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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: The Coasters

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b vocal group The Coasters. Enjoy!

^{The Coasters - Young Blood}

"One may as well be optimistic. The road to catastrophe will be rougher if it's paved with dread."

-- John Perry Barlow

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News and Opinion

Nouriel Roubini: I predicted the 2008 crash – these are the global ‘megathreats’ I can see now

In the coming decades, the world faces megathreats that would imperil not just our global economy and financial assets, but also put at risk peace and prosperity. ... Some of these megathreats are economic: the spectre of inflation and recession at the same time; the mother-of-all debt crises as private and public debt ratios hit historic highs; an ageing population that will crash our pension and healthcare systems, to name just three. In the years before the 2008 financial crisis, I correctly predicted that our virulent cycles of boom and bust would bring total economic meltdown. I fear we face that prospect once again.

But beyond these, our turbulent times present us with broader geopolitical megathreats to our way of being. The global backlash against liberal democracy and the rise of radical, authoritarian parties of the extreme right and left is in part driven by the sharp rise in income and wealth inequality. Workers feel left behind while elites gain wealth and power. This will worsen as jobs are lost, not because of trade and migration, but because AI, robotics and automation will lead to permanent technological unemployment. Left unchecked, this will surely see yet more dangerous, aggressive, populist regimes rise to power.

More urgently, the conflict in Ukraine has increased the risk of a renewed cold war between the west and powers such as China, Russia or North Korea. The rising tensions between the US and China over Taiwan have peaked in recent months and could escalate further. The constant risk of conflict between Iran and Israel could yet destabilise us all.

And then there is the most pressing, most real megathreat of all: the global climate crisis, which will cause untold, irreversible economic and human disasters if it continues to be ignored. It’s already at our door, of course. Natural disasters this year alone have resulted in millions of climate refugees. Droughts and heatwaves have swept across India and Pakistan, sub-Saharan Africa and the western United States. They are just a sign of things to come, yet the powerful are doing little to address it – most talk, and indeed most investment, is nothing more than green-washing, and green-wishing. It is not the urgent, tangible action we need.

Fresh off of the Guardian's propaganda catapult:

US says Zelenskiy risks allies’ ‘Ukraine fatigue’ if he rejects Russia talks – report

US officials have reportedly warned the Ukrainian government in private that it needs to signal an openness to negotiating with Russia. Officials in Washington have warned that “Ukraine fatigue” among allies could worsen if Kyiv continues to be closed to negotiations, the Washington Post reported. US officials told the paper that Ukraine’s position on negotiations with Russia is wearing thin among allies who are worried about the economic effects of a protracted war.

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, has said Ukraine is only prepared to enter negotiations with Russia if its troops leave all parts of Ukraine, including Crimea and the eastern areas of the Donbas, de facto controlled by Russia since 2014, and if those Russians who have committed crimes in Ukraine face trial.

Zelenskiy also made clear that he would not hold negotiations with the current Russian leadership. Last month, he signed a decree specifying that Ukraine would only negotiate with a Russian president who has succeeded Vladimir Putin.

The US has so far given Ukraine $18.9bn (£16.6bn) worth of aid and is ready to give more, saying it will support Ukraine for as long as it takes. However, allies in parts of Europe, Africa and Latin America, US officials told the Post, are concerned by the strain that the war is putting on energy and food prices as well as supply chains.

“Ukraine fatigue is a real thing for some of our partners,” one US official said. US officials have requested that Kyiv signal its openness to negotiate not to push Ukraine towards the negotiating table immediately, but to maintain the support of concerned allies, according to the Post.

WSJ, US-Russia in talks. Pavlivka, fierce fighting. Odessa, FB vote to remove Catherine.

Gauging the Chances of a Biden-Putin Meeting in Bali

Russian-American summits have a history of calibrated foreplay. As the G20 summit in Bali on Nov. 15-16 draws closer, the big question is still hanging in the air: Will there be a meeting between U.S. President Joe Biden and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of the event? From the look of it, a meeting cannot be ruled out. It increasingly seems that the scheduling of such a meeting may even be under discussion between Washington and Moscow.

On Nov. 2, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow that Putin had a call with Indonesian President Joko Widodo (who is hosting the G20 summit). Parrying questions, Peskov cryptically added that “we are currently working on a statement” and declined to answer if Putin and Widodo had discussed the Russian president’s possible participation in the G20 summit. Instead, he simply told reporters to wait for an official statement on the phone call.

Russian-American meetings at the highest level are customarily announced simultaneously in the two capitals. The delay in the release of the statement that Peskov referred to can only be taken to mean that consultations are still going on. ...

Then there are discernible signs that both sides are striving to lower the tensions as much as they can so as to create a “cordial” enough atmosphere. Thus, from the American side, the White House spokesman John Kirby went on record on Wednesday to categorically state that the U.S. does not see any signs that Russia is making preparations to use nuclear weapons. From the Russian side too, it is apparent that Moscow has virtually ignored the media leaks in the U.S. that American military personnel are on Ukrainian soil on a mission to audit the weaponry given to Kiev to fight the war with the Russian forces. The U.S. has a record of staying put in foreign countries and Moscow is in all likelihood conscious of that. Yet, it is keeping mum. ...

Neither Moscow nor Washington has shown any inclination to dial up tensions over the Russian allegation regarding the involvement of British intelligence in the sabotage of the Nord Stream gas pipelines and the drone attack on the Russian naval base at Sevastopol. Curiously, Washington has been somewhat indifferent, while the Russian demarche with the U.K. ambassador on Thursday suggested good behavior by the British intelligence in future and hinted at a desire to move on. Indeed, Russia is not contemplating any retaliation against the U.K.

Russia Build-up Continues, Sullivan Flies to Kiev Urges Kherson Offensive, Change in Ukraine Stance

The Farther People Are From The Fighting In Ukraine, The More They Oppose Peace Talks

A new article for The Irish Times by Virginia Tech professor Gerard Toal, titled “Ukraine risks being locked into endless war in bid for perfect peace,” contains a very interesting paragraph:

Ordinary Ukrainians on the front lines are divided on a ceasefire and negotiations. My Ukrainian colleague Karina Korostelina and I surveyed the attitudes of both residents and displaced persons in three Ukrainian cities close to the southeast battlefields this summer. Almost half agreed it was imperative to seek a ceasefire to stop Russians killing Ukraine’s young men. Slightly more supported negotiations with Russia on a complete ceasefire, with a quarter totally against and a fifth declaring themselves neutral. Respondents were torn when considering whether saving lives or territorial unity were more important to them. Those most touched by the war, namely the internally displaced, were more likely to prioritise saving lives. Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.

It’s the third from the last paragraph in the article, whose overall content cannot be remotely construed as sympathetic toward Moscow, but it’s very important information.

“Those most touched by the war, namely the internally displaced, were more likely to prioritise saving lives. Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.”

Those two simple sentences sum up so much of the attitude we are seeing toward this war, and it applies as much to those cheerleading continual escalation and bloodshed from the comfort of their homes on the other side of the world.

“Other research reveals that those farthest from the battlefields have the most hawkish attitudes.”

Remember this as you watch pundits and politicians calling for escalations in Ukraine from Washington DC, Los Angeles and London.

Remember this as you watch armchair warriors and NAFO neckbeards dogpiling anyone who advocates peace talks.

Remember this as you watch progressives on Capitol Hill pressured into walking back even the mildest support for potential ceasefire negotiations at some point.

Remember this as more and more information comes out about the way bot swarms and astroturf trolling operations have been used to shout down and silence anyone who advocates peace online.

War is the single most horrific thing in the world. It is the most insane thing that humans do, by far. The most destructive. The least sustainable. The most conducive to human suffering. If people could spend even one hour in the cortisol-soaked mind of a mother trying to bring up her kids in the middle of the conflict, grieving people you’ve lost, worried about losing more, working out how to stretch the food and the fuel, trying to keep things as normal as possible for your stressed out children, jumping at every noise, trying to forget the things you have seen, peace would be achieved within that hour. Everyone and everything would be mobilized to stop this hell on earth as soon as humanly possible. It would be clear to all that the tragedy that is unfolding right now is not just causing enormous suffering in this moment, but every minute it goes on trauma is burning itself deeper into the subconscious of every single person going through it which will torment them and their descendents for generations to come.

But because we are primates who evolved in small social groups, humans often have trouble feeling empathy for that suffering until it enters into our own immediate circle. Our own city. Our own house. Our own sons, brothers and fathers going out to fight and never coming home.

So this war has become like a game for people. A vehicle from which to promote their political ideologies and masturbate their propaganda-induced Good Guys vs Bad Guys fantasies. A team sport where they can cheer on the total recapture of all annexed territories in eastern Ukraine from anonymous Shiba avatar accounts online to pass time in their meaningless lives.

The passive team sports cheerleading spirit that this war has brought on is made all the more obnoxious by the fact that Ukraine is still accepting volunteers to fight on the front lines. If you think this war is good and should continue, the morally coherent thing to do would be to go fight in it, rather than sitting at home eating cheese puffs with one hand and tweeting with the other acting as a pro bono Pentagon propagandist between visits to Pornhub while other people die for your cause.

But that isn’t happening. People are happy to sit in the comfort of their own home and watch their remote war movie unfold on CNN.

This isn’t a game. This is a war the US empire provoked to advance its own strategic agendas and therefore has a responsibility to help end, but instead we’re being hammered by that empire with propaganda, censorship, bot armies and troll farms dedicated to convincing everyone that nuclear brinkmanship is safety and peace talks are danger.

U.S. Sending Nukes To Finland’s Border With Russia

Pentagon Vows To Support Ukraine for ‘As Long As It Takes,’ Launches New Command

The Pentagon announced that it is setting up a new command, based in Germany, to oversee the training and equipping of Ukraine’s military during its fight with Russia, the New York Times reported on Friday. The command is named Security Assistance Group-Ukraine, or SAG-U.

The news came soon after the announcement of another $400 million arms package to Ukraine, including tanks and drones. These weapons will be used to retake territory Russia has annexed, according to Kiev. Current and former US officials told the Times these moves suggest that Washington "expects the threat from Russia to Ukraine and its neighbors to persist for many years."

Discussions about a formal command to oversee operations in Ukraine began earlier this year. SAG-U will be led by a "high-ranking" general with a roughly 300-person staff.

A possible reason for this decision may be to obscure the level of funding going to the proxy war, making it more difficult for Americans and journalists to discern where the money comes from and just how much is being spent.

North Korea: Missile tests were practice to attack South, US

Netanyahu Ally Says Israel Will Attack Iran Absent a ‘New Nuclear Deal’

If Washington does not secure a new nuclear deal or take military action itself, incoming Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will attack Iran, according to Tzachi Hanegbi, a longtime member of Israel’s Likud party. The former settlement minister issued the warning while speaking with Channel 12 news on Friday.

Hanegbi declared that Netanyahu “will act, in my assessment, to destroy the nuclear facilities in Iran.” He said “Israel will for the first time be facing a regime with nuclear weapons” and went on to describe the alleged Iranian threat as a “fire that’s been burning inside [Netanyahu] for more than 25 years.” Hanegbi previously claimed his country would go to war with Tehran if Joe Biden won the 2020 election and tried to return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, the nuclear deal with Iran.

In recent weeks, State Department spokesman Ned Price and Biden’s special envoy for Iran Robert Malley have said the nuclear deal is no longer the administration’s “focus.” Malley went so far as to say “It is not on our agenda” and that officials will not “waste time” attempting to revive the JCPOA. ...

However, despite an endless stream of nuclear rhetoric emanating from Washington and Tel Aviv, the Pentagon’s latest Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) notes that “Iran does not currently pose a nuclear threat,” instead claiming it continues to “develop capabilities that would enable it to produce a nuclear weapon should it make the decision to do so.” It acknowledges that the JCPOA “previously constrained” those activities.

State Dept. gives law enforcement, intelligence agencies unrestricted access to Americans' personal data

The State Department is giving law enforcement and intelligence agencies unrestricted access to the personal data of more than 145 million Americans, through information from passport applications that is shared without legal process or any apparent oversight, according to a letter sent from Sen. Ron Wyden to Secretary of State Antony Blinken and obtained by Yahoo News.

The information was uncovered by Wyden during his ongoing probe into reporting by Yahoo News about Operation Whistle Pig, a wide-ranging leak investigation launched by a Border Patrol agent and his supervisors at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center.

On Wednesday, Wyden sent a letter to Blinken requesting detailed information on which federal agencies are provided access to State Department passport information on U.S. citizens.

“​​I write to express serious concern that the Department of State is providing law enforcement and intelligence agencies with unfettered access to personal data, originally collected through passport applications, of the more than 145 million Americans with a passport,” states the letter sent to Blinken, a copy of which was obtained by Yahoo News. Wyden, D-Ore., wrote that “the breadth of this access highlights the potential for other abuses. In a July 13, 2022, briefing for my office, State Department officials confirmed that 25 other federal agencies have access to the Department’s database of passport applications.”

According to documents posted on a Department of Homeland Security website, data collected on U.S. citizens include: names, addresses, birth dates, biometric data like fingerprints and facial images, email addresses, phone numbers, gender, race, Social Security numbers and other types of personal information.

You know you're living in an infantilized bootlicking paternalistic society when the prospect of not having a team of authority figures curating your information feed for you is seen as "dangerous". pic.twitter.com/5pZCXrn112

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) November 5, 2022

House Analysis Confirms Corporations Use 'Cover of Inflation to Raise Prices Excessively'

A report released Friday by a panel of the U.S. House Committee on Oversight and Reform highlighted how "certain corporations are using the cover of inflation to raise prices excessively, resulting in record profits and profit margins" at the expense of consumers.

The analysis—Power and Profiteering: How Certain Industries Hiked Prices and Drove Inflation—was produced by the House Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, which held a related hearing featuring testimony from economists in September.

Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the subcommittee chair, said in a statement that "today's analysis reaffirms what an overwhelming 80% majority of Americans already recognize according to a recent poll: Under the guise of inflation, certain corporations excessively hiked prices far beyond what their costs necessitated, further driving inflation."

"As American corporations report their highest profit margins the United States has seen in over 70 years, executives of leading companies are admitting on earnings calls that they're taking advantage of inflation," the congressman continued. "One executive argued that 'a little bit of inflation is always good in our business' while another admitted that his company's prices wouldn't fall with decreasing costs, stating, 'We don't reduce prices on the back end of these increases.'"

"It is unacceptable that certain companies and industries are engaged in extreme price hikes under the cover of inflation," he declared. "Americans understand this is happening, and they want it to stop. We have an obligation in Congress to shine light on this practice, which is exactly what today’s analysis does."

'Ripped Off': Katie Porter On How Price-Gouging Companies Are Driving Inflation

'Americans Aren't Serfs': House Democrats Propose End to Wall Street Rent-Gouging

To help address the nation's housing crisis while at the same time confronting Wall Street greed, three California members of Congress on Saturday touted new legislation to target rent-gouging in the U.S. by private equity firms and investment giants who have gobbled up huge numbers of single-family home and residential units in the years since the 2008 financial crash.

Co-authored by Democratic Reps. Ro Khanna, Katie Porter, and Mark Takano, the Stop Wall Street Landlords Act aims to "deter future institutional investments" in the Single Family Residential (SFR) market by ending taxpayer subsidies to profit-seekers as a way to help struggling families battling housing costs amid rising inflation.

If enacted into law, the proposal would impose "a tax on existing and future acquisitions of SFRs" by large institutional investors, a statement from the lawmakers explains. The legislation would also prohibit federal lending institutions Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and Gennie Mae from purchasing and securitizing mortgages held by Wall Street firms who leverage their size and ability to purchase large numbers single family homes with debt in order to turn around and rent them out for exorbitant profit—a tactic that by itself pushes rental prices ever higher.

Private equity firms and Wall Street rarely if ever strayed into the single-family housing market prior to the 2008 crash, but the market exploded when large firms were given access to trillions in low- or zero-interests dollars over the last decade and as regulators at the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) offered subsidies via federal programs such as Fannie and Freddie. In 2015, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) was among those blowing the whistle by telling HUD that it had no business colluding with Wall Street in such a way.

‘I’m selling my blood’: millions in US can’t make ends meet with two jobs

Millions of Americans are currently working two or more jobs in order to make ends meet, as global inflation and corporations jacking up prices have sent prices of food, gas, housing, health insurance and other necessities soaring in the past year. ...

More Americans have been working two or more jobs over the past few decades, according to data from the US census, with women more likely than men to have multiple jobs and multiple jobholders most prevalent among low-wage workers. ...

Based on data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, more than 400,000 Americans work two full-time jobs. In September 2022, 4.9% of all the more than 164 million US workers held two or more job positions, over 7.7 million workers.

Though US census data estimates these rates and numbers to be much higher, at 7.8% in the most recent year where data is available, 2018, about 13 million workers, while BLS data at the time estimated 5.0% of the workforce holding multiple jobs.

Both data sets are considered an underestimate of the number of multiple jobholders in the US labor market due to constrictions on what is defined as a multiple jobholder and the lack of data on self-employment, such as gig workers. An annual survey sponsored by the Federal Reserve Board estimated an even higher number of workers in multiple jobs, at 16.4% in 2019, about 26.5 million workers.

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Will Red Wave END Biden Presidency?

Trump expected to announce 2024 campaign before end of November

Donald Trump is expected to announce a third White House campaign before the end of November as envoys have quietly started to prepare the groundwork for an aggressive field operation, according to people familiar with the matter, thrusting him into the center of attention ahead of Tuesday’s midterms.

The plans for a potential 2024 campaign have started to accelerate in recent weeks, with the former president and his advisers signalling that an announcement is imminent and aiming to capitalize on his position as the clear frontrunner to seize the GOP nomination.

Expecting broad Republican gains in an array of midterm races, Trump has indicated that he wants to launch his latest presidential campaign around the week of 14 November on the back of that momentum, taking credit for Republican wins that were bolstered by his endorsements and those that were not.

The date, earlier reported by Axios, is not final and partly dependent on GOP performance in the midterms. But Trump has been eager to start a 2024 campaign in part because he believes it could shield him from intensifying criminal investigations by the US justice department.

Why Is AIPAC Spending Millions to Beat Summer Lee, a Democratic Socialist in PA?

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Cop conferences are a big game of let’s pretend and 27 won’t be any different

The fact that the meeting is held in Egypt, a full dictatorship where domestic climate activists have already been locked up, adds a special twist. Apparently a location has been set aside in the desert, far away from Sharm el-Sheikh, where climate activists (though not including Greta, who has declined this year to show up) can march around in circles with their banners under the hot sun, a safe distance from any actual negotiators or media. ...

The fact that Cop27 is being held in a non-democratic country highlights another of the awkward realities of the climate negotiations, namely that many of the developing nations – including those who bleat on about how much they are suffering from climate-induced “loss and damage” – are in fact hideously authoritarian states whose citizens step out of line at their peril. Somehow the moral issues of climate justice feel a little different when you look at it that way.

But none of us will talk about any of this. Cops are a big game of let’s pretend: let’s pretend Egypt is a free country, let’s pretend that we can still meet the 1.5C target for temperature rise, and let’s pretend that this Cop will be different from all the others. I don’t mean to be cynical: if the Cops didn’t exist we would have to invent them. They do serve a purpose, but just not as big a purpose as you might think.

Climate activists arrested after blocking private jets in Amsterdam airport

Dutch border police arrested hundreds of climate activists who stormed Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport and sat in front of the wheels of aircraft to prevent them from leaving.

More than 100 protesters, wearing white suits, entered an area where private jets are kept on Saturday as part of a day of demonstrations in and around the airport organised by environmental groups.

Dewi Zloch, the Netherlands campaign leader for Greenpeace, one of the groups involved, said: “We want fewer flights, more trains and a ban on unnecessary short-haul flights and private jets.”

Greenpeace says Schiphol is the largest source of carbon dioxide emissions in the Netherlands, emitting 12bn kilograms annually.

Extinction Rebellion was also involved in the action. Hundreds of other demonstrators in and around the airport’s main hall carried signs saying “Restrict aviation” and “More trains”.

Climate crisis: past eight years were the eight hottest ever, says UN

The past eight years were the eight hottest ever recorded, a new UN report has found, indicating the world is now deep into the climate crisis. The internationally agreed 1.5C limit for global heating is now “barely within reach”, it said.

The report, by the UN’s World Meteorological Organization (WMO), sets out how record high greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving sea level and ice melting to new highs and supercharging extreme weather from Pakistan to Puerto Rico.

The stark assessment was published on the opening day of the UN’s Cop27 climate summit in Egypt and as the UN secretary-general warned that “our planet is on course to reach tipping points that will make climate chaos irreversible”.

The WMO estimates that the global average temperature in 2022 will be about 1.15C above the pre-industrial average (1850-1900), meaning every year since 2016 has been one of the warmest on record.

For the past two years, the natural La Niña climate phenomenon has actually kept global temperatures lower than they would otherwise have been. The inevitable switch back to El Niño conditions will see temperatures surge even higher in future, on top of global heating.

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Also of Interest

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

The Self-Licking Boot Of US Militarism

War In Ukraine - U.S. Creeping Towards Ever Deeper Involvement

Near-Unanimous UN Call to End Cuba Blockade

No Such Thing As An Objective Journalist: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

An Economist’s Chart Goes Viral: Shows Main Source of Inflation

A Brief History of the Mortgage, From Its Roots in Ancient Rome to the English ‘Dead Pledge’ and its Rebirth in America

Jan 6 Worse Threat To Democracy Than 9/11 Says Fmr FBI Agent Peter Strzok

Biden PRIVATELY Pushes Ukraine Peace Talks: Report. MTG: 'Not Another Penny' Sent Under Republicans

WaPo, negotiate with Russia. NYT, Kiev evacuation. Ukraine warns Iran. Freeland tops NATO list.

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A Little Night Music

The Coasters - Down Home Girl

The Coasters - Poison Ivy

The Coasters - That Is Rock & Roll

Coasters - What About Us

The Coasters - Little Egypt

The Coasters - Smokey Joe's Cafe

The Coasters - Shoppin' for Clothes

The Coasters - Wake Me, Shake Me

The Coasters - The Shadow Knows

The Coasters - Crocodile !!

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