily armed NATO military on its border, just as the U.S. would not accept a Chinese-backed heavily armed Mexican military on the U.S.-Mexico border. The last thing the U.S. and Europe need is a long war with Russia. Yet that’s just where Biden's insistence on NATO enlargement to Ukraine has brought about.

The U.S. and Ukraine should accept three absolutely reasonable terms to end the war: Ukraine’s military neutrality; Russia’s de facto hold on Crimea, home to its Black Sea naval fleet since 1783; and a negotiated autonomy for the ethnic-Russian regions, as was called for in the Minsk Agreements but which Ukraine failed to implement.

Instead of this kind of sensible outcome, the Biden Administration has repeatedly told Ukraine to fight on. It poured cold water on the negotiations in March, when Ukrainians were contemplating a negotiated end to the war but instead walked away from the negotiating table. Ukraine is suffering grievously as a result, with its cities and infrastructure reduced to rubble, and tens of thousands of Ukrainian soldiers dying in the ensuing battles. For all of NATO’s vaunted weaponry, Russia has recently destroyed up to half of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.

In the meantime, the U.S.-led trade and financial sanctions against Russia have boomeranged. With the cutoff of Russian energy flows, Europe is in a deep economic crisis, with adverse spillovers to the U.S. economy.  The destruction of the Nord Stream pipeline further deepened Europe’s crisis.  According to Russia, this was done by UK operatives, but almost certainly with U.S. participation. Let us recall that in February, Biden said that if Russia invades Ukraine, “We will bring an end to it [Nord Stream].” “I promise you,” said Biden, “we will be able to do it.”

Biden’s flawed foreign policy has also brought about what generations of foreign policy strategists from Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski warned against: driving Russia and China into a firm embrace. He has done that by dramatically escalating the cold war with China at precisely the same time as he is pursuing the hot war with Russia.

From the start of his Presidency, Biden starkly curtailed diplomatic contacts with China, stirred up new controversies regarding America’s long-standing One China policy, repeatedly called for greater arms sales to Taiwan, and implemented a global export ban on high-tech to China. Both parties have rallied to this destabilizing anti-China policy, but the cost is further destabilization of the world, and also the U.S. economy.

In sum, Biden inherited a difficult economic hand—the pandemic, excess Fed liquidity created in 2020, large budget deficits in 2020, and pre-existing global tensions. Yet he has greatly exacerbated the economic and geopolitical crises rather than solved them. We need a change of foreign policy. After the elections, there will be an important time for reassessment. Americans and the world need economic recovery, diplomacy, and peace.

Daniel L. Davis discusses the nuclear risk in Ukraine on Tucker Carlson Tonight

U.S. RACES To Deploy Nuclear Weapons To Europe

Advocating World War Three Is Just Mainstream Punditry Now

Mainstream punditry in the latter half of 2022 is rife with op-eds arguing that the US needs to vastly increase military spending because a world war is about to erupt, and they always frame it as though this would be something that happens to the US, as though its own actions would have nothing to do with it. As though it would not be the direct result of the US-centralized empire continually accelerating towards that horrific event while refusing every possible diplomatic off-ramp due to its inability to relinquish its goal of total unipolar planetary domination.

The latest example of this trend is an article titled “Could America Win a New World War? — What It Would Take to Defeat Both China and Russia” published by Foreign Affairs, a magazine that is owned and operated by the supremely influential think tank Council on Foreign Relations.

“The United States and its allies must plan for how to simultaneously win wars in Asia and Europe, as unpalatable as the prospect may seem,” writes the article’s author Thomas G Mahnken, adding that in some ways “the United States and its allies will have an advantage in any simultaneous war” in those two continents.

But Mahnken doesn’t claim a world war against Russia and China would be a walk in the park; he also argues that in order to win such a war the US will need to — you guessed it — drastically increase its military spending.

“The United States clearly needs to increase its defense manufacturing capacity and speed,” Mahnken writes. “In the short term, that involves adding shifts to existing factories. With more time, it involves expanding factories and opening new production lines. To do both, Congress will have to act now to allocate more money to increase manufacturing.”

But exploding US weapons spending is still inadequate, Mahnken argues, saying that “the United States should work with its allies to increase their military production and the size of their weapons and munitions stockpiles” as well.

Mahnken says this world war could be sparked “if China initiated a military operation to take Taiwan, forcing the United States and its allies to respond,” as though there would be no other options on the table besides launching into nuclear age World War Three to defend an island next to the Chinese mainland that calls itself the Republic of China. He writes that “Moscow, meanwhile, could decide that with the United States bogged down in the western Pacific, it could get away with invading more of Europe,” demonstrating the bizarre Schrödinger’s cat western propaganda paradox that Putin is always simultaneously (A) getting destroyed and humiliated in Ukraine and (B) on the cusp of waging hot war with NATO.

It's crazy how many people are making entire careers out of advocating the worst thing that could possibly happen. pic.twitter.com/GfmBrNDEDg

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) October 27, 2022

Again, this is just the latest in an increasingly common genre of mainstream western punditry.

In “The skeptics are wrong: The U.S. can confront both China and Russia,” The Washington Post’s Josh Rogin wags his finger at Democrats who think aggressions against Russia should be prioritized and Republicans who think that military and financial attention should be devoted to China, arguing porque no los dos?

In “Could The U.S. Military Fight Russia And China At The Same Time?“, 19FortyFive’s Robert Farley answers in the affirmative, writing that “the immense fighting power of the US armed forces would not be inordinately strained by the need to wage war in both theaters” and concluding that “the United States can fight both Russia and China at once… for a while, and with the help of some friends.”

In “Can the US Take on China, Iran and Russia All at Once?” Bloomberg’s Hal Brands answers that it would be very difficult and recommends escalating in Ukraine and Taiwan and selling Israel more advanced weaponry to get a step ahead of Russia, China and Iran respectively.

In “International Relations Theory Suggests Great-Power War Is Coming,” the Atlantic Council’s Matthew Kroenig writes for Foreign Policy that a global democracies-versus-autocracies showdown is coming “with the United States and its status quo-oriented democratic allies in NATO, Japan, South Korea, and Australia on one side and the revisionist autocracies of China, Russia, and Iran on the other,” and that aspiring foreign policy experts should adjust their expectations accordingly.

When they’re not arguing that World War Three is coming and we must all prepare to fight it and win, they’re arguing that a global conflict is already upon us and we must begin acting like it, as in last month’s New Yorker piece “What if We’re Already Fighting the Third World War with Russia?”

These Beltway swamp monster pontifications are directed not just at the general public but at government policymakers and strategists as well, and it should disturb us all that their audiences are being encouraged to view a global conflict of unspeakable horror like it’s some kind of natural disaster that people don’t have any control over.

Every measure should be taken to avoid a world war in the nuclear age. If it looks like that’s where we’re headed, the answer is not to ramp up weapons production and create entire industries dedicated to making it happen, the answer is diplomacy, de-escalation and detente. These pundits frame the rise of a multipolar world as something that must inevitably be accompanied by an explosion of violence and human suffering, when in reality we’d only wind up there as a result of decisions that were made by thinking human beings on both sides.

It doesn’t have to be this way. There’s no omnipotent deity decreeing from on high that we must live in a world where governments brandish armageddon weapons at each other and humanity must either submit to Washington or resign itself to cataclysmic violence of planetary consequence. We could just have a world where the peoples of all nations get along with each other and work together toward the common good rather than working to dominate and subjugate each other.

As Jeffrey Sachs recently put it, “The single biggest mistake of president Biden was to say ‘the greatest struggle of the world is between democracies and autocracies’. The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality.”

MUST WATCH: The brilliant Professor Sachs speaks the truth and offers his wisdom and advice for humanity. [video clip 1/6]

"The real struggle of the world is to live together and overcome our common crises of environment and inequality."

Original video: https://t.co/WFZAbS1cPG pic.twitter.com/zhW3IIOXQ6

— Kimmee Lee (@KimmeeLee2) October 22, 2022

We could have a world where our energy and resources go toward increasing human thriving and learning to collaborate with this fragile biosphere we evolved in. Where all our scientific innovation is directed toward making this planet a better place to live instead of channeling it into getting rich and finding new ways to explode human bodies. Where our old models of competition and exploitation give way to systems of collaboration and care. Where poverty, toil and misery gradually move from accepted norms of human existence to dimly remembered historical record.

Instead we’re getting a world where we’re being hammered harder and harder with propaganda encouraging us to accept global conflict as an unavoidable reality, where politicians who voice even the mildest support for diplomacy are shouted down and demonized until they bow to the gods of war, where nuclear brinkmanship is framed as safety and de-escalation is branded as reckless endangerment.

We don’t have to submit to this. We don’t have to keep sleepwalking into dystopia and armageddon to the beat of manipulative sociopaths. There are a whole lot more of us than there are of them, and we’ve got a whole lot more at stake here than they do.

We can have a healthy world. We’ve just got to want it badly enough. They work so hard to manufacture our consent because, ultimately, they absolutely do require it.

The Days Of U.S. Hegemony Are OVER Says Putin

Russia accuses Britain of blowing up Nord Stream pipelines

The Russian government has accused Britain of playing a major role in the September 26 blowing up of the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines. Powerful underwater explosions blew gaping holes in the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines, which carry Russian natural gas 760-miles under the Baltic Sea to Germany. The pipelines have a joint annual capacity to provide 110 billion cubic metres of gas, more than 50 percent of Russia’s normal gas export volumes.

On Saturday, a spokesperson for Russia’s defence ministry said, “According to available information, representatives of this unit of the British Navy took part in the planning, provision and implementation of a terrorist attack in the Baltic Sea on September 26 this yearblowing up the Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2 gas pipelines.” ...

The spokesperson also alleged UK involvement in Saturday’s attacks on Russian ships in the Black Sea. He stated, “At 4.20am today, the Kyiv regime carried out a terrorist attack on Black Sea Fleet ships and civilian vessels.

“Preparation for the terrorist act and training of military personnel of the Ukrainian 73rd Special Operations Centre Marine Unit was carried out under the guidance of British specialists who were in the city of Ochakiv, Mykolaiv region, Ukraine.

“It should be stressed that the Black Sea Fleet vessels that suffered the terrorist attack are involved in ensuring the security of the grain corridor as part of the international initiative to export agricultural products from Ukrainian ports.”

Britain’s Ministry of Defence denied the accusations, saying they were made to distract from Russia’s “disastrous handling of the illegal invasion of Ukraine”.

Russia begins dismantling Biden's neocon Ukraine project

Fresh off of the Guardian propaganda catapult:

UN, Nato, EU and US call on Russia to resume Ukrainian grain deal

The United Nations, Nato, European Union and US have all urged Russia to reverse its decision to pull out of a deal that allowed Ukrainian grain exports via the Black Sea, amid fears of a global food crisis.

Moscow announced it was suspending the UN-brokered arrangement in response to a dramatic attack in the early hours of Saturday by Ukrainian airborne and underwater drones on its naval base of Sevastopol in Crimea.

It had allowed Ukraine to transport more than 9m tonnes of grain and oilseed commodities, while Russia was allowed to export food and fertiliser, helping to bring down food prices by 15% from their March peak after the war made the route treacherous.

Wheat futures are now forecast to leap when markets open on Monday. “The start of the week is very likely to see prices climb, simply because less grain is going to come out of Ukraine,” Arthur Portier of consultancy Agritel said.

Kyiv’s infrastructure ministry said on Sunday that 218 vessels were now “effectively blocked” in its ports – 22 loaded and stuck at ports, 95 loaded and departed from ports, and 101 awaiting inspections.

Czechs rally to demand resignation of pro-Western government

Tens of thousands of Czechs used a national holiday Friday to rally in the capital against the pro-Western government and its support for Ukraine’s fight against the Russian invasion.

The rally follows two others at Prague’s central Wenceslas Square and was smaller than the 70,000 who gathered for the same reasons on Sept. 3, according to police estimates. ...

With soaring energy, food and housing prices hitting the country, the protesters were demanding the resignation of the coalition government led by conservative Prime Minister Petr Fiala. ...

The protesters have repeatedly condemned the government for its support of Ukraine and the European Union sanctions against Russia, opposed Czech membership in the EU, NATO and other international organizations such as the United Nations and the World Health Organization.

“Russia’s not our enemy, the government of warmongers is the enemy,” one speaker said.

US Has No Plans to Withdraw From Syria Or End Sanctions

Apart from a few outlying territories, the Syrian War is for all intents and purposes over. The rebels are defeated and Assad endures. The war being over doesn’t appear to impact the US plans however. Roughly 1,000 US troops are deployed in Syria, and officials say they have “no plans”  to end that presence, or to lift sanctions aimed at regime change in Syria.

During the Trump Administration, US forces shifted focus to an oilfield with a new mission to “take the oil.” Illegality of that aside, it appears that plan remains in place.

John Kirby says the US goal in Syria is “solely to combat ISIS,” an interesting position since the US almost never fights ISIS at all. Recent anti-ISIS operations were launched by Syria and Russia.

Lula Defeats Bolsonaro in Brazil in What Many See as a Victory for Democracy & the Earth

Lula stages astonishing comeback to beat far-right Bolsonaro in Brazil election

Brazil’s former leftist president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, has sealed an astonishing political comeback, beating the far-right incumbent Jair Bolsonaro in one of the most significant and bruising elections in the country’s history.

With 99.97% of votes counted, Silva, a former factory worker who became Brazil’s first working-class president exactly 20 years ago, had secured 50.9% of the vote. Bolsonaro, a firebrand who was elected in 2018, received 49.10%.

Addressing journalists at a hotel in São Paulo, Lula vowed to reunify his country after a toxic race for power which has profoundly divided one of the world’s largest democracies.

“We are going to live new times of peace, love and hope,” said the 77-year-old, who was sidelined from the 2018 election that saw Bolsonaro claim power after being jailed on corruption charges that were later annulled.

“I will govern for 215m Brazilians … and not just for those who voted for me. There are not two Brazils. We are one country, one people – a great nation,” he said to applause. “It is in nobody’s interests to live in a country that is divided and in a constant state of war.”

Ro Khanna Unveils Bill to Ban US Gas Exports as Big Oil Rakes in Record Profits

Hours after ExxonMobil and Chevron reported a combined $31 billion in third-quarter profits on Friday, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna of California introduced legislation that would prohibit U.S. gas exports when prices at the pump are high, as they are now.

"While Big Oil is reporting obscene profits this week, American families are struggling to afford gas at the pump," Khanna said in a statement. "These companies should not be allowed to profit by exporting gas to other countries while we struggle with increased prices here at home. My bill will temporarily restrict exports as long as prices are above the average price in 2019."

Endorsed by Food & Water Watch, the Center for Biological Diversity, Climate Justice Alliance, and other progressive groups, Khanna's bill—the Gasoline Export Ban Act of 2022—would bar the export of refined gasoline produced in the U.S. whenever the nationwide average price per gallon has been equal to or exceeded $3.12 for each of the preceding seven days.

The bill would not restrict diesel fuel exports, said Khanna's office, in order "to protect our European allies" who are struggling to afford their skyrocketing energy bills as Russia's war in Ukraine drags on and winter nears.

Noting that the Saudi-led Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is deliberately suppressing oil production amid a period of increased demand to drive up prices, Khanna's office said that a ban on U.S. gas exports would boost domestic supply and deliver relief to consumers who are being gouged.

Exxon's record-breaking $19.7 billion profit from July to September is three times higher than what the company reported during the same period last year, while Chevron's $11.2 billion in third-quarter profits was its second-highest on record and nearly double what it reported during the same time last year.

The two corporations have raked in a combined $73 billion in profits so far this year, taking advantage of global energy market chaos to jack up prices and reward investors with more than $32 billion in stock buybacks.

"The obscene profiteering of corporate oil and gas polluters is driving the inflation that is delivering substantial misery to American families," Food & Water Watch executive director Wenonah Hauter said in a statement. "An economy that is reliant on fossil fuels subjects all of us to the whims of petrostate dictators and profiteering corporations. One solution is to stop the export of gasoline to foreign markets."

The U.S. had a 40-year-old ban on oil and gas exports until late 2015, when congressional Republicans and former President Barack Obama teamed up to repeal it at the behest of fossil fuel industry executives and lobbyists. Contrary to the claims made by Big Oil, lifting the export ban has not led to lower prices at the pump. Instead, the industry is enjoying record profits while unleashing climate-wrecking pollution at home and abroad.

Biden 'Ministry Of Truth' Continues IN SECRET

‘Criminalizing kindness’: US woman arrested for feeding homeless people sues

A woman who was arrested for feeding homeless people in north-west Arizona is suing over a local ordinance that regulates food-sharing events in public parks, accusing the authorities of criminalizing kindness.

Norma Thornton, 78, became the first person arrested under Bullhead City’s ordinance in March for distributing prepared food from a van at Bullhead community park. Her lawyer said the lawsuit filed this week is part of a nationwide effort to let people feed those in need.

Criminal charges against Thornton were eventually dropped, but she is seeking an injunction to stop the city from enforcing the ordinance that took effect in May 2021.

“Bullhead City has criminalized kindness,” Thornton’s case attorney, Suranjan Sen, told Phoenix TV station KPHO. “The city council passed an ordinance that makes it a crime punishable by four months’ imprisonment to share food in public parks for charitable purposes.” ...

The case claims the law infringes on Thornton’s right to carry out charitable acts.

Man released from California prison after 38 years following DNA test

A man who spent more than 38 years behind bars for a 1983 murder and two attempted murders has been released from a California prison after long-untested DNA evidence pointed to a different person, the Los Angeles county district attorney said.

The conviction of Maurice Hastings, 69, and a life sentence were vacated during a 20 October court hearing at the request of prosecutors and his lawyers from the Los Angeles Innocence Project at California State University. ....

Hastings was charged with special-circumstance murder and the district attorney’s office sought the death penalty but the jury deadlocked. A second jury convicted him and he was sentenced in 1988 to life in prison without parole. ... At the time of the victim’s autopsy, the coroner conducted a sexual assault examination and semen was detected in an oral swab, the district attorney’s statement said.

Hastings sought DNA testing in 2000 but the DA’s office denied the request. Hastings submitted a claim of innocence to the DA’s Conviction Integrity Unit last year and DNA testing last June found that the semen was not his.

New York city and state to pay $36m to men cleared of murder of Malcolm X

The city of New York is settling lawsuits filed on behalf of two men who were exonerated last year for the 1965 assassination of Malcolm X, agreeing to pay $26m for the wrongful convictions that led to both spending decades behind bars. The state of New York will pay an additional $10m. David Shanies, an attorney representing the men, confirmed the settlements on Sunday.

“Muhammad Aziz, Khalil Islam, and their families suffered because of these unjust convictions for more than 50 years,” said Shanies in an email. Shanies said the settlements sent a message that “police and prosecutorial misconduct cause tremendous damage, and we must remain vigilant to identify and correct injustices”.

Last year, a Manhattan judge dismissed the convictions of Aziz, now 84, and Islam, who died in 2009, after prosecutors said new evidence of witness intimidation and suppression of exculpatory evidence had undermined the case against the men.

Shanies said over the next few weeks the settlement documents will be signed and the New York court that handles probate matters will have to approve the settlement for Islam’s estate. The total $36m will be divided equally between Aziz and the estate of Islam.

Aziz and Islam, who maintained their innocence from the start in the 1965 killing at Upper Manhattan’s Audubon Ballroom, were paroled in the 1980s.

---

---

‘Somebody’s going to die’: Democrats warn of political violence after Paul Pelosi attack

Democratic politicians have ramped up their warnings about the threat of political violence in America after a man bludgeoned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s 82-year-old husband with a hammer in their California home on Friday.

The dire warnings come amid longstanding concern that security services provided do not adequately reflect ongoing threats, especially as midterm elections loom. The Associated Press reported on Sunday that Paul Pelosi’s assailant had been carrying zip ties when he broke in. ...

Indeed, the attack on Paul Pelosi appeared to have been intended for Nancy Pelosi, –Joe Biden said on Saturday. Authorities said that the attacker demanded “Where is Nancy?”; the veteran congresswoman was in Washington DC with her security detail when the assault took place.

On the day of the attack, a US joint intelligence bulletin warned that there was a “heightened threat’ to the midterm contests, fueled by a rise in domestic violent extremism, or DVE, and driven by ideological grievances and access to potential targets,” according to CBS’s Nicole Sganga.

The man charged in the assault, David DePape, might have expressed his political ire – which largely mirrored far-right taking points – in recent online missives. An internet user with the handle “daviddepape” voiced support of the former US president Donald Trump and seeming belief in the conspiracy theory QAnon.

79% Say Country OUT OF CONTROL Before Midterm Election

---

---

PFAS left dangerous blood compounds in nearly all US study participants

Nearly all participants in a new study looking at exposure to PFAS “forever chemicals” in the US state of North Carolina have multiple dangerous compounds in their blood, and most at levels that researchers say requires medical screening.

The North Carolina State University study, which is among the largest ever conducted, checked about 1,500 blood samples from people living in the Cape Fear River basin over several years. It’s the first study to recommend screening for cancers, kidney damage, heart disease and other health issues linked to the chemicals, using newly developed physicians’ guidelines for PFAS exposure. ...

In the Cape Fear basin, the pollution is thought to largely stem from a Fayetteville Chemours plant that DuPont operated for decades before 2015. Airports, textile producers and other industries upstream have also discharged PFAS into the river. The blood study has implications for which polluters are responsible and legally liable for health problems that many public health advocates and residents say stem from PFAS exposure.

Some of the compounds, like those commonly known as Nafion byproduct 2 and PFO4DA, are produced by Chemours. But “legacy” compounds that have largely been phased out of production in the US, like PFOS (perfluorooctanesulfonic acid) and PFOA (perfluorooctanoic acid), were also used by other industries near the river. Chemours has previously seized on those points: “The results showed that legacy compounds not associated with Chemours manufacturing were the compounds most prevalent in participants.”

But public health advocates say that’s misleading. Chemours emitted PFOA as recently as 2012, company and state records obtained by the Guardian show, and the chemical can stay in human blood for many years. Moreover, Chemours’ PFOA still contaminates a groundwater plume around the plant, and those chemicals can continue getting in drinking water and residents’ blood.

Climate-Fueled Heatwaves Cost Global Economy Trillions; Poor Countries Hit Hardest: Study

A study published Friday revealed that heatwaves fueled by human-caused climate change have cost the global economy trillions of dollars over the past 30 years, with the world's poorest countries—and those least responsible for the climate emergency—bearing a disproportionate share of the burden.

The study, published in Science Advances, reached three key conclusions. First, "increased extreme heat intensity significantly decreases economic growth in relatively warm tropical regions and weakly affects it in relatively cool midlatitude regions." Second, "anthropogenic climate change has increased the frequency and intensity of these economically consequential heat extremes." Therefore—and thirdly—"the effects of climate change on extreme heat have amplified underlying inequality, disproportionately harming low-income, low-emitting regions, with major emitters shouldering primary responsibility for billions of dollars of losses in the tropics."

According to the publication:

Human-caused increases in heat waves have depressed economic output most in the poor tropical regions least culpable for warming. Cumulative 1992–2013 losses from anthropogenic extreme heat likely fall between $5 trillion and $29.3 trillion globally. Losses amount to 6.7% of Gross Domestic Product per capita per year for regions in the bottom income decile, but only 1.5% for regions in the top income decile. Our results have the potential to inform adaptation investments and demonstrate how global inequality is both a cause and consequence of the unequal burden of climate change.

"Accelerating adaptation measures within the hottest period of each year would deliver economic benefits now," study first author Christopher Callahan, a doctoral candidate in geography at Dartmouth College in New Hampshire, said in a statement. "The amount of money spent on adaptation measures should not be assessed just on the price tag of those measures, but relative to the cost of doing nothing. Our research identifies a substantial price tag to not doing anything."

Senior study author and Dartmouth assistant geography professor Justin Mankin asserted: "No one has shown an independent fingerprint for extreme heat and the intensity of that heat's impact on economic growth. The true costs of climate change are far higher than we've calculated so far. Our work shows that no place is well adapted to our current climate."

"The regions with the lowest incomes globally are the ones that suffer most from these extreme heat events," Mankin added. "As climate change increases the magnitude of extreme heat, it's a fair expectation that those costs will continue to accumulate."

The new study follows research forecasting that by the end of the century, dangerous heat driven by the worsening climate emergency will hit much of the Earth at least three times more often than today.

---

Also of Interest

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

Biden administration not taking 'concrete steps' to close Guantanamo, defence lawyers say

Putin Blames West for Killing Ukraine Peace Deal in March

Patrick Lawrence: The Democrats’ Assault on Diplomacy

Thousands of mosques targeted as Hindu nationalists try to rewrite India’s history

Revealed: TE Lawrence felt ‘bitter shame’ over UK’s false promises of Arab self rule

Noelle Hanrahan on Mumia Abu-Jamal Update

The Ongoing Criminalization of Homelessness

‘It’s got nasty’: the battle to build the US’s biggest solar power farm

Biden’s Disastrous LNG Export Goal

Liz Truss Phone HACKED By Russians

Ilhan Omar Latest Squad Member HECKLED Over Ukraine Stance

Is Obama Spreading Putin Talking Points?

Mass Casualties Necessary To Depose Putin Says U.K. Financier

PROOF Antisemitism Accusations Against Corbyn Were Labour Party Lies

FBI Offered Christopher Steele $1 Million For Proof Dossier Was Real

SCOTUS Hears Affirmative Action Case, May END Race-Based Admissions

---

A Little Night Music

The 5 Royales - The Slummer The Slum

The 5 Royales - Please Please Please

The 5 Royales -Think

The 5 Royales - Help Me Somebody

The "5" Royales - Baby Don't Do It

The "5" Royales - Right Around The Corner

Compare the preceding to (I believe the 5 Royales song came out first):

Willie Dixon - 29 Ways

The "5" Royales - Tears Of Joy

The "5" Royales - Laundromat Blues

The 5 Royales - Too Much of a Little Bit

The 5 Royales - Dedicated To The One I Love

---