The Evening Blues - 2-24-23
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist Freddie King. Enjoy!
Freddie King - Little Bluebird
"The executive has no right, in any case, to decide the question, whether there is or is not cause for declaring war."
-- James Madison
News and Opinion
Blind hog, meet acorn:
Rep. Gaetz Introduces War Powers Resolution to Pull US Troops Out of Syria
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has introduced a War Powers Resolution that would order President Biden to pull all US troops out of Syria, a move that came after four US troops were reported injured in a raid against ISIS in the country.
“Congress has never authorized the use of military force in Syria. The United States is currently not in a war with or against Syria, so why are we conducting dangerous military operations there? President Biden must remove all US Armed Forces from Syria. America First means actually putting the people of our country first — not the interests of the Military Industrial Complex,” Gaetz said in a statement on the resolution.
He said the purpose of the resolution was to see where Congress stands on the US military presence in Syria. According to a press release from Gaetz’s office, the War Powers Resolution is privileged, meaning the House will be forced to vote on it within 18 days of its introduction. The press release said he filed the resolution on Tuesday.
“Since the invasion of Ukraine, we seem to have turned our attention away from some of America’s entanglement in Syria,” Gaetz told Fox News Digital. “And the purpose of my legislation is to force members of Congress to vote on record regarding whether they think we ought to continue Obama’s war in Syria.”
Gaetz criticized progressive Democrats for supporting US involvement in Ukraine and said he wanted to see where the “antiwar coalition” in Congress falls when it comes to the Middle East. “Is it more on the right, is it more on the left? Is it some amalgamation thereof? But this resolution will test who is truly adherent to what I believe is America First Foreign Policy and who continues to believe in Middle Eastern adventurism,” he said.
Biden boasts of his role in expanding NATO to Russia’s borders
US President Joe Biden met Wednesday in Poland with representatives of the Bucharest Nine, the group of Eastern European countries added to the NATO alliance during the Clinton and Bush administrations, pledging to “defend literally every inch of NATO” against Russia.
Biden began his remarks by stating, “As some of you may remember, years ago, when we were expanding NATO, I was the one in the United States Senate who was pushing the hardest to expand NATO for membership of many of you sitting around this table.”
His comments are a testament to the deep historical roots of the war that erupted one year ago.
According to the White House’s well-worn narrative, the war in Ukraine is a “war of choice” launched by a single man in February 2022. Putin started the war, and only Putin can end it—by withdrawing Russian troops to where they were last year, the White House endlessly repeats. But this simplistic and false presentation has nothing to do with the historical record.
In reality, the United States has sought to bring the republics of the former Soviet Union and the Eastern European “buffer states” into the NATO alliance, while fomenting domestic nationalist uprisings within Russia with the aim of destabilizing and breaking up the country.
The Guardian reports a lying hissy fit as a "powerful rebuttal":
Germany and China clash over west’s supply of weapons to Ukraine
The German foreign minister, Annalena Baerbock, clashed with Chinese diplomats on Thursday, passionately rejecting their claim that the west was adding fuel to the fire by arming Ukraine. Baerbock said it was time for China to tell Russia to stop its aggression.
In a debate at the UN general assembly marking the anniversary of the invasion and seen as a key barometer of the state of world opinion, China intervened to present itself as above the conflict by proposing a catalogue of measures: a ceasefire, dialogue, security guarantees for Russia, protection of civilians and the upholding of territorial integrity.
The deputy Chinese envoy to the UN, Dai Bing, insisted the west was worsening the situation by arming Ukraine, saying: “Adding fuel to the fire will only exacerbate tensions”. His remarks provoked Baerbock into a powerful rebuttal rejecting his claim that the west was indulging in military spending at the expense of other priorities more important to ordinary people.
She asked: “Why on earth would we do that?”, adding: “We did not want this war. We did not choose this war.” She said her government “would much rather focus every bit of our energy and money in fixing our schools, in fighting the climate crisis and strengthening social justice”, adding: “The truth is that if Russia stops fighting, the war will end, If Ukraine stops this fighting, Ukraine ends.”
Boris wants NATO job. Musk calls out Nuland. Sachs & McGovern at UN. Moldova, second front.
Ukrainian Military Appears to Be Using US-Made Black Hawk Helicopter
Ukraine’s military intelligence agency has shared photos of a Black Hawk helicopter. The American-made aircraft was painted with a Ukrainian flag, and the intel org suggested it was used in military operations.
Two photos showing a Black Hawk were posted on the Twitter account and website of Ukraine’s Main Directorate of Intelligence on Tuesday. A press release accompanying the images said the agency had recently completed military missions.
North Korea test-fires four missiles to show ability to launch nuclear attack
North Korea test-fired four strategic cruise missiles during a drill designed to demonstrate its ability to conduct a nuclear counterattack against hostile forces, its state media said.
The exercise on Thursday involved an apparently operational strategic cruise missile unit of the Korean people’s army, which fired the four Hwasal-2 missiles in the area of Kim Chaek city, North Hamgyong province, towards the sea off the east coast of the Korean peninsula, the news agency KCNA said. Other units conducted firepower training at hardened sites without live firing.
The four strategic cruise missiles hit a preset target after travelling the “2,000km-long [1,243-mile] elliptical and eight-shaped flight orbits for 10,208 seconds to 10,224 seconds”, the English-language report said.
The drill demonstrated “the war posture of the DPRK nuclear combat force bolstering up in every way its deadly nuclear counterattack capability against the hostile forces”, KCNA said.
The missiles were not announced by South Korea or Japan, which often detect and publicly report North Korean launches.
Outrage Soars in Occupied West Bank After Israel Kills 11, Injures 500 Palestinians in Nablus Raid
Crew tried to stop Ohio train after alert about wheel bearing, safety report finds
The crew of the freight train carrying dangerous chemicals that derailed in Ohio earlier this month received a warning about an overheating wheel bearing and tried to slow the train before it came off the tracks, according to an interim report released on Thursday by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB). The wheel bearing was heating up for several miles before reaching 253F hotter than the air temperature, investigators found, a dangerous level requiring a train to stop to prevent disaster.
The train engineer put the brakes on and the automatic braking system activated, the report said. But the train still derailed and was engulfed in a huge fireball, near the town of East Palestine, on 3 February. ...
The NTSB said the crew did not receive a critical warning about an overheated axle but an engineer stopped the train after receiving a “critical audible alarm message” and the crew then saw fire and smoke and alerted dispatch of a possible derailment, the report said. The axle investigators are focused on had been heating up as the train went down the tracks, but did not reach the threshold for stopping the train and inspecting it until just before the derailment, the report said.
The train was going about 47mph (75km/h) at the time, just under the speed limit of 50mph, according to safety investigators.
Bomb Train: Calls Grow for New Laws on Rail Safety After Toxic Disaster in East Palestine, Ohio
Under Massive Pressure Amid Ohio Crisis, Norfolk Southern Agrees to Paid Sick Leave Deal
Facing intense scrutiny and backlash over the toxic derailment of one of its trains in eastern Ohio, Norfolk Southern on Wednesday reached a deal with a leading rail union to provide up to a week of paid sick leave per year to around 3,000 track maintenance workers.
Under the agreement, Norfolk Southern will immediately give four workdays of paid sick leave annually to maintenance employees who previously had none, an industry-wide outrage that nearly led to a national rail strike late last year.
The deal will also allow employees to "utilize up to a maximum of three paid personal leave days per year as paid sick leave."
Tony Cardwell, president of the Brotherhood of Maintenance of Way Employes Division (BMWED), said in a statement that "after 45 years of fighting for this issue, the carrier and union have accomplished what is needed for those who contribute the most to railroad profits, the workers on the ballast line."
Speaking to Freight Waves, BMWED media representative Clark Ballew stressed that while the paid sick leave agreement is "a good development in an industry that is in dire need of positive momentum," it is "not the end" of workers' fight for basic quality-of-life benefits.
"Our members are tasked with rebuilding the track of the [East] Palestine derailment and it is imperative that they have resources available that keep them safe and healthy at a site that many would be apprehensive to work," Ballew said. "Paid sick time is one of those resources, but there are several others, and we expect NS to start doing right by their employees and the public and afford all resources necessary to not exacerbate an already bad situation."
Norfolk Southern, which has around 19,000 employees total, is the third Class 1 railroad in the past month to agree to provide paid sick leave to some of its workers after aggressively fighting unions' demands for years, including during recent White House-brokered negotiations that produced a contract with zero paid sick days.
Congress voted in December to impose the contract on workers after unions representing a majority of U.S. rail employees rejected it and threatened to strike.
The sick leave deal comes as Norfolk Southern is under mounting pressure after one of its trains crashed and spewed hazardous chemicals earlier this month in the small town of East Palestine, Ohio.
"Norfolk Southern must be in the midst of some bad publicity for it to sign an agreement with around 3,000 unionized maintenance-of-way workers for seven paid sick days," respondedThe American Prospect's David Dayen.
Lawyer argues fetus of jailed pregnant woman is being illegally detained
A lawyer’s attempt to have his pregnant client released from jail ahead of trial by arguing that her fetus has been subject to “unlawful and illegal detention” could have profound consequences for the rights of women in Florida.
Attorney William M Norris filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of the “unborn child” of Natalia Harrell in Florida’s third district court of appeal on 16 February, the Miami Herald first reported.
The filing argues that the fetus “is a person under the Florida constitution and the United States constitution” and therefore has the right to due process.
“The unborn child has not been charged with a criminal offense by respondents or the Miami Dade state attorney’s office, yet respondents have unborn child in a detention center known as TGK in Miami Dade county, Florida,” the filing states.
It further alleges that the jail has failed to provide Harrell with adequate prenatal nutrition and medical care, saying that she has not been treated by an obstetrician-gynecologist since October, and that on one occasion she was left inside a transport van with inside temperatures exceeding 100F (37C) for an extended period.
NPR announces it will lay off approximately 10% of its workforce
NPR will lay off approximately 10% of its workforce, or around 100 employees, the company announced on Wednesday.
In an internal memo sent to employees and reported by the Washington Post, the NPR chief executive, John Lansing, said the layoffs came largely as a result of declining advertising revenue.
“Our financial outlook has darkened considerably over recent weeks,” he said.
NPR (short for National Public Radio) predominantly relies on sponsorships, member-station dues, philanthropic gifts and federal dollars as its main sources of funding, the Post reported.
Lansing said NPR expected a $30m budget shortfall, despite an earlier plan to address a $20m fall-off in sponsorship revenue for the 2023 fiscal year.
Top state officials push to make spread of US election misinformation illegal
Chief election officials in several states want to make it illegal for someone to knowingly spread false information about an election, a move that raises questions around first amendment protected speech.
The Democratic secretaries of state for Michigan and Minnesota told the Guardian they’re supporting legislation that would criminalize people who spread misinformation about an election. Michigan’s secretary of state, Jocelyn Benson, said the law would prevent people from tweeting that Election Day is on a Wednesday or saying that voting machines are insecure, when they know that information to be false.
Benson said that since she took office in 2019, she has seen an increase in people lying to voters about their rights, which she considers an election security threat.
“We have to hold those folks accountable, otherwise it’s going to continue and it will harm our democracy,” she said.
Most states already prohibit interference with the election process in some manner, but the specificity in the laws when it comes to the spread of misinformation or the use of deceptive practices before an election varies from state to state.
The American climate migration has already begun
Over the past decade, the US has experienced a succession of monumental climate disasters. Hurricanes have obliterated parts of the Gulf Coast, dumping more than 50in of rain in some places. Wildfires have denuded the California wilderness and destroyed thousands of homes. A once-in-a-millennium drought has dried up rivers and forced farmers to stop planting crops. Many of these disasters have no precedent in living memory, and they have dominated the headlines as Americans process the power of a changing climate.
But the disasters themselves are only half the story. The real story of climate change begins only once the skies clear and the fire burns out, and it has received far less attention in the mainstream media. In the aftermath of climate disasters, as victims try to cope with the destruction of their homes and communities, they start to move around in search of safe and affordable shelter. Many of them have no choice but to move in with family members or friends, while others find themselves forced to seek out cheaper apartments in other cities. Some rebuild their homes only to sell them and move to places they deem less vulnerable, while others move away only to return and lose their homes again in another storm or fire.
We as Americans don’t often hear about this chaotic process of displacement and relocation, but the scale of movement is already overwhelming: more than 3 million Americans lost their homes to climate disasters last year, and a substantial number of those will never make it back to their original properties. Over the coming decades, the total number of displaced will swell by millions and tens of millions, forcing Americans from the most vulnerable parts of the country into an unpredictable, quasi-permanent exile from the places they know and love.
This migration won’t be a linear movement from point A to point B, and neither will it be a slow march away from the coastlines and the hottest places. Rather, the most vulnerable parts of the United States will enter a chaotic churn of instability as some people leave, others move around within the same town or city, and still others arrive only to leave again. In parts of California that are ravaged by wildfire, disaster victims will vie against millions of other state residents for apartments in the state’s turbulent housing market. In cities like Miami and Norfolk, where sea levels are rising, homeowners may watch their homes lose value as the market shies away from flood-prone areas. The effects will be different in every place, but almost everywhere the result will be the same: safe shelter will get scarcer and more expensive, loosening people’s grip on the stability that comes with a permanent home.
Company plans to dump a million gallons of radioactive water into the Hudson River
On February 2, Holtec International, the company charged with decommissioning the Indian Point nuclear facility, reported that it plans to discharge approximately one million gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River beginning as soon as August. The Indian Point electricity generating station is located in Buchanan, New York, on the eastern shore of the river, roughly 25 miles (40 kilometers) upstream from New York City. It was first brought on line in 1962 and was finally shuttered in 2021.
The announcement was made at a meeting of the Indian Point Decommissioning Oversight Board and has raised strong objections from environmental advocacy groups and residents. The Hudson River is already a federally designated Superfund cleanup site due to the dumping of carcinogenic PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) by General Electric decades ago from facilities at Hudson Falls and Fort Edward, NY, upriver from Buchanan.
Dealing with the radioactive water, a product of the process to keep the nuclear reactor from overheating, is just one aspect of the overall decommissioning procedure. Spent fuel rods, which contain plutonium and uranium, and other components, will remain dangerously radioactive for hundreds of millennia. These must be stored on site in effective perpetuity unless an alternative long-term storage facility is created to which they could be transported, merely “kicking the can down the road.” No such “permanent” storage location has yet been created despite 45 years of political finger-pointing. The transportation itself would present dangers, as illustrated by the recent derailment and resulting spill of toxic chemicals in East Palestine, Ohio.
The wastewater is contaminated with tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen, which emits beta radiation (electrons) as it decays. While not as dangerous as the fuel rods, in large quantities it can cause cancer when inhaled or ingested. Tritium has a relatively short half-life, 12.33 years. Half-life is the length of time over which half of a given quantity of radioactive material will decompose, in this case into harmless helium.
An effective decontamination strategy would be to simply keep the wastewater contained on site to allow the natural decay process to proceed. Retention for approximately 25 years would reduce the quantity of tritium by 75 percent, making release into the environment less problematic. After 60 years, 96.4 percent of the stored tritium would have decayed. The NRC allows 60 years for decommissioning and spent fuel rods can remain on site for longer. However, that would require ensuring that containment was maintained throughout that time to prevent leakage into the surrounding groundwater, entailing long-term monitoring, maintenance and associated expense. Leaks in two containment tanks at the facility have already been detected. It should be noted that the tritium standards have not been updated for 50 years and may be out of date.
Given that and the need for onsite storage of the more long-lived radioactive materials, the question is raised: what is the need for disposal of the wastewater into the Hudson at this time, since curation of the Indian Point facility must be maintained in any case? A company spokesperson stated that in-river disposal is the “best option” available. This is eerily reminiscent of Norfolk Southern’s justification for the “controlled burn” of toxic materials in the derailed train at East Palestine. In both cases, containment of cost is evidently the primary consideration.
This ‘climate-friendly’ fuel comes with an astronomical cancer risk
The Environmental Protection Agency recently gave a Chevron refinery the green light to create fuel from discarded plastics as part of a climate-friendly initiative to boost alternatives to petroleum. But, according to agency records obtained by ProPublica and the Guardian, the production of one of the fuels could emit air pollution that is so toxic, one out of four people exposed to it over a lifetime could get cancer.
“That kind of risk is obscene,” said Linda Birnbaum, former head of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. “You can’t let that get out.” That risk is 250,000 times greater than the level usually considered acceptable by the EPA division that approves new chemicals. Chevron hasn’t started making this jet fuel yet, the EPA said. When the company does, the cancer burden will disproportionately fall on people who have low incomes and are Black because of the population that lives within three miles of the refinery in Pascagoula, Mississippi.
ProPublica and the Guardian asked Maria Doa, a scientist who worked at the EPA for 30 years, to review the document laying out the risk. Doa, who once ran the division that managed the risks posed by chemicals, was so alarmed by the cancer threat that she initially assumed it was a typographical error. “EPA should not allow these risks in Pascagoula or anywhere,” said Doa, who now is the senior director of chemical policy at Environmental Defense Fund.
In response to questions from ProPublica and the Guardian, an EPA spokesperson wrote that the agency’s lifetime cancer risk calculation is “a very conservative estimate with ‘high uncertainty’”, meaning the government erred on the side of caution in calculating such a high risk.
Under federal law, the EPA can’t approve new chemicals with serious health or environmental risks unless it comes up with ways to minimize the dangers. And if the EPA is unsure, the law allows the agency to order lab testing that would clarify the potential health and environmental harms. In the case of these new plastic-based fuels, the agency didn’t do either of those things. In approving the jet fuel, the EPA didn’t require any lab tests, air monitoring or controls that would reduce the release of the cancer-causing pollutants or people’s exposure to them.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
A Fantasy of Angelic, US Omnipotence
The Buildup To War In Ukraine - Wednesday, February 23, 2022
Patrick Lawrence: Russia Takes Another Step Back From the West
What Will Happen When Banks Go Bust? Bank Runs, Bail-Ins and Systemic Risk
After Norfolk Southern Support, DeWine Says No Disaster In East Palestine
California farmers ask for more aid after deadly storms
The big archaeological digs happening up in the sky
‘It was an out of body experience’: looking back at the Wattstax music festival
A Little Night Music
Freddy King - Now I've Got A Woman
Freddy King - Use What You've Got
Freddy King – Remington Ride
Freddie King - Meet Me In The Morning
Freddie King - I Don't Know
Freddie King - Boogie Man
Freddie King - Stumble
Freddie King - Same Old Blues
Freddie King - Feelin Good
Freddie King Live at the Sugar Bowl
Comments
America First Foreign Policy
sound a bit right wingerish, dog whistle for xenophobia
but I agree congress needs to use their power to check MIC
exploitations. If only ..
~
evening qms...
heh, america first policy (coined by racist warmonger woodrow wilson) was fringe right wing for a long time (espoused by the kkk and nazi sympathizer lindbergh among others). the current incarnation is a trump organization.
but as you say, they are not wrong that congress does need to step into its assigned constitutional role of determining the war status of the united states and not allowing the executive to usurp the legislature's role.
given the vast numbers of corrupted craven warmongers in the legislature, however, i don't really expect them to do much of anything useful.
Hi all, Hey Joe,
Hi all, Hey Joe,
I gotta get back to work... but THANKS for the Freddie King! He is one of the best there ever was. I saw him open for Grand Funk about 1971 at the Forum in L.A. The people just wanted I'm Your Captain and Inside Lookin' Out. He was friggin' great. What tone, speed, and intonation, the way he stabs those notes is to the bone.
Just spitballin' here, but hows about we ship all the spent nukie fuel to Washington D.C. and build a monument to the Nuclear Indemnity Act with it?
I gotta fly ... thanks for the great soundscape!
hope it is good for all out there!
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
evening dystopian...
heh, that must have been awful for grand funk, having an opening band that was light years ahead of them in talent.
have a great time at work and a great weekend!
treated to a cool alignment tonight
in the western sky, Venus and Jupiter are pointing up to a smiley new moon
This is encouraging on the bail-ins
Do I understand what Ellen says? Q:
that CREDIT UNION deposits and checking accounts, belonging to regular people with low incomes, will not be stolen by bail-ins ?
Please elaborate, while I research credit unions & make plans
to try to safeguard meagre savings.
Ellen Brown
Right, Title II of the Dodd Frank Act only applies to SIFIs — “systemically important [and risky] financial institutions.”
But still I don’t see how congress could give banks permission to take our money just because they once again gambled and made bad decisions and they lost their shirts. To me it’s like making it mandatory for some lonely peon to have to give up an organ to some rich puke that didn’t take care of their body and smoked and drank heavily and then needing new lungs and a kidney.
Biden the savior? Gag me!
Biden got Putin’s permission to go to Ukraine and walk around knowing he wouldn’t get attacked. But as the essay I posted last night shows no one at the WH told the media about that and let them think that Biden was being very brave to spit into the wind.
Yeah our savior:
Yesterday China took us to task for being at war for the entire history of the country minus 60 years.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
evening snoopy...
it's my understanding that credit unions (which are separately insured by an fdic-like organization of their own) are a safer repository than in systemically important banks. i have yet to figure out if they are really failure-proof though. it's my guess that they are just better protection rather than complete protection.
because the banksters have lobbyists and we don't.
oooh, that biden, what a brave man! pffffttt!
The media fawning was so nauseating wasn’t it?
Gahh I can’t even listen to Rachel’s voice anymore without wondering if she had always planned on being a media mouthpiece or stenographer. Like shar said a few days ago what she gabs about depends on what party is in power. I can’t believe now all the respect I gave her when she first appeared and talked about Bush. Oh well live and learn.
Have a great weekend! Windy again today but Sam put her foot down and off we went.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
heh...
please deliver scritches! you and sam have a great weekend!
She’s napping so I will once she wakes up
Busy day running everywhere as fast as she could and smelling all the smells so she is one tired pup tonight.
Lmao..Blinken is such an ass. He says that Americans don’t like countries bullying each other and they feel that it’s wrong and want to do something about it. Of course then he goes on a spiel about Russia breaking international law and blah blah blah. This guy must have to walk funny…. It’s just amazing how he and his sociopathic friends never look in a mirror and see what they have done over the decades. Or maybe they need new glasses? Hey Antony, take a deep breath…yeah yours stinks!
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Thanks much for that credit union info JS
Suggestions about where to look for more on the relative safety of credit unions would be very welcome here.
Meanwhile I suspect re-roofing might be part of an idea ~
I'm pretty sure that Congress can do any damn thing
they want unless the supremes say otherwise. The trick is to be able to figure out for absolutely sure which banks have the green light and then get out of them.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Oh no.. I was wrong
From MoA
Not 60. Boy that makes it even worse doesn’t it? But it looks like China is thoroughly disgusted with our hegemony and they are trying to make us look at our actions and find some humility for them. Instead our neocons just keep doubling down. Do all of them walk funny? Even Vicky Nuland?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
Is Transnistria the next flash point?
There has been lots of talking about things going south in Moldova and the huge weapons cache that Russia has over there. About half way down this essay simplicius76 talks about it. Corporate media is saying that Putin is getting ready to invade Moldova just because he is a mean guy. I saw some shitlibs talking about this and their suggestion is that Ukraine goes in and slaughters the Russian troops and take the weapons. More anti war rhetoric I guess.
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
False flag event coming?
Russia got Ukraine to cancel the last one so maybe there’s hope…
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
welll...
there's been a lot of talk going around. i remember reading a little while ago that elensky had presented moldova with intercepted intelligence that russia planned to "destroy" moldova.
since then, there have been claims going back and forth about ukrainian false flags, invasions by ukraine, etc.
so, everybody says that something is going to happen, but i've got no clue as to what.
US North Korea policy
US experts give Biden’s North Korea policy a failing grade
Hankyoreh Feb 24
Lee Bon Young
The article cites a virtually unanimous view by experts, whom I regard as among the best experts on North Korean negotiations the US has. I recommend the entire article which really isn't that lengthy.
As far as making laws that prohibit promulgating falsehoods during an election, South Korea, has laws like these. Spreading falsehoods eg. libel concerning a public figure really isn't protected in South Korea. I had just written a somewhat lengthy interpretation today, of how such a law prohibits candidates for election to public office from lying. One of the consequences of such lies during an election campaign is that if the person is elected, and they are convicted of this crime, they lose their right to office and must step down. My discussion of this was in respect to a particular case, President Yoon Seok-yeol's demonstrated lies during his presidential campaign. He could face impeachment on this basis alone. It's kind of an obscure topic for Americans, so I'll just put the link here.
Three obvious Yoon Seok-yeol lies that undermine his administration
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2023/02/three-obvious-yoon-...
I've been writing about Yoon Seok-yeol for about three years now. This is the authoritarian that the US and Japan love so much. Since he came into office, he has submitted to US and Japanese dominance, done everything he could to undermine the progress made during the previous administration with North Korea and is regarded as a traitor by about half the population, particularly with respect to Japan. Korea was invaded, occupied and brutally exploited by Japan for fifty years. Yoon is unilaterally protecting Japanese companies from a court judgement years in the making to compensate survivors of their slave labor levees during WWII.
The article below reports on a second "trilateral" military exercise featuring the US, Japan, and South Korea warships operating together in the East Sea. The military exercise took place near Eulong Do (island) which means it was near the Dokdo, islets, that Japan took from Korea after the Treaty of Eulsa. South Korea occupied the islands during the Syngman Rhee administration. Japan was publicly claiming Dokdo was theirs while the planned "trilateral" exercise was being carried out. The article mentions it wasn't the first one either, there was an earlier exercise in Oct.
Korea, U.S., Japan hold 1st trilateral missile defense drills of 2023
February 22, 2023
https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/02/22/national/defense/Korea-t...
S. Korea protests Japan's annual event on Dokdo attended by high-level official
All News 15:03 February 22, 2023
https://en.yna.co.kr/view/AEN20230222006700325
The video below is taken from the link in the article.
Dokdo was Korean for centuries. The Japanese seized it during the Sino-Japanese War in 1894. There were military incidents between Japan and South Korea related to Dokdo during the Moon administration. I wrote a report based on a lecture by a noted South Korean geographer on how the Dokdo dispute came to be.
Emblem of Japanese Imperialism- Dokdo
https://civilizationdiscontents.blogspot.com/2019/09/emblem-of-japanese-...
Thanks for the EBs Joe. Always look forward to this open thread. I hope my comments are not too far afield.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
biden's "diplomacy" with north korea is a spectacular failure. then again, it seems that it is meant to be. biden and the neocons want a stalemate there in order to maintain an excuse for a huge u.s. military buildup in the region (right near china's borders).
yoon seok-yeol's policy certainly ingratiates him to the u.s. neocons and japanese militarists and i would assume that is his goal.
not at all. thanks for your coverage of an area of the world that i know little about.
have a great weekend!
Military buildup excuse
No doubt about that JS. Yoon bought into it because he doesn't know what he is doing. I thought about commenting on the potential for this "trilateral" alignment that Yoon has joined and the potential to further aggravate the Chinese. After all, the prior Moon Jae-in administration had promised not to deploy more THAAD batteries, not to participate in a US ABM network that could be used against China, and not to join an anti-China alliance. This was to allow the South Korean- Chinese trade relationship get back to normal.
Yet, these naval exercises appear to demonstrate the trilateral relationship the Chinese would rather not see. China objected publicly last July.
China demands Korea uphold ‘Three Nos’ policy
Korea Herald July 28
https://www.koreaherald.com/view.php?ud=20220728000666
US sources on this subject say the Three Nos policy really doesn't matter that much or doesn't matter at all. I think this is easy for non-Koreans to say.
I forgot to mention how much the article you posted on US climate migration applies to us right now.
"Some rebuild their homes only to sell them and move to places they deem less vulnerable, while others move away only to return and lose their homes again in another storm or fire."
Thanks Joe!
語必忠信 行必正直
Good evening Joe et al. I thought I'd toss out
some stuff about the whole bank bail-ins, etc. uncertainty.
Deposits totaling less than 250,000 aren't subject (per my reading) to Bail-ins, and are insured (on paper)
A lot of banks are at risk big time because they've gambled a ton in the derivatives market.
If they go down there will almost certainly be bail-ins, if not for the first one, then for the rest.
Banks on this list with no derivative exposure do not have those risks, (on paper) https://www.usbanklocations.com/bank-rank/derivatives.html
Credit unions can't play in that market, so they are not at risk here.
Both banks and credit unions can fail for other reasons, but the huge worry is that the derivative market exceeds everybody's assets by a ton.
If (when) the derivative bubble bursts many banks will wind up being liquidated and deposits exceeding 250,000 will be confiscated as per bail in. This will not happen to Credit Unions.
However, the FDIC isn't really funded enough to pay off all of the "protected accounts" (under 250K), though they might just print up shitloads of Benjamins. If/when the shit hits the fan, it could trigger bank runs, and most banks today don't have the reserves to stand up to one, so a ton of smaller banks could go down too, with similar effects.
If sanity prevails among credit union users, they should be safe even from bank runs, unless the unavailability of bank deposits leaves a lot of folk who have accounts in both types of institutions in a big hurt causing them to start a secondary series of runs of Credit unions.
Have a great weekend
be well and have a good one
edit - put in link to derivative list
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
thanks for the info, what you have written is pretty much in line with what i've read and have heard. it looks like the big risk for us little people is a liquidity crunch for the insurance assets that back up bank and credit union accounts. i suppose that's where the theoretical part comes in. should the congress have to get involved to supplement the assets to the backup insurance funds, all bets are off if the congress is similarly constituted to the way it is now.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. Since all the notional principal
crap is treated as secured debt there will be bail ins and there won't be any of those 50 cents on the dollar type of asset distributions. The real unknown is the size of the debt pool.
happy saturday
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
Thanks for the explanation
This puts my mind more at ease. I was able to find a credit union that accepted me without needing to work at a certain place which so many did when I was looking to join. But I bet that if Clinton hadn’t cancelled glass steagal we wouldn’t be facing this mess? Isn’t it why it was put in place in the first place so banks couldn’t do what they have been doing again?
Which AIPAC/MIC/pharma/bank bought politician are you going to vote for? Don’t be surprised when nothing changes.
Voting is like driving with a toy steering wheel.
That's half of it, then the Clintons made it essentially
illegal to regulate derivatives and notional principal contracts, so there is a vast market in them and a vast variety, almost certainly a lot of wacky ones, and finally Dodd-Frank said that they are treated as secured liabilities in bankruptcy, so they get paid 100% first before all the bank accounts.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --