Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans piano player James Booker. Enjoy!

"It's better to burn out than fade away."

-- Neil Young

News and Opinion

Oh my, new heights in partisan wrangling:

Biden warns ‘meteor headed to crash’ into US economy amid debt struggle

Joe Biden has condemned “reckless” Republicans for pushing the US government towards a historic debt default, warning: “A meteor is headed to crash into our economy.” The president’s intervention came because there is a cap on how much money the federal government can borrow, which only Congress has the power to raise or lower.

The US treasury has said it will be unable to pay its bills by around 18 October, unless Congress raises the current debt limit of $28.4tn. Failure could trigger the first US default in modern history, wreaking havoc on the US and world economies.

In an era of bitter partisanship, the issue has become an acid test of Washington dysfunction. Senate Republicans have twice blocked action to raise the limit, arguing that Democrats can use a manoeuvre known as budget reconciliation to act alone.

“They won’t raise it even though defaulting on the debt would lead to a self-inflicted wound that takes our economy over a cliff,” Biden said in a televised address on Monday, noting that some of the debt was incurred by Donald Trump and is not related to his own spending plans.

“Not only are Republicans refusing to do their job,” he said, “they’re threatening to use their power to prevent us from doing our job: saving the economy from a catastrophic event. I think, quite frankly, it’s hypocritical, dangerous and disgraceful. Their obstruction and irresponsibility knows absolutely no bounds, especially as we’re clawing our way out of this pandemic.”

'METEOR' Headed For US Economy As Biden, McConnell Play GAMES With Debt Ceiling

War crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Libya since 2016, says UN

War crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, torture, enslavement, extrajudicial killings and rape have been committed in Libya since 2016, a United Nations investigation has found. The independent fact-finding mission on Libya, commissioned by the UN Human Rights Council, said migrants and detainees were particularly exposed to violations that have occurred since the country was plunged into a state of instability and civil war.

Amid concerns about foreign mercenaries who have been operating in Libya, the experts said there were “reasonable grounds to believe” that personnel from a Russian private military company known as the Wagner Group “may have committed the crime of murder” in connection with evidence that they had fired gunshots directly at people not taking direct part in the hostilities.

The experts also cited reports indicating that the Libyan coastguard, which has been trained and equipped by the European Union as part of efforts to staunch the flow of migrants across the Mediterranean, had mistreated migrants and handed some over to detention centres where torture and sexual violence were “prevalent”. The mission suggested that rights abuses that targeted minorities, women and other civilians were prevalent in the period they examined.

Oil-rich Libya has been torn by conflict since the 2011 toppling and killing of the dictator Muammar Gaddafi in a Nato-backed uprising, with rival administrations vying for power. ... “The violence that has plagued Libya since 2011, and which has continued almost unabated since 2016, has enabled the commission of serious violations, abuses and crimes, including crimes against humanity and war crimes, against the most vulnerable,” the three members who led the mission said in their report.

Taiwanese Foreign Minister warns his country is preparing for war with China, asks Australia for help

Taiwan's Foreign Minister warns his nation is preparing for war with China and urges Australia to increase intelligence sharing and security cooperation as Beijing intensifies a campaign of military intimidation. ... Speaking to the ABC's China Tonight program, Taiwan's Foreign Minister Joseph Wu declared that if the PLA were to launch an actual strike, his democratic state would be ready to repel it.

"The defence of Taiwan is in our own hands, and we are absolutely committed to that," Mr Wu has told the ABC's Stan Grant in an interview to be broadcast on Monday evening.

"I'm sure that if China is going to launch an attack against Taiwan, I think they are going to suffer tremendously as well."

The minister from Taiwan's ruling Democratic Progressive Party believes other like-minded countries such as Australia should now come to the aid of his besieged nation by developing closer ties. "We would like to engage in security or intelligence exchanges with other like-minded partners, Australia included, so Taiwan is better prepared to deal with the war situation."

Australia does not formally recognise Taiwan diplomatically, but the federal government regularly calls for a "peaceful resolution" of differences between China and the small independent nation through dialogue and without the threat or use of force or coercion.

Rand Paul blocks expedited Senate passage of Iron Dome funding

Republican Rand Paul on Monday blocked the US Senate from fast-tracking $1 billion in funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense program, but the bill is still certain to pass.

Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Democrat Bob Menendez, brought the Iron Dome funding bill to the Senate floor to be approved by unanimous consent after the House voted overwhelmingly to advance the legislation earlier this month. Approving the bill unanimously would have expedited its passage, skipping a more formal debate and vote on the matter.

But Paul objected to Menendez’s effort, saying his own version of the bill — which requires the Iron Dome funding to come from $6 billion in proposed US assistance to Afghanistan — should be adopted instead. ...

The Iron Dome funding bill is still almost certain to pass, but it will require a more formal floor vote, akin to the one held by the House earlier this month, when the measure passed 420 to nine, with two abstentions. Democratic leadership in the Senate will be tasked with scheduling that floor vote, and it could still take place later this week. The Senate is out of session next week and could be out even longer if the debt ceiling is not raised by October 18.

Pandora Papers: Massive Leak Exposes How Elite Shield Their Wealth & Avoid Taxes in Colonial Legacy

US Denounced as 'Biggest Peddler of Financial Secrecy' After Pandora Papers Leak

The leak of an enormous trove of tax haven files over the weekend offered a further glimpse into the secretive world of offshore finance—a system facilitated by the U.S. and other rich nations—and prompted calls for immediate changes to global rules that let the powerful hide their wealth, skirt their obligations, and starve governments of crucial revenue.

"This is where our missing hospitals are," Susana Ruiz, the tax policy lead at Oxfam International, said in a statement. "This is where the pay-packets sit of all the extra teachers and firefighters and public servants we need. Whenever a politician or business leader claims there is 'no money' to pay for climate damage and innovation, for more and better jobs, for a fair post-Covid recovery, for more overseas aid, they know where to look."

"Tax havens cost governments around the world $427 billion each year," Ruiz added. "That is the equivalent of a nurse's yearly salary every second of every hour, every day. Ordinary taxpayers have to pick up the pieces. Developing countries are being hardest hit, proportionately. Corporations and the wealthiest individuals that use tax havens are out-competing those who don't. Tax havens also help crime and corruption to flourish."

Like the 2016 Panama Papers, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists' (ICIJ) Pandora Papers shine additional light on the functioning of a "shadow economy" that world leaders, celebrities, and billionaire business moguls—including some accused of egregious crimes—are exploiting to shield trillions of dollars in assets from transparency and taxation.

The 11.9 million files obtained, analyzed, and leaked by the ICIJ reveal the closely-guarded financial maneuverings of more than 330 politicians and top public officials from nearly 100 countries and territories, including dozens of current national leaders.

"The secret documents expose offshore dealings of the King of Jordan, the presidents of Ukraine, Kenya, and Ecuador, the prime minister of the Czech Republic, and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair," ICIJ notes in a summary of its sprawling cache of documents. "The files also detail financial activities of Russian President Vladimir Putin's 'unofficial minister of propaganda' and more than 130 billionaires from Russia, the United States, Turkey, and other nations." ...

But Alex Cobham, chief executive of the Tax Justice Network, cautioned that a narrow focus on the individuals who have made use of an international tax system rigged in their favor diverts attention from the institutions and countries that have done the rigging. ...

"The biggest blockers to transparency are the U.S. ... and the U.K., the leader of the world's biggest tax haven network," Cobham wrote. "We need full transparency so we can hold tax abusers accountable, especially when our politicians are among them. U.S. President Biden must match his own rhetoric on shutting down global illicit finance, and start with the biggest offender—his own country."

As the ICIJ notes, the new files show in some detail "how the United States, in particular, has become an increasingly attractive destination for hidden wealth, although the U.S. and its Western allies condemn smaller countries for allowing the flow of money and assets tied to corruption and crime."

"The Pandora Papers include documents from 206 U.S. trusts in 15 states and Washington, D.C., and 22 U.S. trustee companies," the ICIJ points out. "The documents provide details about the movement of hundreds of millions of dollars from offshore havens in the Caribbean and Europe into South Dakota, a sparsely populated American state that has become a major destination for foreign money."

"We in the U.S. should be embarrassed that we've become a magnet for kleptocratic funds," said Chuck Collins, director of the Program on Inequality and the Common Good at the Institute for Policy Studies.

Conspicuously absent from the Pandora Papers is any mention of the wealthiest people in the U.S., including Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Warren Buffett, and Jeff Bezos—the richest man in the world. But as the Washington Post explains, that could be because "the uber-rich in the United States tend to pay such low tax rates that they have less incentive to seek offshore havens."

FED Chair CAUGHT Trading Millions Before Major Announcement

Megarich Democratic Donor Says 'Tax Rich People Like Me' or He's Done With the Party

Amid ongoing negotiations over how wealth will be taxed to fund the proposed safety net and climate package known as the Build Back Better Act, one superrich Democratic donor suggested he's ready to stop writing checks to the party unless it passes the legislation with a $3.5 trillion price tag—not less—and with the proposed tax increases on the wealthy and corporations.

The proposed tax hikes, tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist Nick Hanauer wrote in an essay published Monday at The New Republic, offer common-sense benefits.

Instead of allowing the cash to be "hoarded" by "zillionaires" like himself, Hanauer argued that the tax increases could "create the foundation for broad-based prosperity," including through the extension of free public education, "meaningfully" tackling the climate emergency, and paid family and medical leave.

Recent evidence of the failure of so-called trickle-down economics is clear, Hanauer wrote, citing as one example Republicans' 2017 tax cuts, when "corporations chose to enrich their own executives and shareholders" rather than investing in their employees.

Without naming any specific lawmaker, Hanauer went on to accuse Democrats who are pushing for a lower price tag on the reconciliation bill or are resisting bigger taxes on the rich of "sabotaging an economy that will deliver broad-based prosperity for years to come."

Referencing a tweet he fired off Friday, Hanauer added that if Democrats don't act quickly to fully pass both the Senate-approved bipartisan infrastructure bill as well as the Build Back Better reconciliation package, "they'd better lose my phone number and stop calling for donations."

Right-wing Democrats dictate cuts in Biden social policy

The Biden administration has responded to pressure from a right-wing minority among House and Senate Democrats by slashing its proposed social spending increase nearly in half. Biden delivered the news to a closed-door meeting of the House Democratic caucus Friday afternoon, telling them the overall cost of the reconciliation bill would come down from the $3.5 trillion proposed by the White House to between $1.9 trillion and $2.3 trillion, far closer to the $1.5 trillion ceiling backed by West Virginia Democratic Senator Joe Manchin. ...

Biden made his in-person visit to the Capitol, his first since delivering a nationally televised address last April, to discuss the deadlock with the Democratic caucus. He brought something for both factions: a fig-leaf concession on procedure to the “progressives” and a near-total victory on substance to the right-wing. Biden endorsed Pelosi’s delay in the infrastructure vote, despite grumbling from some of the House right-wingers, explaining that it was necessary to reach a deal with Manchin and Sinema on the reconciliation bill so the two pieces of legislation could be passed “in tandem.” But he went much more than halfway towards Manchin on substance, giving him an effective veto over the top-line number.

This cave-in to a small minority—two out of 50 Democrats in the Senate, eight out of 220 in the House—cannot be explained by parliamentary arithmetic in a closely divided Congress. The power of Manchin, Sinema and their counterparts in the House is explained by their voicing most clearly the demands of corporate America, particularly in their opposition to tax increases on the wealthy and big business, as well as any significant expansion of the social safety net.

The decision by the White House to accept a much lower price tag for the social spending bill now sets in motion a Hunger Games-style competition between the various social programs that were components of the reconciliation bill: making the child tax credit permanent; adding vision, hearing and dental care to Medicare; expanding Medicaid in states where Republican governors have blocked it; providing paid home health care for the elderly; expanding Head Start through universal pre-kindergarten for three- and four-year-olds; one week of paid family and medical leave; initiating a policy of free tuition for community colleges; and spending on a number of programs to combat climate change.

There is reportedly now debate in the White House and among congressional Democrats involving whether to fully fund some of these programs and eliminate others, or to fund some of the programs for less than the full 10 years provided in the original bill, or some combination of the two methods. Manchin has proposed means-testing some of the programs, although this is supposedly not under consideration. “The whole shrinking of the pie pits Medicare recipients against poor families against home care workers against victims of climate change,” Faiz Shakir, former campaign manager for Bernie Sanders, told the Washington Post. “It makes the working class of America fight over the scraps.”

To Lower Bill's Price Tag, Says AOC, Shorten Duration But Don't Gut Programs

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York argued Sunday that the best way to lower the price tag of Democrats' emerging reconciliation package may be to shorten the duration of proposed social programs instead of gutting their funding—or removing them from the bill entirely.

Acknowledging that dropping the legislation's top-line price tag below $3.5 trillion over a decade will likely be necessary to win the must-have votes of Sens. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.), and other corporate-backed conservative Democrats, Ocasio-Cortez said that "one of the ideas that's out there is: fully fund what we can fully fund, but maybe instead of doing it for 10 years, we fully fund it for five years."

Proponents argue such an approach would ensure that people experience tangible benefits from the new programs, thus increasing the likelihood that they'll be extended in the future.

"There are so many different programs in the budget bill," she noted in an appearance on CBS' "Face the Nation" on Sunday. "First of all, I think it's unfortunate that we have to even, as Democrats, have a discussion about not having a child tax credit. I think it's unfortunate that we have to compromise with ourselves for an ambitious agenda for working people. I believe that free community college should be a standard."

The New York Democrat said she views green energy provisions in the reconciliation bill—known as the Build Back Better Act—as non-negotiable given the current state of the science, which shows that the international community is running out of time to slash greenhouse gas emissions and avert the worst of the climate crisis.

Manchin, a coal profiteer and close ally of the fossil fuel industry, has voiced opposition to renewable energy policies favored by progressives and said that natural gas—which is responsible for planet-warming methane emissions—"has to" play a role in Democrats' climate plans.

Ocasio-Cortez's remarks came as negotiations over the Build Back Better Act dragged on with little sign of an imminent breakthrough. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is pushing her caucus to complete work on the reconciliation package before the end of the month.

In 'Major Victory' for Abortion Rights, Biden to Reverse Trump-Era Domestic Gag Rule

Supporters of reproductive rights on Monday celebrated the Biden administration's decision to reverse a Trump-era policy barring health clinics that get federal family planning funds from providing referrals for abortions—a policy that critics had called the "domestic gag rule."

Nearly 1,000 clinics dropped out of the Title X program—which subsidizes contraception, cancer screenings, and other care for low-income patients—in 2019 due to the rule implemented under former President Donald Trump, according to the Guttmacher Institute.

The new rule, announced in a Monday statement from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), is set to take effect November 8 and follows a series of actions that President Joe Biden and his administration have taken since January to protect and expand reproductive freedom.

"This rule is a step forward for family planning care as it aims to strengthen and restore our nation's Title X program," declared HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra.

"Our nation's family planning clinics play a critical role in delivering healthcare," he added, "and today more than ever, we are making clear that access to quality family planning care includes accurate information and referrals—based on a patient's needs and direction."

Senior state department official calls Biden’s deportation of Haitians illegal

A senior legal adviser in the state department has accused the Biden administration of deporting Haitians illegally through the use of a public health law. Harold Koh, a veteran of the Obama administration, had been due to leave government service to take up a teaching position at Oxford University. He wrote a letter to the state department leadership, lambasting the expulsions of thousands of Haitians in recent weeks.

The 2 October letter reflects widespread unease in the state department at the recent treatment of Haitian migrants who had crossed the US-Mexico border and gathered in Texas seeking admission to the US – but were summarily put on planes and flown back to the unstable country they had fled. ...

“There’s a lot of discontent,” an administration source said. “His views are pretty widespread within the state department.”

Koh pointed out that the chaos in Haiti had led the administration to extend temporary protected status to Haitians already in the US. There were no grounds therefore, he argued, to expel new arrivals and fly them straight into a life-threatening situation. The expelled Haitians are not screened for fears of persecution unless they assert those fears vocally, in what has come to be known as the “shout test”.

“In my legal opinion, as former state department legal adviser and as former assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labour, the “shout test” and the higher screening standard inevitably create an unacceptably high risk that a great many people deserving of asylum will instead likely be returned to countries where they fear persecution, death, or torture,” Koh wrote.

14% of world’s coral lost in less than a decade, study shows

About 14% of the world’s coral has been lost in less than a decade, a study of the health of coral reefs has found. In the largest analysis of coral reef health ever undertaken, scientists found that between 2009 and 2018 the world lost about 11,700 sq km of coral – the equivalent of more than all the living coral in Australia.

Meanwhile, the report, released by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network on Tuesday, found that reef algae, which grows when coral is under stress, soared by 20% between 2010 and 2019. The report features data collected by more than 300 scientists from 73 countries across 40 years, including 2m individual observations.

The study, which analysed 10 regions with coral reefs, showed that coral bleaching events caused by raised sea surface temperatures were the biggest factor behind coral loss. It found that one such mass bleaching event in 1998 led to the loss of 8% of the world’s coral, or about 6,500 sq km, with the biggest impact observed in the Indian Ocean, Japan and the Caribbean.

Experts said the decline of the last decade came amid continuous raised sea surface temperatures. They called for urgent action and said climate breakdown was the biggest threat to the world’s reefs.

Extreme heat exposure across the world has tripled since 1980s, study finds

Exposure to extreme heat in cities across the world has tripled in recent decades, according to a study published on Monday. The study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a peer-reviewed journal, found that in more than 13,000 cities worldwide, residents were exposed to triple the amount of extreme heat days since the 1980s due to a combination of growing urban population and rising temperatures.

Researchers also found that 17% of cities experienced an extra month of extreme heat days each year. “This has broad effects,” said lead author Cascade Tuholske, a postdoctoral researcher at the Earth Institute at Columbia University. “It increases morbidity and mortality. It impacts people’s ability to work, and results in lower economic output. It exacerbates pre-existing health conditions.” ...

According to the study, population growth across cities in which more than half the world’s population now lives was responsible for two-thirds of the boom in heat exposure while rising temperatures accounted for one-third. ... In the US, about 40 large cities in southern states such as Texas, Louisiana, Georgia and Florida have experienced a rapid increase in heat exposure, whether due to population growth, as in Las Vegas, Nevada, or to rising temperatures, as in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

Media IGNORES CA Oil Spill By Company With Shady Past

California beaches closed as ‘devastating’ oil spill threatens wildlife

Temperatures in southern California surged on Sunday, but Huntington state beach was devoid of the umbrellas and beach blankets that would typically line its shore. Instead, public works officials were working feverishly to stop the spread of an estimated 126,000 gallons of heavy crude oil that leaked from an underwater pipeline over the weekend in one of the largest spills in recent California history.

The spill is suspected to have originated in a 17.5-mile pipeline located 80-100ft beneath the surface off the Orange county coast. The pipeline connects to an oil production platform named Elly, which in turn is connected by a walkway to a drilling platform named Ellen. The platforms and another nearby platform are in federal waters and owned by the Houston-based company Amplify Energy Corp. ...

The Associated Press reported on Monday that regulatory records show Amplify Energy has been cited 72 times for safety and environmental violations that were severe enough that drilling had to be curtailed or stopped to fix the problem. In all, the Amplify subsidiary known as Beta Operating Co has been cited 125 times since 1980, according to a database from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement, the federal agency that regulates the offshore oil and gas industry. The online database provides only the total number of violations, not the details for each incident.

Amplify operates three oil platforms about nine miles (14.5km) off the coast of California, all installed between 1980 and 1984. The company also operates a 16in pipeline that carries oil from a processing platform to an onshore storage facility in Long Beach. Before the spill, Amplify had high hopes for the Beta oilfield and was pouring millions of dollars into upgrades and new “side track” projects that would tap into oil by drilling laterally.

The Huntington Beach mayor, Kim Carr, said the beaches of the community nicknamed “Surf City” could remain closed for weeks or even months.

Also of Interest

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

The Big Business of Future Wars

Iran Signals Nuclear Deal Talks Could Resume Next Month

Israel-Palestine: Settler attacks on Palestinians more than double in two years

Pandora papers: what has been revealed so far?

U.S. Government Provides Another Trove Of Offshore Papers Of People It Dislikes

New Documents Show the Fed’s Trading Scandal Includes Two of the Wall Street Banks It Supervises: Goldman Sachs and Citigroup

So How Far Will House Progressives Retreat to Get a Version of Biden’s “Build Back Better” Program

Corporate Media Myths About the Chaos on Capitol Hill

Trump demands Pulitzer board rescind awards for Russia interference reporting

US supreme court convenes for pivotal term – with its credibility on the line

The ‘Psychedelic Renaissance’ Is Entirely About Corporate Greed

Methane And The Point Where Humans Are No Longer In Control

Democracy Now: Leak Shows Facebook Knew Its Algorithms Spread Hate & Harmed Children

Bombshell report on sex abuse in French Catholic Church released

Rising: McKinsey SIMULTANEOUSLY Shaped Government Policy While HELPING Big Pharma Evade FDA Oversight

A Little Night Music

James Booker - Slowly But Surely

James Booker - Junco Partner

James Booker - Keep On Gwine

James Booker - Ain't Nobody's Business

James Booker - Papa Was A Rascal

James Booker - African Gumbo

James Booker - Gonzo

James Booker - Tipitina, Roberta

James Booker - Too Much Blues

JGB w/ James Booker 01.10.1976 Palo Alto

Jerry Garcia Band - January 7, 1976 - Studio Rehearsal With James Booker