Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas guitar player Lester Williams. Enjoy!

"Our government... teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes the lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy."

-- Louis D. Brandeis

News and Opinion

24 hours after calling for negotiations to end Ukraine war, DSA and “progressive” Democrats demand escalation

On Monday, 30 members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus sent a letter to President Joe Biden suggesting the US negotiate with Russia to bring an end to the war in Ukraine. The letter cited “the catastrophic possibilities of nuclear escalation and miscalculation” and expressed concern that the war is forcing billions of people worldwide to suffer loss of access to food and other necessities. On Tuesday, with the “catastrophic possibilities” just as great as the day before, the Democratic signatories—including all four congressional members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA)—withdrew their letter, repudiated calls for negotiations and pledged their full support for the war. ...

Jayapal did not merely withdraw the letter, she also committed the caucus to support the war until Russia is forced to capitulate. “Every war ends with diplomacy,” she wrote, “and this one will too after Ukrainian victory.” But according to the letter issued on Monday, if the Russian government lacks “a realistic framework for a ceasefire,” then the “risk of catastrophic escalation” will only grow. While the signatories wrote Monday that “the alternative to diplomacy is protracted war, with both its attendant certainties and catastrophic and unknowable risks,” on Tuesday they chose “protracted war” and accepted the risks.

Such is the reactionary dynamic of Democratic Party politics. This profile in political cowardice once again demonstrates that the Democratic Party, like its Republican counterpart, is nothing but a political pillar of American imperialism. It is a vehicle for prosecuting Wall Street’s reckless drive for world domination. Its “left” wing, represented by politicians like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (Democrat-New York), is no exception. These heroes of the upper-middle class “left” are scrambling over one another to erase their signatures from Monday’s letter asking for negotiations. In a transparently false attempt to blame her subordinates, Jayapal (who claims to be a supporter of the rights of employees against employers) ignominiously said the letter “unfortunately was released by staff without our vetting.”

Many signatories employed the same phrases to explain that they no longer support negotiations, as though they were reading from a common script. Mark Pocan (Democrat-Wisconsin) tweeted, “I have no idea why it went out now. Bad timing.” Sara Jacobs (Democrat-California) said, “Timing in diplomacy is everything. I signed this letter on June 30, but a lot has changed since then.” Ilhan Omar (Democrat-Minnesota), who was endorsed by the DSA, said, “Timing is everything in public policy, letters are written to respond to a moment and in politics moments pass in the speed of light. In this particular case, the letter was a response to intel we were getting on the war and the pathway forward.”

Omar’s allusion to receiving “intel” in briefings from the CIA and Pentagon is further proof that the pseudo-left is an arm of US imperialism which “responds” to the demands of the military-intelligence agencies. The “intel” Omar and the rest of the Progressive Caucus received in the wake of Monday’s letter was that they must immediately withdraw it and reverse course, which they promptly did.

Tulsi Gabbard SLAMS Dems After Ukraine Letter Debacle, Pod Save Hosts TURN On Establishment Libs

Progressive Chair HAS TO GO After Ukraine Letter LIES

Nancy Pelosi Calls for Ukrainian ‘Victory’ at Crimea Forum

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) on Tuesday spoke at the first Parliamentary Summit of the International Crimea Platform in Croatia, a forum that was set up to discuss expelling Russia from the Crimean peninsula, which Russia has controlled since 2014.

In her speech, Pelosi said the US will support Ukraine until a Ukrainian “victory is won.” For Ukraine, victory means expelling Russia from Crimea, a scenario that Russia could consider an existential threat, giving it the pretext to use nuclear weapons under Moscow’s military doctrine. ...

In her speech, Pelosi also boasted that Congress has authorized over $67 billion in Ukraine aid and said more is coming. “And more will be on the way when we pass our omnibus funding bill this fall,” she said.

Russia Wrests Initiative from Ukraine, Advances on Liman, Conducts Nuclear Drills,Threatens Starlink

Ukraine refugees told not to return yet as energy crisis looms

Ukraine’s government is advising refugees living abroad not to return until the spring amid mounting fears over whether the country’s damaged energy infrastructure can cope with demand this winter. The energy crisis comes as officials in Kyiv warned that the coming winter may herald the heaviest fighting of the war, around the southern city of Kherson where Russian forces have been digging in.

With a third of the country’s energy sector compromised by recent Russian missile and drone attacks Ukraine’s deputy prime minister Iryna Vereshchuk warned: “The networks will not cope.”

“You see what Russia is doing. We need to survive the winter,” she added. The warning was delivered after a period in which, polling suggested, more Ukrainian refugees had expressed a desire to return home.

Vereshchuk said that although she would like Ukrainians to return in the spring, it was important to refrain from returning for now because “the situation will only get worse. If it is possible, stay abroad for the time being.”

Russia targets power grids in central Ukraine in overnight strikes

State Department Threatens to Use Nuclear Weapons Against North Korea

Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman said the US would be willing to deploy nuclear weapons against North Korea under certain conditions. During her recent trip to South Korea, Vice President Kamala Harris called for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

Washington “will use the full range of US defense capabilities to defend our allies, including nuclear, conventional and missile defense capabilities,” the deputy secretary said during a meeting with South Korean and Japanese officials. Sherman added that the US security commitment to Seoul and Tokyo is “ironclad.”

The threat to use the bomb against North Korea comes nearly a month after Harris traveled to South Korea and demanded Pyongyang abandon its nuclear arsenal. The government led by Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un has consistently maintained that its nuclear forces are a deterrent against US-led military action.

In recent months, military activity on the Korean Peninsula has seen a significant spike, with Washington and Seoul conducting provocative live-fire war games, while a US aircraft carrier recently made a port call to South Korea for the first time in several years.

Washington, Seoul and Tokyo signed a trilateral agreement to step up security ties in June. The three countries recently held joint military drills. North Korea denounced the agreement as an American effort to create a NATO-like alliance in the Pacific.

Sunak dismantles remainder of Truss legacy on first full day in office

Rishi Sunak has dismantled what was left of Liz Truss’s legacy on his first full day as prime minister, abandoning fracking and refusing to guarantee the pensions triple lock or a defence spending rise. Any change to pensions or a decision not to uprate benefits in line with inflation would draw new battle lines between Sunak and Conservative MPs, a number of whom have said they would not back cuts falling on the most vulnerable.

Sunak and the chancellor, Jeremy Hunt, also delayed the autumn statement for a further fortnight to give departments more time to find double-digit savings to fill an estimated £35bn black hole – balanced with further tax measures. The Treasury has drawn up an initial menu of 70 tax-and-spend options, the Guardian understands. ... The chancellor is understood to be planning a fiscal statement that balances spending cuts and tax rises 50/50, including a potential expansion of the windfall tax on oil and gas companies.

Under George Osborne, the Treasury worked from a formula of 80/20 cuts and tax measures, but there is said to be a widespread understanding that public services cannot take such severe further cuts, especially with high inflation.

At her final PMQs before her departure Truss committed to the triple lock – a guarantee that the state pension will rise every year by whichever is highest of inflation, earnings growth or 2.5% – and Sunak hinted it would not be his preferred course of action by referencing commitments in the manifesto. Ending the pensions triple lock for 2024-25 would save £11bn.

Big Banks CAUGHT Lobbying Fed In Secret Meetings

US mortgage rates hit 21-year high as Fed action weighs on housing sector

The average interest rate on the most popular US home loan rose to its highest level since 2001 as tightening financial conditions weigh on the housing sector, data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) showed on Wednesday.

The average contract rate on a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rose by 22 basis points to 7.16% for the week ended 21 October while the MBA’s Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, fell 1.7% from a week earlier. Mortgage application activity is at its slowest pace since 1997.

Oz Says Local Politicians Should Play a Role in Abortion Decisions

Republican U.S. Senate nominee Dr. Mehmet Oz said on the Pennsylvania debate stage Tuesday night that "local political leaders" have a role to play in abortion decisions, drawing swift condemnation from reproductive rights advocates and Democratic candidate John Fetterman, whose campaign is planning to run ads highlighting the comment.

"There should not be involvement from the federal government in how states decide their abortion decisions," Oz said when asked about his position on abortion, which has become a central midterm issue following the U.S. Supreme Court's June decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization.

"I want women, doctors, local political leaders letting the democracy that's always allowed our nation to thrive to put the best ideas forward so states can decide for themselves," Oz added.

"If you believe that the choice for abortion belongs between you and your doctor, that's what I fight for," Fetterman said in the first and only debate in the battleground race that could decide which party controls the Senate next year. ...

"Our campaign will be putting money behind making sure as many women as possible hear Dr. Oz's radical belief that 'local political leaders' should have as much say over a woman's abortion decisions as women themselves and their doctors," said Joe Calvello, a spokesperson for the Fetterman campaign. "After months of trying to hide his extreme abortion position, Oz let it slip on the debate stage on Tuesday."

Ex-Black Panther asks for fresh trial amid new evidence

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the best known of the African American radicals incarcerated for decades for their actions during the black liberation struggle of the 1970s and 80s, is petitioning a Pennsylvania court for a new trial after the discovery of fresh evidence that casts doubt on his conviction.

Abu-Jamal’s case will come before the court of common pleas in Philadelphia on Wednesday. The hearing could be one of the prisoner’s last attempts at freedom after more than 40 years behind bars, including two decades on death row, for the murder of a white police officer – a crime for which he has always insisted he is innocent.

The former Black Panther and radical journalist is 68 and has long struggled with serious heart conditions and other health problems. He was moved off death row in 2011, but since then has been held on life without parole.

He was put on trial in 1982, found guilty and sentenced to death. Flaws and inconsistencies in the prosecution case have been revealed, generating worldwide concern about the justice of his prolonged imprisonment. ... Wednesday’s petition relates to six filing boxes marked with the prisoner’s name that were found in a storage room in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office in December 2018. The existence of the boxes were disclosed to Abu-Jamal’s lawyers the following month.

His lawyers, Judith Ritter and Samuel Spital, argue in the petition that the boxes contained “highly significant evidence which the commonwealth never previously disclosed”. The new evidence shows that their client’s conviction was tainted.

Former Moscow Station CIA Chief: Why I Believe Rogue CIA Agents Killed Kennedy

Briahna Joy Gray: The Democratic Party Is DEAD

Current emissions pledges will lead to catastrophic climate breakdown, says UN

Pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions will lead to global heating of 2.5C, a level that would condemn the world to catastrophic climate breakdown, according to the United Nations. Only a handful of countries have strengthened their commitments substantially in the last year, despite having promised to do so at the Cop26 UN climate summit in Glasgow last November. Deeper cuts are needed to limit temperature rises to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels, which would avoid the worst ravages of extreme weather.

Simon Stiell, the executive secretary of the UN framework convention on climate change, said: “This does not go far enough, fast enough. This is nowhere near the scale of reductions required to put us on track to 1.5C. National governments must set new goals now and implement them in the next eight years.”

The plans for emissions cuts countries submitted in Glasgow were inadequate to meet the 1.5C goal so they agreed a “ratchet” mechanism to toughen their targets year on year. However, few governments have updated their plans on emissions in line with 1.5C.

The UN calculated on Wednesday that the plans submitted by governments would lead to a temperature rise of between 2.1C and 2.9C, with the best estimate about 2.5C. This represents a “marginal” improvement, said Stiell, on the 2.7C temperature rise that would have followed from the commitments made at Glasgow. ...

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has estimated that greenhouse gas emissions need to fall by about 45% by 2030 compared with 2010 levels, to give the world a chance of staying within 1.5C.

Biden's LNG Export Goal 'Would Spell Climate Disaster,' Analysis Warns

As the United Nations released its latest report showing that the continued failure of wealthy countries to immediately transition away from fossil fuels will cause catastrophic global heating, a new analysis warned the White House to scrap its plans to export billions of cubic meters of fracked gas to Europe annually until 2030.

The proposal, which the Biden administration claims "is consistent with our shared net-zero goals," would generate fossil fuel emissions equivalent to 400 million metric tons of carbon each year, according to the analysis by Food & Water Watch, which warned the plan "would spell climate disaster."

"One year of emissions from 50 billion cubic meters (BCM) of [liquefied natural gas] LNG would be equivalent to yearly emissions from 100 coal plants," reads the group's report, titled LNG: The U.S. and E.U.'s Deal for Disaster.

LNG, which is created by cooling fracked gas to create a clear, colorless liquid, has been touted by the oil industry "as the climate-friendly alternative to Russian gas, but problems arise quickly, as a standard methane leakage rate from U.S.-sourced LNG has not been measured," Food & Water Watch adds.

The U.S. is already the world's biggest exporter of LNG, with exports averaging 0.32 BCM per day in the first half of this year. More than 70% of U.S. exports went to Europe this year, and while the Biden administration's plan has promised an extra 15 BCM of LNG to Europe this year, the current pace "will triple" that pledge, according to the report.

"The White House vision for delivering gas to Europe will serve to deliver climate chaos across the globe, at a moment when we simply cannot build new fossil fuel facilities at all," said Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck. "The White House must work with political leaders across the globe to find a safer alternative than doubling down on dirty gas."

The U.N. report released Wednesday estimated that planetary heating could reach 2.9°C by the end of the century if policymakers do not shift away from fossil fuel extraction promptly—a level of heating which could threaten hundreds of millions of people with sea level rise.

Food & Water Watch also detailed the immediate harm the Biden administration will be doing to communities near fracking sites in the U.S. if it moves ahead with the LNG exports plan.

"Communities plagued by fracking experience well documented and severe environmental impacts, which fall disproportionately on frontline populations that include rural, lower-income communities and communities of color," the group's report reads. "Those living near fracking sites are at increased risk of contracting cancer and a host of other medical disorders, with pregnant women and children at even greater risk."

The analysis also notes that exporting 50 BCM of LNG per year would cost between $10 billion and $19 billion annually, while providing the E.U. with just 12% of its demand for gas as it faces an energy crisis.

Meanwhile, the same level of investment in utility-scale solar power could provide Europe with more than 540 megawatt-hours (MWh)—11% more energy than would would be provided by LNG.

"Onshore wind power costs aresimilar, providing 515 million MWh," reads the report. "Scaling up renewables to this level would avoid over 500 million metric tons of fossil fuels, no matter if it is replaced with solar or wind. The choice is clear."

Nova Scotia touted its huge ‘green’ energy plant. Turns out it’s powered by coal

In mid-September, the government of the Canadian province of Nova Scotia announced a blockbuster, 5bn-watt “green” hydrogen plant. The plant was meant to deliver 200,000 tonnes of ammonia to Europe each year, without the use of fossil fuels. Heading into November there is no prospect green power will be available by the time the EverWind Fuels facility begins operations, the Energy Mix and Halifax Examiner have learned in a joint investigation in partnership with the Guardian.

In fact, the project touted for its potential to convert wind-generated electricity into a badly-needed green product will be powered partly by coal, at least in its first years of operation.

The picture is further complicated in a province facing a 2030 deadline to shut down the coal plants that supplied 51% of its electricity in 2019, even as the rise of electric heat pumps and vehicles drives up demand for power. That effort, in turn, is an essential part of prime inister Justin Trudeau’s government’s signature pledge to phase out all remaining coal-fired electricity and cut the country’s greenhouse gas emissions by 40% to 45% by 2030.

Nova Scotia has five large onshore wind farms due to start up by 2025, but they’ll account for only 30% of its electricity use – without factoring in new demand, much less the needs of the EverWind plant. In a 20 September release, Nova Scotia premier Tim Houston’s office said a separate set of leases would deliver “5 gigawatts of offshore wind energy by 2030 to support [the province’s] budding green hydrogen industry”. But that’s just the deadline for offering leases to wind farm developers, with actual production expected around 2038, a provincial spokesperson later clarified. The5 gigawatts, she added, is a target, not a firm commitment.

[More at the link. -js]

Mystery death of fifth humpback whale in Pacific north-west sparks alarm

The nearly 32ft hulking frame of a male humpback whale was found splayed on sands near California’s Fort Bragg on Saturday – the fourth whale to wash ashore along the coasts of Mendocino this year.

A day later, a young female humpback would also be found dead far north near Vancouver Island. She was known to scientists as “Spike”, after being first documented in 2018.

The whale deaths have sparked alarm among members of the public, as experts work to study the carcasses and determine how and why the giant migratory mammals wound up on these beaches. Though each death is a tragedy, they offer important clues and insight that enable scientists to better understand ocean conditions and rising risks.

As important components of the ocean ecosystem with ranges that extend thousands of miles, whales are often seen as indicators of ocean health. Unnatural deaths can serve as signals that something is amiss. Trauma from ship strikes is also often to blame for whale deaths. ...

“Nothing obvious points to ship strike at this time,” Sarah Grimes of the Noyo Center for Marine Science told the Mendocino Voice, even after a laceration was observed on the whale’s right side. Scientists will continue examining the carcass for broken bones and bruising. ... Hundreds of miles to the north, scientists were also working to interpret injuries on Spike’s body to analyze evidence of what might have killed the beloved whale. She had no apparent external injuries. Photos show her anchored in shallow water, distended from decay.

Also of Interest

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

Biden Has Fired the First Shot in a New Kind of Anti-China Cold War

JPMorgan Chase Quietly Settles Whistleblower Case Involving Charges of Keeping Two Sets of Books and Improper Payments to Tony Blair

US-Saudi rift shows Biden's lack of commitment on human rights

Atlantic overfishing was already a problem. Then Brexit happened

Sunak Has Been Set Up To Fail and the Likelihood Is That He Will

Framing Disability as Disqualification in Fetterman/Oz Debate

Climate change is getting worse, faster. It’s accelerating. What is required to change that?

Mike Davis, prophetic writer on disaster and social unrest, dies aged 76

Bar-tailed godwit sets world record with 13,560km continuous flight from Alaska to southern Australia

Archaeologists unearth 2,700-year-old rock carvings in Iraq

Dem Senator Under Corruption Investigation AGAIN

Phyllis Bennis on Progressive Dems Retracting Letter Urging Diplomacy to End Ukraine War

Ukraine War Is For LGBTQ Rights Gushes Democrat Jamie Raskin

Elizabeth Warren HECKLED Over Support For Nuclear War

AOC Gets In Bed With Obama Neoliberals

Brazilians are "sick" of the polarising election dominating their lives

A Little Night Music

Lester Williams - I Know That Chick

Lester Williams - Wintertime Blues

Lester Williams - I'm So Happy I Could Jump And Shout

Lester Williams - Brand New Baby

Lester Williams - Hey Jack

Lester Williams - If You Knew How Much I Love You

Lester Williams - Don't Take Your Love From Me

Lester Williams - Crazy 'Bout You Baby

Lester Williams - Let's Do It

Lester Williams - I Can't Lose With The Stuff I Use