a rainy, gray, and cool day. Tomorrow it gets cold. I hope everyone is able to ride out the storm comfortably. We had a tornado in west Alabama this afternoon.

Lonnie is a fun listen. The news is disappointing as usual. I've been watching and listening to the Freedom Convoy today...it is so mischaracterized by MSM. For example in the guardian article above...

The vote comes as potential candidates to replace O’Toole have embraced a well-funded protest in Ottawa over vaccine mandates and public health measures, spearheaded by far-right groups.

Hey it's families, people of every stripe, full of hope and love that they can take back their country. Reminds me of OWS spirit.
Here's a link to several citizen journalists showing the true nature of the gathering...it's more like a celebration or party.
https://canadaspeakfreely.com/freedom-convoy-2022-live-streams-video

Thanks as always for the music and news!

State Department spokesman Ned Price ... rejected the idea that Israel is an apartheid state. “The department’s own reports have never used such terminology,” Price told reporters. “We are committed to promoting respect for human rights in Israel and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. We have an enduring partnership with Israel, and we discuss a wide range of issues with our Israeli counterparts, including those related to human rights.”

Israel, Israel, Israel. No mention of what Israel is doing in Gaza or how it’s tearing down Palestinian homes so they can build their homes there instead. No mention of the billions in weapons that we only give them so they can use them on the Palestinians. That sure sounds like Israel has become an
apartheid country. Geezus we ain’t dumb.

Love how NATO has been fighting against Russia in the Middle East and elsewhere…oh wait!

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” -George Santayana

The brutal repression and dehumanization witnessed across Europe in the 1930s has not found generalized expression in the United States and Europe, at least not yet. Nevertheless, large sectors of the U.S. and European left appear to be unable to recognize that the U.S./NATO/EU axis that is committed to maintaining the hegemony of Western capital is resulting in dangerous collaborations with rightist forces both inside and outside of governments.

The manufactured crisis with Russia over the issue of Ukraine is a case in point. The incredible recklessness and outrageous opportunism of the U.S./NATO/EU axis in destabilizing Ukraine—knowing that the driving forces on the ground were racist, neo-Nazi elements from the Right Sector and the Svoboda party—demonstrated once again the lengths this axis is prepare to go to achieve its geo-strategic objective of full-spectrum economic and political global domination.

Yet, strangely, not only did many radicals in the United States and Europe not see the potential threat this situation represented—they seemed unable to penetrate the simplistic cold-war propaganda that suddenly re-emerged to frame events in Ukraine.

Instead of being concerned that—as a direct consequence of U.S. actions—a government came to power in Europe that, for the first time since the 1930s, included ultra-nationalist, racist neo-Nazis in key positions, the left along with the general population allowed the corporate media and U.S. propagandists to turn the narrative away from U.S./EU destabilization of Ukraine to Putin’s supposed expansionist aspirations.

The ease in which the corporate media was able to flip that script and make Putin the new face of evil has been truly astonishing. And the fact that that narrative was embraced by most liberals and large sectors of the white left in the United States only affirmed that—having abandoned class analysis and anti-imperialism, and never really having understood the insidious nature of white supremacist ideology—the U.S. left has no theoretical framework for apprehending the complexities of the current period.

The inability to extricate itself from the influences of white supremacist ideology has to be considered one explanation for the strange positions taken by large sectors of the white liberal/left over the last few years. How else can one explain the bizarre incorporation of the discourse of “humanitarian intervention” and the obscenely obvious racism of the “responsibility to protect”?

- AJAMU BARAKA
April 2, 2014

Link

It’s been interesting to see how the shitlibs have changed in just a few decades starting when Obama became president. Of course they had lots of help from the propagandist Rachel Moscow and democrats blaming Herheinous historically epic loss to the Donald instead of admitted the facts of Obama’s failed presidency.

The source claimed the Pegasus licence was acquired by the FBI using a financial “vehicle” that was not easily identified as being linked to the bureau.

The FBI has confirmed that it obtained NSO Group’s powerful Pegasus spyware, suggesting that it bought access to the Israeli surveillance tool to “stay abreast of emerging technologies and tradecraft”.

The bureau also claimed it had never used Pegasus in support of any FBI investigation. “There was no operational use in support of any investigation, the FBI procured a limited licence for product testing and evaluation only,” it said.

hook line and sinker.

They were briefed by individuals with no skin in the game. HAH!

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/592774-lawmakers-emerge-from-confiden...

Lawmakers left classified briefings on Russia-Ukraine tensions Thursday warning of the potential for an imminent invasion by Moscow, as the U.S. weighs how to respond to an escalating situation that threatens to destabilize Europe.

Both the House and Senate were given classified briefings led by Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinkenon the ongoing tensions between the two nations as the Biden administration coordinates with allies to confront the threat of an invasion.

“We are working to pursue diplomacy in every possible venue,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Linda Thomas Greenfield said on Monday. “But we also know that diplomacy will not succeed in an atmosphere of threat and military escalation.”

This is about Biden's opposition to forgiveness of student loans, I can see right now that the date right now is February 4, 2022. That would likely also apply to all other domestic regulations changed in any way around now. So its after February 26, 1998. Thats the date we signed the Understanding on Commitments in Financial Services, with it's "standstill" (which is copy-pasted below. Its also discussed at length in Nick Skala's 2009 paper. "The potential impact of the World Trade Organization's General Agreement on Trade in Services on health system reform and regulation in the United States" in - International Journal of Health Services, which can be read for free on CiteSeer here:http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.405.5725) TISA also contains a similar "Standstill" Even in the absence of a ratification of a treaty, countries are supposed to not break the provisions of an unratified treaty, I think. Or so I have been told by Chakravarthi Rhaghavan (The SUNS editor and reporter who was perhaps one of the top experts on the issue that we're all so concerned about, since he actually attended these meetings going back to before 1986 Punta Del Este meeting beginning the Uruguay Round negotiations) in a conversation about this exact same kind of standstill, the predecessor of this one. He said the "standstill" on healthcare went back to 1981. Of course this is financial services generally. (banking?) And adult and higher education. It could be said that subsidizing the financing of higher education or adult education was a subsidy, and as such if there were any provisions in it which favored public over for profit education it might violate the most favored nation provisions in services treaties. Certainly, i some government help reduced the amounts of student bankruptcies and especially foreclosures, which was due to a domestic regulation that was not existing on the signing date it might be succesfully framed as a violation of WTO rules.

I remember seeing, some years ago, a white paper by an Indian think tank arguing that it was unfair to them for US government policy to help poor US students attend college in grad school, its possible that since student loans only help students during the undergraduate portion of their education, that because thats insufficient for students to meaningfully compete with their workforce (Americans are very badly undereducated to take these jobs) Its possible that as long as the US does not start funding people go to grad school in STEM fields, we may get off with breaking the rules. If US students started using student loans to go to grad school enogh to make any kind of real dent in the use of foreign guest workers we might earn ourselves a WTO dispute on the issue. Which we would lose (in an open and shut case) because of the factual issue - the date the change began being after Feb 26, 1998. I suspect that would be looked at first, before anything else. If the law was not "existing" on the standstill date in 1998 it would be a violation. As would any other more recent laws we enacted. We couldn't dispute that, unless we had a time machine and could go back in time and pass laws before the creation of the standstill or possibly before the creation of the WTO. Anotherinteresting document laying out how India sees themselves as the natural providers of large segments of our economy (in preference to educating expensive Americans) is this: WT/WGTI/W/39 "Communication from India: Global Relationship Between the Mobility of Capital and the Mobility of Labour: Selected Issues for Consideration" Its a WTO document. read it!

Also, please watch the video of Lori Wallach, Harvard trained expert. on Democracy now talking about TISA and its standstill. TISA is not dead. It was Biden's baby. (during the Obama Administration) Its like an expansion of GATS to everything, by default. It will destroy the middle class by outsourcing possibly more than half of our jobs (the decent ones) People are willing to do them for free, for almost free*. Thats pretty hard to argue with, dont you think?

*People doing jobs for free is for their value in other areas.. such as for the experience. When you hav just graduated college yopu have to USE yor skills or you forget them. Therefore wealthy people are willing to pay for jobs after they graduate with 6 or 8 year degrees, Degress most Americans cant afford. But they can, money is not a problem for the young people of means, parents incomes swelled by US effors to keep oligarchs in power all around a belt of countries all around the world. These often dictatorial regies are held in power by so called "authoritarian bargains" One of the reasons the right and Biden, etc hate Julian Assange is his leak of diplomatic cables through Wikileaks. The cozy relations between numerous dictatorships and the US State Department led to people in a great many countries realizing how shamelesly their governments behaved and ousting many dictators in subsequent elections. Wikileaks brought a lot of corruption to light. (Including massive visa fraud by many young would be student guest workers. (Hyderabad, India was called a "hub of visa fraud" in one of those cables. (from 2008) So what happens to GATS and TISA's plans to outsource millions of expensive US workers replacing them with foreign guest workers on nonimmigrant visas (which allow workers to replace US workers for as much as six years because its only about business, and they are not immigrating, officially, just coming here to work, and then leaving. A tricky word game there that lets Congressmen claim they arent touching immigration, while they outsource potentially unlimited numbers of precious jobs via L visas, not H1B visas. L1 and L2 visas are even worse than H1B visas which require workers be paid a wage thats not well below a US wage. The L1 visas do not carry any wage requirement in WTO laws and in fact GATS Article XVI India argues bars any quotas on either numbers of amounts of transactions.. which they claim means wages. (read it, what do you think, does it?) You are supposed to use plain language to interpret its provisions.

So the Wiklileaks cable reveals that eight in ten applications for the guest worker visas received at Hyderabad contain some fraud that makes the application voidable. So assuming that true - what happens to the planned huge transfer of wealth from developed to developing countries (the claimed goal) if it turns out that a great many of the guest visa applicants, who claim skills equivalent to an MS or PhD degree holders (can be from working for a corporations) 8 out of 10, USCIS claimed lack the qualifications they claimed in their visa applications? (Thatsconsistent with my own impression of the skills levels of the Indian guest workers. I find it hard to beleive they all have a masters level degree or equivalent. Many are faking it. As you see, a system has been set up thats from the ground up is intended to "launder" the fake degrees of these young wealthy people. I dont know how many but its clear that some of them have never spent a day in any engineering or computer science classroom. Instead they attempt to find the answers to questions they have via Google or online mailing lists or forums, burdening others and sometimes making big mistakes. Others are talented, maybe talented enough to, after a few years if real world experience, stay employed. So, why not give those entry level jobs to the Americans who could not affiord six or eight years of college? Well, what can they bring to the table, can they work practically for free for several years (like the interships now required to get most other jobs requiring an expensive degree) No, their families cant afford to pay their rent abnd buy them expensive clothes, a car or even real estate during those years. They have to start paying back student loans right away. But what if even after going so deeply into debt, the jobs are offshored or outsourced to India?

Tough luck kid. You should have been born rich.

But the skilled people India claimed it had - what if it trurns out they dont actually have the skills claimed?

That means there will be a lot of pressure to just rubber stamp the visas of the unqualified people..and send them here anyway. And then award them greenn cards, many of whom insist their firms promised them "GCs" (and also demanded they pay bribes to be placed in the US, which they claim they "make back on the dowry" meaning that the wife- Seems they are figuring on an arranged marriage where the wife pays to be engaged to and marry a young upwardly mobile US job holder. And indeed, I checked out this story with some of these young guys and they verified that this is indeed what happens.

Adding up to a major disaster for thousand perhaps millions of US companies that foolishly replace their precious skilled workers with these fake "skilled workers" (some of whom are probably talented enough to stay employed given some experience) But its unfair. Lets take a hypothetical young Indian Americn, who finds she cant get a job at Indin firms, despite speaking Telegu fluently. And having a real, US granted degree. And helping to improve a workplaces diversity by being female. They dont want her. WHy not? Ask them. Workplaces made up entirely of young Indian men, may not be so open to young Indian American women, evenif they are whip smart and capable of doing the job, and then some. Why not? Well, they might fear that having uch a person might draw attention to the shortcomings of other workers? I dont know. But they compain they dont get these jobs. I actually can add to this discussion. Ive interviewed with many of these companies and I was actually told by an outgoing manager that they felt privately that I was ideal for a specific job but that I wasnt going to getit, the reason given was that they had already picked out who they were going to give it to, and they were in India. The fake job interviews were just a formality. They were for some form the employer needed to fill out in order to get the foreign worker's work permit. It seems they "had to document that they had undertaken a search for a US citizen but were unable to find one.

I had a client once who had a web site and on that site wa advertising for a job for this form. The placing of the fake job ad on their web site was part of this process. Anyway, there you have it. They never intend to find Americans. They discriminate on a massive scale. Why? Too expensive, not disempowered enough. See, these workers come here intending to move here, and they are strung alog by their employers that at the end of several years the employer will apply for them to get a green card.. IF for all that time they work very long hours and very very hard, in a field that is very difficult. Americans doing the same dob is going to want to be treated better. Have weekends off, Receive overtime poay when asked to work 60-70 hour weeks, etc. This is what Ive been told. Plus Americans arent going to pay them a big chunk of money upfront simply to be placed in the "US job".

I am familiar with IT workplaces. In my experience, in the past, they are great, with great people, and your ability to progress is based almost entirely on your talent and willingness to learn, and how much you can do. Race, or gender, or caste dont matter in the IT workplaces of the past I cut my teeth on. So they were at that time, gateways to decent middle class jobs which even popr kids like me could enter the workforce from.

These workplaces were the reason many immigrants were able to become successful, but its not, as the Indian business community clims, some kind of racial or cultural superiority at play. In fact, Indians taken as a whole are not any more talented than others. Many actually sem to lack the qualifications they are claimed to have. But enough of them learn in order to get by. And many are great people too, but no more or less so that US young people, includig young Indian Americans, who are often smart, highly motivated young people with talent. Just as many other Asian Americans, such as Chinese or Iranians. (Two groups the Indians seem to see as competing with them for these visas, often coming on a bit uncomfortably strong in that respect)

So, I am arguing that these guest visa programs are bad and should be ended, as they are unfair to everybody who is involved with them. Even the H1Bs?

Well, the reason I see probkems is the shameless attempots by the Indian IT lobby to confuse people about everything involving these visas by using the H1B visas as a means of facilitating dishonesty. Senators and Congressmen do this really badlly. In short a scheme is at work to replace millions of US workers en masse with visas here on other visas, like L visas, which will likely allow (eventually) workers to be paid what they make at home,which is far less than US minimum wage. That is the entiure reason for doing this. The Indian IT lobby bitterly argues that it violates the agreement to make them pay a "legal US wage" while their workers are here in the US. They claim a long list of GATS provisions that our making them pay workers here a legal US wage violates. Also the ultimate goal is to replace all US workers, both high and low skill workers. They aregue that the largest efficiency gains would come from allowing foreign firms to set up chains to do every conceivble kind of service, cheap. Doing foir services what NAFTA and otgher FTAs did for manufacturing jobs. India claims to be the "Back office of the world" and they claim entitlement to do all the desk jobs, if they aree cheaper. Are they cheaper? Yes, they are, by huge margins. An indian worker might make 1/10 or 1/20th of an American doing a similar job. Also many other factors make US workers many times more expensive.

But, what happes if foreign subcontractors are employed and then screw up? I could point to spectacularly informative mistakes that have occurred recently but the truth is that outsourcing, in general has certain kinds of risks, and all outsourcing carries them. Not just Indian firms. I personally think that the rigiud hierarchical structures common in Asian companies make those places less personally fulfilling than thir US counterparts. Its most likely. Ive discussed this with people working for these companies and theyacknowledge this is the case, but they say that if you are 40 and still working doing the kinds of wok where you might be prone to make mistakes (coding) that there is something wrong with you. You are supposed to have already moved into management by then. According to them. Thats why the wages are so low.

Its also true that if you are the wrong sex or the wrong caste, in the case of Indian companies that will never happen. You'll never get promoted. To this I really tried to get another answer, but it became obvious to me that when In dian workers tell us this that we should listen to them. These emplyers are as obsessed by caste here as they are in India, maybe more so. And they discriminate against other Indians who they view as "Dalits" or "Adivasis" even here in America, where that is clearly illegal. They dont care. The upper caste Indians resent them because of affirmative action there. And they discriminate. The excuses they give are priceless. I used to keep a list of ones that I had heard. No longer in a situation where I encounter this a lot I have lost it, somewhere in my office. But the excuses, some are really priceless. Generally, I think the wealthy Indian community is incredibly unaware by how unfairly they treat other Indians. They have gotten away with murder for years. (yes, they often kill the unfortunate Dalits or others for the most minor things. Kill them. They can be incredibly cruel. But anyway it all devolves down to they claik they are entitled to every possible kind of special treatment, often for "religious" reasons. But these are reasons which would be alien to all the religions I have seen. To me, religious reasons might include tolerance for and compassion to others. If one is compassionate to others thats all I ask. Especially those less fortunate than you. But they arent. Its worse than any of us could ever iimagine.

This is why that I think these trade deals guest worker programs should be abolished. Claimed to be put in place to help poor countries, they are hurting poor countries by encouraging the worst people in them to continue their worst habits and by increasing inequality and frauds. They are also displacing the most talented and motivated US workers, some of whom are - because of talent, not wealth, doing well. In fact these trade deals are as dishonest and badly conceived ans executed as a dirty deal could be. They are designed to give our country more leverage over nations in order to (for example) extract higher prices for Rx drugs. 2.) Provide their often corrupt leaders a source of patronage jobs to use to reward their supporters. 3.) provide them with a sfety valve to use to employ the young people who otherwise would be a source of demands for change., The US is in a very real sense a country where a market failure in political services has been cultivated. There is no real competition here for politicians, they simply get re-elected again and again. Its almost like a lifetime sinecure, This has encouraged a bad situation to develop. Were it not for these trade deals, people would have been politically active and many of them, after haviung their entire lives wasted by these policies would likely be banging on pots and pans, outside of the Georgetown townhouses of the political class. But they aren't. This has created a multi-sided mess of profoundly bad governance here in the US that has a ripple effect on the entire rest of the world

Such opportunities increasingly are closed to our young people because they cannot work for free in internships. Technical jobs until recently, were the largest ares where people didnt have to do an internship that was closed to them to get a starter job.

This is shaping up to be a real mess.. Its a real disaster in the making, one just waiting to happen. And it will be entirely, 100% our own politicians and greeds fault.
--------

A.
Any conditions, limitations and qualifications to the commitments noted below shall be limited to existing non-conforming measures. (Dated, Feb 26, 1998)

B.
1. In addition to Article VIII of the Agreement, the following shall apply:

Each Member shall list in its schedule pertaining to financial services existing monopoly rights and shall endeavour to eliminate them or reduce their scope. Notwithstanding subparagraph 1(b) of the Annex on Financial Services, this paragraph applies to the activities referred to in subparagraph 1(b)(iii) of the Annex.

Financial Services purchased by Public Entities

2. Notwithstanding Article XIII of the Agreement, each Member shall ensure that financial service suppliers of any other Member established in its territory are accorded most-favoured-nation treatment and national treatment as regards the purchase or acquisition of financial services by public entities of the Member in its territory.

Cross-border Trade

3. Each Member shall permit non-resident suppliers of financial services to supply, as a principal, through an intermediary or as an intermediary, and under terms and conditions that accord national treatment, the following services:

(a) insurance of risks relating to:

(i) maritime shipping and commercial aviation and space launching and freight (including satellites), with such insurance to cover any or all of the following: the goods being transported, the vehicle transporting the goods and any liability arising therefrom; and

(ii) goods in international transit;

(b) reinsurance and retrocession and the services auxiliary to insurance as referred to in subparagraph 5(a)(iv) of the Annex;

(c) provision and transfer of financial information and financial data processing as referred to in subparagraph 5(a)(xv) of the Annex and advisory and other auxiliary services, excluding intermediation, relating to banking and other financial services as referred to in subparagraph 5(a)(xvi) of the Annex.

4. Each Member shall permit its residents to purchase in the territory of any other Member the financial services indicated in:

(a) subparagraph 3(a);

(b) subparagraph 3(b); and

(c) subparagraphs 5(a)(v) to (xvi) of the Annex.

Commercial Presence

5. Each Member shall grant financial service suppliers of any other Member the right to establish or expand within its territory, including through the acquisition of existing enterprises, a commercial presence.

6. A Member may impose terms, conditions and procedures for authorization of the establishment and expansion of a commercial presence in so far as they do not circumvent the Member's obligation under paragraph 5 and they are consistent with the other obligations of the Agreement.