The Evening Blues - 4-6-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features Chicago blues bass player and singer Willie Kent. Enjoy!
Willie Kent - Little Red Rooster
"Individuals do not create rebellions; conditions do."
-- H. Rap Brown
News and Opinion
Worth a full read:
Chris Hedges: Reclaiming Our Country
Capitalism, as Karl Marx understood, is a revolutionary force. It is endemically unstable. It exploits human beings and the natural world until exhaustion or collapse. That is its nature. But those in society tasked with revealing this nature have been bought off or silenced. Truth is not derived from social values or ethics external to corporate culture. Our social, familial and individual rights and needs, as well as our ability to focus on these rights and needs, are robbed from us.
There are their facts and there are our facts. Markets, economic growth, higher corporate profits and consolidations, austerity, technological innovation, deindustrialization and a climbing stock market are their facts. Janet Yellen’s need to orchestrate unemployment to bring down inflation is, for them, a vital fact. Our facts, the facts of those who are evicted, go to prison, are unemployed, are sick yet uninsured, the 12 million children who go to bed hungry, or live, like nearly 600,000 Americans, on the streets, are not part of the equation. Our facts do not attract advertisers. Our facts do not fit with the Disneyfied world the media and advertisers are paid to create. Our facts are an impediment to increased profits.
Sigmund Freud wrote that societies, along with individuals, are driven by two primary instincts. One is the instinct for life — Eros, the quest to love, nurture, protect, and preserve. The second is the death instinct. The death instinct, called Thanatos by post-Freudians, is driven by fear, hatred and violence. It seeks the dissolution of all living things, including ourselves. One of these two forces, Freud writes, is always ascendant. Societies in decline are seduced by the death instinct, as Freud observes in “Civilization and Its Discontents,” written during the rise of European fascism and World War II. The death instinct sees destruction as creation. The satisfaction of the death instinct, Freud writes, “is accompanied by an extraordinarily high degree of narcissistic enjoyment, owing to its presenting the ego with a fulfillment of the latter’s old wishes for omnipotence.” A population beset by despair, a sense of dethronement and powerlessness, is intoxicated by an orgy of annihilation, which soon morphs into self-annihilation. It has no interest in nurturing a world that has betrayed them. It seeks to eradicate this world and replace it with a mythical one. It retreats into self-adulation fed by self-delusion and historical amnesia. ...
Richard Rorty in his last book “Achieving Our Country” saw where we are headed. He writes:
[M]embers of labor unions, and unorganized unskilled workers, will sooner or later realize that their government is not even trying to prevent wages from sinking or to prevent jobs from being exported. Around the same time, they will realize that suburban white-collar workers — themselves desperately afraid of being downsized — are not going to let themselves be taxed to provide social benefits for anyone else.
At that point, something will crack. The nonsuburban electorate will decide that the system has failed and start looking around for a strongman to vote for — someone willing to assure them that, once he is elected, the smug bureaucrats, tricky lawyers, overpaid bond salesmen, and postmodernist professors will no longer be calling the shots. A scenario like that of Sinclair Lewis’ novel It Can’t Happen Here may then be played out. For once a strongman takes office, nobody can predict what will happen. In 1932, most of the predictions made about what would happen if Hindenburg named Hitler chancellor were wildly overoptimistic.
One thing that is very likely to happen is that the gains made in the past forty years by black and brown Americans, and by homosexuals, will be wiped out. Jocular contempt for women will come back into fashion. The words [slur for an African-American that begins with “n”] and [slur for a Jewish person that begins with “k”] will once again be heard in the workplace. All the sadism which the academic Left has tried to make unacceptable to its students will come flooding back. All the resentment which badly educated Americans feel about having their manners dictated to them by college graduates will find an outlet.
The public has been siloed into antagonistic tribes. Catering to these antagonistic tribes is the business model of the media, whether Fox News or MSNBC. Not only are these competing demographics fed what they want to hear, but the opposing tribe is demonized, with the scalding rhetoric widening the chasms within the public. This delights the oligarchs. If we are to wrest power back from corporations and the billionaire class who have carried out this coup d’état in slow motion, as well as prevent the rise of neofascism, we must build a left-right coalition free from the moral absolutism of woke zealots. We must organize to use the one weapon workers possess that can cripple and destroy the billionaire class’s economic and political power. The strike. ...
The strike is the only weapon workers have to hold power in check. Third parties can run candidates to challenge the duopoly, but they are useless appendages unless they have the power of organized labor behind them. As history has repeatedly proven, organized labor, allied with a political party dedicated to its interests, is the only way we can protect ourselves from the oligarchs. ...
France is giving us a powerful lesson in how to pit popular power against a ruling elite. The attempt by French President Emmanuel Macron to unilaterally raise the age for retirement has triggered massive strikes and protests across France, including in Paris, Lyon, Marseille and Bordeaux. Some 3.5 million workers were out in France last week during their ninth rolling strike. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s attempt to gut judicial oversight was put on hold when the country’s largest trade union umbrella group organized strikes shutting down transportation, universities, restaurants and retailers. Our own history of militant labor activity, especially in the 1930s, resulted in a series of measures that protected working men and women across the U.S., including Social Security, the eight hour work day and the end to child labor. The United States had the bloodiest labor wars of any industrialized nation — rivaled only by the eradication of organized labor by fascist regimes in Europe. Hundreds of U.S. workers were killed. Thousands were wounded. Tens of thousands were blacklisted. ...
Our oligarchs are as vicious and tight-fisted as those of the past. They will fight with everything at their disposal to crush the aspirations of workers and the demand for democratic reforms. It will not be a quick or an easy battle. But if we focus on the oppressor, rather than demonizing those who are also oppressed, if we do the hard work of building mass movements to keep the powerful in check, if we accept that civil disobedience has a cost, including jail time, if we are willing to use the most powerful weapon we have – the strike – we can reclaim our country.
"The Undertow": Author Jeff Sharlet on Trump, the Far Right & the Growing Threat of Fascism in U.S.
Craig Murray: Evan Gershkovich & Julian Assange
Russia should release Evan Gershkovich; if as part of a prisoner swap it should be speedily concluded. Gershkovich was arrested in Ekaterinburg while investigating the Wagner Group. Ekaterinburg is one of Russia’s grimmest, most mafia-dominated and least open cities, which I have myself visited specifically to investigate the murders of local Russian journalists. That was dangerous enough without the complications of a war and the fact Gershkovich was planning to visit the location of a nearby tank factory (it is unclear whether he got to carry out this plan).
I am not in the least surprised he was arrested, but I would have hoped he would simply be deported, or have his visa cancelled like Luke Harding. A journalist from a country openly supplying the enemy in an active war could hardly complain if deported. It is part of the game. Let us not forget that Russia is still allowing Western journalists to operate inside Russia, while most countries in the West, including the U.K., have closed down all Russian media outlets and canceled the visas of their journalists.
You were warned. If the US hadn’t prosecuted #Assange under the Espionage Act Mr Gershkovich might still be free. There is no moral high ground unless the EU condemns political prosecutions equally. #4yearsinBelmarsh
— Stella Assange #FreeAssangeNOW (@Stella_Assange) March 30, 2023
But to charge Gershkovich with espionage for — from what we know so far — simply doing his job, is a major escalation. I am going to assume Gershkovich was not actually working for the C.I.A. or Ukrainian intelligence. No evidence has so far been produced of this and, so far, I have not seen Russia allege it. If alleged, it would change the game in some respects, but I for now assume that is not in play and Gershkovich was merely functioning as a journalist.
The Biden administration’s problem is that it is in no position to object. Julian Assange is being charged with espionage solely for journalism: there is no allegation he was working for a foreign power. If Assange committed espionage against the U.S. by publishing national security secrets of the United States, how exactly is Gershkovich not committing espionage against Russia by seeking to publish what it deems its national security secrets?
Reporters Without Borders Denied Entry to Visit Assange in UK Prison; No NGO Has Seen Him in 4 Years
Stoltenberg Says Ukraine Must Win the War to Become a NATO Member
NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said Wednesday that in order for Ukraine to become a NATO member, it must prevail in its war with Russia and become more interoperable with the Western military alliance.
“NATO’s position is that Ukraine will become a member of the alliance, and that position has not changed. But we know that there are at least two things you need to address to make that possible. One is that we need to ensure that Ukraine prevails as a sovereign, independent nation,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Brussels.
“The second thing we need to address is that when this war ends and Ukraine prevails, then, of course, we need to ensure that we have the highest level of interoperability, that Ukraine is able to move from Soviet-era standards, doctrines, ways of operating their armed forces,” he added.
Bakhmut End Game? Zelensky Talks Retreat, Russia Bombs Vyhledar; China Warns Macron on Russia-China
Ukraine ‘Ready’ to Talk About Crimea With Russia If Counteroffensive Succeeds
An advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told Financial Times that Kyiv would be “ready” to negotiate the status of Crimea with Russia if it launches a successful counteroffensive and captures the territory Russia controls that borders the peninsula.
“If we will succeed in achieving our strategic goals on the battlefield and when we will be on the administrative border with Crimea, we are ready to open [a] diplomatic page to discuss this issue,” said Andriy Sybiha, deputy head of Zelenskyy’s office.
Sybiha’s comments are the first sign that Ukraine might be willing to seek a diplomatic solution with Russia over Crimea. Kyiv cut off peace talks with Moscow in April 2022. Since then, Zelensky and his top aides have called for a complete Russian withdrawal from all the territory it controls, including Crimea, before any negotiations can resume.
Zelensky signaled he was thinking about the possibility of negotiations last week when he said if Ukraine lost the Donbas city of Bakhmut, he would be pressured to “compromise” with Moscow. But Zelensky’s comments weren’t as explicit as Sybiha’s.
Macron arrives in China hoping to talk Xi into changing stance on Ukraine
Emmanuel Macron has arrived in China for a three-day state visit during which he hopes to dissuade Xi Jinping from supporting Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while also developing European trade ties with Beijing. Shortly after arriving in the Chinese capital, Macron said he wanted to push back against the idea that there was an “inescapable spiral of mounting tensions” between China and the west. ...
Macron also said he wanted to “relaunch a strategic and global partnership with China”, with an eye on boosting France’s trade links with the world’s second-largest economy. Paris sees China as a possible “gamechanger” in the war: able to tip the balance in a positive way through potential dialogue on conditions for an end to the conflict, or in a negative way if Beijing were to increase support for Russia and provide arms. ...
French officials know China will stop short of criticising the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and will not condemn the Ukraine war, but Macron intends to stress the EU’s position on the danger of the conflict. China is seen as the only country able to open communications channels to all parties in the conflict and to put effective diplomatic pressure on Putin. But Macron wants to stand firm on the issue of Ukraine while taking a pragmatic French stance – described as “another path” from the directly confrontational tone often heard from the US, an official said. ...
Many analysts in China see France as a stronger partner in Europe than Germany or the EU as a bloc. In a report published in February and translated by the Sinification newsletter, Zhang Ji and Xue Sheng, professors at Fudan University, argued that the Aukus deal had damaged Franco-US relations, and that “in the face of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, France and the US have diverging interests and attitudes” with regards to Russia. All this leads some in China to see Macron as a potentially friendlier western leader than Joe Biden or the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz.
Petrodollar COLLAPSING With New China Deals
Taiwan: US House speaker stresses urgency of arms sales after meeting president Tsai
US House speaker Kevin McCarthy stressed the urgency of arms deliveries to Taiwan in a meeting with its president, Tsai Ing-wen, that provoked an angry response from China.
Tsai praised the “strong and unique partnership” with the US, in the meeting on Wednesday at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California.
McCarthy, a Republican who became the most senior figure to meet a Taiwanese leader on American soil in decades, was joined by a bipartisan group of US politicians who voiced support for dialogue with Taiwan amid simmering tensions with China.
“We must continue the arms sales to Taiwan and make sure such sales reach Taiwan on a very timely basis,” McCarthy said at a news conference after the meeting, adding that he believed there was bipartisan agreement on this. “Second, we must strengthen our economic cooperation, particularly with trade and technology.”
Beijing quickly denounced the meeting. Its foreign ministry said in statement reported by Xinhua news agency that China will take “resolute and effective measures to safeguard national sovereignty and territorial integrity.” A China defence ministry spokesperson called on the US to “stop its blatant interference in China’s internal affairs”.
Liberal judge’s Wisconsin supreme court race win shows a shake-up in US politics
Janet Protasiewicz’s victory in the Wisconsin supreme court race on Tuesday amounted to a political earthquake in Wisconsin, one of America’s most volatile political battlegrounds.
Her victory underscores the continued political salience of abortion rights for Democrats. Her election to the court means that the Wisconsin 1849 abortion ban will be struck down (a case is already coming through the courts). Just as they did across the country in 2022, Democrats made it a central issue in the supreme court campaign and voters turned out.
“Wisconsin voters have made their voices heard. They’ve chosen to reject partisan extremism,” Protasiewicz said during remarks at her election night party in Milwaukee. “It means our democracy will always prevail.”
When Protasiewicz is seated in August, the ideological balance of Wisconsin’s seven-member supreme court will shift from conservative to liberal. A challenge is expected shortly thereafter to Wisconsin’s electoral maps, which are so heavily distorted in favor of Republicans that it is virtually impossible for Democrats to ever win a majority. Protasiewicz has said the maps are “rigged” and the court is likely to strike them down, making elections much more competitive in the state.
These two significant consequences show how Democrats may have finally been able to catch up to Republicans when it comes to focusing on so-called down-ballot races – little-known contests for offices like state legislatures and state supreme courts that can have huge policy consequences.
Trump remains the most popular Republican despite his indictment
When the history-making indictment was read out against him in a New York City courtroom on Tuesday, former president and current contender for the Republican nomination in 2024 Donald Trump gained a new title: criminal defendant.
Americans saw a quiet and tense Trump walk into the courtroom under the guard of both the Secret Service and the local police force – whose officers stood behind him during his appearance before a judge, as they do with any other defendant. There, he learned he was facing 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to hush money payments and “catch and kill” attempts to suppress negative news coverage about his extramarital affair with the adult film star Stormy Daniels ahead of the 2016 election.
As unprecedented as that was, it has become clear in the hours after his appearance that the fundamental political calculus has not changed for Trump. He remains the most popular man in the GOP, and the break his enemies have long sought between him and the rest of the Republican party seems as distant as ever.
“For those who think this will harm President Trump’s chances at running for the White House in 2024, I have news for you: it won’t,” Kevin Hern, who leads the Republican Study Committee, the influential conservative body that’s the largest ideological caucus in Congress, said following Trump’s court appearance on Tuesday.
“The same people who were outraged over the possibility of Hillary Clinton’s prosecution for obvious crimes are now celebrating yet another witch-hunt against the former president and political opponent of the current president. This type of hypocrisy is disgusting, and it underscores what millions of Americans see as a blatant double standard in our justice system, causing many to lose faith in those institutions.”
Ice sheets can collapse at 600 metres a day, far faster than feared, study finds
Ice sheets can collapse into the ocean in spurts of up to 600 metres (2,000 feet) a day, a study has found, far faster than recorded before. Scientists said the finding, based on sea floor sediment formations from the last ice age, was a “warning from the past” for today’s world in which the climate crisis is eroding ice sheets.
They said the discovery shows that some ice sheets in Antarctica, including the “Doomsday” Thwaites glacier, could suffer periods of rapid collapse in the near future, further accelerating the rise of sea level. The rising oceans are among the greatest long-term impacts of global heating because hundreds of major cities around the world are on coastlines and are increasingly vulnerable to storm surges and flooding. The West Antarctic ice sheet may already have passed the point at which major losses are unstoppable, which will lead eventually to metres of sea level rise.
“Our research provides a warning from the past about the speeds that ice sheets are physically capable of retreating at,” said Dr Christine Batchelor at Newcastle University in the UK, who led the research. “It shows that pulses of rapid retreat can be far quicker than anything we’ve seen so far.”
“These pulses translate into sea level rise and could be really important for sea defences,” she said. The rate of loss was critical if, for example, a rise expected over 200 years could actually occur in 20 years, Batchelor said. The research could also be used to enable computer models to make better predictions about future ice loss.
Global banks pledged to cut emissions – but still invest billions on US gas exports
America’s massive gas export boom is about to get bigger. By the end of the decade, the Gulf coast could see as many as 12 new liquefied natural gas terminals (LNG) built along its shores. This expansion would triple the amount of gas the US currently exports to be burned around the world, adding more than 200 coal plants worth of greenhouse gas emissions each year, according to one estimate.
The terminals can’t move forward without money from the megabanks that bankrolled the first boom less than a decade ago. Almost all of these same banks have pledged to work toward a world with net-zero emissions. But for many, their climate targets explicitly exempt LNG projects.
Banks have argued LNG exports help reduce climate pollution by replacing coal with gas but critics say the full emissions of the exports, including producing and moving that fuel around the world, make that calculus questionable. “Fossil fuel expansion is fundamentally incompatible with meeting that net-zero goal,” says Adele Shraiman, a campaign representative with Sierra Club’s Fossil-Free Finance project.
In March, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned any new fossil fuel development is likely to push the earth’s climate past an increasingly dangerous 2 degrees of warming. Both environmental groups and major investors have said banks are not using their financial power fast enough to cut carbon pollution and invest in zero-emissions energy.
About 20 banks have financed the majority of the construction costs for LNG along the US Gulf coast. By the end of 2022, those financial institutions had provided loans or bond underwriting, combined, of more than $110bn, according to data compiled by the Sierra Club. An additional $14bn has been financed this year.
Fears of Fresh Disaster Rise as Images Show Major Damage Inside Fukushima Reactor
Images released Tuesday by the operator of Japan's destroyed Fukushima nuclear power plant showed significant damage on the inside of one of the facility's three melted reactors, heightening fears that another earthquake in the region could spark a fresh radioactive catastrophe.
The Associated Press reported Tuesday that Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings (TEPCO) sent an underwater remotely operated vehicle into the damaged reactor's "Unit 1 pedestal, a supporting structure right under the core."
"It came back with images seen for the first time since an earthquake and tsunami crippled the plant 12 years ago. The area inside the pedestal is where traces of the melted fuel can most likely be found," the outlet noted. "An approximately five-minute video—part of 39-hour-long images captured by the robot—showed that the 120-centimeter (3.9-foot)-thick concrete exterior of the pedestal was significantly damaged near its bottom, exposing the steel reinforcement inside."
AP added that "the images of the exposed steel reinforcement have triggered concerns about the reactor’s safety."
A TEPCO official said during a briefing Tuesday that while "there were some areas" that the robotic probe was unable to examine, the company believes damage to the reactor is "spread across large areas."
An estimated 880 tons of radioactive melted nuclear fuel are still inside the three Fukushima reactors.
The images were made public as TEPCO faced pressure from Fukushima's governor to conduct tests to ensure the structure can withstand another earthquake.
The new photos also came as TEPCO is preparing to dump more than a million tons of treated radioactive wastewater into the sea, drawing local and international outrage.
Last month, a spokesperson for China's foreign ministry called the plan "extremely irresponsible" and warned that "Japan's release of treated nuclear-contaminated water from the Fukushima plant concerns the global marine environment and public health, which is not a private matter for the Japanese side."
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Seymour Hersh: The Nord Stream Ghost Ship
Israeli Forces Draw Condemnation Over 'Barbaric' Raid of Al-Aqsa Mosque
U.S. Losing Influence As Saudi Arabia Joins Shanghai Cooperation Organization
Trump Derangement Syndrome Returns
The Shambolic Criminal Case Against Donald Trump
Democrats Promote Trump By Claiming He Is A Criminal
A Growing Lack of Confidence in the Fed Is Spilling Over into a Lack of Confidence in U.S. Banks
Nicola Sturgeon’s husband, Peter Murrell, arrested in SNP funding inquiry
After Backlash, Hochul Walks Back Plan to Gut New York Climate Law
West ADMITS Nordstream Bombing Coverup
RUSSIA's DIRE WARNING After Finland Officially Joins NATO
DOZENS Of Feds Found Inside Proud Boys
NPR LOSES IT After Elon Labels 'State Media'
French pension reform protests: 'the vast majority of demonstrators here are not violent'
Karine Jean-Pierre LAVISHES Praise On Definitely Not State-Affiliated NPR
A Little Night Music
Willie Kent - Do You Love Me?
Willie Kent - I Had a Dream
Willie Kent - A Man And The Blues
Willie Kent - Born In The Delta
Willie Kent & Willie James Lyons - Blue Guitar
Willie Kent - Make Room For The Blues
Willie Kent - Blues And Trouble
Lil Ed Williams & Willie Kent - Going Shopping
Willie Kent - Boogie All Night Long
Comments
Danke schoen Joe for the Eb's
Tulsi give us the lowdown on how we are no longer
a republic or democracy but a banana republic
https://www.reddit.com/r/WayOfTheBern/comments/12diugx/when_those_in_pow...
Plus the demise of king dollar is upon us, slow slower slowest
then suddenly
I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish
"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"
Heard from Margaret Kimberley
evening ggersh...
tulsi seems to me to be on target. the democrats using the levers of power against trump are starting a new pattern of political engagement. it will have repercussions for them. i think we can look forward to lawfare as a regular feature of political life from here on out.
i expect to hear a great deal about hunter biden and the big guy with his 10% in the not-too-distant future as congress gets down to business.
meanwhile, the dollar. what is that swirling, sucking sound i hear?
Confederate Dollars
The Wall Street on Parade article is a good summary and explains some of the reasons why inflation is occurring. For the last 15 years, the Federal Reserve's answer is to bail out the big banks and print more money. In the meantime, the U.S. dollar is losing its reserve currency status and our political leaders are spending like there's no tomorrow, especially when it comes to funding wars. Additionally, we are antagonizing big and small countries all over the world. This sure seems like the perfect combination for hyperinflation. I'm beginning to feel like a Southerner towards the end of the Civil War and all I have in my pocket is a bunch of Confederate dollars.
@karl pearson bet you could get a
bet you could get a bucket of potatoes for a wheelbarrow full of those dollars
evening karl...
yep, i wonder where i can pick up a wallet full of yuan and rubles.
In the opening essay by Chris Hedges
....I reflected on how important Hedges has been in defining the economic and moral problems that we have with the society we live in. He also has a good eye for the range of collateral damage that everything we do leaves in our wake.
In his essays, he brings up to the edge of the fight pit, where we can survey the struggle and the ongoing and incoming catastrophes before us. Hedges leaves some readers very unsatisfied, because he pokes at probable solutions but he doesn't provide a blueprint. He musters some half-hearted optimism, as if it is not too late to act. As if we had what it takes to deal with the wreckage.
.
Hedges is a quality reporter and analyst. Accurate and for the most part, intellectually honest. But I have to wonder: "Who does he envision as his audience? Other journalists? Professional peers? Curated anthologies of the noted journalist of our time? An unknown audience that share his views of the state of civilization? An inteligencia of influencers with a different set of convictions?"
If Hedges is writing to light fires under the people scheduled to suffer under the spreading dystopia, to convince them they need to think harder, get madder, and change the system through immediate personal sacrifices spanning years into the future — well... I am not familiar with existence any such audience in the US with the potential to spring into action and transform capitalism where the rubber meets the road.
In fact, I am increasingly convinced — I am absolutely certain — that capitalism is a formidable creature with state of the art powers that cannot be transformed with the shovel-ready tactics of the 20th century. And certainly not be what is left of the American People.
Pragmatic thinking has gone missing under the Great Denial that blankets the minds in the West.
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
evening pluto...
hedges is a great diagnostician and a pretty lousy solutions guy. i have been unimpressed by his proposed solutions as they seem too hard to organize in the current stasi state. i really don't think that the catastrophe that is facing us can be organized against. see h. rap brown above.
hedges' gift for seeing the moment as it is and expressing it in a literate and compelling way is enough for one guy to give. hedges is an academic, not a revolutionary, though he is familiar enough with revolutionaries and knows how they operate. my guess is that he wants nothing to do with the moral messiness of a real revolution (not that that's a bad thing - i have no interest in bloody conflict, either), which is the historically likely solution that we seem headed for.
The situation with regards to Israel is spinning out of control
evening humphrey...
that cartoon at the top of your post is a perfect explanation of what follows. i guess bibi is getting jealous of ukraine getting all of the attention and would like to blow up the middle east to get what he believes is his share.
I doubt that anyone will be surprised by this
Yesterday I posted on J&J being forced to pay $8.9 billion for having asbestos in their talcum powder and giving people cancer.
J&Jknew about the asbestos in their talcum powder for decades
Now they get 25 years to pay people who used the product and hope that they will die before getting the money. I guess we should give kudos to the judge for not letting them declare bankruptcy, but not for giving them decades to pay out. Or charging them for covering it up.
We know that baby food has poison in them so how long till the lawsuits start? Better yet why isn’t anyone being charged for doing that?
Then there’s this crap
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
evening snoopy...
i suppose that it is pretty amazing that a giant corporation was forced in court to pay out such a significant amount given the ridiculous bias of our court system in favor of the oligarchs.
i would guess that the limitations on liability that corporate charters convey make the sort of actions of corporations poisoning babies and oil companies destroying our habitat for profit inevitable. it's clear to me that there needs to be a way to get corporations and the individuals that hide behind the to put more skin in the game or this crap is going to keep on happening forever.
Very helpful link to Cigna
I happen to have an ongoing issue with Cigna for unpaid claims.
Thanks for posting that. The story is genuinely important news, as you must have realized. I can drop Cigna, but Medicare recipients who signed onto Part C (Medicare Advantage) with them could be at their mercy for a while.
I find it pretty disgusting that the US population puts up with the twisted, dangerous, and degrading health insurance racket that the US medical Industry uses to exploit them financially. On the other hand, that's probably the least of the problems that have people trapped and bamboozled. Those who receive it through work, even when it's deducted from their wages, think they are very fortunate. The absence of critical thinking skills in the US is actually a direct threat to the entire population.
I've taken to calling Cigna:
Cigna Green
It's People
IMAGINE if you woke up the day after a US Presidential Election and headlines around the the world blared, "The Majority of Americans Refused to Vote in US Presidential Election! What Does this Mean?"
On this
Older people like us can remember when the insurance industry was fair and not insane like it is today and we are the ones that should have fought back when they started playing their games with our health care. People born after the 1980s don’t know that there was a time when things were different and they just accept the little peanuts they get from insurance companies.
I entered the worker’s compensation nightmare in 1998 and I had to fight for everything my doctors ordered and I was so lucky to have a doctor who had the time to fight for me. I went to court over 7 times to force the insurance company to give me the treatment I needed and fortunately they ruled in my favor every time. But the delays cost me big time because it made the damage permanent and therefore I lost not only my job but my career and future earnings. The horrible thing was is how many doctors worked for the insurance company and lied about my medical condition and it’s why I spent so much time in court which is another travesty because the injured people can’t be in the room with their lawyer, theirs and the judge. You are voiceless except for your lawyer. The insurance spent more money on bogus doctors and their lawyers than they did on treating me.
Now the insurance companies have rigged the rules in their favor and my lawyer said that she rarely gets to court because she can’t fight like that anymore. If people get injured now they have to see the insurance company’s doctor who usually downplays any injury and then refuse to treat them appropriately.
So how can people fight against a fcking rotten system that has rigged all the rules in their favor? Biden and some democrats wanted to go after the Medicare advantages that are committing fraud but the lobbyists stepped in and paid them not to do a gd thing. Others have mentioned how they have been given MA without their knowledge and they don’t know how to fix it and fight back. If your doctor has accepted a certain payment plan then patients are automatically put on it and I’m not sure if they can switch to regular Medicare. I’m still months away from getting it and all I’m getting is MA offers, but I will fight like hell to get on the regular plan.
Then there’s the disastrous ACA that Obama gave us that has just made everyone worse… I’ll stop here….
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
Matt Stoller weighs in on health care
and hammers on Obama.
https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/how-obamacare-created-big-medicine?ut...
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Great work by Taibbi
https://www.racket.news/p/msnbc-sucks?r=5mz1&utm_campaign=post&utm_mediu...
He talks about the last time he was on MSDNC with Nance and then he takes the gloves off.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
The title of the article made me laugh.
Edited to add:
The rest of the article is also good. LOL
Yep I thought so too
And boy did he stick the landing. I got a kick out of Nance pretending that he was in Ukraine fighting the dastardly Russians when it was obvious that he was nowhere near there according to time stamps. Besides he’s over 50.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
heh...
great piece, thanks for the link.
i liked this part:
Yeah I cracked up at that
And boy does that nail Rachel Moscow! I just hope that on her dying bed she is full of remorse for lying to the people who worshiped her for lying to them. Blood money leaves a big red stain on your soul.
There were problems with running a campaign of Joy while committing a genocide? Who could have guessed?
Harris is unburdened of speaking going forward.
SMH
The chief spook haz a sad.
Scott Ritter and others
...have pointed out how the national security establishment in the US has unwisely disregarded the advice of former and current prominent national security experts of the dangers of ignoring warnings from Russia not to expand NATO. So the US and NATO are doubling down on a wrongheaded policy toward Russia with respect to Finland. I think this sort of hubristic blundering is invariably accompanied by a condescending dismissal of what the Russian response might be, and a mistaken situational assessment of the potential costs and benefits of these policies, to both sides, that do not appear to be realistically thought through.
There is a similar situation going on with Taiwan. There have been reports that China is threatening to intercept shipping from Taiwan in the straits for "inspection." Apparently, this is in response to Senator McCarthy's reception of President Tsai Ing-wen in the US on a "stop over." At the same time a congressional delegation is in Taiwan talking arms sales and "hardening Taiwan."
The west is criticizing Chinese threats of "inspections" as interference with freedom of navigation in international waters. But I think this could be a mischaracterization. The sovereign is free to inspect vessels coming into its contiguous and territorial limits, to check for health, safety, security and environmental threats that they may present. If ships do not comply with relevant Chinese regulations on shipping, they can be lawfully barred from the territorial limits. Of course, Taiwan has announced it won't comply. Whether it has a right to not comply depends on the location where the inspection is ordered inside or outside the contiguous zone (24nm).
No one has the right to enter a nation's ports. I think the west is overreading this as some sort of interference of rights on the high seas. That remains to be seen. The policy of "inspection" if there is one, has the potential to be very disruptive to Taiwan's trade with the mainland. It reminds me of Chinese "inspections for regulatory violations" of Lotte retail stores in mainland China, after the deployment of US THAAD missiles in South Korea. The damage done to South Korea's economy at the time was substantial. No doubt the inspections were pretextual, but how hard is it to find code violations in a commercial business? Lotte withdrew all of its commercial operations from China as a result.
Speaking of mistaken geo-political assessments-
All Quiet, For Now, On The Northern Front
By Daniel Sneider : Lecturer, International Policy at Stanford University
April 05,2023
https://toyokeizai.net/articles/-/664415
I've mentioned recently that South Korean journalist/analyst Kim Jong-tae, who is very critical of President Yoon, pointed out:
Er, what about the Dec. 26, 2022, North Korean drone overflights of the DMZ and South Korea which included a drone flight which entered the "prohibited zone" over the presidential office building in Yongsan, Seoul? Then there was the retaliation by the South in which Yoon ordered an unspecified number of South Korean drones overfly the DMZ into North Korea. Not only were these both violations of the Sep 2018 military agreement, but also were violations of the Armistice Agreement.
American analysts are too prone to exaggerate the significance of the Joint Security Area in Panmunjom. The 2018 Military Agreement between North and South Korea delineates a number of measures taken by both sides to limit the potential for conflict on both sides of the line of demarcation. In my opinion the 2018 Military Agreement is a dead letter at this point. The US and South Korea do not give exact positions for their military firepower demonstrations near the DMZ, nor routes taken during naval exercises or military aircraft exercise routes in or around the East and West Seas buffer zones. So who knows what their level of compliance is.
The US has resented the restrictions of the North South Military Agreement since it was achieved in 2018 by the Moon Jae-in administration and made no secret of it. Do South Korean artillery fire power demonstrations in the vicinity of the DMZ violate the agreement or not? Did US firings of ballistic rocket artillery near the DMZ violate the agreement? I haven't heard anyone address these questions to either government. There is no doubt that the North regards these activities as threatening. Huge joint military air force exercises by South Korea and the US, did result in a rare North Korean air force demonstration north of the DMZ not too long ago, which appeared to violate the restrictions on flights of tactical jets in a zone north of the DMZ established in accordance with the Military Agreement.
Frankly, I don't what the "expert" from the notoriously conservative Stanford is observing. The title of the piece "All quiet on the northern front, for now," is an endorsement of his recommended policy of military escalation and the introduction of the US strategic assets and other armed forces into the region. Coincidentally, this is the exact official policy of the US, South Korea, and Japan at present. If its all quiet in the North, than he was right because the joint military escalation of the US, South Korea, and Japan, the so called "trilateral alliance," has had its intended effect. If he's wrong, and the kind of violent event one might anticipate does occur, despite the US led build up of forces and shows of military firepower he recommends, it's because it either wasn't enough or the North is just "crazy." Either way, he's right. Ironically, there is nothing controversial about his policy to an American. After all, the Americans know what is best for South Korea, or do they? Why are the majority of South Koreans opposed to the Yoon government's provocative brinkmanship toward North Korea, and also opposed to his obsequious compliance with the dictates of the US and Japan?
It doesn't take much to "bait the Yoon administration." It is living in a (dictatorial) past that no longer exists. Kim Tae-hyo, who has the lead on national security policy in the Yoon administration, is an American trained cold war believer. He, like Tsai Ing-wen, without any reservation for the unique security requirements, economic activities, or national aspirations of his own people, prefers to cater to views and policies of US "diplomats." In fact, President Yoon in a recent speech directly equated his national security policy to the "economic livelihood of the people," which is absurd under the circumstances. The Korean economy is in a nosedive and it is being made worse by his foreign policy. I don't think any serious analyst would contend otherwise. The alliance is with a protectionist US which wants South Korea to decouple from China, export its high tech manufacturing base to the US, and at the same time, reveal its trade secrets. The impact of the US sponsored war in Ukraine has had a serious adverse affect on the South Korean economy.
(edited for clarity and to add links)
Yoon offers no plan to tackle economy, N. Korea except by partnering with US, Japan
Posted on : Apr.6,2023 17:40 KST Modified on : Apr.6,2023 17:40 KST
https://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_national/1086828.html
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
thanks for the news from asia. it seems reasonable that the unnecessary brinksmanship practiced by the u.s. is going to cause a reaction at some point, and it seems likely that the reactors will have all of their ducks in a row when they do. i doubt that it will be pretty.
Thanks JS
Enjoyed your news roundup tonight as usual.
語必忠信 行必正直
Hard to disagree with this.