The Evening Blues - 4-3-23



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Tarheel Slim

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues, gospel and r&b singer Tarheel Slim. Enjoy!

Tarheel Slim - Wildcat Tamer

"Trump should have stuck to just doing legal things like assassinating foreign leaders, deliberately starving civilians, imprisoning journalists, and dropping military explosives on foreign nations."

-- Caitlin Johnstone


News and Opinion

Australia Isn’t A Nation, It’s A US Military Base With Kangaroos

One of the many, many signs that Australia is nothing more than a US military and intelligence asset is the way its government has consistently refused to intervene to protect Australian citizen Julian Assange from political persecution at the hands of the US empire.

In a new article titled “Penny Wong moves to dampen expectation of breakthrough in Julian Assange case,” The Guardian quotes Australia’s foreign minister as saying, “We are doing what we can, between government and government, but there are limits to what that diplomacy can achieve.” Wong said this when asked if Prime Minister Anthony Albanese discussed the world’s most famous press freedom case with the US president and British prime minister when he met with them together two weeks ago.

Wong refused to say whether her government’s leader had raised the issue with his supposed US and UK counterparts, repeating instead the same line she’s been bleating since Labor took over: that the Assange case “has dragged on long enough and should be brought to a close.” Which if you listen carefully isn’t actually a statement in favor of releasing the WikiLeaks founder or blocking extradition — it’s just saying the case should be concluded hastily, one way or another.

These statements came in response to questions from Greens Senator David Shoebridge, who took a jab at the Labor government’s “quiet diplomacy” approach to the Assange case.

“The idea that quiet diplomacy must be so silent that the government can’t tell the public or the parliament if the PM even spoke to the president is bizarre,” Shoebridge said.

Wong told Shoebridge that Australia is powerless to intervene to protect the acclaimed Australian journalist, saying, “We are not able as an Australian government to intervene in another country’s legal or court processes.”

While it is true that Australia can’t force the US to end the political imprisonment and persecution of Assange for exposing US war crimes, it obviously can conduct diplomacy with its supposed ally in order to protect an Australian citizen. Even nations with whom Australia has no form of alliance are vocally confronted by Canberra when they imprison Australian citizens, like the statement Wong released yesterday regarding China’s detention of Chinese-Australian journalist Cheng Lei in which the foreign minister explicitly and unequivocally calls for “Ms Cheng to be reunited with her family.”

Just yesterday alone Wong tweeted to demand justice for Cheng and for American journalist Evan Gershkovich, who has been arrested in Russia on espionage charges.

“It is one year since Australian citizen Cheng Lei faced a closed trial in Beijing on national security charges,” tweeted Wong. “She is yet to learn the outcome. Our thoughts are with Ms Cheng and her loved ones. Australia will continue to advocate for her to be reunited with her children.”

“Australia is deeply concerned by Russia’s detention of Wall Street Journal Moscow correspondent Evan Gershkovich. We call on Russia to ensure access to consular and legal assistance,” Wong tweeted a few hours later.

Now guess how many times Penny Wong has tweeted the word “Assange”?

Answer: zero.

What is the basis for this discrepancy? Why has Australia’s foreign minister been publicly demanding that China release Cheng Lei and return her to her children, without making the same demands of the US for Julian Assange? Assange has children too, and he has been imprisoned for four times longer than Cheng — more than ten times longer if you count the period of his arbitrary detention in the Ecuadorian embassy in London before his arrest. Why are we seeing more action from the Australian government to defend an Australian journalist in China than to defend an Australian journalist fighting extradition to a nation we’re supposedly allied with which upholds itself as the leader of the rules-based international order?

The answer is that Australia is not a real country. It’s an American colony. It’s a giant US military base with kangaroos.

That’s why the Albanese government’s “quiet diplomacy” to free Assange is so quiet that it can’t actually be said to exist.

Regular readers may recall that the last time we discussed an interaction between Senators Wong and Shoebridge was when the former condescendingly dismissed the latter’s efforts to find out if the Australian government is allowing the US military to bring nuclear weapons into the country. Wong angrily told Shoebridge that the US has a standing “neither confirm nor deny” position with regard to where it keeps its nuclear weapons, and that the Australian government understands and respects that position.

We’re so far under Washington’s thumb that we’re not even allowed to know if there are American nukes in our country, and our own government can’t even advocate in defense of its own citizen when he’s being persecuted for the crime of good journalism.

Add that to the fact that Australia has been pressed into an AUKUS pact which makes us much less safe and a hostile relationship with China which hurts our own economic and security interests, the stationing of a US nuclear intelligence site which makes us a nuclear target, and the US staging literal coups of our government whenever its elected leaders threaten US strategic interests, and it becomes clear that our so-called “country” is functionally just a US aircraft carrier that happens to be the size of a continent.

Which would be bad enough if these bastards weren’t pushing us to play a front-and-center role in World War Three. We’ve got to start fighting against our enslavement to the US empire and against the Pentagon puppets in our own government like our lives depend on it, because they very clearly do.

Oooh, looky! The congressional "progressives" are getting out their crayons and they're going to send a letter!

Congressional Effort to End Assange Prosecution Underway

Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., is circulating a letter among her House colleagues that calls on the Department of Justice to drop charges against Julian Assange and end its effort to extradite him from his detention in Belmarsh prison in the United Kingdom. The letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Intercept, is still in the signature-gathering phase and has yet to be sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland. ...

Tlaib, in working to build support, urged her colleagues to put their differences with Assange the individual aside and defend the principle of the free press, enshrined in the Constitution. “I know many of us have very strong feelings about Mr. Assange, but what we think of him and his actions is really besides the point here,” she wrote to her colleagues in early March. “The fact of the matter is that the [way] in which Mr. Assange is being prosecuted under the notoriously undemocratic Espionage Act seriously undermines freedom of the press and the First Amendment.”

Tlaib noted that the Times, The Guardian, El País, Le Monde, and Der Spiegel had put out a joint statement condemning the charges, and alluded to the same problem that gave the Obama administration pause. “The prosecution of Mr. Assange, if successful, not only sets a legal precedent whereby journalists or publishers can be prosecuted, but a political one as well,” she wrote. “In the future, the New York Times or Washington Post could be prosecuted when they publish important stories based on classified information. Or, just as dangerous, they may refrain from publishing such stories for fear of prosecution.”

So far, the letter has collected signatures from Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman, Ilhan Omar, and Cori Bush. Rep. Ro Khanna said he had yet to see the letter but added that he has previously said Assange should not be prosecuted because the charges are over-broad and a threat to press freedom. Rep. Pramila Jayapal is not listed as a signee but told a Seattle audience recently she believes the charges should be dropped. A spokesperson for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said that she intends to sign before the letter closes.

MTG Calls For ACQUITTAL Of Julian Assange After Rashida Tlaib Rouses BIPARTISAN PUSH For Release

Hungarian PM warns EU may discuss sending “peacekeeping” troops to Ukraine

On Friday, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said that European powers are close to discussing the deployment of “peacekeeping” forces in Ukraine as the US-NATO war with Russia escalates. It is “close to a legitimate, accepted, well-established question in the conversation between European leaders as to whether or not the member states of the European Union can send peacekeeping troops in some form or not,” Orbán said. “We are close to this border that was previously thought to be impassable,” he added.

Orbán continued, “I am convinced that the threat of world war is not a literary exaggeration. So when European and American leaders say that if this continues, we may end up in the Third World War, this seems like an incredibly exaggerated sentence at first. But where I work and where I see the events, this is a real danger at this moment.”

Orbán made these remarks in an interview with Hungarian radio station Kossuth Rádió, and his statement was cited by Newsweek and Yahoo News. Orbán is the first leader of a NATO country to publicly raise the prospect of the deployment of troops from NATO countries into Ukraine.

Earlier this year, the US pledged to “go on the offensive to liberate Russian-occupied Ukraine.” But Ukraine has suffered enormous casualties, and it is becoming clear that this goal cannot be achieved without the direct involvement of NATO in the war.

Responding to Orbán’s comments, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, “If we are talking about some kind of serious negotiations, then this is a potentially extremely dangerous discussion.” Former Russian President Dimitri Medvedev added, “In Europe, a new false idea is being discussed to send some kind of ‘peacekeepers’ to Ukraine under the auspices of NATO. ... It is clear that the so-called NATO peacekeepers are simply going to enter the conflict on the side of our enemies.” Medvedev said that such an action would “bring the situation to the point of no return” and “unleash the very Third World War, which is so feared in words.” He added, “It remains only to clarify whether Europe is ready for a long line of coffins for its ‘peacekeepers’?”

Russian military blogger killed in blast: Moscow accuses Kiyv

Kyiv says Big Oil should pay to rebuild Ukraine’s shattered infrastructure

Major international energy companies that raked in bumper profits because of price spikes over the course of the war should pour some of that cash into rebuilding Ukraine's shattered power infrastructure, Kyiv's Energy Minister German Galushchenko told POLITICO.

In a wide-ranging interview, Galushchenko also argued the West needed to close sanctions loopholes on Russian energy sales to prevent an "endless war" in Ukraine, and said Kyiv could provide alternative nuclear fuel so some EU countries could wean themselves off their dependence on Russian supplies.

"A lot of energy companies get enormous windfall profits due to the war. So we estimated this at more than $200 billion," Galushchenko said on a visit to Brussels. "They get this money because we are fighting, because of the war."

"I think it would be fair to share this money with Ukraine. I mean, to help us to restore, to rebuild the energy sector," he added.

The $200 billion figure given by Galushchenko has been widely cited as the profits of five top companies — BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Total and Shell — in 2022. The Kyiv School of Economics estimates the damage to Ukrainian infrastructure at close to $140 billion.

US Allies Demand Meta CENSOR 'False Narratives' On Ukraine; This Is TOTALITARIANISM: Shellenberger

Milley Says the US Should Attack Iran’s IRGC Quds Force

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley told Congress on Wednesday that the US should be targeting Iran’s Quds Force, a branch of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), following a drone attack in Syria that killed a US contractor.

“We do know that the Iranian Revolutionary Guard [Corps], and specifically their Quds Force … that group there is what we need to be targeting, and targeting them very harshly over time, and that’s exactly what we plan on doing,” Milley said, according to Al-Monitor.

The Pentagon said the drone that hit a US base in Syria last week was of “Iranian origin” but provided no evidence for the claim. President Biden ordered airstrikes against facilities the Pentagon said were used by groups affiliated with the IRGC, referring to Shia militias that operate in Syria.

Why Does Israel Get To Do This???

Israeli airstrikes wound five Syrian soldiers, state media say

Five Syrian soldiers were wounded in the latest Israeli airstrike on Syria, the state news agency Sana reported on Sunday, while Iran said two Revolutionary Guards officers had died in earlier attacks.

Israel has launched hundreds of airstrikes on Syrian territory during more than a decade of civil war, primarily targeting Iranian-backed forces and Lebanese Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

The strike early on Sunday near the western city of Homs was Israel’s third in recent days after the capital, Damascus, was targeted on the nights of 30 and 31 March, according to the agency. “The Israeli enemy carried out an air assault ... targeting positions in the city of Homs and its province,” Sana cited a military source as saying.

Syria’s air defences intercepted several missiles, but five soldiers were wounded and some material damage was reported, Sana said. ...

In comments after the strike on Sunday, the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said: “We are exacting a high price from the regimes that support terrorism beyond Israel’s borders. I suggest that our enemies not err.”

The crumbling of international law w/ Rein Müllerson, Alexander Mercouris and Glenn Diesen

Opec+ announces surprise cuts in oil production

Last October, Opec+, which comprises the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) and allied producers led by Russia, agreed output cuts of 2m bpd from November until the end of the year, angering Washington as tighter supply boosts oil prices.

The US has argued that the world needs lower prices to support economic growth and prevent Vladimir Putin from earning more revenue to fund Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Sunday’s unexpected voluntary cuts, which start from May, come on top of those already agreed in October.

Saudi Arabia said it would cut output by 500,000 bpd while Iraq will reduce its production by 211,000 bpd, according to official statements. The UAE said it would cut production by 144,000 bpd, Kuwait announced a cut of 128,000 bpd while Oman announced a cut of 40,000 bpd and Algeria said it would cut its output by 48,000 bpd. Kazakhstan will also cut output by 78,000 bpd.

Russian deputy prime minister Alexander Novak also said on Sunday that Moscow would extend a voluntary cut of 500,000 bpd until the end of 2023. Moscow had announced those cuts unilaterally in February after the introduction of western price caps.

Finland parliamentary election: PM Marin concedes defeat to right-wing national coalition

Sanna Marin concedes defeat in Finland election as SDP beaten into third place

Finland’s prime minister, Sanna Marin, has lost her battle to stay in power after her centre-left Social Democratic party (SDP) was narrowly beaten into third place in a cliffhanger election by its conservative and far-right rivals.

With all of the votes counted on Sunday, the right-wing National Coalition party won 20.8% of the vote, with the populist, nation-first Finns party scoring 20.1%. Marin’s SDP took 19.9% of the vote. Voter turnout was 71.9%. ...

The NCP’s leader, Petteri Orpo, told the public broadcaster, Yle, that the result was a “big victory … a strong mandate for our policies”, adding that his party would be leading the coalition talks. Finns leader Riikka Purra called it an “an excellent result”.

The largest party traditionally gets the first shot at forming a coalition to obtain a majority, meaning Marin’s four-year term as Finland’s prime minister has come to a close – even if the SDP could yet form part of the new coalition.

'Bending the Knee' to Insurance Lobby, Biden Admin Delays Medicare Advantage Reforms

The Biden administration announced Friday that it will allow Medicare Advantage plans to continue overbilling the federal government in the short term after the insurance industry lobbied aggressively against proposed rule changes aimed at cracking down on fraud in the privately run program.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said it is still moving ahead with the changes despite industry pressure to drop or completely overhaul them.

But instead of implementing the reforms all at once, CMS outlined a plan to phase in the changes over a three-year period, a concession to large insurers that dominate the Medicare Advantage market—which is funded by the federal government.

"How Washington really works: Medicare Advantage providers whined for months that they simply couldn't survive without being able to rip off the government, so the government said 'you can rip us off for just a little longer,'" The American Prospect's David Dayen tweeted in response to the CMS announcement.

‘Cop city’ backers and opponents battle for public opinion over $90m project

Nearly two years into protests against a controversial $90m police and fire department training center in Georgia known as “Cop City”, recent weeks saw the first academic, Atlanta-area public opinion poll about the issue.

Top-line results of the recent Emory University poll included: more white residents are for the project than against it, and more Black residents are against it than for it. The numbers add up to a portrait of a city divided in the face of a protest movement – still stunned by the shooting death of one its members at the hands of the police – that has created global headlines.

Several days after the survey was released, a local attorney with a decade’s experience defending Georgia cities and counties published a legal analysis of the city of Atlanta’s contract with the Atlanta Police Foundation to build Cop City.

Results included: if Mayor Andre Dickens decided going forward with the center was not a good idea, he could legally cancel the contract, without penalty. This gave ammunition to local media to press Dickens on whether he would consider this option if opposition continued, or grew. ...

Alex Joseph, the attorney who researched the Cop City contract, said she decided to wade into the public conversation on the issue after local elected officials kept saying the “moment had come and gone where the project could be stopped”.

“I thought, ‘Any written contract can be broken,’” she said. Joseph added, “I was frustrated … because of the lack of transparency and misinformation” about the training center.



the horse race



Former Guantánamo Prisoner: Ron DeSantis Watched My Torture When He Was a Navy Lawyer at Gitmo

Donald Trump vows to escalate attacks against Alvin Bragg – sources

Donald Trump has told advisers and associates in recent days that he is prepared to escalate attacks against the Manhattan prosecutor who resurrected the criminal prosecution into his hush money payments to adult film star Stormy Daniels in 2016 now that a grand jury has indicted him.

The former president has vowed to people close to him that he wants to go on the offensive and – in a private moment over the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida that demonstrates his gathering resolve – remarked using more colorful language that it was time to politically “rough ’em up”.

Trump had already signaled that he would go after the Manhattan district attorney, Alvin Bragg, weeks before the grand jury handed up an indictment against him on Thursday, saying in pugilistic posts on Truth Social that the prosecution was purely political and accusing Bragg of being a psychopath.

But the latest charged language reflects Trump’s determination to double down on those attacks as he returns to his time-tested playbook of brawling with prosecutors, especially when faced with legal trouble that he knows he cannot avoid, people close to him said. ...

With the indictment under seal until Trump’s scheduled arraignment on Tuesday, the exact charges remained unclear on Sunday, though they are expected to include the falsification of business records and additional charges that elevate what would otherwise be a misdemeanor to a felony.

Trump's Lead Over DeSantis EXPLODES Post-Indictment

Asa Hutchinson announces candidacy for Republican presidential nomination

The former Arkansas governor Asa Hutchinson announced on Sunday that he plans to run for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, saying the US needs “leaders that appeal to the best of America, and not simply appeal to our worst instincts” while also calling for Donald Trump to drop out the race.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the political aisle, the centrist Democrat and West Virginia senator Joe Manchin evaded a question during an interview on CNN about a potential run challenging his party’s Oval Office incumbent, Joe Biden, fueling speculation about his own ambitions.

“This is one of the most unpredictable political environments that I have seen in my lifetime,” Hutchinson said on ABC, adding that he traveled the US for six months and listened to repeated demands for new leadership before declaring himself as a candidate.

Hutchinson’s announcement follows an eclectic career including stints as a prosecutor, administrator of the Drug Enforcement Administration and a member of Congress. He joins the former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley as the only members of the Republican mainstream to challenge Trump, Biden’s presidential predecessor, for the party’s 2024 White House nomination. Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, has been Trump’s only serious rival in polling.

‘Black labor v white wealth’: can a progressive win Chicago’s mayoral election?

Brandon Johnson was in his element at Kenwood Academy high school. The bespectacled former social studies teacher and candidate for Chicago mayor sat at a table next to his opponent, former Chicago public schools CEO Paul Vallas, during a recent afternoon debate. In an exhausting series of mayoral debates, Johnson had a home field advantage at Kenwood, where his son attends school.

Johnson is a member of the Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) and its former deputy political director. The CTU has thrown its support behind Johnson while Chicago’s cop union, the Fraternal Order of Police, has endorsed the tough-on-crime Vallas. The moderators at Kenwood opened with a question about whether the mayoral race was a proxy war between the Fraternal Order of Police and CTU.

Johnson, who now serves as a Cook county commissioner, has joked in the past that he didn’t become a pastor like his father or sister because they weren’t unionized. But it’s clear that his family’s work in the church has shaped his commanding presence in secular spaces – as it did that day.

“This is about Black labor versus white wealth. That’s what this battle is about,” Johnson responded. “This is about providing community access to the very public accommodations which Black people fought for, especially after emancipation. It’s what the descendants of slaves in this room are fighting for: public education, public transportation, affordable housing, healthcare and access to jobs.”

The Chicago mayoral election is one of the most heated city battles in the country and could serve as a litmus test for police reform policies at a time when the topic of crime and public safety is central to both voters and politicians. Recent mayoral races in the liberal strongholds of New York City and Los Angeles have produced mixed results. In New York, ex-cop Eric Adams claimed victory with a centrist message while the reform-minded former congresswoman Karen Bass won the Los Angeles mayoral race on a progressive platform, though some Black Lives Matter activists criticized her recent decision to reappoint a controversial chief of police.

Johnson’s progressive policies on dealing with crime, which fired up his base in the primary, could leave him vulnerable in the general election. Vallas has seized upon Johnson’s past support of the defund the police movement and Democrats across the country are closely watching to see if that could prove Johnson’s undoing.

‘A truly incredible amount of money’: millions ride on one US judicial election

More than $37m has already been spent in an election that will this month determine control of Wisconsin’s supreme court, easily making it the most expensive judicial contest in US history.

Spending in the race easily shatters the $10m spent in the 2020 Wisconsin supreme court race, the previous record in the state. It also easily surpasses the previous national record, $15m spent on an Illinois supreme court race in 2004. The race has national implications – it will probably ultimately determine the legality of abortion in the state as well as play a key role in setting voting rules for the 2024 election in one of America’s most competitive states. ...

A once-in-a-generation set of circumstances have come together to make the state supreme court race between liberal Janet Protasiewicz and conservative Daniel Kelly – typically a little-noticed contest outside Wisconsin’s borders – the most important election this year.

First, the ideological balance of the seven-member court is up for grabs. Second, the outcome of the race will probably directly determine whether abortion is legal in Wisconsin, as the court is expected to weigh in soon on the state’s 1849 abortion ban. Third, the court could strike down Wisconsin’s gerrymandered legislative maps, ending Republicans’ unshakable majority in the state. Lastly, the court is expected to weigh in on a range of disputes over election rules ahead of the 2024 presidential election in Wisconsin, a key battleground state.



the evening greens


Harvard professor’s fossil fuel links under scrutiny over climate grant

An eminent Harvard environmental law professor’s links to the fossil fuel industry are under scrutiny from colleagues and students after she was awarded a prestigious research grant to investigate corporate climate pledges.

Jody Freeman, founding director of Harvard’s environmental and energy law program and former Obama-era White House advisor, is a paid board member of ConocoPhillips – a Fortune 500 American multinational oil and gas company that was ranked the 13th most polluting in the world by a Guardian investigation in 2019. The firm’s controversial Willow drilling project in Alaska was recently approved by the Biden administration.

Professor Freeman also co-chairs Harvard’s presidential committee on sustainability and was recently awarded funding by the university’s new Salata Institute for Climate and Sustainability to lead research on corporate net zero targets.

Colleagues say Freeman’s fossil fuel ties raises serious questions about a conflict of interest, while threatening to damage the university’s climate credentials.

Drought or no drought? California left pondering after record winter deluge

Just a few months ago, millions in California were living under mandatory water conservation rules. The driest three years on record had transformed the state, depleted reservoirs and desiccated landscapes. Then came a deluge. A dozen atmospheric river storms and several “bomb cyclones” have broken levees and buried mountain communities in snow, but they have also delivered a boon. Reservoirs are refilling. Brown hills are blooming once again.

So, is the drought finally over?

The consensus among water experts and climate scientists is – sort of. The record snowpack and rains have erased the most severe signs of drought in many parts of the state. The US Drought Monitor has reported that only 9% of California is experiencing “severe” or “exceptional” drought conditions this month, down from 55% last fall. But the changes are largely surface-level – literally. Groundwater reserves remain critically low. And the state’s farms and cities are still using far more water than is available. ...

Decades of water mismanagement have drained California’s groundwater aquifers, which have supplied 60% of the state’s water during drought years. A recent study found that groundwater depletion has been accelerating in recent years, and estimated that groundwater in the Central Valley shrunk by about 36m acre-feet since 2003. That’s greater than the total capacity of Lake Mead, the biggest US surface reservoir.

The state’s groundwater has declined so much that in parts of the agricultural Central Valley, where water is pumped to irrigate vast fields as well as cities and towns, the ground has been sinking by about 1ft every year. As water levels drop, layers of soil and clay are collapsing and compacting down as well.

The rains this winter will replenish underground water reserves to some extent. “But one really good water year like this year isn’t going to be enough to fill up the massive groundwater reservoirs that we’ve overdrafted for decades,” Peter Gleick, a hydrologist and co-founder of the Pacific Institute in Oakland, said.

Oysters and whisky? Why the pairing could have huge benefits for wildlife in Scotland

Good whisky needs pure clean water, which partly explains why distilleries in Scotland always seem to have such scenic, loch-side backdrops. And one of the best ways to filter that water is oysters. Indeed, the European native oyster was so plentiful in Scotland that 30 million a year were harvested from oyster beds outside Edinburgh in the 1800s.

But today the species is almost extinct: populations have dropped by 85% over the past century, most likely because of overfishing from bottom trawling.

A new rewilding project part-funded by the Glenmorangie distillery plans to use native oysters a water filters, which would prevent the quality of the company’s whisky from deteriorating, but also mitigate the effects of the organic waste released into the waters of Dornoch Firth. In addition, researchers say the process could increase biodiversity in the area by 50% by the end of the decade.

The scheme would reintroduce 4 million oysters to the Dornoch Firth, on the north-east coast of Scotland, by 2030. As well as helping other species, it could treble the amount of carbon going into the seabed, say scientists working on the project in a new peer-reviewed paper.


Also of Interest

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

Enslaving The World To Stop Chinese Tyranny: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

Moscow calls out US’ rules-based order in Europe

ICC’s Putin arrest warrant based on State Dept-funded report that debunked itself

Craig Murray: The So Far Non-Existent Vulkan Leaks

Tablet's Grand Opus on the Anti-Disinformation Complex

The Unexpected Pro-Civil Liberty Dissent By Two Supreme Court Trump Appointees

Asa Hutchinson, Enemy of Abortion Rights Who Kicked Thousands Off Medicaid, Announces White House Bid

US Virgin Islands subpoenas four top businessmen in Epstein banking inquiry

CDC Officers Became Sick While Assessing Contamination in East Palestine

‘Bees are sentient’: inside the stunning brains of nature’s hardest workers

As GOP Pushes for Nationwide Abortion Ban, Judge Blocks Mandate for ACA to Cover Basic Prenatal Care

Soviet-Chinese Style Censorship Happening In America!

Louisiana Sues Biden For Censoring Americans’ Free Speech

Lying MSM Denies Alvin Bragg is "Soros-Backed"; Unbelievable Fact-Check FAIL


A Little Night Music

Tarheel Slim - Number 9 Train

Tarheel Slim & Li'l Ann - Don't Ever Leave Me

Tarheel Slim & Li'l Ann - It's Too Late

Tarheel Slim - Too Much Competition

Tarheel Slim - Lock Me in Your Heart (and Throw Away the Key)

Tarheel Slim - Can't Stay Away

Tarheel Slim & Li'l Ann - Security

Tarheel Slim & Li'l Ann - Much Too Late

Allen Bunn (Tarheel Slim) - I Have Found No Friend

Tarheel Slim & Li'l Ann - Forever I'll Be Yours

Tarheel Slim & Li'l Ann - Anything for You


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Comments

Caitlin has a way snarky way of getting out her message.

After an extended absence Gonzalo has a excellent video out.

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11 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

thanks for the link, it's good to hear from gl again, i had wondered where he went.

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3 users have voted.

The resemblance is uncanny. LOL

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8 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

the ukrainian pope looks like he's not getting enough sleep. Smile

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3 users have voted.
ggersh's picture

for themselves, courtesy of AE

https://www.theautomaticearth.com/2023/04/debt-rattle-april-3-2023/

Hunker down everyone and enjoy the EB's cuz somethings gonna give
sometime soon.

Thanks again Joe!!

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8 users have voted.

I never knew that the term "Never Again" only pertained to
those born Jewish

"Antisemite used to be someone who didn't like Jews
now it's someone who Jews don't like"

Heard from Margaret Kimberley

joe shikspack's picture

@ggersh

i'm glad to see africans speaking out against the global bully. thanks for the tweet!

if the attitude spreads, which there are indications of, something will break soon.

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6 users have voted.
Pluto's Republic's picture

....their pipelines, one should review where those pipelines originate.

In 2012, Russia built a southern pipeline, bypassing Ukraine, because Ukraine was siphoning off much of the oil, frequently resulting in fuel shortages in Europe. Lucrative oil companies had popped up in Ukraine that were presumably selling the purloined oil and undercutting Russia on the open commodity market. No doubt USAID was advising Ukraine, and no doubt Hunter Biden sat on the Board of one of these oil companies. A great deal of cash was being laundered. Plenty of US politicians made their way to Ukraine. Ukraine was Hillary Clinton's biggest donor in 2015. She had been Victoria Neuland's boss, until that unfortunate gun running thing in Benghazi. Ukraine produces not quite enough oil and gas to meet it's own needs. In 2020, Russia again bypassed Ukraine and sent natural gas directly to Europe through a new pipeline to the north, Nord Stream 1. It would later be replaced by the higher capacity Nord stream !!.

ukraine-oil.jpg

.
What do you think? Will big oil rebuild Ukraine's pipelines? Perhaps Ukraine has plans to become a major oil refiner.

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7 users have voted.

____________________

The political system is what it is because the People are who they are. — Plato
joe shikspack's picture

@Pluto's Republic

i doubt that big oil will be in any hurry to rebuild the ukie pipelines. the only reason that they might do so would be if russia is seriously defeated.

most (a quick google says 90%) of the oil and gas resources in ukraine are in the eastern areas (the dnipro-donetsk basin) that russia controls or will soon.

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7 users have voted.

Great title by Caitlin. I have watched some Australian TV and it is beyond belief that the propaganda trying to convince the people of the country that they MUST go to war with China--their biggest trading partner.

And older video. Kangaroos for peace.

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7 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@MrWebster

yep, those kangaroos have a right to be nervous. if the next fossil fool initiated fire season doesn't get them, the warmongering morons might.

have a great evening!

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5 users have voted.

It follows that Australia is just a military base with kangaroos.
And the mideast is just an oil field with terrorists...
Israel is just a funnel for American arms
South America is just a socialist movement awaiting capitalism
and Europe is just another exploitable resource.
Sheesh, the arrogance of the State Department knows no bounds.
Yet.

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usefewersyllables's picture

@QMS

there will be a cosmic "poom".

I really do hope that I'm not here for it, because I suspect that it will be unpleasant.

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Twice bitten, permanently shy.

joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

heh, i think of israel as fort lauderdale with nukes. Smile

have a great evening!

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Pricknick's picture

Just who do I direct my no shit to?

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Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

joe shikspack's picture

@Pricknick

incurious europeans whose magic book told them that the cosmic muffin had given them dominion over the fish of the sea and over the fowl of the air and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.

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Pricknick's picture

@joe shikspack

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4 users have voted.

Regardless of the path in life I chose, I realize it's always forward, never straight.

Lookout's picture

Thanks for all the music and news js.

This story is pretty interesting starts with C-19 origins and goes to Ukraine.

"A new report shows that the U.S. was hiring Covid-19 researchers three months before the pandemic began. And where were they hiring for these positions. Ukraine. Of course.
https://expose-news.com/2023/03/27/us-dod-created-covid-evidence-suggests/

Remember Nuland fessing up to the labs?
Ukraine Has Biological Research Facilities, Concerned Russian Forces May Seek To Gain Control: US
"Does Ukraine have chemical or biological weapons," US Senator for Florida Marco Rubia asked.

In response, the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland said, "Ukraine has biological research facilities, which, in fact, we are quite concerned Russian troops, Russian forces, may be seeking to gain control of, so we are working with the Ukrainians on how they can prevent any of those research materials from falling into the hands of Russian forces should they approach."

On the matter, Director of the Central Intelligence Agency Bill Burns said, "The danger here, it seems to me, is the capacity the Russians have developed and that they have used in the past and their interest in trying to create false narratives here as well."

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10 users have voted.

“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

joe shikspack's picture

@Lookout

it would be interesting to see who got the government contract for psychics.

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snoopydawg's picture

Or, to put it another way: what crime did Trump not do that others did with either impunity or without being arrested?

Here is a sample of 20.

1) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by destroying federally subpoenaed emails and devices in order to hide evidence.

2) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by sending classified government communications on her own, through an unsecured home-brewed server.

3) Trump did not violate federal law, as did Hillary Clinton, by hiring—through three paywalls—a foreign national, who is prohibited from working on presidential campaigns, to compile a dossier to smear her presidential opponent.

4) Trump did not violate federal campaign laws, as did Hillary Clinton, by hiding her payments (as “legal services”) to Christopher Steele through bookkeeping deceptions.

5) Trump did not, as did Bill Clinton, use a crony to search out a high-paying New York job for a paramour in order to influence her testimony before a special counsel.

6) Trump did not, as did Bill Clinton, receive a $500,000 “honorarium” for speaking in Moscow while his wife, our secretary of state, approved a longstanding and lucrative desire of the Kremlin for North American uranium to be sold to a Russian consortium.

7) Trump did not, as did Barack Obama, promise Vladimir Putin that he would be “flexible” on “missile defense” if during his own reelection bid Putin in return would give him “space”. That quid pro quo arrangement led to the U.S. abandonment of key joint missile defense systems with Poland and the Czech Republic, and, reciprocally, less than two years later a Russia invasion, mostly unopposed by the United States, of eastern Ukraine and the Crimea.

8) Trump did not boast publicly, as did Joe Biden, that he used U.S. foreign aid monies as leverage to have the Ukrainian government fire a prosecutor who may have been looking into the Biden family’s efforts to sell influence to corrupt Ukrainian interests.

9) Trump did not, as the Bidens did, set up a family consortium to leverage monies from Ukraine, Russia, and China, on their shared expectations that he might soon run for and be elected president and become compromised. Trump is not mentioned, as is Joe Biden, in family business communications as a recipient of a 10 percent commission on such payoffs.

10) Trump did not, unlike Joe Biden, remove presidential papers—without any authority to declassify them—and leave them scattered and unsecured in a garage and various residences and offices.

11) Trump did not, as did the FBI, wipe clean subpoenaed mobile phone records.

12) Trump did not, as did interim FBI head Andrew McCabe, admittedly lie under oath on four occasions to federal investigators.

13) Trump did not, as did CIA Director John Brennan, admittedly lie on two occasions while under oath to the U.S. Congress.

14) Trump did not, as did Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, admittedly lie on one occasion to the U.S. Congress.

15) Trump did not, as did James Comey, claim amnesia or ignorance 245 times while under oath before the U.S. Congress.

16) Trump did not, as did FBI Director James Comey, summarize a confidential private conversation with a president and then deliberately leak that classified memo to the media for his own agenda of appointing a special counsel to investigate the president—which turned out to be his friend Robert Mueller.

17) Trump did not, as did Robert Mueller, claim ignorance while under oath when asked about the Steele dossier and Fusion GPS, the catalysts for Mueller’s own investigation.

18) Trump did not, as did private citizen and former secretary of state John Kerry, meet clandestinely while out of office with Iranian officials to help them resist current U.S. policy toward Iran—or what the Boston Globe characterized as “unusual shadow diplomacy” to “apply pressure on the Trump administration from the outside.”

19) Trump did not, as did the FBI and CIA, pay clandestine money to Twitter to monitor and smother news stories deemed unhelpful to their agendas.

20) Trump did not, as did then-Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, whip up a mob at the doors of the Supreme Court by threatening two sitting justices by name to intimidate them concerning an impending judicial ruling: “I want to tell you Gorsuch, I want to tell you Kavanaugh: You have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price. You won’t know what hit you.” In subsequent months, mobs of protestors swarmed the private homes of these two named justices to influence their decisions, a federal crime that was ignored by Attorney General Merrick Garland, but not by a self-confessed, potential assassin of Justice Brett Kavanaugh who later turned up in the neighborhood.

One thing left off the list is although Clinesmith was charged with tampering with evidence he only got probation for it. Gee it’s not like his lying to the FISA court didn’t make sure that the country would go through 5 years of insanity about Russia Russia Russia. No changing the document, no warrant approved to spy on Trump’s campaign. That’s kinda the big thing that happened.

Oh yeah there is one more.

Obama killed 2 Americans without due process because he didn’t like what one said and he killed the other just because he was the first guy’s son. None of these people had to prove their innocence like Trump is supposed to do according to the greatest insider trader Pelosi.

Oh wait…Bill Clinton wasn’t charged for perjury either. I bet if we put our heads together we could come up with more examples of crimes going unpunished.

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joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

well, every recent president (including trump) is a war criminal and they will likely never be charged with their crimes. i really don't care about their breadcrumb sins of boinking interns, campaign staff and porn stars and paying hush money, i want them to be held accountable for their serious crimes.

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https://www.barrons.com/news/nato-chief-demands-russia-release-us-journa...

NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg on Monday demanded the "immediate release" of US journalist Evan Gershkovich, who has been detained in Russia on suspicion of spying.

"His arrest is of great concern. It is important to respect freedom of the press, the rights of journalists and the right to ask questions and to do their job," he said.

Stoltenberg said he expected the issue of the Wall Street Journal reporter's detention to be taken up by NATO foreign ministers at their meeting on Tuesday.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken will be in Brussels to meet his 29 NATO counterparts and to welcome Finland as the 31st member of the alliance.

Gershkovich, a 31-year-old US citizen, was detained by Russian security agents last week and "is believed to be the first foreign journalist held for spying in post-Soviet Russia".

His employer has dismissed the claim that he was engaged in espionage, and Blinken has already demanded his release in a call to Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov.

Of course the detention and possible extradition of Julian Assange is a completely different matter.

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joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

perhaps putin ought to see if he could get assange in a prisoner swap. Smile

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@joe shikspack

After all they are both journalists.

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Today Finland joined nato, doubling the number of miles of border that Russia has with nato. Turns out Putin is the biggest pro nato salesman evah. Sweden probably in early summer, Ukraine after hostilities end, maybe Georgia, Kazakhstan. Finland isn't about to start any wars, but Russia did steal a big chunk of the country back in 38. Is there a neighbor Russia hasn't attacked in the past hundred years?

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joe shikspack's picture

@ban nock

i would suppress my giddiness until a future date when we see what sort of provocative actions finland engages in with nato on russia's borders.

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snoopydawg's picture

@ban nock

so all those invasions you’re thinking of were done by the USSR which doesn’t exist anymore. But…

Imagine the uproar if China or Russia—or any other country for that matter—said it aimed to exercise military control over land, sea, air, and space to protect its interests and investments.

This amazingly has been the stated United States policy since 1997.

Full spectrum dominance, as the doctrine is known, is the reason the United States behaves the way that it does on the international stage.

The United States demands that the world bow down to its leadership. A failure to do so is met with the full force of the international military-industrial complex controlled by the Americans.

Enforcement has included everything from the funding of opposition forces in sovereign nations, the removal or even assassination of political leaders who refuse to toe the line, economic sanctions, and military intervention.

Do you know how many countries America has invaded since 1945? Do you know that it’s killed over 20 million people and has displaced over 60 million? I’d worry less about Russia’s wrongdoings and look at what your own country has done instead. It’s not Russia that has over 800 bases abroad nor is it threatening the existence of your country like yours is threatening Russia. Or spending so much money to keep its military afloat whilst its people are falling deeper into poverty.

Hmm something about removing the log in your eye before talking about the speck in another's.

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@ban nock

They recently ditched their Air Force insignia to appear acceptable.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53249645

The Finnish air force said that, having been von Rosen's symbol, the swastika remains in some Air Force unit flags and decorations, albeit no longer that of the central Air Force Command.The old emblem for the Finnish Air Force Command (left) featured a swastika, but the current emblem of the force does not.

Finland's air force has been using a swastika ever since it was founded in 1918, shortly after the country became an independent nation and long before Nazism devastated Europe.

Until 1945 its planes bore a blue swastika on a white background - and this was not intended to show allegiance to Nazi Germany, though the two nations were aligned.

While the symbol was left off planes after World War Two, a swastika still featured in some Air Force unit emblems, unit flags and decorations - including on uniforms, a spokesperson for the Finnish air force told the BBC.

The Finnish air force said that, having been von Rosen's symbol, the swastika remains in some Air Force unit flags and decorations, albeit no longer that of the central Air Force Command.

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soryang's picture

Thanks for posting the DN interview JS. (thanks for all the news JS).

Two pertinent observations he made near the end. "DeSantis is a cruel person," and he, "bends the truth" for his own purposes.

Could anyone have a more Orwellian role, than that as a "legal advisor" at a detention camp devoid of due process or basic human rights? People held for years without trial? DeSantis' job there was as a command legal advisor, a "judge advocate." There are a lot of things problematic about being a "judge advocate" in a military organization, where the commander and his staff outrank the officer. Advocacy is one thing, typically taking place in front of a military judge, magistrate, or administrative board of officers. You advocate, they decide. I noticed how DeSantis immediately tried to place himself in this context. "Oh, I didn't command anyone to do anything, that wasn't my position."

Being a military "advisor" to a command is different. It requires a level of objectivity that advocacy doesn't necessarily call for. It also calls for independent judgement like that of a judge or magistrate even though he is labeled as a the command legal advisor. Is a lieutenant (O-3) really in a position to tell a commander(O-5) or captain (O-6) what is legally or ethically called for in a particular fact situation? Is there not an innate conflict of interest. I always got the impression in this role, that the military lawyer was placed in the position of being pressured to telling the commander what he wanted to hear. Of course, some commanders knew the right thing to do and were just "dotting their i's and crossing their t's."

However, many commanders already know what they are going to do even if wrong, and are looking for the lawyer to tell him it was lawful. So instead of "judging" what is right and wrong legally in the context of detainee treatment in a confinement facility, one slips into the role of rationalizer or advocate for what the command thinks it can get away with, regardless of the what the law says. It's pitiful really that DeSantis would even accept such a compromised position. Of course, I can say this with hindsight, having received some POW training, and also having spent some time as a defense attorney in brigs, and the county jail.

Here's the problem for an ambitious lawyer like DeSantis, tell a commander that he can't or shouldn't do something that he's already decided to do is a career killer. Beyond this, inside a prison (detention) camp facility, one is already subject to conformity to the prisoner (detainee) vs guard role playing. This has been shown in psychology experiments over and over again. So I think DeSantis did say what his commanders wanted him to say and as a person addicted to power, I think he is "cruel." In other words I believe what the victims say about him.

Realistically when a judge advocate won't give the commander the legal OK to do something proposed, it presents an administrative roadblock. It almost always results in negative feedback affecting that JA's reputation, position, evaluation, etc. A JA who won't modify his legal opinion to suit the commander is viewed as an institutional problem that must be cowed or eliminated. Therefore the lawyer has to be induced or convinced to support the commander's proposed action(s) or be removed from the scene.

I think my POV would be ridiculed by many military lawyers and commanders. The commander really is looking to cover his six, so he can say "oh, the JAG told me it was legal, he's the expert. That's why I asked for an opinion." "Of course, it's legal to force feed prisoners who are starving themselves to death." Then why does it sound so much like water torture? The chair thing is also a common torture device. These are the kind of "low impact" tortures, that none the less are terrible tortures to experience. imo.

I believe psychologists advising at Abu Ghraid had similar ethical problems, because they were advising on torture.

On Australia: Carl Zha picked up on this Naval News, April Fool's story-

I liked this take on "multipolar" by VJ Prashad. It's kind of long. I had trouble understanding the host. I would just skip over the host and listen to VJ.

Liked VJ's article over at scheerpost:

Within China, Xi’s visit to Russia was widely discussed with a general sense of pride that China’s government is taking leadership both to block the ambitions of the West and to seek peace in the conflict. These discussions, reflected in journals and on social media platforms such as WeChat, Douyin, Weibo, LittleRedBook, Bilibili, and Zhihu, emphasised how China, a developing country, has nonetheless been able to overcome its limitations and take on a leadership position in the world.

These discussions within China are largely unavailable to people outside the country for at least three reasons: first, they take place in Chinese and are not often translated into other languages; second, they take place on social media platforms that, in addition to being in Chinese, are not used by people from outside the Chinese-speaking community; and third, growing Sinophobia, stemming from a longstanding colonial history of thought and exacerbated by the New Cold War, has deepened a disregard for discussions in China that do not adopt the Western worldview. For these reasons, and more, there is a genuine lack of understanding about the range of opinions in China concerning the shifts in the world order and the country’s role in these shifts.

https://scheerpost.com/2023/04/02/chinas-historical-destiny-is-to-stand-...

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語必忠信 行必正直

joe shikspack's picture

@soryang

thanks for the analysis which seems right on to me.

Could anyone have a more Orwellian role, than that as a "legal advisor" at a detention camp devoid of due process or basic human rights?

perhaps the doctors and/or psychologists?

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GreatLakeSailor's picture

A week or two ago I posted that the ad ratio was 10 to 1 Janet P over Kelly.
In the last days before the election it has been 3 or 4 to 1 Janet P over Kelly.
We'll see what happens tomorrow.....

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Compensated Spokes Model for Big Poor.

snoopydawg's picture

You should see the celebration the shitlibs had over this journalist’s death just because of who they think he supported. It’s why they have turned their backs on Julian Assange just because they believe that he cost HerHeinous her coronation.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

Someone just tried to sell me on this:
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/the-facts-on-de-nazifying-ukraine/

The site name alone - kind of like 'internet.com' or the once-notorious 'whitehouse.com' - strikes me as a red flag; didn't I hear somebody around here mention this?

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4 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!