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"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

-- James Madison

News and Opinion

Aw, geez that would be too bad if the war was over in a matter of weeks ...

Ukraine war ‘over’ unless EU boosts military support, says top diplomat

The war with Ukraine will be over unless the EU finds a way in weeks to speed up the provision of ammunition to Ukraine, Josep Borrell, the EU foreign affairs chief, warned on the final day of the Munich security conference.

He said a special meeting of EU defence ministers slated for 8-9 March will provide a chance for countries to offer ammunition from their existing stocks, adding it is taking up to 10 months for European armies to order and receive a single bullet. “We are in urgent war mode,” he said. “This shortage of ammunition has to be solved quickly; it is a matter of weeks.” He said if it was not the war would be over.

Borrell will also table plans at a meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday to use the existing €3.6bn (£3.2bn) European peace facility for the EU to procure ammunition jointly on the model of the procurement of vaccines during the Covid crisis, an idea first proposed by the Estonian prime minister, Kaja Kallas. Borrell said the Estonian idea would work in the medium term, but he believes the urgency of the shortages is such that it requires EU countries to draw on existing stocks. “We have to use what member states have,” he said.

“Much more has to be done and much quicker. There is still a lot to be done. We have to increase and accelerate our military support. It currently takes almost 10 months for the European army to buy a bullet for the calibre of 155mm, almost one year, and almost three years to buy an air-to-air missile. This is not in accordance with the war situation in which we live.”

Kallas, speaking at the same event, said Russia was in a wartime mode, producing ammunition across three shifts, adding there needed to be a similar war footing in Europe. She claimed defence industry executives had told her they had no orders from the EU.

Biden visits Kiev, with Putin's permission

It's worth a click to go read this whole thing, here are a couple of snips that I found interesting:

Patrick Lawrence: Munich as Propaganda Fest

... I have long been convinced that Washington is carefully scripting Zelensky and Kuleba on topics such as weapons supplies. If you have found these people stunningly rude in their remarks to Western officials, as I have, it is because they are told to be. Among their functions from the start of the conflict has been to shout incessant demands at the West to give Western officials domestic public-relations cover as they escalate the conflict with the more and more and more Kyiv demands.

Petr Pavel, the Czech Republic’s president, had a very curious response to Kuleba’s lunchtime remarks. “We may end up in a situation where liberating some parts of Ukrainian territory will cost such losses that will be unbearable for Ukrainian society,” Pavel said. He added that those who favor the collapse of the Russian Federation as the true objective of this war had better start thinking about consequences they have not yet considered.

The Czechs, astute readers may recall, have arched their eyebrows ever since the U.S. orchestrated the Kyiv coup in 2014. While everyone else was pretending there were no neo–Nazi crazies in Ukraine, the Czechs were publishing front-page pictures of torch-lit processions featuring burning crosses and hooded militiamen while senior government officials were asking publicly, “What in hell is this? Do we not remember?”

Now the Czech president gives the game away, in my read. If the West were so triumphantly unified as it pours untold billions of dollars worth of armaments into Ukraine, would its leaders have to travel to Munich to bang on about it, one after another saying the same thing? I see a Lady Macbeth complex here: They doth protest too much that they are all together on Ukraine. ...

I did not read of any official standing up and saying there can be no negotiations toward a diplomatic settlement of the Ukraine conflict. Instead, nearly all those who touched on the topic said talks can begin only after Ukraine has retaken all the territories Russia now occupies, and in the case of the Donbas breakaway republics, now claims as part of the Russian Federation. Kuleba comes out the winner here: He insisted that the end of the war can come only when the Russian president, “whoever it may be,” travels to Kyiv, drops to his knees, and begs forgiveness.

This is not the utterance of a practiced statesman, to put it mildly. But what Kuleba meant is what nearly everyone in Munich meant: Yes, we favor negotiations except that we don’t. There shall be none. Forget the past year’s talk that this war can end only at the mahogany table. It will end on the battlefield, when guns have decided it.

“Things like a ceasefire sound very attractive. Who doesn’t want the guns to stop firing?” Blinken asked at that same Ukraine Lunch. “Except we have to be incredibly wary of the kinds of traps that can be set.” It is Newspeak. We want to stop the fighting but we cannot stop it. Should Russia propose a ceasefire, we cannot trust it because we cannot trust Russia.

Dem Congressman CONFRONTED Over Bombshell Nord Stream Pipeline Story

China may be on brink of supplying arms to Russia, says Blinken

The US has said it believes China may be about to provide lethal aid to help Russia in the war in Ukraine, prompting a direct warning against doing so from the secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to China’s top diplomat. Blinken made the warning to the Chinese state councillor Wang Yi on Saturday evening at a meeting on the sidelines of the Munich security conference during which he also rebuked China over the use of an alleged spy balloon over US soil.

In a blunt meeting he also urged China to stop helping Russia evade the impact of sanctions. China’s trade with Russia is increasing and it has been buying Russian oil, but probably below the US$60 per barrel price cap imposed by the EU and G7 group of states.

Blinken told US networks that the US had information China was considering whether to give Russia assistance, possibly including guns and weapons, for the Ukraine war. “The concern that we have now is, based on information we have, that they’re considering providing lethal support,” Blinken told CBS’s Face the Nation shortly after he met with Wang. “And we’ve made very clear to them that that could cause a serious problem for us and in our relationship.”

Blinken told NBC’s Meet the Press that China has not yet crossed the line of providing lethal assistance but he would be putting out evidence soon to show how Beijing was seriously considering providing Russia with equipment including weapons. ...

The US believes China may already be providing some surveillance information to the Wagner group, the mercenary wing that works alongside the Russian army.

Biden in Ukraine to show resolve ahead of war's anniversary

Biden ABANDONS UFO Debris Retrieval

Imagine If China Did To The US What The US Is Doing To China

This past Thursday US Senator Josh Hawley gave a speech at the Heritage Foundation — a warmongering think tank with immense influence in the DC swamp — that is a perfect representation of a couple of interesting dynamics occurring in US foreign policy thought today.

The Trump-endorsed Hawley is a perfect example of the faux-populism in the “MAGA” branch of the Republican Party: a rich Ivy League alum who makes a big display of standing up to the elites on behalf of the little guy, while consistently advancing the longstanding agendas of western oligarchs, DC neocons, and secretive US government agencies.

Hawley’s latest performance of pretending to fight the Deep State while directly assisting the Deep State appears in his speech titled “China and Ukraine: A Time for Truth,” wherein he denounces the “endless proxy war in Ukraine,” the “Uniparty” of “neoconservatives on the right and liberal globalists on the left,” and the way US wars in the Middle East cost “billions of dollars there and lost hundreds of American lives” (a massive understatement on both counts).

In typical MAGA Republican fashion, Hawley then takes all this populist-sounding rhetoric and uses it to argue that all the wealth, resources and military firepower that’s going toward those foreign policy blunders overseas should instead be used to help prepare for war with China over Taiwan. It’s no wonder that Hawley is a favorite guest of another faux-populist, the virulent anti-China propagandist Tucker Carlson, who often makes the same argument.

Calling China “a new imperially-minded power” (in comparison to World War II Axis powers, not the United States), Hawley claims that PRC president Xi Jinping “wants control of the Pacific,” and will swiftly move from taking over Taiwan to militarily encircling the United States if he isn’t stopped.

After fearmongering about mass product shortages “of everything from basic medicine to consumer electronics” should Beijing take Taiwan, Hawley then began describing a “dark future” in which the world finds itself surrounded by Chinese war machinery, even in Washington’s neck of the woods:

If China takes Taiwan, it will be able to station its own military forces there. It can then use its position as a springboard for further conquest and intimidation—against Japan, the Philippines, and other Pacific islands, like Guam and the Northern Marianas.
…
As Asia’s new reigning power, China could restrict U.S. trade in the region—perhaps block it altogether. Maybe we’ll be allowed in, but only on terms favorable to China.
…
There’s more. We recently witnessed a Chinese spy balloon cruise across the American heartland. But things can get much worse.

Imagine a world where Chinese warships patrol Hawaiian waters, and Chinese submarines stalk the California coastline. A world where the People’s Liberation Army has military bases in Central and South America. A world where Chinese forces operate freely in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean.

Yeah, imagine that Josh. Imagine a strange, dark timeline where China is encircling the US with military bases and weapons of war. You know, in literally the exact same way the US is doing to China right now.

I recently did a write-up on a freakish bit of war propaganda put out by Sky News Australia about the threat of “China’s aggression” provoking a third world war. Hilariously, about halfway through the special, Sky News flashes a graphic showing the immense sprawling military presence that the US has built up around China in “a vast network of operations that extend from Hawaii all the way to India.”

The Sky News special is titled “China’s aggression could start new world war,” but your brain would have to be made of soup not to look at that graphic and understand who the real aggressor is here. The US is plainly acting aggressively, and China is plainly reacting defensively to those aggressions. This is obvious because the US would never tolerate China doing to it what it has been doing to China, as evidenced by the fact that people like Josh Hawley describe that exact hypothetical as the absolute worst-case “dark future” nightmare scenario.

If Hawley wants to play a game of imagining things, perhaps he should imagine what the United States would do if China suddenly began doing the things he described. Chinese warships sailing around near California and Hawaii, in the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean, under the same aggressive “freedom of navigation” exercises that US warships routinely perform in waters near China to the anger of Beijing. People’s Liberation Army military bases in Central and South America, like the network of military bases the US has set up around China and continues to build up to this very day.

Imagine that, Josh.

It’s not pleasant to imagine what would happen in such a situation, because it would mean an immediate world war. The US would immediately regard China’s building up a military presence in the western hemisphere as an act of war and begin attacking those forces like hostile invaders. We all know this is true because of the way US empire managers like Josh Hawley talk about such a prospect.

It will never stop being funny to me the way American supremacists melodramatically rend their garments over the idea of nations like Russia and China asserting small spheres of influence over former Soviet states and the South China Sea, meanwhile they themselves insist on asserting a sphere of influence that looks like this: [article includes picture of earth from space. -js]

It’s nonsensical for US empire loyalists to continually kvetch about foreign governments doing things the US empire does constantly. Stop creating the dynamic you claim to oppose. If you sincerely want peace, stop waging endless wars. If you sincerely oppose spheres of influence, stop asserting them yourself far more egregiously than anyone else. If you sincerely want an end to things like election interference, espionage and propaganda, stop being the world’s worst perpetrator of them. If you sincerely don’t want a world war, stop accelerating toward one. Be the change, bro.

Of course none of those changes will be made by the drivers of the US empire, because they do not sincerely want those things. What they want is power and global domination.

One of the strangest things the mainstream worldview asks us to accept is that the US government (A) should be the leader of the entire world and (B) wants to be the leader of the world solely for righteous and beneficent reasons.

Anyone else who wants to rule the world gets called a megalomaniac. We all grew up watching movies and shows about evil villains who want to rule the world. Yet the mainstream worldview asks us to accept that the US government wants to rule the world solely because it loves us all and wants to give everyone freedom and democracy.

This whole imperial song and dance is the most ridiculous thing in the world.

Deadly air strike on Kafr Sousa suburb of Damascus

An Israeli airstrike reportedly has killed up to 15 people in Kafr Sousa – a high-security area of the Syrian capital, Damascus, part of which is home to senior security officials, security branches and intelligence headquarters and Iranian installations.

The rare, targeted strike damaged several buildings in the densely populated district close to Omayyad square in the heart of the capital, where multi-storey security buildings are located within residential areas.

An Israeli military spokesperson declined to comment.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the strike, which hit close to an Iranian cultural centre, had killed 15 people including civilians. Syria’s defence ministry said the strike killed, in a preliminary toll, five people, among them a soldier, and injured 15 civilians, some in critical condition.

Norfolk Southern Railroad Will Never Pay For The Devastation In Ohio

Ohio senator blasts train operator and lobbyists over toxic derailment

The Ohio senator Sherrod Brown had harsh criticism on Sunday for corporate lobbyists and Norfolk Southern, the Atlanta-based operator of the train that derailed in East Palestine, Ohio, two weeks ago while carrying toxic chemicals. Speaking on Sunday to CNN’s State of the Union, the Democrat said the derailment, which released toxic chemicals including the carcinogenic vinyl chloride, was an episode of “the same old story”, and that Norfolk Southern “caused it”.

“Corporations do stock buybacks, they do big dividend checks, they lay off workers,” Brown said. “Thousands of workers have been laid off from Norfolk Southern. Then they don’t invest in safety rules and safety regulation, and this kind of thing happens. That’s why people in East Palestine are so upset.

“They know that corporate lobbyists have had far too much influence in our government and they see this as the result … These things are happening because these railroads are simply not investing the way they should in car safety and in the rail lines themselves.” Brown said Norfolk Southern and corporate lobbyists were wholly responsible for the accident, which has caused breathing difficulties, rashes, nausea, headaches and swollen eyes, as well as killing pets and wildlife.

“There’s no question they caused it with this derailment because … they underinvested in their employees. They never look out for their workers. They never look out for their communities. They look out for stock buybacks and dividends. Something’s wrong with corporate America and something’s wrong with Congress and administrations listening too much to corporate lobbyists. And that’s got to change.”

On Tuesday, Norfolk Southern pledged to distribute more than $1.2m to nearly 900 families and a number of businesses affected by the crash, spill and burn. A company spokesman said the financial assistance included direct payments of $1,000.

Earlier this year, the company announced $10bn in stock buybacks. Last year, it reported $3.2bn in profits.

Steven Donziger: Ohio is facing a chemical disaster. Biden must declare a state of emergency

Earlier this month, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in eastern Ohio, exploding into flames and unleashing a spume of chemical smoke on the small town of East Palestine. The train’s freight included vinyl chloride, a chemical known to cause liver cancer and other sicknesses. In response, government and railway officials decided to “burn off” the vinyl chloride – effectively dumping 1.1m lbs of the chemical into the local community, according to a new lawsuit. Officials said that they did so to avert the vinyl chloride from exploding; in contrast, an attorney for the lawsuit has said that the decision was cheap, unsafe, and more interested in restoring train service and appeasing railway shareholders than protecting local residents.

East Palestine residents are reporting headaches, sore throats, and burning eyes; dead pets and chickens; and thousands of fish corpses in nearby waterways. The Ohio Department of Natural Resources has said that approximately 3,500 fish, of 12 different species, died across 7.5 miles.

In other words, Norfolk Southern’s “controlled burn” may have caused a mushroom cloud of poison to spread over eastern Ohio. The situation demands immediate action from President Biden. Without it, thousands of people – including children and the elderly – and animals will be at continued risk of premature death. Biden must declare a state of emergency and create an independent taskforce to take over the remediation of this eco-catastrophe. ...

In terms of the sheer quantity of carcinogenic chemicals being released over an area of hundreds of miles, the catastrophe in Ohio is a major, unprecedented public health crisis. Biden must publicly recognize it as such and act to protect the people who live in the affected area. This requires a rapid, all-of-government response overseen not by the EPA but by independent scientists and taskmasters who will be immune to pressure from industry. This sort of taskforce must be willing to threaten the suspension or even nationalization of Norfolk Southern if it does not cooperate.

After battling an oil company over the discharge of toxic waste in the Amazon, I can say with some assurance that Norfolk’s response to this crisis so far comes from a time-tested corporate strategy: manage the situation as a public relations challenge and not the humanitarian and ecological catastrophe that it is. Norfolk’s leadership bailed out of a townhall meeting this week, blaming security risks, and has refused to face residents to answer questions. That’s certainly cowardice. But it is also a function of the fact that industry does not respect the power of government to regulate it. Government is supposed to protect us from the excesses of industry; instead it often acts like its partner.

East Palestine Residents Told Water Was Safe After 'Sloppy' Testing Paid for by Rail Company

Thousands of people in East Palestine, Ohio have been assured by the state Environmental Protection Agency and Republican Gov. Mike DeWine that the town's municipal water has not been contaminated by the train derailment that took place in the town earlier this month, but the only publicly available data comes from testing that was funded by the company behind the crash.

As HuffPost reported late Friday, the Dallas-based consulting firm AECOM contracted with Norfolk Southern, which operated the 150-car train that was carrying the toxic chemical vinyl chloride, to sample water from five wells and from treated municipal water.

DeWine announced on Wednesday that those tests "showed no evidence of contamination," but as one aquatic ecologist told HuffPost, the lab report indicates several testing errors that violated federal standards and should have disqualified the results.

"Their results that claim there were no contaminants is not a reliable finding," Sam Bickley of the advocacy coalition Virginia Scientist-Community Interface, told the outlet. "I find this extremely concerning because these results would NOT be used in most scientific applications because the samples were not preserved properly, and this is the same data they are now relying on to say that the drinking water is not contaminated."

The testing was done on February 10, seven days after the train derailed and authorities began a controlled release of the vinyl chloride, a carcinogen, to avoid an explosion. The burning of vinyl chloride can send hydrogen chloride and phosgene into the environment. The former chemical has been known to cause throat, eye, and skin irritation and the latter can cause vomiting and difficulty breathing.

An environmental testing lab analyzed the samples on February 13 and 15, according to HuffPost, and scientists who examined that analysis found it to be flawed. As the outlet reported:

Five of the six collected samples had pH, or acidity, levels that exceeded the 2 pH limit allowed under the EPA method listed in the analysis for detecting volatile organic compounds, rendering them improperly preserved. One sample also "contained a large air bubble in its vial, while the EPA method requires that sample bottles should not have any trapped air bubbles when sealed," the report states. David Erickson, a hydrogeologist and the founder of Water & Environmental Technologies, an environmental consulting firm in Montana, called the sampling "sloppy" and "amateur."

The Biden administration said in a press call Friday that Norfolk Southern has not been solely behind the testing that's been conducted so far, with a spokesperson telling reporters, "It's been with the Columbiana County Health Department, collecting samples along with Norfolk Southern and sending those as split samples to two different labs for verification."

The state EPA, however, did not receive the health department's results until after DeWine declared the water safe based on AECOM's flawed testing.

The lab report shows low levels of the chemical dibutyl phthalate, which is not linked to cancer in humans but can cause headaches, nausea, dizziness, irritation of the eyes and throat, and seizures.

Some of the residents who were told days after the derailment that they could safely return to East Palestine have reported symptoms including headaches, nausea, dizziness, and shortness of breath.

Reuters reported Friday that many East Palestine do not trust state and local authorities, and have been purchasing large quantities of bottled water as they determine whether it's safe to stay in the town.

Rail Workers Urge Nationalization Amid Ohio Disaster

An alliance representing rail workers across the United States has published an open letter urging all of organized labor to support the nationalization of the country’s railroad system, arguing that the private and inadequately regulated industry has “shown itself incapable of doing the job.”

“In face of the degeneration of the rail system in the last decade, and after more than a decade of discussion and debate on the question, Railroad Workers United (RWU) has taken a position in support of public ownership of the rail system in the United States,” reads the letter, which was published Thursday as the small town of East Palestine, Ohio is attempting to recover from the toxic derailment of a Norfolk Southern train two weeks ago.

“We ask you to consider doing the same, and announce your organization’s support for rail public ownership,” said the letter, which was addressed to unions as well as environmental, transportation justice, and workers’ rights organizations. It went on:

“While the rail industry has been incapable of expansion in the last generation and has become more and more fixated on the operating ratio to the detriment of all other metrics of success, precision scheduled railroading (PSR) has escalated this irresponsible trajectory to the detriment of shippers, passengers, commuters, trackside communities, and workers.”

PSR is a Wall Street-backed model that has taken hold across the U.S. rail industry, gutting workforces and undermining safety in pursuit of more “efficiency” and larger profits for rail carriers and rich investors. Meanwhile, more than 1,000 of the nation’s trains derail every year.

In its open letter, RWU — whose ranks include workers from a number of different unions and rail professions — noted that “on-time performance is suffering” and “shipper complaints are at all-time highs” as rail carriers prioritize their profit margins over all else.

It is quite honestly a miracle any time a train carrying something remotely dangerous makes it through Ohio unscathed....

thearcangel pic.twitter.com/rUpAyEmCpc

— dana (@dana916) February 15, 2023

Norfolk Southern, which also owns the train that derailed outside of Detroit on Thursday, brought in record revenue and profits in 2022. ...

The solution, RWU contended, is to nationalize the rail industry, a step that would open the door to “a new fresh beginning for a vibrant and expanding, innovative, and creative national rail industry to properly handle the nation’s freight and passengers.” The organization is calling on allies to back its resolution supporting public ownership.

“During WWI, the railroads in the U.S. were in fact temporarily placed under public ownership and control,” the open letter notes. “All rail workers of all crafts and unions supported (unsuccessfully) keeping them in public hands once the war ended, and voted overwhelmingly to keep them in public hands. Perhaps it is time once again to put an end to the profiteering, pillaging, and irresponsibility of the Class 1 carriers.”

The derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine have catalyzed discussions on how to prevent similar disasters from occurring in the future. Some, including environmental groups and progressive lawmakers, have implored the U.S. Transportation Department to take urgent measures to improve rail safety, including modernizing critical braking systems.

But others have sided with RWU in arguing that while narrow reforms may be necessary as near-term solutions, they ultimately won’t be enough to solve the rail industry’s deep flaws, which stem from the prioritization of ever-greater returns.

“We demand that Congress immediately begin a process of bringing our nation’s railroads under public ownership,” the general executive board of the United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) declared in a statement late last month, just days before the fiery crash in eastern Ohio.

“Railroads are, like utilities, ‘natural monopolies,'” UE said. “The consolidation of the Class 1 railroads in the U.S. into five massive companies over the past several decades has made it clear that there is no ‘free market’ in rail transportation.”

“Our nation can no longer afford private ownership of the railroads; the general welfare demands that they be brought under public ownership,” the union added.

Enviros Threaten Legal Action If Buttigieg Doesn’t Act

Six environmental groups will consider legal action if the Department of Transportation fails to act on a key rail safety rule, the groups wrote Thursday in a letter to Secretary Pete Buttigieg.

The rule in question would force railroads to begin upgrading freight trains’ Civil War-era braking systems to newer, electronically controlled brakes allowing for faster and safer stops. In 2017, after rail industry donors delivered more than $6 million to GOP campaigns, President Donald Trump’s administration repealed the 2015 rule requiring the newer brakes in some trains transporting hazardous materials, as The Lever reported last week.

In 2018, environmental groups, including Earthjustice and the Sierra Club, appealed the move by the Trump administration, citing a faulty cost-benefit analysis used to justify the repeal. An investigation earlier that year from the Associated Press revealed that the Trump administration omitted at least $117 million in estimated damages from train derailments when it determined that the costs of upgrading electronic braking systems would exceed the benefits.

The groups’ appeal is still pending. According to the letter, under federal administrative law, a regulatory agency has 90 days to respond to appeals. But neither the Trump nor the Biden administrations have responded to date, Kristen Boyles, a managing attorney at Earthjustice who authored the letter to Buttigieg, told The Lever. “We frankly expected little response from the Department under the prior administration — after all, it had just eliminated the updated brake requirements — but the silence has continued well into the Biden administration,” reads the letter.

Facing pressure from lawmakers and the public in the wake of the fiery train derailment in East Palestine, Ohio, Buttigieg wrote on Twitter Tuesday that he is “constrained by law on some areas of rail regulation,” citing a law passed by Congress in 2015 that helped pave the way for the repeal of the brake requirement. At the behest of rail lobbyists, that 2015 law included a provision requiring the Transportation Department to redo an earlier cost-benefit analysis on the implementation of electronic brakes. But there’s nothing stopping Buttigieg’s department from updating the faulty analysis as a first step to reinstating the braking requirement, rail and administrative law experts told The Lever this week

That’s what the environmental groups are asking Buttigieg to do now. After years of sounding the alarm about the dangers of so-called “bomb trains” transporting liquefied natural gas and crude oil by rail — like the one that derailed in Quebec in 2014, killing 47 people — Earthjustice’s Boyles said that the Ohio disaster this month highlights the need for urgent action to protect communities and the environment.

Dem CIVIL WAR: Marianne Williamson Plans 2024 Run

Larry Hogan: splitting anti-Trump vote ‘pretty good reason’ not to run in 2024

The danger of splitting anti-Trump Republicans and helping the former president win the nomination again “would be a pretty good reason to consider not running” for the White House in 2024, the former Maryland governor Larry Hogan said.

“I don’t care that much about my future in the Republican party,” Hogan told NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “I care about making sure we have a future for the Republican party.

“And if we can stop Donald Trump and elect a great Republican common-sense conservative leader, that certainly would be a factor.”

A relative moderate in a GOP marched far right, Hogan has long been thought likely to run. He told NBC he would decide whether to do so, as “a small government common-sense conservative”, in a “relatively short period of time”, most likely this spring.

Trump and the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley are the only two declared candidates so far. Polling has shown Haley splitting a non-Trump vote dominated by Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, and thereby handing Trump the win.

Cattle, not coca, drive deforestation of the Amazon in Colombia – report

Cattle-ranching, not cocaine, has driven the destruction of the Colombian Amazon over the last four decades, a new study has found.

Successive recent governments have used environmental concerns to justify ramping up their war on the green shrub, but the research shows that in 2018 the amount of forest cleared to cultivate coca, the base ingredient of cocaine, was only 1/60th of that used for cattle. The study’s findings vindicate conservation experts who have long argued that Colombia’s strategy to conserve the Amazon – often centered on combating coca production – has been misplaced. ...

Deforestation spiked after the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc) signed a landmark peace agreement with the government in 2016 and laid down their weapons. As the rebels came out of the jungle, land-grabbers took advantage, clearing trees with chainsaws and burning vast areas. Deforestation reached a record high of 219,973 hectares (543,565 acres) in 2017, up 23% from the previous year.

Then president Iván Duque used the environmental destruction caused by coca cultivation to justify stepping up military action against coca farmers. Prohibited from spraying coca crops with glyphosate after the chemical was banned in 2015 for health concerns, the Duque government sent in choppers and armed troops into the Amazon rainforest, sometimes into deadly confrontations with coca farmers.

Yet while cattle ranches cleared more than 3m hectares (7.4m acres) of Amazon rainforest in 2018, coca’s impact was negligible.

The study also adds to evidence that despite lives being sacrificed and billions of dollars being spent, Colombia’s “war on drugs” has failed to halt coca production – and in some cases it may have even made it worse. When farmers have their crops eradicated they simply establish new plots, often just a few kilometres deeper into the forest canopy, Murillo said. ... As the government has engaged in a game of whack-a-mole with coca farmers, the real driver of deforestation, cattle farming, has been allowed to swallow up vast swathes of land, the authors argue.

Climate crisis brings whiff of danger to French perfume capital

When heatwaves used to hit the French town of Grasse, the perfume capital of the world, townspeople didn’t water their flowers. Instead, they marched along the town’s cobblestone streets, in a procession towards the church. “They were calling for rain from the spirits,” says Carole Biancalana, a fourth-generation perfume flower producer whose grandmother participated in the rain ceremonies. “But I don’t think this procession would cut it in today’s climate.”

Since the 17th century, Grasse has been known worldwide for its fragrant flowers. Situated just inland from the French Riviera, Grasse enjoys a microclimate that allows fields of may rose, tuberose, lavender and jasmine to blossom. Today, the region produces flowers for some of the world’s biggest luxury brands, including Dior and Chanel, who spend significant amounts on raw materials from the region – Grasse’s jasmine sells for a higher price than gold.

Around the world, Grasse’s producers are recognised as leaders in the industry: in 2018, Unesco placed the region’s perfume culture on its intangible cultural heritage list.

But climate change is threatening this tradition. Extreme weather patterns such as droughts, heatwaves, and excessive rainfall have made growing flowers increasingly difficult. Last summer, Grasse faced extreme droughts, resulting in some producers losing nearly half of their harvest. High temperatures affect the future quality of roses and prohibit some flowers, such as tuberose, from growing. Biancalana felt these impacts directly: this year, her tuberose harvest dropped by 40%. “The elders here keep telling us there are no more seasons,” says Biancalana, noting that winters are now warmer, with unseasonal cold spells in the spring. She jokes: “We can’t count on the spirits anymore.”

Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: Rage Against The War Machine Speech

What We Know About The US Air Force’s Balloon Party So Far

More Ballooneey News

The Timing of the Pipeline Attack

The Buildup To War In Ukraine - Thursday, February 17, 2022

The Buildup To War In Ukraine - Friday, February 18, 2022

The Buildup To War In Ukraine - Saturday, February 19, 2022

Reversing 30 Years of Damage from the Clintons, the DOJ Closes A Price-Fixing Loophole Wide Enough to Drive a Truck Through

US treasure hunter accuses FBI of covering up discovery of civil war gold

Roald Dahl Censorship Is CAPITALIST Power Grab

Ukraine War Was ALWAYS About Dividing Russia & Germany

Biden Admin DENIES US SABOTAGED Nord Stream Pipelines. John Kirby On Hersh Report: COMPLETELY FALSE

A Little Night Music

Joe Simon - Drowning In The Sea Of Love

Joe Simon - Nine Pound Steel

Joe Simon - Lets Do It Over

Joe Simon - Get Down, Get Down

Joe Simon - Farther on Down the Road

Joe Simon - Yours Love

Joe Simon - It's Hard To Get Along

Joe Simon - Put Your Trust in Me

Joe Simon - Moon Walk

Joe Simon - No Sad Songs

Joe Simon - Just Like Yesterday