The Evening Blues - 3-10-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features string band Old Crow Medicine Show. Enjoy!
Old Crow Medicine Show - Wagon Wheel
"It is poor civic hygiene to install technologies that could someday facilitate a police state."
-- Bruce Schneier
News and Opinion
Worth a click and a full read if you haven't already:
Matt Taibbi: My Statement to Congress
Chairman Jordan, ranking member Plaskett, members of the Select Committee,
My name is Matt Taibbi. I’ve been a reporter for over 30 years, and an advocate for the First Amendment. Much of that time was spent at Rolling Stone magazine. Over my career, I’ve had the good fortune to be recognized for the work I love. I’ve won the National Magazine Award, the I.F. Stone Award for independent journalism, and written ten books, including four New York Times bestsellers. I’m now the editor of the online magazine Racket, on the independent platform Substack.
I’m here today because of a series of events that began late last year, when I received a note from a source online.
It read: “Are you interested in doing a deep dive into what censorship and manipulation… was going on at Twitter?”
A week later, the first of what became known as the “Twitter Files” reports came out. To say these attracted intense public interest would be an understatement. My computer looked like a slot machine as just the first tweet about the blockage of the Hunter Biden laptop story registered 143 million impressions and 30 million engagements.
But it wasn’t until a week after the first report, after Michael Shellenberger, Bari Weiss, and other researchers joined the search of the “Files,” that we started to grasp the significance of this story.
The original promise of the Internet was that it might democratize the exchange of information globally. A free internet would overwhelm all attempts to control information flow, its very existence a threat to anti-democratic forms of government everywhere.
What we found in the Files was a sweeping effort to reverse that promise, and use machine learning and other tools to turn the internet into an instrument of censorship and social control. Unfortunately, our own government appears to be playing a lead role.
Hearing on the Weaponization of the Federal Government
They Work So Hard To Manufacture Our Consent Because They Absolutely Require It
Australian media are awash with reporting on the war-with-China propaganda series by The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age that I’ve been writing about for the last few days. Which is really quite extraordinary, because it’s not an actual news story.
It really isn’t. The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age just asked five warmongering China hawks what they think about war with China, wrote down their very predictable answers saying Australia must prepare for war with China within three years, and then passed it off as journalism. Obviously if you ask a bunch of China hawks if they think Australia should prepare for war with China they’re going to tell you yes; that’s not news, that’s just you reporting that five random warmongers think warmongery thoughts.
Yet SMH and The Age stretched this ridiculous non-story into a multi-part series titled “Red Alert” — all without ever noting the massive conflict of interest posed by the extensive ties its “panel” of “experts” have to US-aligned governments and the military industrial complex — and now it’s being covered like a real news story by the rest of Australian media. TV news segments have filled the airwaves reporting on the opinions of the most wildly biased people you could possibly find on this subject, the most appalling of which appeared on the Australian government’s ABC.
Sydney Morning Herald editor Peter Hartcher, who helped put together the “Red Alert” series, was given a fawning, slobbering rim job of an interview from the ABC’s Beverley O’Connor where everything he said was received as gospel truth and not a single critical question was asked. When former prime minister Paul Keating’s scathing criticism of Hartcher’s war propaganda was raised, Hartcher was permitted to call Keating a CCP crony, completely unchallenged.
Hartcher claimed that Keating’s criticisms were “talking points that I think the Beijing government would be pretty satisfied with,” adding that “in recent years Keating has emerged as the leading defender of, and apologist for, the Chinese Communist Party in Australia.”
This type of rhetoric is familiar to anyone who’s been following US politics the last few years, where anyone who criticizes American foreign policy has been branded by empire loyalists as an apologist for the Kremlin. The fact that we are now seeing this mind virus take hold in mainstream Australian discourse with regard to China is both disgusting and disturbing.
The latest installment of the “Red Alert” series is titled “Australia has an urgent security problem. These confronting ideas can help solve it,” and it is the most incendiary of the bunch. The “experts” suggest rolling out mandatory national service to prepare Australians for war with China, as well as “basing US long-range missiles armed with nuclear weapons on Australian territory.”
As has been the case for the last two “Red Alert” installments, this one again speaks of the need to psychologically shift Australians into support for war preparations, saying that “Australia’s critical threshold change must be psychological,” and that it must take place “across society.” They don’t say it directly, but what they are advocating here is copious amounts of domestic war propaganda.
After receiving a deluge of angry social media comments decrying the article, The Sydney Morning Herald took the extraordinary step of banning replies. On Facebook, the “Australia has an urgent security problem” article now has a notification which reads, “The Sydney Morning Herald limits who can reply to this post.”
On Twitter, The Sydney Morning Herald shut off comments on the article and hid the replies people had made to it. To find the hidden replies you have to know to click on a small button on the bottom-right corner of the tweet, but if you do you can read through the many negative comments the article was getting before the SMH Twitter account shut them down.
Here are some quotes from a few of them:
“What is the SMH doing? Stop with this alarmist rubbish. Thought you guys were better than that.”
“Oh for the love of God. Just stop already. We know exactly what the SMH is doing, who’s behind it & what a great distraction it is.”
“Australia’s biggest security problem is that our government and media have been captured by the US military industrial complex.”
“China has absolutely no interest in Australia. We are so minor and unimportant that trading with us is enough. If you losers could stop creaming yourselves at the idea of war you’d understand that, you weird, weird losers.”
In response to this latest wave of war propaganda, Declassified Australia published an article titled “Majority Oppose U.S. War On China,” which cites a 2022 poll by the Lowy Institute think tank saying that a 51 percent majority of those surveyed believe Australia should remain neutral in the event of a US military conflict with China over Taiwan.
It’s a point that’s worth making, but Declassified also notes that the 51 percent majority is down from 57 percent the last time the Lowy Institute took that poll in 2020. Why did six percent of the population change their minds about war with China in just two years? Well, it might have something to do with the fact that Australia has been slammed with propaganda about war with China during that time.
Propaganda works. If it didn’t, they wouldn’t pour so much energy into doing it. The empire churns out propaganda for the same reason advertising is on track to become a trillion-dollar industry in the next couple of years: because it is possible to manipulate people’s minds at mass scale using media.
They generate propaganda because it’s an effective way to manufacture consent for the agendas of the powerful, and they manufacture consent because they have to. If our rulers just started acting directly against the will of the people without first psychologically pulling the wool over our eyes using propaganda, they’d have a revolution on their hands in short order. Doing something huge like waging a war with China — with all the death, suffering, impoverishment, and risk of nuclear annihilation that goes with it — without the consent of the people would quickly lose public trust in all the ruling institutions which keep us marching to the beat of the imperial drum.
They don’t work so hard to manufacture our consent because it’s fun for them, they work so hard to manufacture our consent because they require our consent. So it’s important that we don’t give it to them. It’s important that we forcefully oppose the global conflict the US-centralized empire is pushing us all toward, and that we vocally decry the propaganda that’s being used to grease the wheels of that depraved agenda.
Ultimately the powerful have no answer to the problem that there are a whole lot more of us than there are of them and that there’s really nothing they can do if we decide not to be ruled by them anymore. All they have is little work-arounds for that problem that they have to continually use day in and day out, in the same way we’ve designed work-arounds for the problem of gravity so that we can temporarily fly through the air.
But gravity always wins, and sooner or later the giant that these monsters have been keeping in a propaganda-induced coma is going to start stirring. We’re going to have to wake up sooner or later, and because of the stakes involved it is very important that we do everything we can to try and make sure that it is sooner.
Historian Alfred McCoy: As Tensions Rise over Taiwan, U.S. & China “Edging Ever Closer” to War
HUGE China brokered deal, Iran & Saudi Arabia restore diplomatic ties
American Guided Bombs Are ‘Operational’ in Ukraine
The Department of Defense confirmed that advanced bombs are operational in Ukraine. The Joint Direct Attack Munition-Extended Range (JDAM-ER) can hit targets 50 miles away. The Pentagon’s confirmation comes after President Joe Biden ordered the Pentagon to transfer “precision aerial munitions” to Kiev in December.
On Monday, U.S. Air Force Gen. James Hecker, head of US Air Forces in Europe, told reporters that the JDAM-ER was operational in Ukraine. “Recently, we’ve just gotten some precision munitions [to Ukraine] that had some extended range and go a little bit further than the gravity drop bomb and has precision [guidance],” Hecker said. “That’s a recent capability that we were able to give them probably in the last three weeks.”
JDAMs are primarily used to increase the accuracy of bombs. The official did not specify how many or what variation of JDAMs would be sent. The JDAM-ER can be equipped onto 2,000 or 500 pound bombs and will deliver the munition up to 45 miles.
Bakhmut Ukraine Counterattack; China Linking Arms to Russia to Taiwan, Russian SU35s to Iran
U.S. House Speaker Declines Zelenskiy Invitation to Visit Ukraine
U.S. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy said he has no plans to visit Ukraine after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy extended an invitation, CNN reported on Wednesday.
In an interview with CNN set to air on Wednesday, Zelenskiy asked McCarthy, a Republican, to see the situation in Ukraine firsthand.
"Mr. McCarthy, he has to come here to see how we work, what’s happening here.... Then after that, make your assumptions," Zelenskiy said in the CNN interview. ...
Asked about Zelenskiy's invitation, McCarthy told CNN he did not need to travel to the country and would get information in other ways.
War-Pig Bernie Pushes CIA Talking Points About Ukraine War
Rail-Lobbyist-Turned-Senator Could Block Safety Bill
In 2004, a registered lobbyist for a railroad corporation got himself elected to the U.S. Senate, and then he promptly helped his former client become eligible for billions in cheap federal loans in the wake of the company’s hazmat train derailment. The same Republican lawmaker later spearheaded the effort to repeal a major rail safety rule while becoming one of the Senate’s top recipients of campaign cash from the industry.
Now, Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) is once again going to bat for the industry, positioning himself as a key obstacle to the most substantial rail safety initiative considered by Congress in years.
Thune, the second highest ranking Republican in the upper chamber, has been critical of the bipartisan push for quick and expansive legislation in the wake of the East Palestine, Ohio, train derailment that has rocked national politics.
“We’ll take a look at what’s being proposed, but an immediate quick response heavy on regulation needs to be thoughtful and targeted,” Thune told The Hill, echoing his earlier comments to CNN insisting that lawmakers should wait to “get the facts, and then figure out what, if anything, needs to be changed.”
Thune’s efforts to slow the measure are being boosted by the rail industry’s advocacy group, which previously gave him an award when he helped kill a train brake rule, and which now employs his former legislative staffer as its top lobbyist.
Now that the House is controlled by Republicans, Biden can safely propose a budget that raises taxes on the wealthy in order to get undeserved brownie points. Look forward to a tidal wave of bullshit about this budget.
Biden unveils ‘blue-collar’ budget plan with tax hikes for America’s wealthiest
Joe Biden on Thursday unveiled his budget, a sprawling policy vision that the president says reflects his commitment to building a fairer economy while drawing a sharp contrast to Republicans who are demanding steep cuts to federal spending programs. Biden formally introduced his spending plan, which he has described as a “blue-collar blueprint”, in Pennsylvania, a battleground state that helped lift him to the White House in 2020. It was an unusually high-profile rollout for a budget proposal that is often greeted with a resounding thud on Capitol Hill.
The $6.8tn budget request, the third such request of Biden’s presidency and the first to a divided Congress, is effectively dead on arrival with Republicans in control of the House, and sets the stage for a high-stakes showdown over the nation’s finances. Even so, it frames the president’s policy aspirations ahead of his expected campaign for re-election in 2024.
“My budget is going to give working people a fighting chance,” Biden said at a union training center in Philadelphia. “I value everyone having an even shot – not just labor, but a small-business owner, farmers, and so many other people who hold the country together who have been basically invisible for a long time.”
Biden’s budget blueprint would cut the federal deficit by nearly $3tn over the next decade, largely by raising taxes on corporations and high earners. It also includes proposals aimed at lowering the cost of healthcare, prescription drugs, childcare, housing and education while making new investments in domestic manufacturing, cancer research and a paid family leave program.
It calls for restoring the child tax credit that helped reduce child poverty by half when Congress temporarily expanded the benefit during the pandemic. Under Biden’s plan, families could claim as much as $3,600 a child, compared with the current level of $2,000.
As tensions rise with Russia and China, Biden proposed a more than 3% increase to defense spending, an $886bn request that includes support for Ukraine and increased funding to allies and partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
Biden Requests Record $886 Billion Military Budget
President Joe Biden unveiled a budget blueprint Thursday that requests $886.4 billion in military spending for fiscal year 2024, pushing for a nearly $30 billion increase over current outlays as progressives demand cuts to the bloated and notoriously fraud-ridden Pentagon.
The president's budget proposes $842 billion for the Pentagon alone, including nearly $38 billion for widely criticized efforts to "modernize" the United States' massive nuclear arsenal.
Robert Weissman, the president of Public Citizen and a vocal critic of excessive military spending, said Thursday that Biden's request for an $886 billion budget is "madness."
"That's a jump of $28 billion from the current year," Weissman noted. "The increase of $28 billion is more than twice the entire EPA budget."
Sensitive personal data of US House and Senate members hacked, offered for sale
Members of the House and Senate were informed on Wednesday that hackers may have gained access to their sensitive personal data in a breach of a Washington DC health insurance marketplace. Employees of the lawmakers and their families were also affected.
DC Health Link confirmed that data on an unspecified number of customers was affected and said it was notifying them and working with law enforcement. It said it was offering identity theft service to those affected and extending credit monitoring to all customers.
The FBI said it was aware of the incident and was assisting the investigation.
A broker on an online crime forum claimed to have records on 170,000 DC Health Link customers and was offering them for sale for an unspecified amount. The broker claimed they were stolen on Monday. The broker did not immediately respond to questions posed by the Associated Press on an encrypted chat site.
It was not possible to confirm the number claimed. Sample stolen data was posted on the site for a dozen apparent customers. It included social security numbers, addresses, names of employers, phone numbers, emails and addresses.
Giving the middle finger is a ‘God-given right’, Canadian judge rules
Giving your neighbour the middle finger may not be polite but is protected as part of a person’s right to freedom of expression under the Canadian constitution, a judge has ruled.
In a 26-page decision, Judge Dennis Galiatsatos of the French-speaking province of Quebec dismissed a case against a man accused of harassing his neighbour in a Montreal suburb.
“To be abundantly clear, it is not a crime to give someone the finger,” he said in a ruling dated 24 February.
“Flipping the proverbial bird is a God-given, charter-enshrined right that belongs to every red-blooded Canadian,” he added, referring to Canada’s charter of rights and freedoms.
Trump told of possible criminal charges for paying off Stormy Daniels – report
Prosecutors have signaled to Donald Trump that he could face criminal charges for making a hush money payment to the adult film actor and director Stormy Daniels, it was reported on Thursday.
The Manhattan district attorney’s office has offered the ex-president the chance to testify next week before the grand jury that has been listening to evidence in the potential case, the New York Times said, citing four anonymous sources.
Although Trump is thought likely to turn down the offer, the fact that district attorney Alvin Bragg made the approach indicates how gravely he is at risk of becoming the first former president in American history to be indicted.
The revelation also deals a fresh blow to Trump as he mounts a third consecutive bid for the White House, potentially putting his political ambitions and legal problems on collision course.
A spokesperson for Trump described the district attorney’s threat to indict Trump as “simply insane”, adding: “For the past five years, the DA’s office has been on a witch-hunt, investigating every aspect of President Trump’s life, and they’ve come up empty at every turn – and now this.”
Two leading Ohio Republicans found guilty in $60m bribery scheme
The former Ohio state house speaker Larry Householder and former Ohio Republican party chair Matt Borges were convicted on Thursday in a $60m bribery scheme that federal prosecutors have called the largest corruption case in state history.
A jury in Cincinnati found the two guilty of conspiracy to participate in a racketeering enterprise involving bribery and money laundering, after more than nine hours of deliberations over two days. ...
Prosecutors alleged that Householder orchestrated a scheme secretly funded by Akron-based FirstEnergy Corp to secure his power in the legislature, elect his allies – and then to pass and defend a $1bn nuclear power plant bailout benefiting the electric utility. They alleged that Borges, then a lobbyist, sought to bribe an operative for inside information on the referendum to overturn the bailout.
Householder, 63, had been one of Ohio’s most powerful politicians – and twice elected speaker – until the Republican-controlled House ousted him after his indictment from his leadership post, and then in a bipartisan vote, and with Householder vigorously objecting, from the chamber. It was the first such expulsion in 150 years. ...
Under a deal to avoid prosecution, FirstEnergy admitted using a network of dark money groups to fund the scheme and even bribing the state’s top utility regulator, Sam Randazzo.
New Utah oil railroad by Colorado River raises health and climate fears
Developers are seeking billions of dollars in tax breaks for a new oil railroad in Utah that will threaten the Colorado River and be a risk to the health and safety of millions of Americans while damaging Joe Biden’s climate credentials, campaigners say. The 88-mile proposed Uinta railway is forecast to quadruple crude oil production in the Uinta Basin by connecting it to the national rail network and coastal refineries.
According to the plans shared with federal agencies, up to five two-mile-long oil trains a day would run more than 100 miles directly alongside the Colorado River – a vital drinking water source for 40 million Americans, 30 tribal nations and millions of acres of farmland. A derailment could be catastrophic for the river, which is already in crisis due to the region’s mega-drought, rising temperatures and reduced snowpack on the Rocky Mountains, warn campaigners.
The railway could spur an additional 350,000 barrels of oil extraction a day, campaigners estimate, exacerbating the poor air quality in Utah, Colorado and Gulf coast communities while releasing millions of tonnes of planet-warming greenhouse gases into the atmosphere annually.
Federal agencies have issued or signalled their willingness to issue key permits, despite the president’s goals to slash planet-heating emissions in half by 2030, tackle environmental inequities and transition to clean energy.
California declares state of emergency as subtropical storm moves over state
An impending atmospheric river and rapidly melting snow has put communities across California on high alert for flash flooding, mudslides and rockslides as the subtropical storm surge moves over the state. Rivers and streams could also quickly rise beyond capacity and breach, the National Weather Service warned. Overall, some 16 million people are under flood watch warnings. The state’s governor, Gavin Newsom, has declared a state of emergency for 21 counties, including some mountain communities still digging themselves out from the snow. ...
The fresh round of atmospheric river rains, which are expected to pick up on Thursday afternoon and continue through the weekend, could deliver as much as 3in (8cm) of rain to the San Francisco Bay area, and the central coast. Inland and coastal ranges could get up to 6in of rain, and the Santa Cruz mountains could get 8in. Officials are also telling residents near Big Sur to stock up on supplies and sandbags, after earlier storms closed off a major highway and cut off communities.
Climate chaos, including frequent bouts of storms and extreme dry spells, is expected to increase in California due to global heating, experts have warned. The weather pendulums could also make it more difficult for California to manage its water resources, straining infrastructure amid a cycle of flooding, drought and fires.
Whereas the previous blizzards were caused by an arctic air mass that dove down the west coast, the coming rains are caused by a surge of subtropical moisture, known as a “pineapple express”, that built up in the Pacific around Hawaii.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
My Fifty Years With Dan Ellsberg
Britain’s Bare Produce Shelves
March of the unicorns: Israel’s tech sector rebels against Netanyahu ‘power grab’
Craig Murray: Fascistic Judges
Norfolk Southern’s call to burn derailed train cars ‘jaw-dropping’, Senate hears
Ex-Goldman banker given 10 years in prison for role in 1MDB fraud scandal
Video: Feds Were ALL OVER The Capitol On January 6!
A Little Night Music
Gillian Welch and Old Crow Medicine Show - The Weight
Old Crow Medicine Show - James River Blues
Old Crow Medicine Show - City of New Orleans
Old Crow Medicine Show - Take 'Em Away
Old Crow Medicine Show - O Cumberland River
Old Crow Medicine Show - Raise A Ruckus
Gillian Welch & Old Crow Medicine Show - John Henry
Old Crow Medicine Show - Caroline
Old Crow Medicine Show - Minglewood Blues
Old Crow Medicine Show - I Hear Them All
Old Crow Medicine Show - Humdinger
Comments
Great rendition of The Weight
thanks for the tunes and have a super weekend!
evening qms...
it's one of my favorites, only eclipsed perhaps by the version done in the last waltz movie by the staples singers with the band. it's damned hard to beat mavis staples' singing.
have a great weekend!
Yes indeed
blessed be
"One off" or the beginning?
Bloomberg has posed the same question:
FDIC creates a deposit insurance National Bank of Santa Clara to Protect Insured Depositors of Silicon Valley Bank, Santa Clara, California.
Small depositors (under $250,000) are apparently a small portion of this banks customers. 99+% of the stock is held by institutional investors. (Forbes had it on its "best banks" last month and Jim Cramer was touting the stock a few weeks ago.) CEO sold stock in the past two weeks, approximately $4 million worth.
Unclear what precipitated the major problem (black hole) that led the bank to seek and fail to secure additional investment capital. Then the spiral of stock price decline and large depositors pulling their cash.
The Beginning?
If I were a gambler, I'd bet that this bank failure is most likely the beginning. Big banks were in trouble beginning in September 2019, but COVID came to the rescue temporarily. Since big U.S. banks are interconnected to big European banks, things could start heating up soon. Credit Suisse is not looking good and I wouldn't want my money in Deutsche bank, either.
Tough call
An early report from Bloomberg: SVB’s Balance-Sheet Time Bomb Was ‘Sitting in Plain Sight,’ Short Seller Says
The summary balance sheets suggest that the above interpretation is somewhat correct. However, and as I'm not inclined to study the detailed financial statements, it omits why the bank was sitting on such a large volume of bonds. It appears that in 2021 the bank moved into an aggressive growth mode. Increased common and preferred stock by +75% but the anticipated increased loan participation didn't materialize and significantly decreased in 2022. So, they had to park the excess cash and ended up with a lower quality bond portfolio than they had in the past. As net income declined in 2022 and increased the cash requirements, they may have tried to delay selling the bonds and recognizing losses on the investment and then those investments just got worse.
Okay -- so one-off if I've read it correctly. However, bond market softness would be widespread.
According to what I've read,
they were one of the major backers of the crypto Ponzi scheme. When crypto crashed, depositors started pulling out, and the thing just snowballed.
We'll see how many more dominos go with them.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
Thanks. Checking out the 10-K
reports should reveal how exposed the bank was to crypto-junk. The above Bloomberg report claimed that it was bond investments. We shall see.
evening marie...
my vote is - the beginning...
My gut isn't yet there, and do so hate
going against it.
wrt Silvergate Bank -- don't recall ever seeing an insured bank go into liquidation and will satisfy all depositors. The owners obviously expect to realize enough from the sale of the assets that something will be left over for them. (The FDIC acts quickly and therefore, by necessity leaves something on the table.)
If other banks heed these warning and clean up their act - not generally in their dna - they may avoid a meltdown. Otherwise, it won't be pretty.
Good twitter thread:
https://twitter.com/jonwu_/status/1634250754486857729?s=20
It isn't crypto-junk. It's VC tech start-ups. I was missing a few pieces, but essentially got the outline correct.
A couple of highlights:
And a high percentage of those large depositors are start-ups that are not generating a profit and have no other cash reserves. The weakest aren't going to survive.
Macron flaps his gums but I fail to see the logic in his words.
evening humphrey...
hmmm... russia cannot win, but the war cannot spread. sounds like macron is suffering from irreconcilable differences with himself.
Pure joy
.
It looks like a border collie racing a woman on cross country skies in Norway as the sun is setting. Gorgeous scenery.
A dog named Jess, racing a skier, Jeanette Haland, at sunset in Norway
Great way to end the week of icky news.
I’ve been waiting for shitlibs to weigh in on the Twit hearings and here it is.
She then links to some republican who said something about Jordan at the end of February! No big bombshells and unfocused with McCarthyism democrats attacking the so called journalists. But they have downplayed the other investigations and especially the people who spoke about the censorship and called them right wing tankies. I can only imagine their outrage if this had happened during Trump when attacking the press was "OMG HE IS ATTACKING THE PRESS!"
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Lol…Whoopie and the girls go there
‘Don’t attack the press unless it’s a show that you don’t like!'
Hey Whoopie, Rachel is also an entertainer and the judge in the Carlson case used her defense that said that her audience should know that she is only spouting propaganda.
Sad to see another comedian that used to stick it to the man standing up for the man. How many is that? Young, Mitchell, Springsteen and countless others from our youth.
And why is the View considered sensitive content? I won’t go there….but.
ETA the 2nd tweet goes with the Jimmy video on Bernie. Glenn nails them. Just wow who thought we’d see that?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Wish Greenwald of all people
wouldn't use liberal and Democratic as synonyms. That's never been true. But in the past twenty-five years both Democrat and liberal have been so grossly distorted by Democratic officeholders and the media that they are more alike than ever.
That leaves lifelong liberals in the traditional sense like me to adopt leftie. Taibbi is also a leftie. We're now the enemies of Democrats and liberals.
@Marie I learned while
I learned while reading Jacobin this week that I am a populist progressive.
heh...
i remember when the cure for information that was troubling to one was more free speech. clearly those days are gone. it probably has something to do with the proliferation of means for people to put their views out there where others can see/read/hear them.
evening snoopy...
heh "no big bombshells."
i guess the fact that the intelligence community and the tech sector that controls social media have joined to censor americans in order to create an uniform government narrative of events and conditions is no big deal.
yesterday's news.
It seems that the countries on the US enemy list are not
deterred by the ongoing diplomatic threats.
https://www.presstv.ir/Detail/2023/03/10/699635/Iran-Russia-Sukhoi-fight...
https://www.cnn.com/2023/03/10/asia/north-korea-missile-test-intl-hnk-ml
evening humphrey...
it looks either good or dangerous by turns that the nations of the world are gaining the ability to ignore the global hegemon. i guess we'll find out down the road whether it's good or dangerous by whether the hegemon takes his ball and goes home or decides to destroy the game board.
ALMO also told us to mind our business
He says that fentanyl doesn’t come from Mexico and if America wanted to see its use go down then they need to address the many social problems and its decay of the economy. Basically it’s so prevalent because Americans are trying to escape from the crappy life they have. More leaders are telling America to stay in their lane and butt out of their business.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
My middle finger gets a lot of exercise reading the EB
I think it will be my last bone that will move around before I go for good.
Thanks for the Evening Blues. We should organize a EB prize for truth telling.
You all survive the weather and snow storms messing up your weekend. In my woods we too have a bit of snow but mot much, just enough to show my solidarity to all of you.
Be well, warm, dry and paid enough for your work to have shelter, food and sanity. All the best to all of you.
Good Night from thee the browny country.They can taste quite good, if you don't consider their color. /s
https://www.euronews.com/live
evening mimi...
heh, i suspect that many of us exercise our natural rights quite frequently these days.
have a great weekend, stay warm, dry and well-fed!
Loved tonight's music
Thanks for that and imho the Biggest news of the day. Iran and Saudi Arabian made a deal hosted by China on the same day the Chinese President was re-elcted to serve his third term.
The Duran tape covers the deal and its importance in the struggle against US Unipolarity. The days of the American Empire as the world's police force are surely drawing to an end.
So, too is my eyesight, so I have been unable to read very much on my computer and participate here as much as I'd like to. I still post a bit on wotb, but I expect that to be over also in a few days.
NYCVG
So sorry to hear that, NYCVG
We will be here, helping you "see" currents events and keeping music in the air for you.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening nycvg...
glad you liked the music. sorry to hear about your eyesight decline.
have you considered using speech-to-text software in order to continue posting? i'm pretty sure that both pc's and macs these days have built-in speech-to-text and text-to-speech capabilities. it might be worth looking into.
have a great weekend!
too late
for any of that
Thank you though for the suggestion.
NYCVG
The battle for Bakhmut might soon be over.
Fighters of the Defense Forces in Bakhmut near the MiG-17 monument. Photo of January 2023.
heh...
i guess when they blow up the monuments it means that they don't figure to be coming back.
the Thucydides trap is bs
I watched the McCoy video on DN earlier today and then saw this column by one of my favorite South Korean political analysts:
Korea is walking into a trap by buying into America’s fearmongering about China
Mar.10, 2023 Hankyoreh
Kim Jong-dae
If we abstract the multifaceted and complicated US-China relationship into the metaphor of Thucydides’ trap, it is no different than rendering it into a spell
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/english_editorials/10830...
This is not the lesson I learned from Thucydides. There are a lot of statements in the book. What Kim Jong-dae describes is the cliche interpretation imposed by contemporaries. I doubt seriously if Yoon's enforcer Han actually read the Peloponnesian Wars, it looks like a political stunt. Han is one nasty character running the political prosecution mechanism of Yoon's dictatorship of prosecutors. Democratic Party Leader Lee Jae-myung's former Chief of Staff from when he was governor of Gyeonggi Province committed suicide yesterday, as result of relentless warrants and threats from Han's prosecutors. Wonder where Han's going? Soon after Yoon's election, he visited the US. For instructions?
Lee was obviously shaken today when he discussed his friend's suicide and their last communications.
McCoy's description of the somewhat simple minded Thucydides Trap as a paradigm predictive of a future war with China, is more applicable to the US view than China's. This is a mechanistic "scientific" application that oversimplifies historical complexity.
Thucydides' tragic mindset is more representative of what is the primary causal feature of US aggression in its conflict with China:
Thucydides’s Tragic Science of Democratic Defeat
Mark Fisher The Review of Politics 84 (2022), 25–54
https://www.cambridge.org/core/services/aop-cambridge-core/content/view/...
I also disagree with McCoy's application of Hannah Arendt's study of Totalitarianism to current Chinese politics. What is more appropriate is the application of her volume on Imperialism in the Totalitarianism trilogy. Imperialism, is the ultimate denial of human rights abroad. Imperialism is the foundational stage of Totalitarianism from which the imperial elimination of human rights abroad develops at home. This is current American model in transition. The events in Ukraine are a microcosm of the larger American imperial trend. It really has little application to China currently.
Xi is not Mao nor Hitler. Nor is the current Chinese communist party doctrine "with Chinese characteristics" rigid ideologically in the sense that McCoy states. It is more of a "threefold path" similar or analogous to classical and neo-Confucian intellectual traditions with flexibility to adapt to change and enhance pragmatic achievements. All systems are subject to descent into authoritarian rigidity, corruption and failure when they lose flexibility and openness to criticism. The great opening to the west, isn't self destructive subordination to US domination, economic, cultural or otherwise, as the west and others would have, but openness still exists as a part of the doctrine. It is the west that is shutting the door because it fears Chinese sovereignty and economic competition. So the US returned to coercive behaviors readily seen for what they are in China.
I read this entire article yesterday, there's a paywall:
Tech war: China reliance on chemical in chip manufacturing causes ripples as Japan mulls how to respond to updated US controls
SCMP March 10
Japan had already cut off South Korea during the "slave labor" bruhaha. Despite the so called "trilateral alliance" rapprochement between Japan and South Korea, Japan hasn't loosened the export restrictions on photoresist materials to South Korea.
Thanks JS for the news and blues. Really liked the coverage in the OT on Australia and the anti-China campaign.
The Path Ever Returns
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
thanks for the analysis of mccoy's appearance on dn. i've never followed him closely, but the times i have he's always seemed to be a good bellwether of the extent of acceptable left elite opinion, never going over the line.
have a great weekend!
Oops
forgot the link to SCMP article on Japan's photoresist supply to China. This is a strong point for Japan in the advanced semiconductor production supply chain.
https://www.scmp.com/tech/big-tech/article/3212982/tech-war-china-relian...
語必忠信 行必正直
Good evening Joe, thanks for the evening blues.
Great news about Iran+Saudi. Not so good about silly valley bank, but the word I get is that they got pushed into overmuch speculation, which they were poised for anyway.
Have a great weekend
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
it will be interesting to watch the fall out from the saudi-iran rapprochement. this is truly a popcorn moment.
have a great weekend!
Can you weigh in on this bank failing
https://www.cnbc.com/2023/03/10/silicon-valley-bank-is-shut-down-by-regu...
Are uninsured depositors those who have more than $250k?
And on this
I just cashed in some 30 yo bonds that had matured but I don’t know if they are the same as what is mentioned here? Would bail-ins help them?
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Near the top of this thread
I posted some stuff on this.
The first $250,000 of a deposit account is insured. Above that uninsured. Depositors are the highest priority creditors of a bank. IOW they get paid off first before any other creditors. Stockholders come last. As regulators move quickly to take over failing banks, uninsured deposit accounts generally don't lose everything. A wrinkle in the SVB situation is the high percentage of those uninsured account holders are also SVB borrowers.
FDIC payments on insured accounts do not cost taxpayers/federal government anything. It's funded from premiums paid to the FDIC by all insured banks. "Bail ins" would be government funding.
What I've seen is that SVB had been parking excess cash in long term bonds, mortgage backed securities. T-Bill investments over the past two years as the cause of the failure sounds questionable.
Thanks for the explanation
This shows how many companies are way above the $250 secured amount and many are in the hundreds of millions. SVB is the 18th largest bank.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/expect-mass-layoffs-real-world-impact-...
Yeah it’s zero hedges but worth a look.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Commercial banks exist
because they're necessary. Not possible to operate much more than a Mom and Pop shop with a mere $250,000 on deposit. For large corporations there aren't enough banks in the country for them to limit their deposit accounts to #250M. How do you think the would go down: "we need a $10 million line of credit from you but we will limit our deposits with you to $250m? This doesn't mean that companies don't maintain various accounts with various financial institutions; only that they have to carry large balances intermittently.
That said, the banking covenants between SVB and its loan customers (VC back start-ups) required them to bank exclusively with SVB. Don't know that there is anything particularly wrong with that. Provided the bank has the wherewithal to manage the excess cash that is generated on a daily, weekly, monthly, annually basis.
Morning Snoops. Largely what Marie said above. However,
I can't remember if depositors, especially uninsured ones have greater standing than derivative contract counterparites who were given some sort of super-exalted status above (all/most?) other creditors including secured ones. Insured ones, of course, will get paid off anyway by the FDIC.
All I can say about the "cause" of the failure is that the recoverable value of their asset portfolio was insufficient to cover current liabilities. Allegedly there was some sort of run on the bank, but I don't know what precipitated it and if it was before technical insolvency or after.
I suspect all enunciated causes at this point. I was unaware of this bank's existence and haven't looked into it, but given its name and location, I suspect that a fair proportion of its clients are the type who would borrow, perhaps via a second or business loan, to
gamblespeculate inbuy crypto and IPOs and who may have been bitten in the ass by recent crypto craziness.be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
"Derivative contract counterparties"
is far beyond my pay grade. Would say that I doubt the FDIC accepts a subordinate position on insured deposits. Suppose the agreement between the customer and bank on uninsured deposits could permit that practice. After the repeal of Glass-Steagall and until the banking meltdown, off-balance sheet accounting was used to handle derivative transactions. Thus, there was no financial statement record of the residual risk from the sale of derivatives. Now some portion of that residual risk does have to be disclosed as a charge against equity. Wouldn't surprise me at all if in a bank failure, payment up to the amount recognized as residual risk is superior to uninsured deposits accounts on a pro-rata basis.