Get to the Root!

The goal of functional doctors is to find the root cause of peoples' health problems. It's too bad that no functional practitioners can deal with the root cause of the US national illness(es). At this point the system seems so corrupt, dysfunctional, and war hungry that it can't be salvaged...I wish we could wipe the slate clean and start over. None the less I think we're in for major changes due to our declining economy and loss of prestige and respect among most of the world.

What's wrong with America?

Man Ruled Too Senile To Stand Trial Still Fine To Run Country (B. Bee)
Special Counsel Robert Hur will not recommend charges for Biden's mishandling of classified documents on the grounds that he's too old and senile to stand trial.
In spite of the report detailing Biden's late-stage dementia, the Special Counsel confirmed Biden is just fine to continue running the country. "Oh yeah, that's no problem," he said. "You heard the Press Secretary. He's so active and alert no one can keep up with him! Impressive!"

The report states:
In his interview with our office, Mr. Biden’s memory was worse. He did not remember when he was vice president, forgetting on the first day of the interview when his term ended (“if it was 2013 – when did I stop being Vice President?”), and forgetting on the second day of the interview when his term began (“in 2009, am I still Vice President?”).
In concluding their findings, the special counsel’s report adds, “Based on our direct interactions with and observations of [Biden], he is someone for whom many jurors will want to identify reasonable doubt. It would be difficult to convince a jury that they should convict him — by then a former president well into his eighties — of a serious felony that requires a mental state of willfulness.”

Eventful Events (James Howard Kunstler)
If Mr. Biden is truly mentally incompetent, as established more-or-less legally by Special Counsel Hur, then there is the obvious remedy of the 25th amendment — removal of a president for reason of disability. A debate over this would seem unavoidable now. The question also implies that Mr. Biden’s charade of running for reelection must come to an end. What will the Democratic party do about that?

Biden’s ‘Angry’ Press Conference Made Hur’s Memory Report ‘Infinitely Worse’

"My Memory Is Fine" Biden Fumes, Before Confusing Egypt's Sisi With The President Of Mexico
In less than 15 minutes, President Biden proved Special Counsel Robert Hur right and confirmed all concerns about his fitness for office.

A Dementia Patient Is President Because It Doesn’t Matter Who The President Is

If you were still laboring under the delusion that it matters who the US president is, the fact that an actual, literal dementia patient has held that office for three years now should dispel that notion once and for all. The US empire has been marching along in exactly the same way it was before Biden took office, completely unhindered by the fact that the person who’s supposedly calling the shots is in a state of degenerative neurological free-fall.

Literally anyone could hold that office and it would make no meaningful difference in the way the US empire is run. A coma patient could be president. A jar of kalamata olives could be president. The position which Americans hold elections over in the belief that it could bring positive changes to their country and their world is nothing but a figurehead.

Which is a bit of a problem for Americans who would like to change certain aspects of their government’s behavior, like for example the backing of an active genocide in Gaza. Whose conscience do they work to appeal to if the person they were told is in charge actually isn’t? Who do they vote for if the people who really call the shots aren’t even on the ballot?

The episode provides good evidence that it is all political theater.

Garland does a good comic routine about it all...

Worthy of watching for at least 10 min for a good laugh.

The Biden presser is quite the contrast to the big event of the week, Tucker's Putin interview.

Tucker Carlson Interviews Vladimir Putin (2 hours 7 min)
Transcript here.
Timestamps
00:00:00 Introduction
00:02:00 Putin gives a history of Russia & Ukraine
00:25:04 NATO Expansion
00:30:40 NATO & Bill Clinton
00:41:10 Ukraine
00:48:30 What triggered this conflict?
01:02:37 A peaceful solution?
01:11:33 Who blew up the Nord Stream pipelines?
01:24:13 Re-establishing communication with the US
01:36:33 How powerful is Zelensky?
01:48:36 Elon Musk & AI
01:51:07 Imprisoned American journalist Evan Gershkovich

There were excellent analyses of the interview including The Duran and Alex Christoforou. Most MSM outlets attacked Tucker and Putin.

‘Losing the Narrative’: Freakout Over Tucker Carlson Signals Collapse of Western War Propaganda
“The United States government/the West realizes it is losing the narrative, it is losing the public opinion,” said Leon. “When you look at the polls, Americans want us out of Ukraine, Americans don't want their money to go there, Americans are opposed to the genocidal actions of the Zionist government in Israel. They're losing the narrative, they're losing in the court of public opinion.”
“And all Tucker Carlson is doing is now adding more information to that information war, and the United States is losing it.”

The real propagandists are those who dismiss Tucker Carlson’s Putin interview
"Focusing on Carlson as some kind of flawed messenger serves as a convenient pretext for ignoring critical information and analysis. The fact that some journalists may think that Carlson’s questioning or approach was misguided — or that he didn’t push back enough for their tastes — doesn’t mean that they can’t subsequently take what Putin said and analyze it themselves. Every bit of information, analysis, or interview of any world leader is a valuable contribution. Litmus tests have no place in objective, impartial journalism. Many of those who criticize Carlson are the same ones who routinely search the Wikileaks database for leaked and dumped classified information to flesh out their own stories about various political issues and events that have since materialized — all while refusing to acknowledge that the publisher, Julian Assange, is as much of a journalist as they are."

Perhaps my favorite commentary on Tucker's interview came in this discussion...not that I agree with everything postulated. To stay in theme this week I've cued it to the root of the issue (to my mind). The preceding portion was also good commentary on the interview.

One of the panelists suggested over dubbing Oliver Stones 4 part interview with Putin.
In a series of interviews between 2015-2017, Oliver Stone talks to Vladimir Putin about the Ukrainian crisis, his relationship with Barack Obama, the annexation of Crimea, the current paradigm of international relations, the recently passed "Big Brother" law which provides mass surveillance techniques to the Russian government, the daily functions of the Commander in Chief, the war in Syria, and underlying military tension with the United States.

Jeffery also did a nice historical review in this hour long interview with Gita Wirjawan, an Indonesian entrepreneur and educator. (the time line is divided into chapters to target subjects of interest to you.) Jeffrey Sachs: There Is No Shortcut to Peace Jeffrey Sachs guides us back to a revitalization of a long-forgotten international political culture: diplomacy. Beyond engaging in difficult conversations, diplomacy imparts the wisdom of listening, understanding, and accepting one another to enable judicious action.

Ukraine
The Biden-Schumer Plan to Kill More Ukrainians The $61 billion will make no difference on the battlefield except to prolong the war, the tens of thousands of deaths, and the physical destruction of Ukraine.
Jeffery lays out the situation well.

Palace intrigue in Kiev as there is a General shuffle.
Zelensky finally fires Zaluzhny (23 min)

The battle of Avdeevka is about to be finished.

Ukraine at risk of ‘cascading frontline collapse’ – NYT

Ukraine - An Army Without Officers Has No Chance Of Winning
The Ukrainian army is lacking soldiers and munitions. It is lacking the officers to train and lead them. The Ukrainian state does not have the money to conscript and equip more soldiers. It does not have the officer corp needed to train new soldiers. It does not have the factories needed to produce weapons and munitions.
It is high time for Ukraine to give up this unequal fight and to save the lives of those soldiers who are still living.

In the meantime EU countries have destroyed their own economies...
Industrial Megapower Germany on Edge of Ruin Thanks to Energy War Against Russia

Whom the Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Insane (Paul Craig Roberts)

The prime minister of formerly “Great Britain,” an Indian named Sunak, Scholz and Macron, the non-entities who head Washington’s puppet states of Germany and France, and the non-entities in Norway, Finland, Poland and the rest of the militarily and economically impotent puppet governments that comprise the American Empire, declare their preparation for war with Russia. What a joke! None of these territories–they are so over-run by third world immigrant-invaders that they no longer rank as countries, just territories open for the taking–have confident nationalistic populations willing to lose their lives in defense of their subservience to Washington and their domestic oppression. Can anyone seriously imagine Sweden, whose military-aged ethnic males are afraid to prevent immigrant-invaders’ rapes of ethnic Swedish women because they would be arrested for hate crimes, forming an army capable of facing Russian troops?

...and NATO says they plan on a decades long war against Russia? Can they not see they are killing the EU and their member countries. Are they fools or just evil?

Gaza
US Chooses Genocide Over Diplomacy in the Middle East

On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also including ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Syria, and the U.S. and U.K.’s bombing of Yemen.

This latest U.S. attack followed the U.S. bombing of seven targets on February 2, three in Iraq and four in Syria, with 125 bombs and missiles, killing at least 39 people, which Iran called “a strategic mistake” that would bring “disastrous consequences” for the Middle East.

At the same time, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken has been touring the shrinking number of capitals in the region where leaders will still talk to him, playing the United States’ traditional role as a dishonest broker between Israel and its neighbors, in reality partnering with Israel to offer the Palestinians impossible, virtually suicidal terms for a ceasefire in Gaza.

I can't see how the US avoids accusations and charges of war crimes and assisting genocide.

Letters from Gaza
The genocide that Palestinians are facing in Gaza is being captured in almost real time on social media, where many Palestinians continue to share videos and photographs in detail and high definition. It’s angering and heart-wrenching to see people desperately kissing their martyred loved ones goodbye...

A muralist's message of resistance on Gaza's ruins (4 min)

The Grayzone meets Amal Abo Al-Sebah, a displaced Palestinian artist in the besieged Gaza Strip. We see Amal chronicle the destruction her neighbors endured and the resilience they have displayed through a series of colorful murals painted on the ruins of a home in the city of Rafah destroyed by an Israeli airstrike.
"I want to send a message to all Arab countries with this artwork," Amal said. "A message that we're attached to this land and we're not leaving it."

Hat/tip Humphrey...

‘Operation Al-Aqsa Flood’ Day 127: Growing International Alarm Over Israeli Plans to Invade Rafah
Israel has announced its intention to push ahead with its plans to invade Rafah in the southernmost Gaza Strip, where 1.3 million Palestinians are sheltering. Rafah's mayor, Ahmed al-Sufi, warns any military action there would result in a “massacre”.
How is this ongoing genocide allowed?

Of course those trying to prevent it are attacked...
Yemen’s Unending Nightmare: The Hidden Consequences of US and UK Airstrikes

When confronted with international appeals for humanitarian aid due to the ongoing crises in Gaza and Yemen, the United States and the United Kingdom have chosen instead to turn Yemen’s Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden into a combat zone, initiating an ariel bombing campaign against the war-torn country already suffering immensely from nine years of deadly conflict spearheaded by Saudi Arabia and backed by the U.S.
For weeks, U.S. and British naval vessels have been perched on the outskirts of Yemen’s territorial waters in the Red Sea, not only to protect ships carrying goods to Israel but to launch a series of airstrikes against Yemen, the poorest country in the world. In recent weeks, at least 320 airstrikes have been launched by warplanes that seem never to leave the skies over Yemen’s major cities. The latest strikes hit Friday morning, targeting Al-Jabana, Al-Taif, and Al-Kathib and followed renewed calls by U.S. officials for regional actors not to escalate conflict in the Middle East.
According to Yemeni citizens who spoke to MintPress, the U.S. bombing campaign, which has struck targets in crowded residential neighborhoods, is the last thing that Yemenis expected. Twenty-seven-year-odl Ibrahim al-Nahari lives with his family near Hodeida International Airport, which was targeted by US airstrikes on Monday afternoon. He said of the bombings: “I never expected we would be attacked because of our solidarity with hungry people in Gaza. Are these America’s morals?”

Diplomacy with bombs NEVER works, but it is the only strategy in our tool bag.

Let Them Eat Dirt

The final stage of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, an orchestrated mass starvation, has begun. The international community does not intend to stop it.
UNRWA’s reports on conditions in Gaza, which I covered as a reporter for seven years, and its documentation of indiscriminate Israeli attacks illustrate that, as UNRWA said, “unilaterally declared ‘safe zones’ are not safe at all. Nowhere in Gaza is safe.”
UNRWA’s role in documenting the genocide, as well as providing food and aid to the Palestinians, infuriates the Israeli government. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu accused UNRWA after the ruling of providing false information to the ICJ. Already an Israeli target for decades, Israel decided that UNRWA, which supports 5.9 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East with clinics, schools and food, had to be eliminated. Israel’s destruction of UNRWA serves a political as well as material objective.
The evidence-free Israeli accusations against UNRWA that a dozen of the 13,000 employees had links to those who carried out the attacks in Israel on Oct. 7, which saw some 1,200 Israelis killed, did the trick. It led 16 major donors, including the United States, the U.K., Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Australia, Canada, Sweden, Estonia and Japan, to suspend financial support for the relief agency on which nearly every Palestinian in Gaza depends for food. Israel has killed 152 UNRWA workers and damaged 147 UNRWA installations since Oct. 7. Israel has also bombed UNRWA relief trucks.
More than 27,708 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza, some 67,000 have been wounded and at least 7,000 are missing, most likely dead and buried under the rubble.More than half a million Palestinians – one in four – are starving in Gaza, according to the U.N.

I thought of the subject of roots after catching the clip below. My training as a soil scientist made me aware the importance of the root soil interface...it is where the magic happens...the exchange of living systems. It is similar to the interface of our gut biota and our nutrient uptake. In both cases it is a complex ecosystem exchange.

First, heal the soil | Allen Williams (10 min)

More life in the soil, means more life above the soil. Period.
Hear how regenerative agricultural principles are restoring and enhancing soil health by creating more diverse soil microbiological communities. Increasing the microscopic biodiversity under the ground leads to benefits magnified across the system.
Healthy soil holds more water, reducing flooding risk and irrigation needs. Healthy soil supports more diverse vegetation and restores ecosystems where incredible blooms in life can take hold. Healthy soil attracts pollinators and creates havens for native bird populations. Healthy soil increases the nutrient density of the food it produces, at far less cost than conventional farming practices.
Modern conventional agricultural techniques that rely on expensive and often dangerous synthetic fertilizers and pesticides that harm the soil and reduce nutrition. It's hard to argue with the benefits and the data, so why aren't all farms regenerative? Education and initial transition costs—two hurdles Allen Williams is on a mission to tackle.
Allen Williams is a 6th generation family farmer and founding partner of Grass Fed Insights, LLC, Understanding Ag, LLC and the Soil Health Academy. He has consulted with more than 4000 farmers and ranchers in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, South America, and other countries, on operations ranging from a few acres to over 1 million acres. He is a “recovering academic”, having served 15 years on the faculty at Louisiana Tech University and Mississippi State University. He holds a B.S. and M.S. in Animal Science from Clemson University and a Ph.D. in Livestock Genetics from LSU and has authored more than 400 scientific and popular press articles.

From the makers of "Carbon Cowboys" comes "Roots So Deep"
"Roots So Deep (you can see the devil down there)” is a 4-part documentary series all about inventive farmers and maverick scientists building a path to solving climate change with hooves, heart and soil.
Can a novel way to graze cattle, that mimics the way bison once roamed the land, help get farmers out of debt, restore our depleted soils, rebuild wildlife habitat and draw down huge amounts of carbon? Cattle have been seen as eco-villains for a long time. What if they can help save us from catastrophic climate change?
“Roots So Deep” is guided by director and wrangler of scientists Peter Byck as he meets farmers on both sides of the fence – the folks practicing a new way to graze, and their neighbors set in their family’s old style of doing things. Byck’s team of outcast scientists are measuring what’s happening on both sides of the fences – exploring if this new, adaptive grazing could help slow down climate change.
And one question looms over the whole series: even if the science shows that the new way to graze is better for the land and the farmers’ pocket books, will the old school farmers change, will they adopt the new methods? Will they evolve into climate heroes? Will they save our friggin’ asses from the impending climate catastrophe?
3 min Trailer

Available for Streaming May 28th at link above...

Last week, in the comments, I featured the story of White Oak Pastures and how their system brought to life an entire town. Too bad these small scale systems don't receive the funding of big agribiz.

It was yet another very busy news cycle. I didn't even touch on the Pakistan elections, nor the hostility toward China by the US and west, the EU farmer protests, and many other missed stories. I hope you'll add any story of interest to you in the comments below.

Have a great Sunday. It's a wet one here...supposedly the final drought killer.