California Free Press

Off the Top of My Head

Manchin and Sinema Should Be Kicked Out of the Democratic Party

by John Lawrence

They have blocked Biden's agenda every step of the way. Biden and his team have spent countless hours "negotiating" with them to no avail. They have treated them with kid gloves to no avail. Now they should call them out. They are effectively blocking the codification of Roe v Wade, voting rights legislation, Biden's Build Back Better initiative and every other thing every other Democrat stands for. They are Democrats in name only - DINOs. Instead of being treated with kid gloves, they should be treated like the pariahs they are. Democrats are too nicey nice. Biden got a little testy and said he was open to ending the filibuster in order to codify Roe. Who's standing in the way of ending the filibuster? Manchin and Sinema. Who's standing in the way of every other thing Biden and most Democrats want to get done? Manchin and Sinema. If it weren't for them, Democrats could get rid of the filibuster today and codify everything the Supreme Court is torpedoing plus do a lot more. As it is, Biden is hamstrung by two quasi Democrats who are really Republicans in sheep's clothing.

The filibuster is an anti democratic rule of the Senate that prevents decisions being made by majority rule. There's no good reason for it to exist. Democrats think that, if they get rid of it, Republicans will go wild with their legislation when they control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency. But they are just wrong. When Republicans control both Houses of Congress and the Presidency but don't have 60 votes in the Senate (the number of votes necessary to overcome the filibuster), they can just vote to end or suspend the filibuster to get their legislation passed and signed into law. They don't care whether or not Democrats "observed" the traditions of the Senate by not voting to end the filibuster for their purposes. They will just do it themselves when it suits their interests. That's what the Democrats don't get. Democrats are afraid to end a "rule" when they theoretically have the power now to do so which is anti Democratic in order to get good things passed for the American people. And who are standing in the way of that? Not Republicans but 2 Democrats - Manchin and Sinema. If it weren't for them, abortion rights could be codified. A whole host of other things which the Supreme Court is casting to the wind, could be codified. In fact everything that was considered settled law is not because, if it hasn't been codified, it is under attack by the Supreme Court.

The Supreme Court has pointed out that it's not enough to win a case before the Supreme Court. It must be codified by the Congress and signed into law by the President before it is "settled law." Therefore, the Supreme Court will throw out every so called "Constitutional protection" because nothing is constitutionally protected just because somebody has won a case before the Supreme Court. As sclerotic and underperforming as Congress is, the Supremes know that throwing things back to Congress effectively overturns every decision the Supreme Court has ever made! Forget about Roe v Wade. They are now attacking the EPA so that the US can do nothing about climate change except to sit back and let it happen. The US is fast becoming a backwater among nations and all because Trump had the power to appoint 3 conservative Justices to the Supreme Court. So what will be next on the Republicans' agenda? Getting rid of social security and Medicare? The Supreme Court will help them with that. Their only talent is using arcane language to do the Republicans' dirty work.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Could Solve the Gas Crisis Today by Taking Sanctions Off Russian Oil

by John Lawrence

Sanctions on Russian oil have been an abysmal failure. Russian oil profits are up 50% from last year! Just as American and British oil corporations have been scoring record profits, so has Russia. Oil prices are set on the world market and soaring prices result in record profits for Russia. If Putin had designed the sanctions himself, he couldn't have wreaked more havoc on the US and European economies. It's time for Biden to admit that his policy of sancti0ns against Russia has failed. They haven't deterred Russia from pursuing a war of attrition against Ukraine. They have demonstrated the abject failure of using US sanctions to control the actions of other countries. They are a total lost cause now and in the future. That's the lesson of the war in Ukraine for the west.

Bloomberg reported:

Russia’s oil revenues are up 50% this year even as trade restrictions following the invasion of Ukraine spurred many refiners to shun its supplies, the International Energy Agency said.

Moscow earned roughly $20 billion each month in 2022 from combined sales of crude and products amounting to about 8 million barrels a day, the Paris-based IEA said in its monthly market report. 

Russian shipments have continued to flow even as the European Union edges towards an import ban, and international oil majors such as Shell Plc and TotalEnergies SE pledge to cease purchases. Asia has remained a keen customer, with China and India picking up cargoes no longer wanted in Europe.

The IEA, which advises major economies, kept its outlook for world oil markets largely unchanged in the report. Global fuel markets are tight and may face further strain in the months ahead as Chinese demand rebounds following a spate of new Covid lockdowns, it said. 

Reduced flows of Russian refined products such as diesel, fuel oil and naphtha have aggravated tightness in global markets, the agency noted. Stockpiles have declined for seven consecutive quarters, with reserves of so-called middle distillates at their lowest since 2008.

But for all the disruption, Moscow has continued to enjoy a financial windfall compared with the first four months of 2021. Despite the EU’s public censure of the Kremlin’s aggression, total oil export revenues were up 50% this year. 

The bloc remained the largest market for Russian exports in April, taking 43% of the country’s exports, the IEA said.

So where is this "world market" that is setting the price of oil? Is it on Wall Street? I'd like to have a word with whoever is in charge of this "world market." Lord knows the US produces enough oil to supply all the US' gas needs so why not take US oil production off the world market and just sell it to the American people at a reasonable price? Oh, I guess that's not how capitalism works. Ironic, isn't it, that a formerly communist country like Russia is now profiting from capitalist markets! So even if the US, Canada and Europe are having record inflation with recessions predicted in the near future, Biden won't take the sanctions off of Russian oil, and basically this is all for spite, all because he hates Putin so much. Biden has staked American prestige on fighting a proxy war with Russia based on the almighty dollar and the power it supposedly possesses over every financial transaction going on in the world. Problem is that all the sanctions on Russia have only proven the weakness and futility of using sanctions to achieve policy goals. Russia has demonstrated that the sanctions just don't work. They haven't deterred Russia in the least. China and India have taken up the slack in Russian oil purchases.

Besides that, what Biden fails to understand is that like the US, Russia's currency, the ruble, is a fiat currency. That means that unlike China, it is not pegged to the US dollar. Russia's central bank can print as many rubles as it wants without asking US permission. The US can of course do the same thing - print as many dollars as it wants except the limiting factor is inflation. So the US can't print dollars right now, but Russia can still print rubles. That means that Russia controls Russian investment in Russia and Russian control of internal consumer markets. Imported products come mainly from China, and China is Russia's friend. Russia is demanding payment for its gas in rubles rather than dollars, and this supports the value of the ruble as a convertible currency just as Nixon's demand that the Saudis price their oil in dollars supported the value of the dollar and made the dollar the world's reserve currency.

All this boils down to the fact that Russia is in the driver's seat with respect to the war in Ukraine. It's hard to see how the unending supply of western weapons is sufficient to win the war for Ukraine now that the policy of sanctions has failed. Demonizing Putin is not a policy that is likely to have an effect on the war one way or other. Putin still has a lot of friends in the world and US inflation, while being primarily a function of sanctions on Russian oil, is also dependent on the supply chain of products coming from China, Russia's friend. Biden should be careful about whom he demonizes. After demonizing MBS, he's now about to get back in bed with him and the Saudis. Biden's Build Back Better policy could have helped the American people, and even now could fight inflation, but alas, after promising that it would be passed "in tandem" with the bipartisan infrastructure bill, it never was. What up with that?

Off the Top of My Head

Did Biden Shoot Himself in the Foot by Putting the Kibosh on Russian Oil?

by John Lawrence

If Putin wanted to ruin the US economy, he couldn't have done it more successfully than if he himself had refused deliveries of Russian oil. The US and European embargo on Russian oil has driven the price of oil on the world market sky high, and Putin is benefiting from the price increase! In fact he has made more money from the sale of oil this year than he did last year! No wonder Putin is smiling. He's laughing all the way to the bank as his war in Ukraine not only devastates Ukraine but drives inflation in the US, UK and the rest of Europe while US sanctions on Russia's economy does little or no damage. Do they really need imports from Europe or the US when China is the world's manufacturer of practically everything, and China is an ally of Russia? Not every financial transaction in the world involves the US dollar. Furthermore, Russia's blockade of Ukrainian grain is causing food prices to rise which makes for another increase in inflation. But even worse than that, countries that depend on that grain consumption will likely find their citizens going hungry further contributing to world political instability.

Biden's insane pandering to Saudi Arabia after declaring them a pariah country will not do much to lower the price of gas even if Saudi Arabia increases production to their limit. They don't have the ability to fully replace the potential supply of Russian oil. So win or lose the war in Ukraine, Putin is having a debilitating effect on the US economy while there is not that much of a debilitating effect on Russia's economy. Another reason this is so is that the Russian ruble is a fiat currency not pegged to the US dollar so the Russian central bank can spend as many rubles as necessary to keep consumers and businesses going. Even MacDonald's has been "Russianized" so that MacDonald's pull out has had little or no effect on the Russian preference for US fast food. Furthermore, Russia and China, among a few other nations, have been hard at work to limit the US dollar as the world's reserve currency. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) envisions a prosperous, inclusive, resilient, and sustainable Asia and the Pacific, while sustaining its efforts to eradicate extreme poverty in the region. China's Belt and Road initiative also is furthering the cause of dedollarization of the world economy. However, China's currency is pegged to the US dollar so China needs to hold dollars in its account at the Federal Reserve, but Russia's currency is fully convertible. That's how it can demand that Finland pay for its gas in rubles thus supporting that fully convertible currency. Russia, therefore, is not dependent on the US dollar. It just needs to import anything that it doesn't produce domestically and China can provide that.

Meanwhile, the US is dependent on the supply chain from China which has been disrupted lately causing more inflation. Dependency on China for most of its products while trying to cast China as an adversary is not a very good idea. The proposed Cold War with China is only pushing Russia and China closer together. Meanwhile the war in Ukraine is becoming a money pit for the US government which is spending billions and billions to give Ukraine a never ending supply of weapons. This is also inflationary because, whereas the product is shipped to Ukraine, the money is spent right into the US economy via the US weapons manufacturers. To fight inflation money needs to be extracted from the US economy hopefully by means of taxing the rich and not taxing anyone making less than $400,000 a year as Biden has proposed. Whatever the outcome of the war in Ukraine, Putin has proven that by withholding Russian oil from world markets, he can drive up the price of gas and cause inflation in car centric America.

Off the Top of My Head

Bush V Gore Set Precedent for Trump v Biden

by John Lawrence

Remember when George W Bush took over the Presidency because the Supreme Court sided with him in his lawsuit to get the vote counting stopped? If it had continued Gore would have won the Presidency in 2000. If Gore had become the rightful President, there probably would not have been the disastrous and illegal Iraq wars. As is evident now Saudi Arabia was more to blame for 9/11 than Iraq or Afghanistan, but Bush wanted to be a war time President. The US government, during the George W Bush administration, kept documents secret that would have implicated Saudi Arabia as the sponsor of the 9/11 attack that killed 3000 Americans. Families of the 9/11 victims have had to retrieve documents from the British government that implicate Saudi Arabia whom they now blame for 9/11 and are suing for compensation.

In 2000 conservative justices on the Supreme Court voted to stop the counting of votes in Florida overruling the Florida Supreme Court. Wikipedia reported:

"Bush v. Gore, 531 U.S. 98 (2000), was a decision of the United States Supreme Court on December 12, 2000, that settled a recount dispute in Florida's 2000 presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore. On December 8, the Florida Supreme Court had ordered a statewide recount of all undervotes, over 61,000 ballots that the vote tabulation machines had missed. The Bush campaign immediately asked the U.S. Supreme Court to stay the decision and halt the recount. Justice Antonin Scalia, convinced that all the manual recounts being performed in Florida's counties were illegitimate, urged his colleagues to grant the stay immediately. On December 9, the five conservative justices on the Court granted the stay for Bush, with Scalia citing "irreparable harm" that could befall Bush, as the recounts would cast "a needless and unjustified cloud" over Bush's legitimacy. In dissent, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote that "counting every legally cast vote cannot constitute irreparable harm.""

Media organizations later analyzed the ballots and found that, under specified criteria, the originally pursued recount of undervotes of several large counties would have confirmed a Bush victory, whereas a statewide recount would have revealed a Gore victory. So Gore actually won the 2000 election. There would have been no illegal invasion of Iraq, and the US would have been well on the road to combating climate change because that was Gore's primary issue. How history might have been changed, if only ... So Trump probably figured, among his other plans to overturn the Biden victory in 2020, that the Supreme Court would probably be on his side in overturning the election since he had appointed 3 conservative justices to the Supreme Court, and the Court had essentially overturned the 2000 election in favor of George W Bush. However, Trump never got to the point of approaching the Supreme Court as Bush had done because Pence went ahead after the insurrection and presided over the vote count which assured that Biden had won the election. If the insurrectionists had sufficiently interrupted the proceedings on January 6, Trump's lawyers might then have petitioned the Supreme Court to rule in favor of Trump especially since the Court was overwhelmingly conservative, three of the Justices having been appointed by Trump himself. We'll never know, but what is clear is that Trump attempted a coup on January 6. It just didn't come off quite as he had planned.

Off the Top of My Head

If Huge Numbers of People Believe Something, Does It Make It True?

by John Lawrence

Huge numbers of people believe Trump won the election. By all objective measures, it's a false belief. Huge numbers also believe some particular religious doctrine. Does that make it true? When it comes to religion though, there are no objective measures. Did God actually give Moses two stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments at the top of Mount Sinai or was it Mount Horeb as it says elsewhere in the Bible. Or was it Mount Serbal or Mount Catherine where Christians built a monastery in the belief that one of these mountains is where Moses received the stone tablets. Biblical scholars cannot even agree exactly which mountain corresponds to Mount Sinai. Or, is it possible that Moses had the stone masonry skills to have carved the stone tablets himself and then just told the story that he had received them from God? After all if people believed the tablets were created just by Moses and not by God, they would have given the Ten Commandments a lot less consideration as something they should be concerned about.

The January 6 Committee is attempting to prove that Trump knew he had lost the election, but misled his followers to believe in what others have called his Big Lie. Is there a willingness on the part of "followers" to believe anything their "leader" tells them? We'll never know the factual truth about Moses and the stone tablets, but we actually have factual data about the truth or falsehood of Trump's contention that the election was stolen from him. As Bennie Thompson, chair of the January 6 committee said, "Numbers don't lie." It doesn't matter what millions of Trump supporters believe because beliefs have to be measured with respect to objective facts whenever they're available, and in this case they are. With respect to religion we are free to believe whatever we want since there are no objective facts available no matter how hard anyone wants to believe that their beliefs are in fact the true facts.

So why do people believe stuff that isn't true? Why did all those people believe that the Emperor's new clothes were in fact a most wonderful set of threads? It took a little boy to point out that the Emperor was in fact naked. People will tend to believe whatever a person in power tells them because they don't want to be punished either directly or by other believers who could make them social outcasts for not believing what all of the rest of them believe. You don't want to say the Emperor is a fake if the Emperor could throw you in prison or worse. People didn't contradict the Roman Caesars when they told them they were actually gods. A lot of the wars have been between groups with contrary religious beliefs. After the Protestant Reformation, there followed the Thirty Years war in Europe between Catholics and Protestants. The war in Yugoslavia was among three religious groups: Eastern Orthodox Christians, Roman Catholics and Muslims. They were all ethnically the same southern Slavs, the only difference among them which resulted in them killing each other was in their professed religious beliefs. Croats were largely Roman Catholic, Serbs were mostly Eastern Orthodox and Bosnia is majority Islamic. Different religious beliefs have resulted historically in human beings killing each other.

Trump's Big Lie resulted in his true believer followers almost fomenting a successful coup on January 6. It also helped Trump and other Republicans raise huge amounts of campaign cash from his followers based on their belief that the election was stolen from their "leader." Tolerance among people with different religious beliefs is a necessary component if earthlings ever hope to attain Peace on Earth, Good Will Among Men (and Women). Democracy is based on an accurate counting of votes. It's all about the numbers. It's not about beliefs. It's not about believing what some leader tells you to believe. Objectivity and science establish what is undisputedly true. Fortunately, democracy has a way to establish what is objectively true. Religion doesn't.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden Alternately Fights, Fuels Inflation

by John Lawrence

Normally the government spending money into the economy is a good thing. It promotes economic growth and prosperity. But when the economy overheats causing inflation, the government needs to extract money from the economy. It does that by, among other things, raising taxes. Also the Fed, like it's doing now, raises interest rates. This puts a damper on major purchases because of interest costs. The American Rescue Plan injected a lot of money into the economy that kept the wheels turning during the worst parts of the pandemic. That was a good thing, but too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The traditional way the Fed controls inflation is to squeeze the economy in such a way as to cause higher unemployment. The Phillips curve is a theoretical economic tool that shows the relationship between inflation and unemployment, the higher unemployment, the lower inflation and vice versa. At present, however, businesses are begging for workers, not laying them off. This is good news for workers, bad news for inflation.

Biden is trying to blunt the cost of inflation to low wage workers by getting Congress to pass some of the remnants of his Build Back Better plan. However, some of these items would cause the government to spend more money into the economy causing even more inflation. Biden doesn't want to tell the truth about inflation which is that the traditional solution is to cause even more pain for low wage workers by squeezing the economy to the point that they will lose their jobs thus increasing unemployment as the Phillips curve dictates. So basically there is nothing Biden can do except to decrease government spending. Republicans would cut programs that benefit the poor and raise taxes on the middle class to do just that.

Biden is continuing to spend money into the economy by purchasing billions of dollars worth of weapons which are then sent to Ukraine. This is inflationary in and of itself. As of May 20, 2022, the US has spent $54 billion on Ukraine, and, evidently, even more will be allocated. Ukraine has become a ward of the US with the US taking responsibility not only for supplying weapons but also for keeping the whole economy afloat. All this money spent on Ukraine is money not spent on programs for the American people unless you are an employee of the military-industrial complex for which Ukraine spending has become a bonanza. Of course there are other causes of inflation than too much government spending. The loss of Russian oil is causing gas prices to rise. Chinese COVID lockdowns are exacerbating the supply chain crisis. This is not a traditional inflation, but too much government spending is certainly a part of it. Biden's good intentions of protecting the American people during the COVID pandemic by flooding the economy with money had the concomitant effect of also causing inflation. Biden will never, of course, tell Americans the truth which is that in order to fight inflation the government will have to turn around and cause them more pain especially low wage workers.

Off the Top of My Head

UN Secretary General: "There is no way a war can be acceptable in the 21st century"

by John Lawrence

Really, Mr. Guterres? Did you forget about the Iraq war that killed over a million Iraqis, approximately 100,000 of them civilian? In the 21st century? That war, by the way, was based on the lie that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which the Bush administration knew he didn't have. And as far as a dictator goes, did George W Bush have a declaration of war from Congress? No, he did not. There was a resolution ginned up by the Bush administration that was used as an excuse for the invasion of Iraq. As far as war crimes, this war in Ukraine is getting all sorts of scrutiny by the media that the Iraq war didn't get. The fact is that in modern wars more civilians are being killed than military. That's an unfortunate fact of urban combat. It's not like the Napoleonic wars or even the US Civil War in which armies lined up on fields far away from cities and fought it out. The Battle of Gettysburg took place in a rural setting. Pickett's charge was across a hay field not an urban boulevard. The only difference in terms of time period between the Iraq war and the Ukraine war is that we are much more aware now that global warming is upon us destroying lives and livelihoods. So we don't need another war to do that. Probably much more real estate and many more lives will be destroyed this year by the effects of global warming than by the Russian military.

So the west wants to get off of Russian oil? Then why aren't they building green infrastructure and converting to non polluting energy as quickly as possible? The answer is that the fossil fuel corporations are lobbying hard to get us not do that. And they have billions of dollars to spend to get their way whereas the green protest movement has pennies to spend by comparison. The renegade Democrats, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema, themsleves have profited by Big Oil's huge donations to their campaign funds. But for them we could have had a substantial effort to rebuild American infrastructure along non-polluting lines. But Joe Biden presented himself as not someone who wanted to go full steam ahead to get off of fossil fuels. No, he wanted to do it in a more moderate way, a way that did not inconvenience the American people in any way. They could still have all the toys and appurtenances they were used to. As opposed to the progressive wing of the Democratic party which wanted to go full steam ahead to green the economy. So the Big Oil executives are on the same page with the Russian government. Both could care less about global warming because both are profiting immensely from the sale of fossil fuels.

So why is there not a concerted western effort to get the poor and elderly civilians out of the war zone where they are sitting ducks? The young and the rich have already got out. Only the poor and elderly remain. There is plenty of money for weaponry that the US and other NATO nations are sending into Ukraine. No effort, diplomatic or otherwise, is being made to get the poor and elderly civilians out. There have been some humanitarian corridors, but the poor and elderly don't have the money to support themselves even if they got out. Someone else would have to pay for their transportation and for their support even if they got out. Why isn't that forthcoming? Does NATO want them still sitting there in the war zone as a deterrent to the Russian army? That's nonsense and suicidal. There needs to be direct talks between Ukraine, the west and Russia about getting those civilians out. Then the two armies can fight it out. Instead, western media bemoans the fact that civilians are being killed while doing nothing to get them out. I repeat only the rich and the young, those with the means to pay, and probably pay bribes, are getting out of Ukraine and are able to support themselves outside of Ukraine. Money should be forthcoming from NATO to get the rest of the civilians out of there. They are effectively being used as human shields. I have not heard Biden or anyone else speak of money being set aside for this purpose. Only more money for weapons.

Off the Top of My Head

Tie Build Back Better Aid for Americans with Weapons Aid for Ukraine

by John Lawrence

Funny how all the concern about inflation doesn't apply to the billions being spent with US weapons manufacturers for javelins, stingers, howitzers and other weaponry. The aid for Ukraine is not money being spent in Ukraine. It's money being spent right here in America going into the coffers of the military-industrial complex. Then the deliverables are shipped to Ukraine, not the money. Since it's being spent right here in the US, it is increasing inflation because more money going into the money supply increases inflation. But hardly anyone is concerned about the inflation that that is causing. When it comes to Biden's Build Back Better plan, it's dead in the water because that would cause inflation. Congress persons are so concerned about that inflation, but they're not at all concerned about the inflation being caused by the billions being spent to make weapons of war. The original BBB package was supposed to be tied with the physical infrastructure legislation that has already passed. They were supposed to be approved in tandem, but they never were. This was a huge failure and huge mistake by the Biden administration which essentially sold out the progressive wing of its party in order to get something, anything, passed. As a result, physical infrastructure, but not human infrastructure, alone got passed, and, more importantly, a huge amount of the global warming infrastructure didn't get passed. So now why don't they tie BBB to the expenditure for more weapons for Ukraine?

According to resources.org:

"The [BBB] legislation allocates $1 billion over the next few years to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Federal Highway Administration for efforts that support the use of low-carbon materials in highway construction projects. It authorizes $4.225 billion for the US General Services Administration (GSA) for its acquisition of green products and its portfolio of environmental sustainability programs, including initiatives that range from securing fuel-efficient vehicles for the federal fleet to setting net-zero energy and water targets for newly constructed GSA properties. An additional $8.98 billion are slated to go toward the purchase of electric vehicles (EVs) and associated infrastructure (e.g., charging stations) by the GSA and the US Postal Service."

Not too much to ask, really, to save the planet. By the way subsidizing the purchase of electric vehicles for consumers would help offset the price of gas at the pump. The US may help Ukraine to win the war or at least achieve a protracted stalemate, but at the same time it is letting global warming proceed with minimum intervention. So what is more important - influencing the outcome of a war between two countries or dooming every country on earth which is what will happen if we don't proceed full steam ahead to forestall global warming. Is funding the war in Ukraine being penny wise and pound foolish? Better, if all countries put their money towards combating global warming instead of weapons of war, there might be a slight chance of saving the planet. As it is now, the human race would rather fight wars than save the planet. War is one addiction the human race is not willing to give up even if it means our grandchildren will inherit a planetary hell.

Off the Top of My Head

US Weapons Manufacturers Profiting From War in Ukraine

by John Lawrence

So far the US has spent $13.6 billion on the war in Ukraine. The money includes weapons, military supplies and one of the largest infusions of U.S. foreign aid in the last decade. But it also covers the deployment of U.S. troops to Europe and money for domestic agencies to enforce sanctions. Stock prices for Lockheed-Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon are up. They are making money from all the Javelins and Stinger missiles they are selling to the US government which is giving them to Ukraine free of charge. Raytheon Technologies and Lockheed Martin Corp jointly produce Javelins, while Raytheon makes Stingers. EU countries are buying even more US weaponry from the US military-industrial complex. Germany even wants F-35 aircraft from Lockheed Martin. U.S. weapons exports rose 2.8% to $175 billion in fiscal 2020. The Ukraine war is a field day for the weapons industry. As far as they're concerned, the more arms shipments to Ukraine the better. They are bullish. CEOs will probably get a substantial increase in pay, and the weapons contractors will be able to buy back more of their own stock boosting stock values even more. The US policy so far is no boots on the ground, but plenty of taxpayer money going up in smoke, money that could have been spent on bettering the lot of the American people.

The is always money available for war, but when it comes to Biden's Build Back Better package, Congress gets very stingy. So a localized war is more important than the fate of the whole planet due to global warming. Or it's more important than affordable health care. Or it's more important than imposing a tax on multi-billionaires who, by the way, are not paying for the war because they pay no taxes. If they have defense contractors in their portfolio, they are profiting from the war. Politico reported:

More than 25 nations have joined in purchasing and delivering weapons to support Ukraine’s war effort. The U.S. has sent billions of dollars in missiles, ammunition and other items to the front. The EU signed off on a €500 million ($551 million USD) package — a first for the 27-country European bloc — to help arm Ukraine. And both Finland and Germany have rewritten long-standing policy that barred exporting weapons into war zones.

At the same time, there are tens of thousands of troops being activated and deployed by NATO countries in Eastern Europe.

Using a resource guide retrieved from the Forum on the Arms Trade that mostly relies on official government statements and reports in the media — and backfilled with our own independent research — POLITICO has worked to track and compile weapons and materials that have been announced or directed to Ukraine by various countries since January.

This non-exhaustive list focuses on lethal weapons and some non-lethal material. It does not count humanitarian and developmental aid that has been sent to Ukraine in the same period. Arms trade research organizations have noted the timeline and official receipt of equipment is hard to confirm due to security concerns. In some cases, such as with France and Turkey, an official tally has not been made public.

While US taxpayers are paying for the war in Ukraine and for the delivery of weapons to Europe, Saudi Arabia and other places in the world, billionaires are paying nothing. Congress will not even pass a tax on billionaires so that they would be forced to pay, as Biden says, "their fair share." Their fair share is zero, zip according to Congress which is basically on the side of the billionaires. So planet earth diminishes in importance, as far as global warming is concerned, because fighting and paying for war is so much more important. In fact not only is war more important than peace, which doesn't move the stock market, it's more important than renewable energy. All of a sudden there is a need for more oil, more fossil fuel, all of which produces more greenhouse gasses. The attitude is if we need to destroy planet earth in order to win this war, then that is the price we'll have to pay.

Off the Top of My Head

Problems of American Democracy - Part 4: The Easter Bunny Approach to Good Citizenship

by John Lawrence

Voters usually turn against the party in power in the mid term elections. Why? Because the party in power has promised voters all kinds of Easter goodies, and they haven't delivered on all of them. They haven't delivered all of them because the job of the party out of power is to prevent the party in power from doing so. Meanwhile, the party out of power promises voters a different bag of goodies if only they elect them. After all the party in power hasn't delivered all of the goodies promised. The result is the voters vote for the party out of power in the mid term elections. They've gotten all the goodies they're likely to get from the party in power, and their vote is cast in such a way that they are expecting a new bag of Easter goodies that has been promised by the party out of power if only the voters will vote for them which they willingly do. Why? Because voters don't vote for the party most likely to provide the country with good government. They don't vote for the party that is most likely to provide them with intelligent government. They vote for the party that has promised them a new and different bag of Easter goodies than the party in power which hasn't fulfilled all its promised goodies.

So the mid term elections are coming up. Republicans have done their job of obstructing many of Biden's campaign pledges. He did get an infrastructure package passed and got enormous COVID economic relief for citizens, but his hallmark campaign platform pledge, the Build Back Better plan has gone unfulfilled, thanks largely to the Republicans and two Republican wolves in Democratic sheep's clothing. The fickle voters do not assess how Biden has handled the chores of government, whether or not he's handled them in an intelligent and proficient manner. Their fickleness only assesses whether or not they've gotten all the Easter goodies Biden and the Democrats had promised. They have not. Therefore, it has been decreed by pundits, one and all, that Democrats don't have a snowball's chances in Hell of getting reelected in the Halls of Congress come this November.

Voters would rather elect a nincompoop like Trump who knew nothing about government except for the fact that it made him the most powerful man in the Free World, and, therefore, he could do and say most anything he wanted. He also promised voters the Republican bag of goodies - lowered taxes. Thoughtfully, Biden has carefully changed the Democratic meme from raising taxes on everyone to raising taxes only on the rich thus depriving Republicans of their main accusation towards Democrats: "They will raise your taxes." However, Biden doesn't seem to be getting very far in fighting inflation by raising taxes on the rich. Why? Because most Congress persons and Senators are the rich, and they've been lobbied very thoroughly by the rich. Of course this is all very legitimate. It's the American way of doing government unlike the Russian way where a rich businessman just offers cash to a member of parliament if they'll vote a certain way. In America the rich lobby and make generous campaign contributions in order to get Congress persons to vote a certain way. There's also an implied, though not explicit, wink, wink, nod, nod that the Congress person will get a lucrative job on a Fortune 400 Board when they retire from Congress in order to spend more time with their family. Of course this is not considered corruption, but the result is the same. In Russia politicians and government officials do the bidding of the rich; in America politicians and government officials do the bidding of the rich. What else is new?

Off the Top of My Head

According to Biden's BBB Plan, Buyers of Electric Vehicles Would Receive up to $12,500 in Tax Credits

by John Lawrence

So where is this incentive to buy electric vehicles now that gas (in CA) is about $6 a gallon? Now is the time when we need this subsidy, but, alas, the Democrats couldn't even stick together to pass this and other incentives and measures to get off fossil fuels. How about this as an incentive: preventing daily tornadoes in the heartland of the US? As extreme weather gets more extreme, Congress can't even pass programs to combat global warming and the consequent damage that's being done to people's lives and the economy in general. Not to mention the fact that major portions of the population will not be able to get property insurance which is happening right now and will only get worse. If you have a lot of brush around your house, you're an insurance liability. If you live in a flood plain, you're an insurance liability. We are told by people who know that we only have a few years to do something before we can expect catastrophic consequences from climate change and global warming. Yet we are taking our time getting off fossil fuels. There is even regret that we didn't go ahead with the Keystone pipeline.

The New York Times reported:

"In the coming decades, as global temperatures continue to rise, hundreds of millions of people could struggle against floods, deadly heat waves and water scarcity from severe drought, the report said. Mosquitoes carrying diseases like dengue and malaria will spread to new parts of the globe. Crop failures could become more widespread, putting families in places like Africa and Asia at far greater risk of hunger and malnutrition. People unable to adapt to the enormous environmental shifts will end up suffering unavoidable loss or fleeing their homes, creating dislocation on a global scale,[according to a recent UN report]."

We do know the things we need to be doing. It's just that we're not doing them or doing them at such a slow pace that we will still experience the worst effects of climate change. If you think the refugee problem is bad now, climate change will exacerbate and accelerate the refugee problem. People will be fleeing their homes and homelands when it becomes apparent that they can't make a living there. They will be coming to parts of the world where countries are wealthy enough to mitigate the worst effects of climate change. Basically, that means that people will flee poor countries and attempt at all costs to enter rich countries. That's why the US, as the richest country in the world, should be going full speed ahead to transition away from fossil fuels and into a new era that consists of renewable energy production and more environment friendly lifestyles. Instead, Americans are determined to lead lifestyles of maximum consumption right up to the hilt of their financial resources and beyond in a last gasp of over consumption.

Common Dreams reported:

In the wake of a United Nations report that activists said showed the "bleak and brutal truth" about the climate emergency, a leading economist on Friday highlighted a step that supporters argue could be incredibly effective at combating the global crisis: nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry.

Writing for The American Prospect, Robert Pollin, an economics professor and co-director of the Political Economy Research Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, noted the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and high gas prices exacerbated by Russia's war on Ukraine.

"If we are finally going to start taking the IPCC's findings seriously," Pollin wrote, "it follows that we must begin advancing far more aggressive climate stabilization solutions than anything that has been undertaken thus far, both within the U.S. and globally. Within the U.S., such measures should include at least putting on the table the idea of nationalizing the U.S. fossil fuel industry."

Asserting that "at least in the U.S., the private oil companies stand as the single greatest obstacle to successfully implementing" a viable climate stabilization program, Pollin made the case that fossil fuel giants should not make any more money from wrecking the planet, nationalization would not be an unprecedented move in the United States, and doing so could help build clean energy infrastructure at the pace that scientists warn is necessary.

The expert proposed starting with "the federal government purchasing controlling ownership of at least the three dominant U.S. oil and gas corporations: ExxonMobil, Chevron, and ConocoPhillips."

"They are far larger and more powerful than all the U.S. coal companies combined, as well as all of the smaller U.S. oil and gas companies," he wrote. "The cost to the government to purchase majority ownership of these three oil giants would be about $420 billion at current stock market prices."

So for roughly half of the defense budget, the US taxpayers could own the oil industry and phase it out at the speed required to save the planet from the worst effects of global warming. Instead we're treated to the Big Oil CEO's defiance that they are not price gouging because prices are set by the world market. Does anyone question why prices have to be set by the world market? No. Obviously, the world market exists to serve the interests of the oil producers, not oil consumers. Maybe the US should get off the world market because we produce enough oil to meet all current consumer demands. So why do we even need the world market? The world market exists to serve the interests of the OPEC nations who won't even open their spigots in a time of crisis, and it exists to serve the interests of the western Big Oil corporations like ExxonMobil, Chevron and Shell.

Americans would like to have one more blast of consumption rather than buckle down and do what's necessary to combat climate change, an effort that would be at least as great as the effort and sacrifice put forth to fight World War II. Billionaire's would rather blast off into space than use their money to fight climate change. Their lifestyles are major contributors to the emission of greenhouse gasses. They don't want to be told that they can't overconsume with numerous 27,000 square foot mansions and a fleet of luxury cars. That's the American Dream, or is it. It's soon going to turn into the American Nightmare but probably not for them. They have the resources to escape the worst effects of global warming. Instead the nightmare will be mostly visited on the least among us as well as randomly due to tornadoes, floods and fires.

Off the Top of My Head

Joe Biden's Policy: Speak Loudly but Carry a Small Stick

by John Lawrence

As opposed to Theodore Roosevelt's policy: speak softly but carry a big stick. I think Biden's policy is correct. By all means we don't want World War III. As Ellen Brown makes clear on Web of Debt blog, sanctions will not do much except hasten the day when the US dollar is not the only world's reserve currency. There are so many workarounds to sanctions, and billionaires can always replace their super yachts. Russia has a fiat currency just like the US dollar. Modern Monetary Theory has shown that a country with a fiat currency can have its central bank print as much of that currency as it wishes. The only constraining factor is inflation. Right now the US is more constrained by inflation than Russia is. There is no need for Russia's domestic economy to suffer because of inflation. Businesses can continue to receive investment loans from the central bank. International trade will continue with friendly countries like India, China, Venezuela and Turkey. Turkey is a member of NATO by the way, and India is the world's largest democracy.

Daily Sabah reported on March 11, 2022 in Turkish businesses expect progress on using rubles in trade with Russia :

"Since the currency dispute with shipping companies is causing problems in the delivery of goods passing through customs, Turkey should actively work to develop a mechanism to facilitate trade with Russia in rubles, Istanbul Chamber of Commerce (ITO) head Şekib Avdagiç said Friday. Avdagiç stated that the companies working with Russia see the withdrawal of Western countries from Moscow as a new opportunity and emphasized that it is important to enable the use of the national currency of Russia. The issue was also brought up during President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s phone call with his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin, he reiterated. Erdoğan told Putin that, apart from the euro and dollar, trade between the two countries can be carried out using the Russian ruble and Chinese yuan."

Aljazeera reported:

Mumbai, India–Indian authorities are actively considering dedicated payment mechanisms for trade with Russia to enable existing trade obligations in the wake of sanctions imposed on the Kremlin, a move that will also pave the way for cheaper oil imports to meet the country’s energy demands. In the past month, as sanctions have been imposed on Russia, the scope of a payment mechanism in local currencies has expanded from being a means to sustain ongoing trade to possibilities of deeper engagement, including increasing bilateral trade.

Of course, US authorities are managing the news here just as they are in Russia. They don't want you to know that our erstwhile ally, India, the world's largest democracy is doing workarounds to avoid US sanctions. As Ellen's article points out, we in the US may be better off once the US dollar is not the only world's reserve currency. At that point we may have to rely more on our domestic economy and infrastructure just as Russia is being forced to do now. So we won't have to be at the mercy of supply chains from other parts of the world. More stuff will be manufactured here in the good old USA, and that's a good thing.

Off the Top of My Head

There are Two Ways War in Ukraine Could Have Been Prevented

by John Lawrence

One, Ukraine could have been made a member of NATO before war began, and (2) Putin could have been given a guarantee that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO. So why didn't either one of these two possibilities prevent a destructive war which has brought death and destruction to the people of Ukraine? The fact is that NATO didn't want Ukraine as a member. Ukraine didn't meet NATO's high standards especially with regard to corruption. According to Wikipedia:

""Corruption is widespread in Ukrainian society. In 2012 Ernst & Young put Ukraine among the three most-corrupt nations of the world—alongside Colombia and Brazil. In 2015 The Guardian called Ukraine "the most corrupt nation in Europe". According to a poll conducted by Ernst & Young in 2017, experts considered Ukraine to be the ninth-most corrupt nation in the world. According to Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index (a scale of least to most corrupt nations), Ukraine ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in 2021, the second most corrupt in Europe, ahead of Russia. United States diplomats described Ukraine under Presidents Kuchma (in office from 1994 to 2005) and Yushchenko (in office from 2005 to 2010) as a kleptocracy, according to WikiLeaks cables."

Who knew? So NATO didn't want Ukraine as a member at least until it had cleaned up all the corruption. That gave Putin an open door to invade because Biden had declared that there would be no American involvement in terms of boots on the ground in Ukraine because he didn't want to start World War III. Plausible enough. However, Putin probably would never have invaded Ukraine if it had been a member of NATO which would mean that Russia would have to have been subjected to the collective wrath of all the European countries plus the United States. So instead of starting WW III, we would sanction the hell out of Russia. This, however, is not preventing Russia from wreaking havoc on the Ukrainian people.

Putin's chief demand was that Ukraine never become a member of NATO. Sweden and Finland are non-aligned so why couldn't Ukraine have agreed to the same status thus meeting Putin's main demand and prevented an invasion. All NATO had to do was offer Putin a piece of paper which was signed and dated and contained words to the effect that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO, and, furthermore, if Putin invaded Ukraine, the treaty would be abrogated. Instead the NATO negotiators would not even consider Putin's main concern. His logic was that the US would not allow missiles to be placed right on its border or anywhere in the western hemisphere for that matter. The US had been involved in the overthrow of democratically elected governments in all the Americas. According to Wikipedia:

"In Argentina, military forces overthrew the democratically elected President Isabel Perón in the 1976 Argentine coup d'état, starting the military dictatorship of General Jorge Rafael Videla, known as the National Reorganization Process. Both the coup and the following authoritarian regime was eagerly endorsed and supported by the United States government with US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger paying several official visits to Argentina during the dictatorship.

"After the democratic election of President Salvador Allende in 1970, an economic war ordered by President Richard Nixon, among other things, caused the 1973 Chilean coup d'état with the involvement of the CIA due to Allende's democratic socialist leanings. What followed was the decades-long US-backed military dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet."

In 1981, President Ronald Reagan authorized the Central Intelligence Agency to support the Contras, a right-wing Nicaraguan political group to combat the influence held by the Sandinistas in the Nicaraguan government. Various anti-government rebels in Nicaragua were organized into the Nicaraguan Democratic Force, the first Contra group, at the behest of the CIA. The CIA also supplied the Contras with training and equipment, including materials related to torture and assassination. There have also been allegations that the CIA engaged in drug trafficking in Nicaragua.

The US even sold weapons to its purported enemy, Iran, and used the money to fund the contras after the US Congress refused to do so. So while the US saw fit to protect its hemispheric interests, No one in the present US administration can see why Putin could possibly view Ukraine as a potential member of NATO as a threat even though geographically Ukraine can be seen as a dagger into the midsection of Russia. As a member of NATO, missiles might be stationed right on Russia's border with Ukraine, but why should Russia be concerned about this? NATO are, after all, good guys who wouldn't even let Ukraine join their club unless it cleaned up its act. While the US used the covert operations of the CIA to overthrow democratically elected governments and replace them with brutal military dictatorships, Russia has used its own military troops to do the same thing to protect its interests. That's the only difference.

The heart of the matter goes back to the end of the Cold War. According to The Untold History of the United States:

"Though willing to allow for the radical transformation of eastern Europe, Gorbachev hoped the end of the Cold War would lead to the dissolution of NATO as well as the Warsaw Pact. Recognizing that that might not happen, he insisted that NATO at least not expand farther to the east. He was even willing to allow for reunification of the two Germanys as long as NATO troops and weapons were not permitted on former East German soil. But he and other Russian leaders, who believed they had received ironclad U.S. and German promises that eastward expansion by NATO would never be permitted, were in a for a rude awakening when the Clinton and second Bush administration continued expanding right up to Russia's doorstep. Russian leaders expressed outrage and a sense of betrayal. Although U.S. officials, over the years, have insisted that no such promises were ever given, recently released documents appear to substantiate Russian claims."

So NATO could have proffered a treaty to Putin which guaranteed that Ukraine would never become a member of NATO or they could have negotiated a time period when Ukraine would not be permitted to join. Instead they refused to even negotiate that demand with disastrous results. A hundred years from now NATO might not even exist. It may have been replaced with a new organization that better takes care of the security interests of all European countries including Russia. But the memory of the war in Ukraine will persist a hundred years from now. It represents in the final analysis a total failure of NATO to protect the security interests of all Europeans and not just a select few.

Biggest Oil Giants Made 'Eye-Popping' $205 Billion in Profits in 2021: Report

Gas prices of more than $7.00 per gallon are posted at a downtown Los Angeles gas station on March 9, 2022. (Photo: Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images)

Now, fossil fuel giants are trying to "cash in on inflation and the crisis in Ukraine," said one critic.

 

Kenny Stancil

March 15, 2022

While millions of working people have been hurt by surging gas prices, a new analysis out Tuesday shows that 25 of the world's biggest fossil fuel corporations collectively pulled in an "eye-popping" $205 billion in profits last year—and Big Oil is exploiting Russia's war on Ukraine to charge even more at the pump in 2022 and advance its financial interests.

"All this money helps to line the pockets of wealthy oil executives who receive massive chunks of their compensation in company stock."

According to a new report from government watchdog Accountable.US, top oil and gas companies took "full advantage" of last year's sky-high prices and record profits. Fourteen firms rewarded shareholders with more than $35 billion in stock buybacks and dividend bumps.

As the report details, Big Oil has been bragging to investors about its windfall profits on recent earnings calls. Chevron, for instance, called 2021 one of its "most successful years ever." Shell CEO Ben Van Beurden described it as a "momentous year." Meanwhile, Coterra CEO Tom Jordan characterized high gas prices as "good," and Equinor CEO Anders Opedal marveled at how the industry has been "capturing value from high prices."

Last year's record profits came as average gas prices in the U.S. steadily increased—hitting around $3.40 per gallon in December 2021, up from $2.10 a year before. As consumer demand rose last year following a brief coronavirus-driven decline in 2020, shareholders pressured fossil fuel corporations to restrict supply to drive prices higher.

Oil and gas costs have soared even higher during the first three months of 2022. Since President Joe Biden announced one week ago that the U.S. would ban imports of Russian fossil fuels in response to Moscow's deadly assault on Ukraine, the average price for a gallon of gas in the U.S. has continued to climb, surpassing $4.31 on Tuesday.

Given that the United Kingdom and the European Union have also taken steps to clamp down on imports of Russian oil and gas, fossil fuel executives are reportedly salivating at the prospect of forcing consumers to accept higher costs amid the war.

According to Accountable.US, the fossil fuel giants responsible for hiking prices have already announced plans to buy back nearly $80 billion in stocks in 2022, boasting of their ability to deliver "even better" returns for shareholders this year. Devon Energy, for example, said last month that doubling down on share buybacks is the "clear thing for us to do."

"All this money helps to line the pockets of wealthy oil executives who receive massive chunks of their compensation in company stock," states the report.

When Biden announced the U.S. boycott of Russian petroleum products, he stressed that this is "no time for profiteering or price-gouging."

The Congressional Progressive Caucus followed up with a call to swiftly pass legislation to prevent more "shameless" price hikes, ramp up investments in renewable energy, and raise wages and lower the costs of necessities for working families amid high levels of inflation, which 82% of U.S. voters attribute to "corporate greed."

Big Oil, meanwhile, has sought to deflect blame for worsening pain at the pump, baselessly accusing Biden—who approved more permits for drilling on public lands and waters in 2021 than former President Donald Trump did in 2017—of suppressing domestic extraction.

As Biden bragged last week, U.S. fossil fuel corporations "pumped more oil during my first year in office than they did during my predecessor's first year."

Domestic oil and gas production is "approaching record levels," said Biden, "and we're on track to set a record for oil production next year." The president, who has ordered the release of tens of millions of barrels of oil from the nation's strategic reserves, argued that any blame for untapped extractive potential should be placed on the shoulders of those who are sitting on millions of acres of federal property.

"They could be drilling right now, yesterday, last week, last year," Biden said, referring to leaseholders who possess thousands of unused permits.

Kyle Herrig, president of Accountable.US, said in a statement that "as Americans encounter higher prices to fill their gas tanks or heat their homes, Big Oil is grasping at straws to explain why they are swimming in unused leases and hundreds of billions of dollars in profits—money they hand over to wealthy oil and gas company executives and shareholders rather than struggling consumers."

Last decade's drilling and fracking boom turned the Permian Basin into the most productive oil and gas field in the world, transforming the U.S. into a major exporter of fossil fuels but keeping prices low, much to the chagrin of shareholders.

The unwillingness of oil and gas companies to boost production in recent months "has been driven by investor sentiment," Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, told CNN last year. Wall Street, she said, doesn't want producers "to spoil the party" by expanding supply.

As Pavel Molchanov, an analyst at Raymond James, told the news outlet earlier this month: "Oil and gas companies do not want to drill more. They are under pressure from the financial community to pay more dividends, to do more share buybacks instead of the proverbial 'drill baby drill,' which is the way they would have done things 10 years ago. Corporate strategy has fundamentally changed."

Herrig argued that "it's time for Big Oil to stop lying about the Biden administration's public land policies, quit using it as a cover to cash in on inflation and the crisis in Ukraine, and pass the benefits of their massive profits on to consumers."

On Thursday, as Common Dreams reported, congressional Democrats introduced the bicameral Big Oil Windfall Profits Tax. The measure would hit large fossil fuel companies with a per-barrel tax—whether the oil is domestically produced or imported—equal to 50% of the difference between the current price of a barrel of oil and the average price per barrel between 2015 and 2019. An estimated $45 billion in annual revenue would be redistributed to U.S. households in the form of quarterly rebates.

Dems Introduce Windfall Tax on Big Oil So Companies 'Pay a Price When They Price Gouge'

Andrea Germanos

Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden said last week, "should motivate us to accelerate the transition to clean energy."

"Loosening environmental regulations and pulling back clean energy investment... will not lower energy prices for families," said the president. "But transforming our economy to run on electric vehicles powered by clean energy, with tax credits to help American families winterize their homes and use less energy—that will, that will help."

"If we do what we can," he added, "it will mean that no one has to worry about prices at the gas pump in the future."

Earlier this month, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that humanity has a "brief and rapidly closing window" to avoid the worst effects of the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency, which is on track to exacerbate deadly extreme weather, with especially catastrophic consequences for the world's poorest and most vulnerable.

While progressives have long urged Biden to exercise his executive authority to the fullest possible extent to improve the lives of working people and help secure a livable planet in the face of staunch opposition in Congress, they also have not given up on pushing for further legislative action.

On Monday, nearly 90 House Democrats urged Biden to revive the party's stalled reconciliation package—which has been approved by the lower chamber but blocked in the Senate by every Republican plus right-wing Democrats Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.)—by prioritizing measures designed to mitigate and adapt to the climate crisis. 

In addition, more than 120 advocacy groups called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to swiftly translate the party's domestic priorities into a reconciliation package that can reach Biden's desk by next month.

"We cannot wait another day," said Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), "to safeguard the future of humanity."

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Republican & Media’s Distortive, Overdone Critique of Biden’s Leadership

by Frank Thomas

U.S. liberal and conservative right media outlets are constantly nit-picking and belittling Biden's presidency in a number of small and big ways - some in constant subtle ways (CNN) but most in lying, misinforming ways e.g., Fox News, other conservative news outlets, and Republican national and local politicians. It's sickening to see this happening. I think Biden's fumbles are grossly repetitively overstated or untruthfully attributed to him. Can you imagine what Trump would have done wrong if he were in office 2021 to now and through 2024? 

Biden does not play the political role of being an inspiring man - but he certainly knows what he is doing, and that he’s not perfect. He's open and honest in going for fundamental changes to the many huge, severe societal problems facing us. He tries to work with Republicans. But they are determined to block his every policy move by a constant wave of lies and personal defamation of his leadership capability. This madness and that of the media are only ensuring that the mentally deranged Trump will win his 2nd rerun for the presidency in 2024. Any global professional poll (e.g. the Gallup poll) taken of the Europeans' choice between Biden and Trump for President of America in these menacing times would show Biden as the overwhelmingly choice by at least 70% of Europeans. Constantly, claims of Biden’s fumbles or omissions are taken out of context, repetitively overstated or untruthfully attributed to him. 

The mix of internal, critical problems Trump left behind and new ones hitting America like Russia's invasive, murderous, warring machine against Ukraine have been literally gigantic and complex ... but Biden has remained, with few exceptions, cool and strategically well-focused. He has a smart, alert and wise thinking administration around him that mutually and respectively listen to each other - unlike leaders like the tyrannical Putin and maniacally egocentric, divisive Trump. 

For example, Biden with his administration took the initiative on going for very TOUGH sanctions' in his response to the Putin regime. The West now finances Russia's war by sending Putin over $700 million dollars per day for gas-oil supplies. Biden is aware how the EU and others have made themselves dependent, and have been naive and soft in dealing with Putin. The late John McCain's words are right on, "Russia is a 'tank station' disguised as a land." 

That raises the obvious question, what if we in the western world or Putin's regime stop the tanking? The transition to green energy is not possible overnight. But we can work together with other nations on that challenge and that is going to accelerate the transition to green energy.  As one Dutch analyst wrote, “Don Quichot fought against windmills. The assumption was he was fighting against dangers which really didn't exist. But we are confronted with dangers now that are becoming the reality. We must fight back with wind molens, the sun, all forms of sustainable energies and related actions.”  

Biden is way ahead on the climate problem as he has been on many other serious problems. The Republicans are killing all his efforts in their eagerness to regain full political power. They use the standard Republican hyped attacks  and propagandistic, ad hominem arguments that have cumulatively gotten the U.S. in its current social, economic, political MESS over the past 40 years. Biden knows this and wants to reach constructive compromise with Republicans. But all they do is shovel disgracefully false critique upon our president every chance they can to disgrace his presidency.  

I Thank God for the ordinary, straight thinking, down-to-earth Joe Biden and his leadership presence in the White House in these incredibly polarized, unstable, perilous times ... Thank God NOT DONALD TRUMP - our roundly defeated ex-president who was an absolute, disastrous failure at the job … and would be again if elected in 2024.  

                    

Frank Thomas

March 3, 2022

The Netherlands

 

 

Off the Top of My Head

The US Produces as Much Oil as It Consumes. So Why Should Gas Prices Go Up?

by John Lawrence

The US is the world's largest oil producer at about 18 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia is number 2 while Russia is a close number 3. The US is also the largest consumer or oil at about 18 million barrels a day. So the US produces about as much oil as it consumes. So why doesn't the US control the price of its own oil? Because oil is put on the world market so the price is determined by the supply and demand for oil on the world market. If there is a shortage on the world market, the price of gas goes up for US consumers. That is what is happening now because of the Russia Ukraine situation and the US sanctions on Russian gas and oil. Because of the sanctions, the price of gas for US consumers will increase so President Biden is essentially shooting US consumers in the foot. Why couldn't he take US oil out of the US market and just let US oil be consumed by US consumers. Since supply and demand would be about equal, there would be no surge in US oil prices.

The problem is that the US government does not own US oil resources. They are privately owned, and it's in the interests of the oil corporations to get as much for a barrel of oil as they possibly can. This means that when there is a shortage on the world market, and the price of a barrel goes up, US oil corporations profit from the price increase. There is an analogy which makes this process easily understandable.Say you are a grower of tomatoes. In the early days of your tomato business you just sold the excess tomatoes that your family didn't eat to your neighbors directly at what you both thought was a fair price. As time went on you decide to take your tomatoes to the local market where other tomato growers were also bringing their tomatoes to sell. The price of your tomatoes was then determined by the market price and not the "fair" price you charged your neighbor. If there was a shortage of tomatoes at the market compared to the cumulative demand for tomatoes by consumers, you made a lot more per tomato than you would make selling them directly to your neighbors at the "fair" price. When your neighbor comes to you for tomatoes, you tell him that he has to buy them at the market at the market price because this represents progress.

Now say there is a glut of tomatoes at the local market and the price of tomatoes drops. Now you offer to sell your neighbor tomatoes directly at the "fair" price, but your neighbor says that he can get them at the market for much less than the "fair" price. Such are the vagaries of the market place. So getting back to oil, when there is a glut on the world market, gas prices plummet. When there is a scarcity, prices can skyrocket which is what is happening now not due to the war in Ukraine but due to sanctions on Russian gas and oil which constitutes a major component of the world supply. President Biden can do little or nothing about the price of gas because oil and gas resources are privately owned and they will profit immensely as the price of oil soars above $100 a barrel. However, much of Russia's oil industry is state owned. Therefore, Putin can control the price of gas and energy inside Russia so Russian drivers will pay less at the pump than will American drivers in all probability.

So now while the world needs to transition from fossil fuels to renewable non-polluting energy sources in order to combat global warming, all anyone can think about is how desperately we need oil and the price of gas. This is a foreboding situation for the future of planet earth. We need to get off of our addiction to oil. However, there are trillions of dollars wound up in the oil industry and none of the owners whether they be private or government concerns are willing to give up their investments. Maybe surging gas prices are a good thing. People will drive less, use public transportation more and work remotely from home instead of commuting. Less tailpipe carbon dioxide will be emitted into the atmosphere. In the long run we should thank President Biden for sanctioning Russian oil and the NORD stream 2 pipeline. It will help the global warming situation although American consumers will not be pleased with Biden because they will blame him for gas prices being so high.

Off the Top of My Head

Trump Reverses Advice on COVID Vaccinations

by John Lawrence

Since most of the anti-vaxxers are Trump voters and mostly the unvaccinated are the ones who are dying, Trump voters are dying off faster than Biden votes. Sensing this, Trump has recently reversed course and told people to get vaccinated. However, Trump was booed when he suggested getting vaccinated which goes to prove that once you've invested heavily in a particular point of view, it's not easy to all of a sudden do a 180 and tell people something different. So as the pandemic gets drawn out mainly due to Trump's base not getting vaccinated,Trump is sweating it that so many of his supporters are dying from COVID. Of course Democrats aren't too chagrined when another Trump voter bites the dust. They are keeping up their steady drumbeat of investigating the January 6 insurrection and compiling damning evidence that Trump and many of his henchmen were complicit in it. It didn't just happen spontaneously. It seems that much planning went into it.

At the same time the southern district of New York is looking into the dealings of the Trump business empire. They are finding the shocking revelations that it was based on defrauding both investors and the IRS. When it came to a valuation of a particular property, Trump told the IRS that it was practically worthless while inflating its value when it came to getting loans from a bank with that property as collateral. That's a pretty neat trick if you can pull it off, but it seems that now the chickens are coming home to roost, and Trump's main hope is that his base will continue to send him money. Fundraising is of the essence when all else fails. It leaves me wondering if all of Trump's shenanigans could land him in jail. He seems to have more escapes hatches than a cat has lives. He is a slippery eel indeed. Even though he has done this dastardly deed and that dastardly deed, it is as though none of them come with criminal penalties. The crucial question is "Can he go to jail for that?" After decrying to the max something Trump has done, when asked, the same pundit is apt to reply "No" with a bemused look on his or her face.

Evidently, defrauding investors and underpaying taxes is so routine with the Trump organization that it has ceased to be a bombshell revelation. It has become so normalized that nobody goes to jail for it especially an ex-President of the United States. As Nixon said, "When you're President, it's not a crime." The Nixon interviews were a series of conversations between former American president Richard Nixon and British journalist David Frost. They were recorded and broadcast on television and radio in four programs in 1977. In part 3, Frost asked Nixon whether the president could do something illegal in certain situations such as against antiwar groups and others if he decides "it's in the best interests of the nation or something". Nixon replied: "Well, when the president does it, that means that it is not illegal". The criminal implications of Trump's misdeeds seem to fall into the same category. If the President of the United States does it, you can't send him to jail.

The question is could Trump run for President in 2024 if he is sitting in jail or convicted of a felony? There seems to be nothing in the Constitution that forbids it. So it's possible that the American people and indeed the people of the world could be treated to the spectacle that an elected President could be commander-in-chief while presiding from a jail cell.

Off the Top of My Head

Russia's Assurance that NATO Would Not Expand an Inch Eastward After the Cold War

by John Lawrence

Does Putin have a point? It is something no western leader will even acknowledge. The fact is that assurances were given to Gorbachev in return for his agreement to let Germany reunify that NATO would not expand an inch eastward. The New York Times reported:

"The biggest obstacle [to the reunification of Germany] was, of course, the Soviet Union. Despite economic hardship at home, the Soviets maintained 380,000 troops in East Germany and still held legal rights of occupation emanating from the unconditional German surrender in 1945. Bonn and Washington thus wanted Moscow to remove its troops and to renounce its claims, without forcing NATO troops out as part of the bargain.

"What would Mr. Gorbachev demand in return? To learn the answer, Mr. Baker [U.S. Secretary of State] and Mr. Kohl [German Chancellor] journeyed to Moscow within a day of each other. On Feb. 9, 1990, Mr. Baker asked Mr. Gorbachev, “Would you prefer to see a unified Germany outside of NATO, independent and with no U.S. forces or would you prefer a unified Germany to be tied to NATO, with assurances that NATO’s jurisdiction would not shift one inch eastward from its present position?” Mr. Gorbachev, according to Mr. Baker, answered that “any extension of the zone of NATO would be unacceptable.” Their meeting ended without any final deals made. Mr. Baker left behind a secret letter, detailing what he had said, for Mr. Kohl in Moscow.

Back in the U.S. President George H W Bush was not happy with Baker's assurances to Gorbachev, and he formulated his own letter to Mr. Kohl that didn't contain the assurances Gorbachev requested. However, in talks with Gorbachev Kohl chose to emphasize Baker's assurance that "NATO would not move an inch eastward" which resulted in Gorbachev agreeing to the reunification of Germany. The New York Times article continued:

"Mr. Kohl chose to echo Mr. Baker, not Mr. Bush. The chancellor assured Mr. Gorbachev, as Mr. Baker had done, that “naturally NATO could not expand its territory” into East Germany. The documents available do not record Mr. Kohl using the presidential phrase — “special military status” — that the National Security Council had rushed over to him. Mr. Kohl’s foreign minister, Hans-Dietrich Genscher, visiting the Kremlin as well, assured his Soviet counterpart, Eduard Shevardnadze, that “for us, it stands firm: NATO will not expand itself to the East.”

"Crucially, the Gorbachev-Kohl meeting ended with a deal, as opposed to the Gorbachev-Baker session the previous day. After listening to Mr. Kohl, Mr. Gorbachev agreed that Germany could unify internally. Mr. Kohl and his aides publicized this major concession immediately at a press conference. Then they returned home to begin merging the two Germanys under one currency and economic system."

No U.S. President or leader has ever acknowledged the truth of this situation that, despite the fact that no formal treaty or agreement was ever made, informal assurances were given to Gorbachev that NATO would not expand an inch eastward. So today Russia and the US are on the brink of war in Ukraine because, basically, the U.S. will not acknowledge that Putin has a point. They refuse to concede even that and instead choose to demonize him. This is not how to create peace in the world - by heaping bad intentions on a foreign leader without acknowledging that he has a legitimate complaint. One of the pundits on CNN had the right idea. He said that the west should acknowledge the legitimacy of Putin's position and agree to pull back NATO forces from eastern Europe for at least 25 years or so. Making some sort of concession like this could avoid war and create some manner of peaceful relations between Washington and Moscow. Instead the U.S. - even under Biden! - takes a hard line and insists that Ukraine has a right to choose to be part of NATO. By formally putting off the date at which that could happen, Putin's legitimate concerns could be acknowledged. Instead the U.S. has essentially double crossed Russia on the deal Gorbachev made that "NATO would not expand one inch eastward."

Off the Top of My Head

Oh No, Joe, Say It Isn't So

by John Lawrence

Despite prior commitments to Joe Biden and House Democrats, Joe Mancin is a "No" on Biden's Build Back Better bill which will provide child care, eldercare, universal Pre-K and more. Dr. No made his position clear yesterday. He's tired of farting around aka negotiating. Democrats need all 50 votes in the Senate to pass the bill. 49 are on board and this gives Mancin extraordinary power. It's his way or the highway. Mancin has said he would support a bill totaling $1.5 trillion, but the house and Senate Democrats have been gingerly "negotiating" with Joe for more. Here's an idea: take what you can get and go home. Cuz you ain't gonna get no mo. Let Mancin write the bill. Throw in voting rights as well, and pass both in the same bill by reconciliation. Mancin has already essentially written a voting rights bill he would support. Again it's not everything progressives want, but it's better than nuttin.

Conservatives have traditionally broken inflation on the backs of the poor. The Phillips curve which is gospel among conservative economists says that you need to increase unemployment in order to rein in inflation. Problem is at this time there is hardly any unemployment. So what else can you do to keep poor people poor? Don't give them any more government benefits. That's the ticket. Of course, progressives say the Phillips curve is hogwash. All you need to do is to extract money from the economy by taxing the rich. But tell that to rich corporation who are spending billions on lobbyists to convince quasi conservative Democrats like Joe Mancin otherwise. And then there is conservative activist Paul Weyrich who famously said, "“I don’t want everybody to vote . . . our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” Translate that into economic terms and you get, "I don't want everyone to be middle class. Who would do the necessary back breaking labor to keep the economy growing if not for the poor."

So conservatives don't want the poor to vote and they also don't want them to work their way into the middle class. They want to keep the poor poor so the economy has a goodly supply of backbreaking and menial labor which it badly needs, especially if you want to buy American. Otherwise, we would have to export the backbreaking labor to other countries where there is a plentiful supply of poor people. Right now conservatives are aghast at how the shortage of labor is fueling demands for higher wages. This is a blow to their very way of life which is predicated on keeping the poor poor. They don't want to be flooded with immigrants to take the menial labor jobs so those who came in 20 years ago can progress to the middle class like Joe Biden wants them to do. The best way to keep them poor is to not give them any more government benefits.

So progressive Democrats in the House and Bernie Sanders in the Senate have been screwed once again. The whole deal was that both the infrastructure bill and the Build Back Better bill were supposed to pass in tandem. Then after farting around (excuse me, "negotiating") for months and months, finally Joe Mancin has put the kibosh on Build Back Better after successfully delinking the two. Screwed again. Lucy with the football. So here's the solution. Stop negotiating. Let Mancin write the bill and then everybody genuflect. And while you're at it, throw  Mancin's voting rights, bill written by him, into the package and pass the whole ungodly stew by reconciliation and be done with it.

Off the Top of My Head

Problems of American Democracy - Part 1

by John Lawrence

When my father was a high school teacher in Highland Park, NJ, he taught a course - Problems in American Democracy. So I'm hopefully carrying on a family tradition by trying to elucidate these problems which, to put it mildly, are probably much different today than they were in 1941! The big problem today is that so many people are detached from reality in terms of being in touch with what the real problems are. One of the real problems is climate change, how to get from here to net zero carbon emissions before planet earth becomes uninhabitable. Another real problem is homelessness and affordability of housing. Another real problem is the 80 million refugees in the world. Another real problem is for Americans to be concerned about world problems and not just confine their attention to what goes on inside the borders of the US.  Another real problem is physical and social infrastructure which will be addressed by Biden's Build Back Better bills. But the biggest problem of all, as I see it, is that elections every 2 years make continuity of direction for the US impossible especially when the 2 parties have become diametrically opposed. So today we have the reality that the American government could possibly swing back and forth between Trumpism and what we might call Bidenism. Back and forth between ignorance and enlightenment. To boot the American people are no longer tuned in to authoritative news sources. Too many are only tuned into social media which is greatly responsible for cultivating the divide between two American tribes - the no nothings and the do somethings.

People in the Trump camp could care less about voting for or against their own economic interests. You would think a lot of them would benefit from the initiatives that the Democrats have put forward. But either they are ignorant of them or are willing to vote against their interests just because of the tribe they belong to or out of spite. They are completely irrational. Rationality is not even on the table. Their hate and their spite rules everything as far as they are concerned. They are willing to go down numerous rabbit holes and believe all kinds of conspiracy theories because critical thinking or a concern about human welfare, their own and others, has no place in their consciousness. Their concern and understanding remains at the level of symbols like the American flag. A deeper understanding or analysis of situations is beyond them. What's more this misinformed and ignorant part of the population is significant in number and can easily be responsible for electing ignorant and conspiracy theory infused lawmakers who will do whatever is necessary to pander to their constituents. Thus America as a nation could swerve back and forth between ignorance and rationality as exemplified by Trump's withdrawal from Obama's climate initiatives like the Paris accords and Biden's reinstating them.

Contrast the instability of American democracy with the Chinese system of government in which stability is of utmost importance. They don't want anyone rocking the boat including tennis stars. While this heavy handedness does curtail some of the aspects of western notions of freedom, it preserves the priorities of the long term interests of China itself which has been going in what most experts concede is a very positive direction. According to the World Bank: "Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged almost 10 percent a year, and more than 800 million people have been lifted out of poverty. There have also been significant improvements in access to health, education, and other services over the same period." China has had the goal of eliminating poverty altogether and claims as of 2021 to have done so. According to a Chinese source which admittedly may be biased: "Through continuous efforts, the final 98.99 million impoverished rural residents in China had all been lifted out of poverty, and all 832 impoverished counties and 128,000 villages had been removed from the poverty list by the end of 2020. The strategy of targeted poverty alleviation is China's strongest "weapon" in its final battle against poverty, and a major innovation in the theory and practice of poverty reduction. China's success in poverty alleviation has proven that the problem of poverty, in essence, is how the people should be treated: the people-centered philosophy is the fundamental driving force behind this cause." Independent confirmation of these claims is unclear. The World Bank which is an unbiased source essentially agrees with the Chinese government at to its elimination of poverty: "In 1990 there were more than 750 million people in China living below the international poverty line - about two-thirds of the population. By 2012, that had fallen to fewer than 90 million, and by 2016 - the most recent year for which World Bank figures are available - it had fallen to 7.2 million people (0.5% of the population). So clearly, even in 2016 China was well on the way to reaching its target. This suggests that overall, 745 million fewer people were living in extreme poverty in China than there were 30 years ago. World Bank figures do not take us to the present day, but the trend is certainly in line with the Chinese government's announcement."

So what weapons does the US have in its arsenal for the alleviation of poverty and homelessness? Not many. Biden's Build Back Better plan will help, but the US in recent years has been more interested in funding weapons systems built by the military-industrial complex, weapons that destroy rather than weapons that build. It's only "progressives" that even care about solving the problems of poverty and homelessness in America or in doing something about climate change or about the refugee problem in the world and not just at our southern border. I note that not one Republican voted for Biden's Build Back Better bill in the House. Instead Republican leader Kevin McCarthy went on an 8 hour diatribe in a futile attempt to prevent the bill's passage.

Off the Top of My Head

If Trump Didn't Commit Treason, What is Treason?

by John Lawrence

It's clear Trump tried to overthrow the results of the 2020 election and fomented a coup to keep himself in power. I'd like to know why that isn't treason and why Trump is not in jail. It would have to be done by Democrats because now the government IS Democrats. Republicans don't even participate except to try to roadblock everything Democrats try to do. So Democrats would have to put Trump in prison, and I think they are afraid to do so. Wishy washiness is their name. First Trump's famous call to Raffensberger, Secretary of State of Georgia, in which he implored him to "find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have". Then his attempt to corrupt the Department of Justice in order to get it to declare the election was corrupt, then his attempt to get Pence to not certify Biden's victory and on and on. There is so much documented proof that Trump did all of these things and more not to mention fomenting a coup on January 6. I repeat why isn't he in jail and being tried on charges of treason?

Trump is not only not in jail, he's contemplating another run for President in 2024. The US cannot withstand another run for President by Trump. The scenarios for future coups will make January 6 look like a dry run. Republican states have already changed laws making it more likely that state legislatures can take over elections and select their own slate of electors if they don't like the outcome of the voting process. Trump and his cronies have already cast doubt on the validity of elections. Poll workers have already received death threats as has anyone else connected with the democratic process or anyone who stood in the way of Trump's attempted coup. The January 6 committee will dig up enough dirt to put Trump in jail, but I doubt if they will go all the way and get that done. Democrats are too afraid of the reaction of Trump's supporters if they put him in jail. They're afraid it will look like a partisan effort. Well, it will be because there is no Republican support for chastising Trump in any way whatsoever. But that shouldn't stop Democrats and maybe Liz Cheney from doing the right thing.

Finally, just tell me what treason is if it is not all the things Trump did to overthrow a democratically elected government in the US. No wonder the rest of the world doesn't trust us.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Manchin and Sinema Don't Trust Progressives in the House and Vice Versa: Earmarks

by John Lawrence

As Ronald Reagan said, "Trust, but verify." An earmark is some piece of legislation that a senator or congressperson slips into a bill in the middle of the night and hopes it goes unnoticed by everyone concerned. The theory is that no one will notice an unagreed upon paragraph in thousands of pages of legislation. The most famous earmark was the "Bridge to Nowhere." The Gravina Island Bridge, popularly known as the "Bridge to Nowhere", has become shorthand for frivolous earmarks. In 2002, it was proposed that a for-profit prison corporation, Cornell Corrections, build a prison on an Alaskan island. To connect the island with Ketchikan, it was originally planned that the federal government spend $175 million on building a bridge to the island, and another $75 million to connect it to the power grid with an electrical intertie. The Ketchikan Borough Assembly turned the proposal down when the administration of Governor Tony Knowles also expressed its disfavor to the idea. Eventually, the corporation's prison plans led to the exposure of the wide-ranging Alaska political corruption probe, which eventually ensnared U.S. Senator Ted Stevens. The bridge idea persisted. The 2005 Highway Bill provided for $223m to build the Gravina Island Bridge between Gravina Island and nearby Ketchikan, on Revillagigedo Island. Despite the demise of the bridge proposal, Governor Sarah Palin spent $26 million in transportation funding for constructing the planned access road on the island that ultimately served little use.

This is why Manchin and Sinema won't come out and say they support the House legislation on the Build Back Better plan until they see the actual legislation and not just a "framework." They want to make sure that progressives in the House don't slip Family Leave back into the framework in the middle of the night. Likewise, House Progressives want the two bills to go to the Senate "in tandem" so that Manchin and Sinema don't tank the Build Back Better bill while passing the conventional infrastructure bill. I don't understand why the pundits haven't figured this out. It makes perfect sense. Neither side wants to be screwed. Capische? I'm sure the bills will both be passed in tandem according to the framework that Joe Biden got both sides to agree on. I don't think either Manchin or Sinema will go back on their word to Joe Biden. However, they don't want to be put in the position of agreeing to a framework publicly, and then having the Progressives slip something into the bill at the last minute that they hadn't agreed to. They want to see the actual legislation first before they agree publicly that they will vote for it. Progressives want Manchin and Sinema to agree publicly to their legislation before they will vote on the bipartisan package.

I don't see why CNN's pundits haven't figured this out. It will get done but it needs to get done according to the process that both sides originally agreed upon and no sooner. That only makes sense. Why are the pundits in such a great hurry to get it done bemnoaning Biden's falling approval ratings? From Biden's viewpoint he knows that this legislation will be transformative, and he will go down in history for having negotiated a settlement between both sides. He could care less about his approval ratings. As he said, "It doesn't matter whether it takes 6 days or 6 weeks just so long as it eventually gets done." It will be quite an accomplishment given the fact that the Democrats have the slimmest of margins in the Senate. Biden probably won't run again anyway. Americans just need to be patient.

Capische?

Off the Top of My Head

Snake in the Grass Kyrsten Sinema Sells Out to Corporate Lobbyists

by John Lawrence

Corporations, especially the pharmaceutical, can thank Kyrsten Sinema for selling out to them. The least objectionable parts of Biden's Build Back Better plan are the ones Sinema vetoed. Biden's plan would have been much better if corporate lobbyists hadn't gotten to her. But not to worry. She's set for life with probable promises of corporate board positions paying hundreds of thousands of dollars for a few hours "work." With Democrats like her, we don't need Republicans. She's a Republican wolf in Democratic sheep's clothing. But never fear. Biden's Build Back Better Bill will eventually pass within the next couple of weeks, and it's still truly transformational. Too bad that every Democratic Senator had effectively a veto over any provision of it. Joe Mancin was at least up front with the public about his concerns, some of which were at least plausible. Sinema sprung her demands on Biden at the seeming last minute forcing him to renegotiate the whole deal and delaying the whole process. While pundits quibble over Biden's ratings, I don't think he's too concerned about that. He knows he has a BIG DEAL or a BIG FUCKING DEAL as he once whispered to Obama. He'll go down in history as a transformational President.

So what do the Republicans have to offer? Election denialism and insurrection denialism. It wouldn't be so bad except for the fact that they could spring back to life in two or maybe four years. Too bad for the rest of the world's confidence in America. Although the US decries Soviet and Chinese authoritarianism in which one leader can remain in power for a number of years, while the whole US relationship with the rest of the world could change every four, what about Angela Merkel, who remained in power for 16 years, in a putative democracy. Longevity of intent is not a function necessarily of type of government. The US is back? Biden would like to convince others it's so. But Trump has a different perspective which is that Biden's version of the US is back until he, Trump, takes over again in 2024. The US could veer wildly back and forth without any continuity whatsoever. While Democrats are doing their best to help families and bring the US into the modern world, Republicans offer warmed over conspiracy theories aided and abetted by social media. The US needs to get serious about denying Trump a chance of ever running again. In fact he should be in jail for attempting to overthrow a legitimately elected US government which is treason. Yes, the T word applies to him. The S word, sedition, as well. Yet as of now he can run again and possibly win in 2024.

I think that, after the twin Build Back Better bills finally pass, Democrats will turn their attention to voting rights. Will Sinema and Mancin go along with holding the filibuster in abeyance to get voting rights passed? That's the big question. If not, Democrats are sunk in 2022 and 2024. And so is the US as a world leader. The US will become a backwater and a latter day banana republic with an outsize military, corporate lobbyists run amuck and a fast fading US dollar as the world's reserve currency. Runaway global warming will be a given if Trump is elected again in 2024. The US will become a billionaire's paradise with unrestricted limits in economic inequality and a burgeoning homeless population that neither Republicans or Democrats seem to be able to do anything about. Rents will soar out of sight as more people live in their vehicles and on the streets without adequate sanitation. The rest of the developed world will leave the US in its dust, but they alone will not be able to solve the problem of climate change which will eventually make parts, if not all, of the earth uninhabitable. So there is a lot riding on a Federal voting rights bill overriding the Republican state efforts to gerrymander and restrict access to the ballot in order to favor the electability of Republicans.

Off the Top of My Head

Getting Biden's Build Back Better Plan Over the Finish Line

by John Lawrence

These guys are experienced negotiators. You'd think by now they would have designed multiple plans containing most of the things progressives want and most of the things Joe Manchin wants. Obviously, he has to approve the final plan. There are various ways to get the cost down from eliminating entire programs to shortening the lengths of some or all programs. Also, as Manchin wants, you can means test some of the programs. I think the emphasis should be on children. That means the expansion of Medicare could go by the wayside. As a Medicare recipient, I wouldn't be too upset to see that happen. In its place, at a later time, I would like to see legislation to implement Biden's agenda item that calls for an increase in social security benefits. Under his plan, eligible workers would get a guaranteed minimum benefit equal to at least 125% of the federal poverty level. People who have received benefits for at least 20 years would get a 5% bump. Widows and widowers would receive about 20% more per month. The Federal poverty level for a single person is $12,760. 125% of that would be $15,950. The cost of living increase would add another 5.9% or $941.05 for a total of $16,891.05. This comes out to be $1407.59 a month. For 2020, the minimum Social Security benefit at 62 was $628. So Biden's agenda would call for more than doubling it. Of course the cost for Medicare Part B, which is $148.50 is deducted from your monthly social security check. This means that the minimum social security monthly check for some people is less than $500., hardly a living wage at the present time.

So leaving out benefits for seniors and means testing pre-K and community college could bring the price tag for Biden's Build Back Better plan considerably lower. Manchin wants to scale back the climate change component, but he's not wanting to cancel it altogether. Again, this item can be revisited later or as part of a separate bill. The child tax credits, which benefit lower income families, should be left in as well as the Child and Dependent Care Tax Credit. The Earned Income Tax Credit Expansion could stay in as well as the benefit that lets seniors receive care at home rather than having to go to a nursing home. In short there are a lot of things in the American Families plan that could be modified or left out or revisited later. Climate change will be an ongoing issue that won't be resolved for at least 50 years. Since climate change is the main sticking point as far as Manchin is concerned, that provision, as important as it is, for sure needs to be modified.

Since there a lot of moving parts in the Build Back Better plan, there are lots of modifications that can be made. Several versions of these plans should be set out with the proviso that at least one of them needs to be agreed upon by all parties. The fact that Manchin and possibly Sinema has veto power needs to be accepted as reality, but some plan needs to be nailed down and soon. Playing chicken with Biden's Build Back Better plan is not acceptable. Democrats need to accept a win for all parties. They can't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Watson-Watt, who developed early warning radar in Britain to counter the rapid growth of the Luftwaffe, propounded a "cult of the imperfect", which he stated as "Give them the third best to go on with; the second best comes too late, the best never comes." Economist George Stigler says that "If you never miss a plane, you're spending too much time at the airport." Democrats need to pay the pipers (Manchin and Sinema) and get on with it. They are wasting too much time. It should be obvious where the compromise lines are to be drawn by this time.

While Roadblocking Party Agenda, Sinema Absconds to Europe for Fundraising

Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.) attends an event hosted by the Arizona Chamber of Commerce & Industry at the Arizona Biltmore Resort in Phoenix on May 17, 2019. (Photo: Gage Skidmore/Flickr/cc)

 

"She might as well start fundraising for McConnell at this point."

 

Jake Johnson

October 14, 2021

With President Joe Biden's popular legislative agenda hanging in the balance largely due to her obstruction, Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema left the country this week to raise campaign cash in Europe—a trip that was reported as new polling showed she is completely underwater with Arizona voters.

"⁦She's not only endangering her own reelection, but the reelection of Dems across the board."

According to survey results

>released Thursday by the progressive polling outfit Data for Progress, 70% of likely Democratic primary voters in Arizona disapprove of Sinema's job performance and overwhelmingly prefer candidates floated as potential primary challengers—a sign that she's poised to lose her seat in 2024, assuming she runs for reelection.

Infuriated by Sinema's conduct throughout the reconciliation talks, Arizona activists who helped elect the Democratic senator are already laying the groundwork for a primary in an effort to ensure she doesn't win another six-year term.

"While 2024 may seem a long way away, the damage Sinema is doing is happening right now, and she’s acting this way because she thinks she won’t face political consequences," political strategist Steve Phillips wrote in a column for The Nation on Wednesday. "In fact, she thinks these actions will add up to electoral success. But her math is wrong, as is her moral compass."

In a summary of its new findings, Data for Progress noted that "Arizona Democratic primary voters say they would be more likely to support a candidate who votes in favor of every major provision of the Build Back Better plan we tested."

"From universal pre-K to expanding Medicare benefits," the group said, "Arizona voters—those Sinema would be courting in a 2024 primary—express they are more likely to support candidates who back these Build Back Better agenda items by wide-ranging margins."

Rahna Epting, executive director of MoveOn, warned Thursday that by threatening tank Biden's popular Build Back Better reconciliation proposal, Sinema putting both her own political career and her party's fragile control of Congress at risk.

"She's not only endangering her own reelection, but the reelection of Dems across the board—thereby making it easier for the MAGA-hijacked GOP to regain power in '22," Epting argued on Twitter, pointing to the upcoming midterm elections.

Responding to Sinema's trip to Europe in the middle of negotiations over the reconciliation bill that she's holding up, Epting quipped, "⁦She might as well start fundraising for [Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch] McConnell at this point."

How Trump Might Save the Democrats

by Robert Reich

Monday, October 11, 2021

[Please consider subscribing to my substack, at robertreich.substack.com, from which the following is drawn]

The unofficial kickoff of the former guy’s presidential campaign was a rally Saturday night in Des Moines. Unfortunately for the GOP, Trump’s speech focused on his Big Lie that the 2020 election was stolen rather than on Joe Biden, whose approval ratings keep sliding because of the Delta variant’s continuing impact as well as fumbles at the border and in exiting Afghanistan.

All indications are that Trump is going to cast the midterm elections as a referendum on himself rather than on Biden. That’s hardly surprising, given Trump’s sociopathic ego. He cast his entire presidency as a referendum on himself. 

What’s surprising is how quickly the rest of the Republican Party is falling prey to this. We’ve already observed it at the state level: Trump’s Big Lie has moved 18 Republican-dominated states to enact 33 laws suppressing the votes of likely Democratic voters, on the false pretext of eliminating “voter fraud” that doesn’t exist. Several of these state laws will also let Republican legislatures ignore future electoral results they dislike. Under the same pretext, Republican states have undertaken bogus “audits” of the 2020 election.

But for a brief time it seemed as if senior Republicans in Washington would try to move the party away from Trump. They now appear to have given up. Several who in January criticized him for provoking the Capitol insurrection are now defending him and minimizing the attempted coup – including, notably, Senator Chuck Grassley, who showed up at Saturday’s Des Moines rally, and former vice president Michael Pence, who is now minimizing and excusing the riot.

For Trump to make the midterm elections into a referendum on himself and his Big Lie is useful for the Democrats. It takes the focus off Biden, reminds Americans how vile the former president is, and forces Republicans to try to defend him. If you watched Fox News Sunday, you might have seen Chris Wallace repeatedly ask House Minority Whip Steve Scalise whether he thought the 2020 election was stolen, and Scalise repeatedly squirm to avoid answering the question.

Scalise also refused to say whether he would vote to hold in contempt of Congress Trump advisers, such as Steve Bannon, who are resisting subpoenas issued by the January 6 Committee. Bannon is invoking executive privilege, at Trump’s request — an absurd position because by the 2020 election Bannon hadn’t worked in the White House for years. 

January 6 Committee Chair Bennie Thompson and Vice Chair Liz Cheney say they “will not allow any witness to defy a lawful subpoena or attempt to run out the clock, and we will swiftly consider advancing a criminal contempt of Congress referral.”

This means even more of an ongoing focus on Trump and his attempted coup. Before Congress can refer a criminal contempt to the Justice Department for prosecution, the full House has to vote on it. So you can expect a near party-line vote, which will put Republicans further on record as supporting Trump and, by implication, others who instigated the insurrection. 

The criminal contempt of Congress statute, enacted in 1857 and only slightly modified since, provides that any person who willfully fails to comply with a properly issued committee subpoena for testimony or documents is punishable by a substantial fine and imprisonment for up to one year. Once the House votes in favor of criminal contempt, the Speaker is required to report it to the Department of Justice, which then determines whether to prosecute. (Unfortunately, Attorney General Merrick Garland so far has not distinguished himself for holding Trump or his cronies accountable for anything.)

House Republicans could soon find themselves in an even more awkward position as the January 6 Committee investigates the roles several of them played in the insurrection. Senate Judiciary Chair Dick Durbin has asked the committee to investigate the help Rep. Scott Perry gave Trump in pressuring the Justice Department to overturn the election, as well as Rep. Jim Jordan’s contacts with the White House before and during the insurrection. (You may remember that in the 2016 presidential election, Jordan, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, dug into allegations of impropriety at the FBI and Justice Department, and defended the power of the subpoena to compel testimony from executive-branch officials.)

The January 6 Committee also issued a subpoena last week to Ali Alexander, the leader of the pro-Trump “Stop the Steal” organization, who has claimed he worked on the pre-insurrection rally with several GOP lawmakers, including Reps. Paul Gosar, Mo Brooks, and Andy Biggs.

Trump’s speech in Iowa Saturday night suggests we’re already in the gravitational field of the 2024 midterms. But in making that speech mostly about himself, Trump may have given Democrats more leeway to do what Americans – including most Trump supporters – need them to do.

Off the Top of My Head

The US Debt Ceiling is Totally Artificial and Unnecessary

by John Lawrence

Fact: the US has a sovereign fiat currency and can create and spend as many dollars as it wants. Fiat means that the US dollar has value only because the government says it does. It is not redeemable for gold or any other precious metal. Sovereign means that is not pegged to any other currency. It can't be exchanged at a fixed rate for any other currency or anything else. The exchange rate for other currencies is floating. Fact: the US creates its own money and can spend it as it pleases. Fact: "deficit" spending adds money to the real economy which creates and enhances economic activity and adds to GDP. Fact: most recessions occur when the US tries to balance its budget. Long story short: the debt ceiling allows the US to hoist itself on its own pitard!

The Federal Reserve prints the money. That's why the dollars your are carrying around in your pocket say "Federal Reserve Note" on them. It can print as many dollars as are authorized by the US Congress. The US government budget is not dependent on having tax dollars to spend. When the US "deficit spends" it creates Treasury bonds which it sells to the public. However, the Federal Reserve and other central banks are buying back a lot of these Treasury bonds so, effectively, US debt just becomes a number on the Fed's balance sheet which is of no consequence. The Federal Reserve can create with a few keystrokes on a computer as much money as it wants and deposit it in the US Treasury's account. The moral of the story is that the national debt can not and should not ever be paid off. To do so would ruin the economy since it would extract money from the real economy which would lower GDP. The correct assessment of the national debt is that it is just a number on the Fed's balance sheet!

The conversation.com reports:

"There is no limit to the quantity of money that can be created by a central bank such as the Bank of England. It was different in the days of the gold standard, when central banks were restrained by a promise to redeem their money for gold on demand. But countries moved away from this system in the early part of the 20th century, and central banks nowadays can issue as much money as they like.

"This observation is the root of modern monetary theory (MMT), which has attracted new attention during the pandemic, as governments around the world increase spending and public debts become all the more burdensome.

"MMT proponents argue that governments can spend as necessary on all desirable causes – reducing unemployment, green energy, better healthcare and education – without worrying about paying for it with higher taxes or increased borrowing. Instead, they can pay using new money from their central bank. The only limit, according to this view, is if inflation starts to rise, in which case the solution is to increase taxes."

The addition of too much money by government to the real economy can cause inflation. Taxes extract money from the real economy. Joe Biden's Build Back Better human infrastructure bill is totally paid for so it will not cause inflation. It does this by extracting as much money from the real economy as the government is spending into the real economy, and it does this by taxing the rich which has the added salubrious effect of reducing economic inequality. This is one of the goals of the Biden administration: to reduce economic inequality which is what the human infrastructure reconciliation bill actually does. This is why a higher amount spent on this bill is better. The more spent on human infrastructure, the more money is transferred from the rich to the poor and middle class. Progressives know this. Republicans do their best to obfuscate this. Recognition of this fact will help to move the US and other countries with sovereign currencies into a post-capitalist world, and allow for more resources to be dedicated to fighting climate change.

Off the Top of My Head

So What's Wrong With Means Testing Biden's Human Infrastructure Plan?

by John Lawrence

Progressive Democrats want universal free Pre-K. Joe Manchin wants to means test it. That means that rich Americans would still pay and poor Americas would not. Not a big problem, I say. In fact I think social security should be means tested. Why should billionaires or people with retirement pensions of over $100,000 a year get social security? Spend the money on the poor and middle class. I'm with progressives on most things, and I certainly want Joe's Build Back Better program implemented. But if you can bring the cost down by means testing and this would lead to its passage, let's get on with it. Furthermore, the military budget can be cut because we are no longer spending $300 million a day in Afghanistan. Manchin is actually for most of Biden's Build Back Better plan. He just wants it in a different form so that it's not universal meaning a giveaway to all concerned, rich and poor alike. Progressives want rich families and poor families to enjoy free pre-K and free community college.

Manchin is not against taxing the rich or a modest effort towards climate change either. His objections seem to be more about fiscal prudence than any of the elements of Biden's plan. Sinema, on the other hand, is the more sinister of the two when it comes to tanking Biden's plan. She doesn't want taxes raised on the rich, for example, and she doesn't want Medicare to be able to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies in order to bring the cost of drugs down. Manchin wants the Hyde amendment included in the bill which prohibits Federal funding for abortions. Big deal. That's the way it is now. Progressives should be able to live with the Hyde amendment. Nothing is changed. Manchin is an old line fiscal hawk when it comes to deficit spending, but as Modern Monetary Theory has made clear Deficits Don't Matter. Inflation, however does, but taxing the rich removes money from the economy and reduces inflation while paying for everything in Biden's reconciliation bill is inflation neutral.

When all is said and done, the proposed money to be spent on social infrastructure pales in comparison with the money spent on the military budget over the next 10 years. A conservative estimate is that the US spends $725 billion a year on defense. It's actually closer to a trillion when you factor in other costs not usually counted like the cost of nuclear weapons and intelligence services. For instance, future medical and disability costs for Iraq and Afghanistan veterans will total between $2.2 trillion and $2.5 trillion. So over a ten year period, military related costs will approach $10 trillion. Progressives want $3.5 trillion for social infrastructure over a ten year period, a pittance compared to military related costs. However, progressives and moderates will haggle over the cost until, eventually some compromise will be come up with, probably around $2 trillion or $200 billion per year. Reducing the defense budget will also calm fears over inflation as will the Fed's backing off from quantitative easing. Manchin is a reasonable person, but Sinema is the wild card who singlehandedly could tank both bills.They need to get the reconciliation bill fully fleshed out and negotiated on and ready to go so that both the bi-partisan and reconciliation bills can be voted on simultaneously in both Houses of Congress.

‘We couldn’t be more inconsistent’: discordant Democrats imperil Biden’s agenda

Divisions between progressives and moderates in Congress are threatening to scuttle a $3.5tn social spending program and a $1tn infrastructure bill

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is one of two faces of a 193-year-old Democratic party confronting fundamental questions about what it stands for and what it wants to be. Photograph: Stephen Lovekin/REX/Shutterstock

 

David Smith in Washington

 

@smithinamerica

 

Sat 25 Sep 2021 02.00 EDT, from the Guardian

Last modified on Sat 25 Sep 2021 02.02 EDT

 

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez cannot have been surprised that wearing a “Tax the Rich” dress to New York’s Met gala would trigger performative outrage from the right. But it also earned blowback from closer to home.

Eric Adams, a Black police veteran who won the party’s mayoral primary by appealing to its centre, argued that “when you talk about just blanketly saying ‘tax the rich’ in this city”, it would potentially drive away firefighters, teachers and other taxpayers on whom the city depends. He advocated cutting wasteful spending instead.

The pro-business Adams and the democratic socialist congresswoman are two faces of a 193-year-old Democratic party confronting fundamental questions about what it stands for and what it wants to be. While Democrats have moved left on both economic and social issues since the 1990s, this remains a broad and unwieldy coalition by global standards.

Now its diverse and at times discordant voices in Washington are imperiling the agenda of Joe Biden, a longtime centrist who has nevertheless embraced some of the radically transformative ambitions of past Democratic giants such as Franklin Roosevelt and Lyndon Johnson.

Divisions between progressives and moderates in Congress are threatening to scuttle a $3.5tn social spending program, which includes childcare, education and green energy measures, and a $1tn bipartisan infrastructure bill that has passed the Senate and is pending in the House of Representatives.

“Unfortunately for us, at a time when it’s so very important for Democrats to make it clear to the people that we serve where we stand, we couldn’t be more inconsistent with our values right now,” said Yvette Simpson, chief executive of the progressive group Democracy for America. “We can’t get all on the same page to get this done.”

For four years of the Republican Donald Trump’s presidency, Democrats of all stripes united against a common political foe. Since January, however, they have controlled all the levers of power – with House and Senate majorities so razor-thin that every disagreement is thrown into sharp relief against staunch Republican opposition.

Democrats cannot afford to lose more than three votes in the House, and none in the Senate, if they are to pass the social package that has earned comparisons with Roosevelt’s “New Deal” and Johnson’s “Great Society” in its reassertion of government’s power to improve lives.

There is added pressure from the expectation that Republicans are likely to win back the House and possibly the Senate in midterm elections in November of next year. The clock is ticking.

Moderate Democrats back a vote on the $1tn bill for roads, bridges, ports and broadband connections scheduled for the House on Monday. But they have also raised objections to the size of the $3.5tn social spending package, warning against government overreach that will drive up the national debt.

Senator Joe Manchin, who represents heavily Republican West Virginia, has said he will not vote for $3.5trn, preferring instead a total of $1tn to $1.5tn. His Senate colleague, Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, also wants to trim the cost.

But progressives have vowed to defend the price tag of $3.5tn over 10 years, having already come down from $6tn. They have also said they will not vote for the infrastructure plan without first passing the social spending program, using a manoeuver called “reconciliation,” which avoids the Senate requirement for a supermajority.

Progressives argue that opinion polls show broad bipartisan support for the plan and accuse the moderates of being beholden to corporate interests. Manchin, for example, owns a big stake in a private coal brokerage and his election campaigns have received donations from lobbyists for the oil giant Exxon.

Simpson said: “If we have certain members of our caucus who want to take money from Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big ‘insert name here’, then we’re never going to have a Democratic majority that’s willing to actually serve real people first.”

She added: “It’s really not Democrat versus Republican. It’s the ultra wealthy and the corporations versus all the rest of us because a bill like this in the midst of a pandemic should be very easy to pass. This is a part of Biden’s agenda. It’s actually already a compromise position because progressives wanted way more.”

The scale of ambition is a marker of how far the party has journeyed since, from the ashes of a third consecutive election defeat in 1988, it turned to Arkansas governor Bill Clinton to lead the “New Democrats” (later an inspiration for Tony Blair’s New Labour) to the political centre ground and back to the White House.

Al From, who founded the Democratic Leadership Council in 1985 and handpicked Clinton for the job, is still putting the case for centrism. He points out that Biden comfortably beat Senator Bernie Sanders, a democratic socialist, in last year’s primary and contends that the significance of progressives is “exaggerated” by cable news networks and Twitter.

From also notes that the six progressives who comprise “the squad” in the House are from safe Democratic strongholds, whereas the moderates are from competitive swing districts. “The voters that are going to decide who’s controlling the Congress are probably going to be suburban voters and college graduates, and women are going to be key to that also,” he said. “The suburban voters tend to be more fiscally moderate.

“The vote on the $3.5trn bill is automatic for the progressive caucus because they want to spend all the money in the world. But for the moderates, it may be an election deciding vote because the constituencies that they need to win often vote Republican and tend to be more conservative on economic issues. Part of what this fight is about goes back to who you represent and whose votes you need to get elected.”

From cautioned against viewing the debate as evidence a Democratic identity crisis, however. “We’ve always been a coalition party,” he added. “We’ve always been a very broad tent stretched all across the spectrum. It’s probably less now, in terms of the breadth of a party, that it has been historically. Thirty or 40 years ago it was even a lot more divided.”

The current impasse has led to some terse exchanges on Capitol Hill and forced Biden, a 36-year veteran of the Senate, to step in this week by hosting both moderates and progressives for talks at the White House. Much also depends on Nancy Pelosi, the House speaker, and Chuck Schumer, the Senate majority leader, displaying their political chess-playing skills.

It is a sign of progressive gains in recent years that Pelosi and Schumer have expressed support for their goals and that Sanders is now chairman of the influential Senate budget committee (he has warned plainly: “No infrastructure bill without the $3.5tn reconciliation bill.”) Biden, a surprise radical at 78, appears to have set the tone for the party.

Matt Bennett, executive vice-president for public affairs at the Third Way thinktank and a former official in the Clinton White House, said: “When your party has the White House, you have an identity and the identity is personified by the president for good or bad.

“Republicans for a time were having an identity crisis under Trump because you saw people exiting the party in large numbers, particularly their intelligentsia. The core of the Bush administration announced they were opposed to a Republican president. That’s an identity crisis. What we’re having is a debate.”

It is a debate set to rage on, further complicated by Republicans reasserting their vow not to help Democrats raise the federal government’s debt limit before a mid-October deadline. The various moving parts look set to make or break Biden’s presidency and prove a defining chapter in the Democratic party’s long history.

Leah Greenberg, co-founder and co-executive director of the Indivisible Project, a progressive nonprofit organisation, said: “There’s a cohesive identity of a big faction of the Democratic party, ranging from the president to progressives; it really shows the total ideological and political incoherence of the conservative Democratic bloc.

“They just have random feelings about the price tag, various preferences around not taxing the rich, not actually limiting corporate power, et cetera. The fight here is not even between moderates and progressives. It’s between people who are trying to deliver on the full Democratic agenda and people who are trying to take bites out of it for complicated, incoherent reasons, usually involving delivering for corporate donors.”

And while Manchin and Ocasio-Cortez belonging to the same party might seem a recipe for political dysfunction, it is still in a different league from events across the aisle over the past decade.

Greenberg added: “The dominant story in American politics is not necessarily the changes in the Democratic party. It is the fact that the Republican party has just been completely unmoored from political reality, from any commitment to democracy, and is hell bent on using the tools it has in order to maintain and exert power.”

Off the Top of My Head

The Good Things the Biden Administration is Doing That You Never Hear About

by John Lawrence

Even CNN goes on and on trying to create excitement over the differences withing the Democratic Party between the Moderates and the Progressives without talking about 3 great things the Biden Administration has done recently. They are

(1) EPA will slash the use and production of hydrofluorocarbons which one of the most toxic of greenhouse gasses — often found to be leaking from U.S. supermarket freezers — by 85 percent over the next 15 years; (2) the US will end its involvement in the war in Yemen and (3) the US has recently exchanged prisoners with China involving Huawei Technologies’ chief financial officer, Meng Wanzhou. Instead of touting these very significant accomplishments, CNN goes on and on trying to create excitement over the divisions within the Democratic party and Biden's lowering approval ratings. So I say to CNN: so what, who cares? Approval ratings mean Nada. Any President is presented with situations not of his own making and the government agencies tasked with responding to said situations don't always do it in the best possible fashion. Case in point: the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The significant point is that he ended it. Let's move on.

The New York Times reported:

A top executive and daughter of the founder of the Chinese tech giant Huawei was arrested on Saturday in Canada at the request of the United States, in a move likely to escalate tensions between the two countries at a delicate moment.

The arrest of Meng Wanzhou, the chief financial officer, unfolded on the same night that President Trump and President Xi Jinping of China dined together in Buenos Aires and agreed to a 90-day trade truce. The two countries are set to begin tense negotiations in hopes of ending a trade war that has been pummeling both economies.

So Biden is still unwinding some of Trump's self-inflicted messes. At a time when cooperation with China is imperative in order to prevent the worst exigencies of global warming, arresting a top Chinese executive was not likely to help. Releasing her is.

The Washington Post reported:

The Biden administration finalized its first new climate rule Thursday, slashing the use of powerful greenhouse gases widely used in home refrigerators and air conditioners and often found to be leaking from U.S. supermarket freezers.

The regulation from the Environmental Protection Agency establishes a program to cut the use and production of chemicals known as hydrofluorocarbons by 85 percent over the next 15 years.

Curbing these super-pollutants is a rare climate issue with broad bipartisan support. When emitted, the chemicals can warm the planet at a rate hundreds to thousands of times higher than carbon dioxide. The new rule implements a law passed by Congress last year.

White House officials said the new rule tackles global warming while supporting jobs to manufacture new alternatives.

The Biden administration is committed to doing good work on precventing and mitigating cimate cange. This is just another example the likes of which frequently go unbreported in the mass media because it doesn't creat the necessary excitement to support all their advertisers of which CNN has tons who come on the tube for 4 and a half minutes after every few minutes of "news." CNN must be making a forune and it show since they have money to support the making of CNN "films" on a weekly basis.

Common Dreams reported:

Anti-war groups on Thursday welcomed the U.S. House's passage of an amendment to the annual defense bill that would cut off the flow to Saudi Arabia of U.S. logistical support and weapons "that are bombing civilians" in Yemen. "This is BIG," tweeted the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) following the afternoon 219-207 vote, which fell largely along party lines, with just 11 Democrats voting "no." At issue was Rep. Ro Khanna's (D-Calif.) amendment to H.R. 4350, the 2022 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). It's one of dozens of amendments to the NDAA under consideration by the House this week. According to Khanna, the vote "sent a clear message to the Saudis: end the bombing in Yemen and lift the blockade." Speaking on the House floor Wednesday, he made a succinct case for why the measure is so needed.  Khanna said his amendment "would end all U.S. logistical support and transfer of spare parts for Saudi warplanes that are bombing Yemen, that are bombing schools, that are killing children, that are bombing civilians in the largest humanitarian crisis around the world."

Back in February Biden had ended at least some of the support for that war as reported by the New York Times:

It didn’t happen in 2016, after a Saudi jet had dropped American-made bombs on a funeral in the Yemeni capital, Sana, killing more than 140 people. It didn’t happen in 2018, after a Saudi jet hit a Yemeni school bus with an American-made bomb, killing 44 boys on a field trip. But on Thursday, nearly six years after Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a punishing military intervention in the Arab world’s poorest country, President Biden announced that he was ending U.S. support for the Saudi-led war in Yemen, including some arms sales. “This war has to end,” Mr. Biden said, calling it a “humanitarian and strategic catastrophe.”

Now the Democrat controlled Congress has finalized this. Trump, of course, was excited about the prospect of sales of weapons to Saudi Arabia. He welcomed the influx of dollars into the US Treasury without caring a hoot about innocent Yemeni victims of the bombing with US made bombs. As an Uber driver I picked up once a Saudi pilot who was being trained over here. Now the Biden administration along with Democrats in Congress has put the kibosh on aiding and abeting Saudi Arabia in their nasty war. Bien has shown his dedication to peace and has made efforts to bring peace to the world in the recent prisoner exchange with China and with doing what he can to end war in Yemen.

Off the Top of My Head

American Troops Have Left Afghanistan. So Has American Money - $300 Million Per Day

by John Lawrence

Afghanistan's economy must be in freefall. The US was spending $300 million a day each and every day there for 20 years! Now the US is spending nothing. American troops have left and, more importantly, American money has left. So can we now cut the defense budget? It would have been better if, instead of sending in American troops 20 years ago, we had sent in the Peace Corps for a fraction of the money the American military presence has cost. By now much could have been accomplished like roads, bridges, schools, hospitals, water and sewage systems and other critical infrastructure. Instead we spent $300 million a day for 20 years blowing things up and getting blown up ourselves. It's a testament to the folly of warfare. Now, hopefully, diplomacy and resettlement of refugees and building infrastructure will take place both there and here at home where efforts in the domain of Peace are badly in need as well. The US has infrastructure needs, resettlement of refugee needs (think the growing homeless population), both hard and human infrastructure needs, building things up instead of blowing things up.

All the generals who were shuffled in and out of Afghanistan couldn't think of what we could have done better there because all they could think was in military terms. They couldn't conceive of the possibility that the reason they were all so unsuccessful was precisely because any and all military solutions were not the right ones. They could not conceive of building peace there, only fighting an enemy. Well, it got them substantial pay raises, and it made money for the military-industrial complex. Now we need a peace-industrial complex. If we want to save the planet and not just indulge the present American inhabitants of planet earth to the max, we need to build green infrastructure all over the world. But even before we do that, we need to solve the worldwide pandemic which we can not seem to solve even here at home because there are so many people who won't believe in the obvious solution until one of their family members dies.

Forever wars have stunted the mindsets of the American people leading them to embracing far right jingoistic and chauvinistic militarism. The mindset would be considerably different if the US had put as much energy as it has put into militarism into peace activities, if peace had even been given due consideration as an alternative to war. In fact it's not too much of a stretch to say War is Us. This mindset came to fruition on January 6 with the insurrection. Biden is trying to turn the corner but he can only do so much per unit time. He has done considerable so far ending the war in Afghanistan and doing everything humanly possible to end the pandemic. His human and hard infrastructure agenda is still pending, but I believe it will eventually pass because it has been set up in such a way that either everybody wins if it passes or everybody loses if it doesn't. The way the twin bills were constructed, one that will pass by budget reconciliation and one bipartisan, represents political ingenuity. It's making the most of the slim Democratic majorities in both Houses of Congress. Even after those twin bills pass and get made into law, there is much to be done, voting rights reform in particular. I think Biden will get the major part of his agenda accomplished - probably in 2 years. After that who knows what will happen if Republicans win one or both Houses in the midterm elections.

Off the Top of My Head

Biden's Goal of 50% Electric Vehicles by 2030 in Peril Because of American's Freedom of Choice

by John Lawrence

Fast forward to 2029 and we find ourselves in the situation that many Americans are insisting on purchasing gas fueled vehicles because of their freedom of choice. Even though the government has subsidized electric vehicles to the tune of $10,000 per vehicle, and electric vehicles outperform gas powered ones in every category, even though electric vehicles have more bells and whistles than the same identical gas powered one, Americans are insisting that their freedom of choice is more important than helping President Biden reach his goal of 50% electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Wolf Blitzer's son, Chip Blitzer  interviewed Joe Blow of Shrevesport, Louisiana. Blitzer: "Why do you want to purchase a gas powered vehicle when the electric one is cheaper and a better performer?" Blow: "My Daddy drove a Ford F-150 with an internal combustion engine which was the pride of America as did his Daddy before him. The internal combustion engine is what built this country. It's how we won every war we ever fought in. My Daddy was a roustabout in the oil fields and my family has a long history of fossil fuel products. You won't ever catch me in an electric vehicle as long as I have my freedom of choice."

President Biden is considering mandates to get gas powered cars and trucks off the road, but some southern Governors are balking at that. Governor P.T. Abernathy of Texas said this: "The Federal government is overstepping its bounds when it comes to telling us here in the south what kind of vehicles we can drive. I've always preferred a gas powered vehicle myself, and, as long as I'm Governor, I will let our citizens decide for themselves what kind of vehicle they want to drive. It's unAmerican to dictate to American citizens that they have to drive an electric vehicle. We also won't be following Federal government incentives to get people to move out of flood plains." Back in Shrevesport Mr. Blow had this to say. "I ain't moving out of my house even though it is in a flood plain. My Grandpappy built this house. We Blows have lived here for generations, and no Federal government is going to order me to move out of my house." It is notable that 2 years ago, FEMA gave Blow $350 K to rebuild his house after Hurricane Upsilon totally destroyed it. Yet Blow said at the time: "I've never seen anything like it before in my life, but I will rebuild. I'm not going anywhere. This is America."

We note that in blue states people are 90% compliant with Biden's goal. They are buying electric vehicles at a fast rate taking advantage of the generous government incentives in doing so. Red state Governors on the other hand are imploring their residents to support the oil and gas industry by buying gas powered vehicles making it less likely that Biden will reach his goal of 50% electric vehicles on the road by 2030. Despite the cleaner air that has come with more electric vehicles on the road not to mention helping in the effort to forestall and mitigate global warming, many in southern states primarily are insisting on their right to choose as Americans citizens. Ex-President Donald Trump said at a CPAC convention: "Global warming is a hoax. We have so many wonderful oil and gas resources in this country that we'll never have to import another barrel of oil. Yet these socialists like Biden want to cripple that industry destroying the livelihoods of red blooded Americans to feed their families." As a result of American hesitancy to go ahead and buy electric vehicles, Biden will probably not be able to reach his goal. One guy from Alabama said: "Have these electric vehicles even been FHA fully approved. I heard that they were just provisionally approved. When there is full FHA approval, then I might consider buying one. In the meantime I'll just stick with my F-150 with the American internal combustion engine, the engine that made America great. Don't tell anyone, but I take off that godforsaken catalytic converter every time I buy a new pickup. Internal combustion rules, baby! Let 'er rip!"

Off the Top of My Head

Good on President Biden for Using His Visit to the Flood Zones to Give a Tutorial on Climate Change

by John Lawrence

Previously, after a natural disaster no one mentioned climate change. There was much bemoaning and commiserating, but Biden took a different tack. He lectured the American people about climate change and how it contributed to the disasters that had befallen the unfortunate. What's more he said they would continue and get worse unless we undertake to do something about it. No more attributing the disasters to one in 500 year events. That language is totally out the window. No more statements like "I've never seen anything like this my entire life." Get used to it. People are going to see a lot more of these climate disasters from now on. As President Biden said, we can't prevent these disasters from happening on a regular basis, but we can do something about them getting a lot worse. Meanwhile the fossil fuel industry is running ads on TV about how wonderful the oil and gas industry is, and they are lobbying their evil little hearts out to get politicians on their side.

“The nation and the world are in peril,” President Biden said after touring storm damage in New York and Jersey. “And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact.”

"Folks — and we have to take some bold action now to tackle the accelerating effects of climate. If we don’t act — now I’m going to be heading, as Chuck knows, as the senator knows, I’m going to be heading from here to Glasgow, Scotland, for the COP meeting [United Nations Climate Change Conference], which is all the nations of the world getting together to decide what we are going to do about climate change. And John Kerry, the former secretary of state, is leading our effort, putting it together.

"We are determined, we are determined that we are going to deal with climate change and have zero emissions, net emissions by 2050. By 2020 [sic] (he meant 2030), make sure all our electricity is zero emissions. We’re going to be able to do these things. But we’ve got to move. We’ve got to move. And we’ve got to move the rest of the world. It’s not just the United States of America.

"And so, folks, this summer alone, communities with over 100 million Americans — 100 million Americans call home — have been struck by extreme weather. One in every three Americans has been victimized by severe weather. The hurricanes along the Gulf, the East Coast, up through this community. And I saw the human and physical cost firsthand, as I said, in Louisiana.

"And, folks, the evidence is clear. Climate change poses an existential threat to our lives, to our economy, and the threat is here, it’s not going to get any better. The question: Can it get worse? We can stop it from getting worse.

"And when I talk about building back better — and Chuck is fighting for my program, for our program on the Hill — when I talk about building back better, I mean you can’t build to what it was before this last storm. You got to build better so that if the storm occurred again, there would be no damage. There would be.

"But that’s not going to stop us, though, because if we just do that, it’s just going to get worse and worse and worse. Because the storms are going to get worse and worse and worse. And so, folks, we’ve got to listen to the scientists and the economists and the national security experts. They all tell us this is code red.

"The nation and the world are in peril. And that’s not hyperbole. That is a fact. They’ve been warning us the extreme weather would get more extreme over the decade, and we’re living in it real time now."

Biden is telling it like it is. The American people are in for a lot more of these climate disasters, and we can't stop them immediately. It's going to take decades to get this problem under control, and that's only if we go full steam ahead by taking measures to get it under control. Meanwhile, there are measures which can be taken to mitigate the costs both human and financial from these climate disasters. People must move out of flood plains and areas prone to forest fires. We must underground utilities so that the power doesn't go out during hurricanes and wildfires. That goes for cell phones and cable TV too. People have to have secure means of communication even during a climate disaster. Building codes need to be upgraded. Water management needs to improve so that torrential rains do not just become runoff that turns into floods. That water is precious and needs to be transported to parts of the country that are in more or less perpetual drought. The power grid needs to be hardened. Transportation needs to be electrified. Power generation needs to use renewable sources, and advanced nuclear needs to be developed. Ways of making steel and concrete need to be developed that don't use fossil fuels and the methods of doing so need to be scaled up and spread throughout the whole world. Agriculture needs to be made organic and factory farms eliminated. It's not enough for the US and the developed world to do the right things. Green infrastructure must be developed and spread to the whole world. We must partner with China in a Green Belt and Road Initiative. They are very advanced in building infrastructure throughout the world. While the US has been fighting needless wars, China has been building infrastructure albeit not green infrastructure. From now on coal fired power plants in India and China need to be eliminated and replaced with renewable energy and advanced nuclear power generation.

Off the Top of My Head

People Will Not Even Get a Vaccination to Fight the Pandemic. Would They Put Up With Rationing to Fight Climate Change?

by John Lawrence

In World War II, Americans sacrificed for the common good. Today some will not even get a free vaccination for the common good. On August 28, 1941, President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 8875 created the Office of Price Administration (OPA). The OPA’s main responsibility was to place a ceiling on prices of most goods, and to limit consumption by rationing. The OPA rationed automobiles, tires, gasoline, fuel oil, coal, firewood, nylon, silk, and shoes. Americans used their ration cards and stamps to take their meager share of household staples including meat, dairy, coffee, dried fruits, jams, jellies, lard, shortening, and oils. Resources were devoted to the war effort and not to Americans' consumption. Today we live in a consumer society. Would Americans resist if they lost their freedom to consume? That's what freedom means to most Americans. What if those resources were needed in the fight against climate change?

Would Americans put up with a shift from a consumer society to an all hands on deck building infrastructure to mitigate climate change society? Advertising budgets would dry up because the purpose of advertising is to get you to buy more stuff. What if your consumption was limited to essentials as it was during WW II? Freedom in America is the freedom to consume whatever you have the money to buy. What if you couldn't do that any more? What if the purveyors of nonessential products didn't have the freedom to sell you stuff that you really don't need in order to devote resources both human and material to Biden's building back better agenda? Is it some people's right to consume while other people are wiped out due to extreme weather events like fires and flooding? Should the rich be restricted from spending their money on luxury items like private jets and yachts? Should they be taxed heavily to provide the financial resources for mitigation and adaptation to global warming? Would billionaires have to give up their rocket ships? Do thy even care about the world that our children and grandchildren will inherit?

So if people are protesting that getting a free vaccination is against their concept of what being a free American is, how much more are they going to complain if they had to go without some consumer activity that they have become accustomed to? They are just not the type to roll up their sleeves and pitch in to do their part to mitigate or adapt to global warming. Just as the dying unvaccinated finally wish that they had heeded the warnings and got vaccinated, as long as some extreme weather event hasn't destroyed their home or impacted them in any way, they will continue to stick their heads in the sand and deny that global warming really exists. For them it will just be another government conspiracy theory while they will find charlatans in social media who will reassure them that global warming is still a hoax.

Global Cooperation, Not Endless War Should Be Future of US Foreign Policy

Hundreds of anti-war activists joined Iranian-Americans, Muslims, and communities of color in a rally at Foley Square to send a clear message: New York stand against endless wars, going to war with Iran and sanctions; demanding de-escalation and peace. (Photo by Erik McGregor/LightRocket via Getty Images)

 

Ours have been wars of hatred, not logic, and doomed to fail—at a mind-boggling human and financial cost.

 

Jeffrey D. Sachs

September 3, 2021 by the Boston Globe

During the past 60 years, the United States has suffered a series of failed wars in Indochina, Central America, the Middle East, and Afghanistan. Each of these wars produced mayhem and suffering, followed by an American retreat. While the American right wing has always argued that success needed just one more surge or bombing spree, the truth has been simpler and sadder. Ours have been wars of hatred, not logic, and doomed to fail—at a mind-boggling human and financial cost.

America has never cared to help those we have pretended to "save" by these wars. For that reason alone, America has never had the broad support of local populations that would have been essential for any kind of success in these misguided wars.

Americans didn't want to save the Vietnamese, Cambodians, and Laotians, who were despised in US popular culture; America wanted to stop communism and the supposed "falling dominoes" across Southeast Asia. America didn't want to save Salvadorans, Nicaraguans, and others in poverty-stricken Central America; it wanted to stop leftist radicals who threatened American investments in the region. America didn't want to save the Iraqis, Libyans, and Syrians; it wanted to topple regimes and replace them with US-backed regimes.

For the past 60 years, the United States has waged war after war for America's narrow interests alone, and has created havoc, destruction, and death in its wak

And America cared not a whit about Afghanistan, a point confirmed repeatedly by President Biden in recent days. Biden has noted, approvingly, that the United States went to Afghanistan for one reason and one reason only: to get Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda after 9/11, not to help the people of Afghanistan.

Tellingly, Biden has not been truthful about the real origin of US intervention in Afghanistan, following a pattern set by his predecessors. America's intervention in Afghanistan goes back to 1979, more than 20 years before 9/11, when the CIA secretly trained, armed, and funded Islamic jihadists in Afghanistan to fight the Soviet Union. The US-created fighting force morphed into Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but no president, including Biden, has honestly explained the basic facts to the American people.

America's right-wing culture has often been hostile toward the non-European world—the "shithole countries" in Donald Trump's disgusting yet telling phrase. For the past 60 years, the United States has waged war after war for America's narrow interests alone, and has created havoc, destruction, and death in its wake.

I have worked for decades in countries that all too many Americans find contemptible due to their poverty, religion, skin color, desire to migrate from hunger and violence, and insolence for trying to claim control over their own oil, uranium, and other minerals that America craves. Begrudging development assistance to these countries is a congressional pastime. People in those countries know all too well about American power, and its destructive potential. They try their best to stay out of harm's way.

In pulling the United States out of Afghanistan, Biden showed scant sympathy for the Afghan people. He mocked the idea of "nation-building," an American phrase of scorn that seems to mean being naïve enough to try to help another country. Is it any surprise that the regime in Afghanistan propped up by American power crumbled so rapidly just as America departed?

Lest any American mistakenly think that much of the roughly $1 trillion the US spent in Afghanistan for war and reconstruction went towards nation-building, it did not. Perhaps 2 percent of the total US spending went for purposes such as health, education, and civilian infrastructure. Almost all the money went for military and security purposes—troops, armaments, Afghan security forces, and the like. After 20 years, we left behind a country where 38 percent of the children are stunted due to chronic undernutrition.

In explaining America's exit, Biden played the typical American foreign policy tune, that the world is very dangerous place filled with foes of America. The job of the president, Biden emphasized, is to protect America from those enemies, just no longer in Afghanistan. Here is how Biden summarized the global scene:

"This is a new world. The terror threat has metastasized across the world, well beyond Afghanistan. We face threats from Al Shabab in Somalia; Al Qaeda affiliates in Syria in and the Arabian Peninsula; and ISIS attempting to create a caliphate in Syria and Iraq, and establishing affiliates across Africa and Asia … And here's a critical thing to understand: The world is changing. We're engaged in a serious competition with China. We're dealing with the challenges on multiple fronts with Russia. We're confronted with cyberattacks and nuclear proliferation. We have to shore up America's competitive[ness] to meet these new challenges in the competition for the 21st century."

Here is what he should have said instead: All countries—including the United States, members of the European Union, Russia, China, Iran, and, yes, Afghanistan—are destabilized by the COVID-19 pandemic; the effects of the climate crisis (floods, droughts, hurricanes, forest fires, heatwaves); widening income inequality further dividing the haves and have nots; the upheavals of digital technologies; and the dangerous political influence of plutocrats. All of these are shared problems across the globe, and all require intensive global cooperation rather than confrontation.

Biden was right to pull out of Afghanistan, yet wrong on the larger picture.

America's mortal enemies are not China, Iran, and Russia. Our real enemies are the common scourges facing humanity today. Global problems cannot be solved by individual nations alone.

It is uncertain whether America will change its relentless aggressive foreign policy for our own good, and the world's. Our nation has been at war for centuries. Our repeated failures have led the political right to double down, calling with increasing fervor for more weapons, and further escalation with China, Iran, Russia, and other alleged foes. Yes, we have pulled out of Afghanistan—42 years too late—and that is good. But will the United States adopt a new foreign policy based on peace and problem-solving? That's the real question.

---

© 2021 Boston Globe

Jeffrey D. Sachs

Jeffrey D. Sachs is the Director of The Earth Institute, Professor of Sustainable Development, and Professor of Health Policy and Management at Columbia University. He is Special Advisor to United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on the Millennium Development Goals, having held the same position under former UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. Sachs is the author, most recently, of "A New Foreign Policy: Beyond American Exceptionalism" (2020). Other books include: "Building the New American Economy: Smart, Fair, and Sustainable" (2017)  and “The Age of Sustainable Development," (2015) with Ban Ki-moon.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Were There Tens of Thousands of American Citizens and Foreign Nationals in Afghanistan?

by John Lawrence

There were only 2500 American military and 50,000 American citizens? What's wrong with this picture? And now a ragtag group is taking over the whole country having defeated the world's mightiest military force? What's wrong with this picture? This is totally F-ed up. I assume that all these civilians were there to make money. Maybe there were a few who genuinely wanted to help the Afghan people, but sending in the US military to facilitate that is not the way to do it. The US should be providing aid to people in the world that have less than we do. When you have a hammer, it seems like every problem is a nail. When you have the world's mightiest military every problem seems to have a solution by sending in the military to solve it. Having 50,000 American citizens in a war zone is completely nuts. and then the only way to extract ourselves from the situation is to have a massive, chaotic airlift as we are experiencing now?

So now Biden has at least established the principal that the US military doesn't have to remain forever in every country it invades. But that seems to be the MO. There are almost 40,000 troops in Germany, 28,000 in Korea and 55,000 in Japan. The military of the United States is deployed in most countries around the world, with between 150,000 to 200,000 of its active-duty personnel stationed outside the United States and its territories. The US military maintains close to 800 military bases in more than 70 countries and territories abroad. So is it even possible for the world to function without the presence of the US military in practically every country? What if they just all were withdrawn? Would the world's economic and political structure, such that it is, completely collapse?

Every empire in world history has collapsed due to its being overextended. The Roman Empire which lasted for about 1000 years (compared to the US' less than 100) collapsed because it extended itself into northern Europe instead of being content with just controlling lands around he Mediterranean. While the US vision of the world is that the US military will effectively occupy almost every country with the notable exceptions of China, Russia, Iran and now eventually Afghanistan, China's vision seems to be its Belt and Road initiative which ties many countries of the world to China economically. Can the US pivot from military occupation to peaceful economic and humanitarian development? Or even pivot to being a constructive force to ameliorate climate change in cooperation with China and Russia? Military assets could be converted to more peaceful purposes and be integrated into the Peace Corps. But that would take the incentives for glory and patriotism out of the equation. Could purple hearts ever be given to members of the Peace Corps? The principal that Biden has established that the US can leave a country is a game changer. It doesn't mean that the US will never have anything to do with Afghanistan again. It means that US involvement will be more along the lines of humanitarian assistance.

Off the Top of My Head

Whoever Thought It Would Be This Difficult to End a War? A Good Reason Not to Start One.

by John Lawrence

Not Like the old days when you had a ceasefire, signed a peace treaty and everyone went home respectfully. George W Bush started two wars, the first of which - the Iraq war - was based on the lie that Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction which he wasn't, and that he had something to do with 9/11 which he didn't. The second war in Afghanistan had some dubious plausibility that Osama bin Laden was stationed there. The fact of the matter is that you didn't need a land invasion of a country to get Bin Laden which Obama amply proved by sending in special ops forces to get him. Now we are faced with the messy and sticky problem of extracting ourselves from Afghanistan. Once done, Biden will be remembered for having the guts to actually do it. The messiness will be forgotten except for right wing pundits who will attempt to keep it alive.

Another question: why are approximately 20 high schools students from El Cajon, CA, where I happen to live, allowed to travel to a war zone to visit relatives? Aside from that the major question is can the Taliban really govern Afghanistan? Oh what tangled webs we weave! Afghanistan has been sucking at the American teat for 20 years. Now that we're soon to be gone, where will the money come from, the money that has kept the country running for 20 years? Or will Afghanistan become another basket case like so many Third World countries? Will China and Russia step in to throw them a lifeline? The Taliban are finally wising up that all the talent has been leaving the country on American evacuation flights. It seems like a large percentage of the Afghan population has been helping the Americans so we feel a moral obligation to get them out. But do the Taliban really want to kill them or do they just want their services as doctors, professors and other professionals? Do they really want to roll the clock back 500 years or are they smarter than that?

Meanwhile, the US just wants to get back to normal: overconsumption. We want a large share of the world's resources so we can overconsume and continue to pour carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere. The largest percentage of greenhouse gasses already in the atmosphere was put there by Americans. We just want to get back to normal and continue doing so. Just think of the consequences if we didn't continue to overconsume: our GDP would decline. Less consumption equals lower GDP. It's as simple as that. To reorient our society so that we underconsumed so that the rest of the world had enough food to eat and a roof over their heads is something that we as Americans have been programmed not even to consider in going about our daily lives. Our freedom, primarily, is the freedom to consume. That is about 50% of our population, those invested in the stock market and enjoying generational transfers of real estate assets, has the freedom to consume while about 50%, those doing the menial but necessary jobs are living paycheck to paycheck. Even college graduates, single mothers primarily, are still sleeping on their parents' couches because you can't make it on one salary in today's America particularly if you still have a lot of student loan debt to pay off.

Trump's base are those who not only say to hell with considering the planet as a whole or those in other countries, they say to hell with other Americans who disagree with their right not to get vaccinated and who might die from their very germs. How selfish can members of the human race be? What is civic duty if not pulling together and doing what's necessary to defeat our arch enemy: COVID? Especially when vaccinations are free. They'll even pay you to get one. Now we've reached the pass where you have to pay Americans to fight. Actually, we reached it years ago when they ended the draft.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Were There So Many Private Contractors and Translators in Afghanistan?

In 2012 there were 88,000 contractors. There were 7800 this July. There are tens of thousands of Afghani interpreters. In 20 years why couldn't the US military have trained their own people in the Afghan language? Now it seems everyone in Afghanistan was an interpreter who should have gotten, but didn't get, an SIV. When you add in all their family members, it runs into the hundreds of thousands who want to get out of Afghanistan and into the US. Well, why wouldn't they? Everyone from every hell hole around the world wants to get into the US. The number of Afghans who will get in dwarfs by comparison those arriving on our southern border. Since 2008, approximately 70,000 Afghans have been resettled in the US on an SIV .

Smithsonian magazine reports:

"Congress approved the Special Immigrant Visa (SIV) program in 2009, and some 9,200 Afghans have received an SIV, along with 17,000 of their dependents. But the number of visas has lagged behind the demand, as has the pace at which the State Department awarded them. By law, an application is supposed to be processed within nine months; it often takes years. And now, unless Congress extends the program, it will close to applicants at the end of this year. An estimated 10,000 interpreters may be left vulnerable—a prospect that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John W. Nicholson, warned could “bolster the propaganda of our enemies.”"

It's no wonder that extracting the US from Afghanistan is so messy. We had our tentacles deep into that country by design. The privatization of the US military is one aspect of the problem. The US military itself should not have had to hire contractors with all the resources they have. They should have trained their own people. The same goes for interpreters. Now everyone in Afghanistan is claiming to be an interpreter. The Taliban will have its hands full trying to rule that unruly country now that all the talent has left on SIVs and without the constant flow of US dollars coming in. It's good that Joe Biden finally had the guts to extricate the US from that hell hole. We're out and we should stay out. Maybe it would be a good thing to try and create some friends around the world instead of creating so many enemies that we have to guard ourselves against. Then maybe we could deal with all the American domestic terrorists right here at home. Because the US military is leaving Afghanistan, it doesn't mean that we can't provide aid in some form to the Afghan people going forward. I'm sure the Taliban would welcome our constructive help. But they sure wouldn't welcome the US military back any time soon.

 

Off the Top of My Head

Was Biden Supposed to Micromanage the Logistics of the Withdrawal?

by John Lawrence

What were all those people in the Pentagon doing once Biden announced the end of the war? Biden announced on July 8, 2021 that the war would end as of August 31. Why wasn't the US Defense Department working overtime to do contingency and logistics planning. Why weren't Americans and Afghans who helped us being taken out of the country as of that date? Why did they wait for Kabul to fall? This is incompetency on the part of the Pentagon and the Defense Department. Biden shouldn't have had to micromanage the logistics. Why didn't they expect chaos? Why didn't our military hold Kabul until everyone was out safely? Instead they let the Taliban waltz into Kabul. It just goes to show the incompetency of the top echelon of US military planners.

Hopefully, the secure air corridor, similar to the Berlin airlift, will be sufficient to get most of the people, who need to get out, out. The troops Biden sent in will have to do crowd control and secure the airport for the next few weeks. The whole operation in Afghanistan was a disaster. Evidently, the Afghan military couldn't do anything without the support of American contractors? You mean that the bloated American military is incompetent to do anything without private contractors? Evidently, so. Now a bunch of war apologists are rueing the day that the American military is leaving Afghanistan. Oh, Al Qaeda will come back; ISIS will establish themselves there. Why don't they stop and ask the question why all these Islamists are so upset with the US? Is it because the US has been killing them for years. It's not too late for the US to become a constructive force in the world instead of just trying "to protect American interests." China is building infrastructure throughout Asia and beyond. The US could cooperate with China in becoming a builder rather than a destroyer. Besides, unless the two major polluting countries of the world get together, the earth is already doomed to a climate catastrophe.

It's not about forcing the rest of the world to bow down to us. It's about time that the world's wealthiest country becomes a constructive player on the world scene instead of threatening everyone with sanctions or our military might. It's time to guarantee the Palestinians their own homeland. This would do a lot to dispel the rancor against the US. Instead of "defund the police" we should be chanting "defund the military". The 800 military bases around the world need to be abandoned and the troops sent home from there just like they were abandoned in Afghanistan. By the way why wasn't all the military equipment and resources just left there to fall into the hands of the Taliban? Oh I see. There will be money to procure a lot more once the Defense Department submits its budgetary needs post Afghanistan. When the US becomes a force for peace in the world and uses its abundant resources to alleviate poverty and fight climate change, then the US will be playing a constructive role in the world and not just defending US interests.

Off the Top of My Head

Evidently, There's No Federal Law Against Fomenting a Coup

by John Lawrence

It's now clear that Donald Trump did everything within his considerable power as President to foment a coup and overturn the result of the 2020 Presidential election including directing a mob of insurrectionists to attack the Capitol and the Congress persons and staffers inside. Trump also called on Georgia's Secretary of State to overturn the result of Georgia's election results and then pressured the DOJ to do the same. "Just say that the election was corrupt and leave the rest to me and the R. Congressmen," Trump said in a December phone call with former Acting Attorney General Jeff Rosen, according to handwritten notes of the conversation. What more proof is needed, and why isn't Trump in jail? Some say the Constitution is vague on this point, and there's no Federal law that Trump violated. Really? Well then, they had better rewrite the Constitution.

The House select committee investigating the attack by pro-Trump rioters who were trying to stop the certification of the presidential election will undoubtedly find even more information about Trump's role in overturning a US election, especially after they investigate his phone logs from January 6 and interview Defense Department officials who Trump may have pressured not to come to the aid of Capitol and Metropolitan police. What is clear is that the US came to about a hair's breadth of a coup on that day. If either Nancy Pelosi or Michael Pence had been apprehended by the rioters, that in and of itself may have enabled Trump to "leave the rest to him."

US Today reported:

"Donald Trump urged the Justice Department to say publicly that "the election was corrupt" even as its top officials tried unsuccessfully to convince him that claims of widespread voter fraud were false, according to newly released documents about conversations between the former president and the agency's leadership. ...

"The disclosures provide more insight into how Trump tried to use the country's top law enforcement agency to back claims that the last election had been stolen from him even though the Justice Department had found no evidence of widespread fraud that would've changed the results. The notes, written by Rosen's deputy, were released Friday by the House Oversight and Reform Committee, which is investigating efforts by Trump to overturn President Joe Biden's win."

How much detail does Congress need for the result to be that Trump is charged for sedition. Sedition is overt conduct, such as speech and organization, that tends toward rebellion against the established order. Sedition often includes subversion of a constitution and incitement of discontent toward, or insurrection against, established authority. Surely, there was both overt conduct and speech on the part of Trump that qualifies his speech and action as sedition. Yet there is no Federal law that would put him in jail awaiting trial? Give me a break. Evidently, the Constitution has all kinds of holes in it not the least of which is allowing every nut case to own as many AK-47s as he can afford. Also the free speech that is tolerated on the internet regarding reinstating Donald Trump as President or misleading people about COVID can't be reined in by law? Evidently, the President of the US can choose to send people into battle in a foreign country whenever he wants to like George W Bush did by lying to Congress, but the President of the US can't mandate that everyone get vaccinated in order to halt the destruction of the American people by a pandemic? What is evident is that the destruction caused by a virus is greater than the destruction wreaked by all wars in the US' history. Yet the President is powerless to do what is needed to bring it under control. He should just declare a state of emergency and mandate that everyone get vaccinated.

Off the Top of My Head

Just When We Thought the War Was Won, the Enemy Surprised Us With a Blitzkrieg

by John Lawrence

Reminiscent of the blitzkrieg in the Second World War when Germany overwhelmed France in just a few days, Americans had been led to believe that the war with COVID was winding down. Just then COVID mutated and launched a surprise attack. Americans were taken by surprise. Like Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over." So now we have to pivot and take on the enemy again just as we were starting to relax and go back to our privileged lifestyles. The problem has been exacerbated by so many Americans not doing their patriotic duty and getting vaccinated. It's a sad commentary on American culture when President Biden has to offer the unvaccinated $100 to get vaccinated. It's not just about your freedom, it's about saving the nation from an unmitigated disaster.

The Delta variant is a game changer and not in a good direction. Americans who haven't gotten vaccinated have been far too casual about it. And uninformed and downright stupid. In a war some people are going to be sacrificed for the greater good of winning the war. When the General sends people into battle he knows that some of his troops are going to be killed. The Civil War was a war of attrition. The North won because they could afford to sacrifice so many more of their troops than the South could. By contrast the war against COVID doesn't require much if anything in terms of sacrifice. Getting vaccinated doesn't mean that you're taking a chance of being killed or harmed by the vaccine. It means that you are increasing your chances of staying alive. Sure some people will die despite the fact of being fully vaccinated, but the vast majority of vaccinated people will live while the vast majority of unvaccinated people will die. It's as simple as that.

The Delta variant is the virus equivalent of a blitzkrieg. It's military potential is far mightier than the US defenses which rely on convincing people rather than mandating people to get vaccinated.  It's like a war in which people are free to decide whether or not they want to join the battle. Some are saying, "I don't give a fuck whether I die or I infect those around me and they die. My freedom of choice is more important. Isn't that my right according to the Constitution?" With this attitude Germany would have won the Second World War. Oh I have to wear a mask. Boo Hoo! What babies! What selfish A holes. No wonder so many of them are following the former A hole in Chief who only thought of his own selfish interests. They are a perfect reflection of his values.

Even the best guidance from the doctors and scientists was too rosy glowed compared to the situation on the ground. They never emphasized the fact that, even if you are fully vaccinated, you can still get infected with the virus. They told us that, if you were fully vaccinated, you could go anywhere, do anything unmasked and unsocially distanced and never have to worry about getting COVID, This was too pollyannish. Yes, chances are you won't die fom COVID, but it was never emphasized enough that the vaccines were 90% effective - not 100%. That means that 10% of the fully vaccinated could still get COVID and potentially even die. Now with the Delta variant being COVID on steroids, even though statistically you are much better off, it's still a statistical possibility you could die, and the best way to prevent yourself from being a statistic is to stay away from large gatherings of people especially when some of them might not be vaccinated.

We know children can get the virus. Those summer camps where a lot of them got it are a case in point. So now we are sending them back to school unvaccinated which is a disaster in the making. Why are we doing this? Because we had planned to do it thinking the pandemic would be over by the time children went back to school? Well now the situation has changed. We can't pivot because we had promised that children would be back in school sans masks? This is ridiculous. Sure vaccinations are super important, but children under 12 cannot be vaccinated due to the fact that the authorities haven't cleared them for vaccinations. So now, since they were promised it, we have to go ahead and send the largest unvaccinated group into a situation where they are most likely to get infected? Does this make any sense at all? Even if the adult population were 100% vaccinated, the children would still be at risk. Ironically, we have the capability of remotely educating them at home. Parents can even home school them. But the American people are being told that their children should go back to school masked or unmasked. They still insist on children going back into the classroom. The Delta variant is watching and waiting. And then comes the blitzkrieg.

Why Aren’t Biden and the Democrats Going All Out for Democracy?

by Robert Reich

Tuesday, July 27, 2021

You’d think President Biden and the Democratic Party leadership would do everything in their power to stop Republicans from undermining democracy.

So far this year, the GOP has passed roughly 30 laws in states across the country  that will make voting harder, especially in Black and Latino communities. With Trump’s baseless claim that the 2020 election was stolen, Republicans are stoking white people’s fears that a growing non-white population will usurp their dominance.

Yet while Biden and Democratic leaders are openly negotiating with holdout senators for Biden’s stimulus and infrastructure proposals, they aren’t exerting similar pressure when it comes to voting rights and elections. In fact, Biden now says he won’t take on the filibuster, which stands firmly in the way.

What gives? Part of the explanation, I think, lies with an outside group that has almost as much influence on the Democratic Party as on the Republican, and which isn’t particularly enthusiastic about election reform: the moneyed interests bankrolling both parties.

They fear that a more robust democracy would make it easier for the majority of Americans who aren’t wealthy to raise taxes on the wealthy to finance all sorts of things the majority may want, from better schools to stronger safety nets. 

So at the same time white supremacists have whipped up fears about nonwhites usurping their dominance, America’s wealthy have spent vast sums on campaign donations and lobbyists to prevent majorities from usurping their money.

They’ve already whipped up resistance among congressional Democrats to Biden’s plan to tax capital gains at 39.6% — up from 20% — for those earning more than $1 million. And they’re on the way to convincing Democrats to restore the federal tax deduction for state and local taxes, of which they’re the biggest beneficiaries.  

In recent years these wealth supremacists, as they might be called, have quietly joined white supremacists to become a powerful anti-democracy coalition.

Some wealth supremacists have backed white supremacist’s efforts to divide poor and working-class whites from poor and working-class Black and brown people, so they don’t look upward and see where most of the economic gains have been going and don’t join together to demand a fair share of those gains.

By the same token, white supremacists have quietly depended on wealth supremacists to bribe lawmakers to limit voting rights, so people of color continue to be second-class citizens. It’s no accident that six months after the insurrection, dozens of giant corporations that promised not to fund members of Congress who refused to certify Biden as president are now back funding them and their anti-voting rights agenda.

Donald Trump was put into office by this anti-democracy coalition. According to Forbes, 9 percent of America’s billionaires, together worth a combined $210 billion, pitched in to cover the costs of Trump’s 2020 campaign. During his presidency Trump gave both parts of the coalition what they wanted most: tax cuts and regulatory rollbacks for the wealth supremacists; legitimacy for the white supremacists.

The coalition is now the core of the Republican Party, which stands for little more than voter suppression based on Trump’s big lie that the 2020 election was stolen, and tax cuts for the wealthy and their corporations.

Meanwhile, as wealth supremacists have accumulated a larger share of the nation’s income and wealth than at any time in more than a century, they’ve used a portion of that wealth to bribe lawmakers not to raise their taxes. It was recently reported that several American billionaires have paid only minimal or no federal income tax at all.

Tragically, the Supreme Court is supporting both the white supremacists and wealth supremacists. Since Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Samuel Alito joined in 2005 and 2006, respectively, the court has been whittling away voting rights while enlarging the rights of the wealthy to shower money on lawmakers. The conservative majority has been literally making it easier to buy elections and harder to vote in them.

The Democrats’ proposed “For the People Act” admirably takes on both parts of the coalition. It sets minimum national standards for voting, and it seeks to get big money out of politics through public financing of election campaigns.

Yet this comprehensiveness may explain why the Act is now stalled in the Senate. Biden and Democratic leaders are firmly against white supremacists but are not impervious to the wishes of wealth supremacists. After all, to win elections they need likely Democrats to vote but also need big money to finance their campaigns.

Some progressives have suggested a carve-out to the filibuster solely for voting rights. This might constrain the white supremacists but would do nothing to protect American democracy from the wealth supremacists.

If democracy is to be preserved, both parts of the anti-democracy coalition must be stopped.

As Delta Wreaks Havoc, Biden Faces Growing Pressure to Force Big Pharma to Share Vaccine Recipes

President Joe Biden speaks during an event on the Covid-19 response and vaccination program at the South Court Auditorium of Eisenhower Executive Office Building on July 6, 2021 in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Alex Wong/Getty Images)

 

"Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action."

 

Jake Johnson

July 28, 2021

With a proposed patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines still mired in fruitless talks at the World Trade Organization, U.S. President Biden is facing growing calls to use his legal authority to force pharmaceutical giants to share their vaccine recipes as governments around the world race to combat the fast-spreading Delta variant.

"The U.S. government has power to share vaccine manufacturing knowledge and help other countries scale up production."
—Peter Maybarduk, Public Citizen

The U.S. government currently owns the patent for critical spike-protein technology developed by the National Institutes of Health. That technology, which helps trigger an immune response against the coronavirus, has been utilized by at least five companies in the development of vaccines, including Moderna, Pfizer, and Johnson & Johnson.

Thus far, the Biden administration has declined to leverage the government's ownership of the so-called '070 patent to force Big Pharma to share its vaccine formulas with manufacturers around the world, despite being urged to do so by the NIH scientist who helped develop the spike-protein technology.

But with the ultra-contagious Delta variant ripping through undervaccinated regions of the world, public health campaigners are ramping up pressure on Biden to act as pharmaceutical giants refuse to voluntarily take part in technology-sharing efforts.

“The U.S. government has power to share vaccine manufacturing knowledge and help other countries scale up production and finally end this pandemic. Millions of people have lost their lives waiting for such desperately needed action," Peter Maybarduk, director of Public Citizen's Access to Medicines program, said in a statement Tuesday.

Maybarduk said he is encouraged by recent comments from Gayle Smith, head of the global Covid-19 response at the U.S. State Department. In an interview with the Financial Times earlier this week, Smith urged U.S. vaccine makers to help develop low-cost manufacturing hubs overseas and share their technological expertise.

But Maybarduk made clear that—given the Biden administration's legal authority to compel their participation—the U.S. government can do much more than plead with profit-driven pharmaceutical companies to willingly act in the best interest of the world.

"If the U.S. government acts swiftly, it can help save hundreds of thousands of lives and stem the spread of variants," said Maybarduk. "Moderna and Pfizer's resistance to sharing the knowledge needed for countries to make vaccines is unforgivable. President Joe Biden has authority under existing law to order the sharing of vaccine recipes."

In exchange for allowing Moderna and other pharmaceutical giants to use the NIH technology, progressive advocacy groups argue, the U.S. government should require the companies to help other nations produce vaccines by sharing formulas and manufacturing know-how.

"U.S. taxpayers have invested over $2.5 billion in the development of mRNA-1273," a coalition of public health organizations wrote (pdf) in March, referring to the Moderna vaccine. "Now it is time for our government to ensure that this critical lifesaving technology be made available to all."

Biden has faced criticism for remaining largely on the sidelines following his May endorsement of the proposed vaccine patent waiver, which would lift legal barriers that are stopping manufacturers around the world from producing generic shots for the developing world. Rich members of the WTO, including Germany and the United Kingdom, continue to block the waiver.

"It is unconscionable that high-income nations of the WTO would continue to turn their backs on people of the Global South, desperate for immunity from the highly transmissible Delta variant," Asia Russell, executive director of Health GAP, said Tuesday. "Leaders of the E.U., Germany, the U.K.—and by extension, the Biden administration for abetting their TRIPS waiver obstruction—must stop their cruel and self-defeating indifference to vaccinating the world through suspending the monopolies of profiteering pharmaceutical companies."

But proponents of the patent waiver have emphasized that temporarily suspending intellectual property protections—while a necessary step—would not be sufficient to address global supply shortages and vast inequities in distribution, which have left the people of low-income nations largely without access to live-saving vaccines.

Public Citizen is calling on the U.S. Congress to support a $25 billion global vaccine manufacturing program aimed at helping developing nations produce billions of doses at home, instead of being forced to rely on restrictive bilateral deals with Big Pharma and inadequate donations from rich countries. Progressive U.S. lawmakers are also pushing for a $34 billion investment in global vaccine production and distribution in an emerging reconciliation package.

"No investment in the fight against Covid-19 is more urgent and cost-effective now than an investment in getting the world vaccinated as quickly as possible," Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), and other lawmakers wrote in a letter to congressional leaders last week.

As Politico reported Tuesday, two manufacturers in Africa—which has vaccinated just 1% of its population—are working to establish "an mRNA vaccine technology-transfer hub at the tip of the continent that could let it produce its own vaccines, on its own terms."

But the effort is predictably running into resistance from pharmaceutical giants, which have also refused to join the World Health Organization's technology-transfer campaign.

"To get the [Africa] hub up and running in a year—when it could still help end the pandemic—its partners need Big Pharma's help," Politico noted. "And Big Pharma isn't keen: Neither Moderna nor Pfizer has signaled interest in working with the facility."

Nick Dearden, director of the U.K.-based advocacy group Global Justice Now, said it is "no surprise that Pfizer and Moderna aren't participating" in development of the hub, which he described as "hugely important."

"They will need to be compelled to do so," argued Dearden, "because they ain't giving up this revolutionary technology without a fight."

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Off the Top of My Head

I'm Glad To Be an American Where at Least I Know I'm Equal

by John Lawrence

Ah yes. America, Home of the Equal and Land of the Brave. Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Later women were added. Equality - our founding principal. Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Preamble to the Constitution: "We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Equality to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Well, I've changed a word here and there except that Lincoln really did extol equality. Did Jefferson only want to promote the general white man's welfare or did he mean by "general" everybody including African Americans and Native Americans?

Liberté, égalité, fraternité, French for "liberty, equality, fraternity", is the national motto of France. The American motto is Liberty period. Equality got lost in the shuffle. Fraternité implies some sense of responsibility to fellow citizens. In America that doesn't exist in the American lexicon or consciousness. When asked why they haven't gotten vaccinated, Americans almost universally respond, "I'm young and healthy, and I don't think I'll get sick." The next logical question which is never asked is "Yes, but don't you want to protect others?" It's never asked because responsibility to fellow citizens, fraternité, is not an American value despite the fact that Lincoln said America was dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Politicians and fellow Americans have been, as thy say "walking it back" ever since. The only difference is that now Jim Crow doesn't just apply to African Americans. It applies to immigrants of all stripes, ethnicities and religious persuasions as well. We have equalized out prejudice.

Selfishness is the main American principle at this time. I'm free to be selfish; I'm free to be self interested. Wall Street exemplifies this. Profits über alles. Ayn Rand even made it a virtue in her book The Virtue of Selfishness. So naturally, the unvaccinated feel no responsibility to their fellow citizens to get vaccinated. The fact that they can impregnate others with the virus is no concern to them as long as they don't get sick themselves. It's endemic to America. Politicians have no allegiance to the truth only to their own selfish reelections. Corporate executives have no responsibility except to maximize short term  profits for their shareholders and themselves. While Joe Biden and the Democrats are trying to "promote the general welfare," Republicans are only trying to promote their own welfare and that of their constituency which is mainly rich white voters. Otherwise, they would be "primaried." Increasingly, their constituency also includes white, angry voters. They are angry that whites are in danger of losing control of the country, and people in these other groups will become equal.

Will the unvaccinated stick to their political principles at the risk of losing their lives? Probably. They think it can't happen to them, and them is all they care about. Anything to give Joe Biden a defeat, and the perpetuation of the pandemic will give Biden a defeat. Eliminating the pandemic would be a victory for Biden, and we can't have that. As Mitch McConnell said, "‘100%’ of my focus is on blocking the Biden agenda." Senator Barrasso went even further. He said he wants "to make Joe Biden a one-half-term president." This means that they will double down on not getting vaccinated. This amounts to an American Götterdämmerung. This was the Wagner opera that inspired Hitler to destroy Germany and himself if he couldn't win the war. So if Republicans can't beat Biden, they would prefer to bring the whole world down around our ears. The unvaccinated will cause another spike in hospitalizations and deaths. Some will beg for the vaccine as they are dying, but by then it will be too late.

Off the Top of My Head

Why Doesn't Biden Mandate That All Federal Employees Get Vaccinated?

by John Lawrence

Mr. Biden, stop pussyfooting around. Mandate that all 9 million Federal employees including military get vaccinated. Also Governors and Mayors can mandate that their employees be vaccinated. California has 2 million employees that work for the state. Governor Newsom could mandate that they all get vaccinated. New York City has 325,000 municipal employees. Mayor De Blasio could mandate that they all be vaccinated. And so on. It's time to get tough. The unvaccinated are putting everyone else at risk including 48 million school children under the age of 12 who can't get vaccinated. Businesses and corporations can mandate that their employees get vaccinated. Of course this will still leave out a lot of southern states under the control of Republicans who won't mandate that their employees get vaccinated. So in these states and municipalities and for these business owners all I can say is that, as the Delta variant sweeps through the population of the unvaccinated, there will be fewer people to vote Republican which may be a good thing.

An article in Rolling Stone June 10, 2021 reported:

The Biden administration announced that the government will not require federal employees to be vaccinated for Covid-19 in order to work in federal buildings.

Recommendations by the Safer Federal Workforce task force on Thursday state that the administration “strongly encourages” all Americans to get the vaccine, vaccination “should generally not be a pre-condition for employees or contractors at executive departments and agencies to work in-person in Federal buildings, on Federal lands, and in other settings as required by their job duties.”

The guidance also says that employees should not be mandated to disclose their vaccination status, but if an employee does disclose they are unvaccinated, “agencies should use that information to implement CDC-recommended mitigation measures, including masking and physical distancing.”

But things have changed very rapidly since June 10. There is a current surge in hospitalizations and deaths from COVID just as unvaccinated children are heading back to school.

The New York Times reported on June 22, 2021:

The spread of the super-contagious Delta variant has prompted new restrictions around the world and spurred stark new warnings from public health officials.

“The Delta variant is more aggressive and much more transmissible than previously circulating strains,” Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said at a White House briefing on Thursday. “It is one of the most infectious respiratory viruses we know of and that I have seen in my 20-year career.”

First identified in India, Delta is one of several “variants of concern,” as designated by the C.D.C. and the World Health Organization. It has spread rapidly across the world and poses a particular threat in places where vaccination rates remain low.

The variant is now responsible for more than 80 percent of infections in the United States, largely among unvaccinated people, according to the C.D.C. It is already fueling new outbreaks in states with low vaccination rates, including Missouri, Nevada and Arkansas.

Joe Biden has to get tough about this. The time for encouraging people to get the vaccine on a voluntary basis is over. There is a disaster in the making on top of the disaster represented by 625,000 deaths already in the US. Biden should use every tool in his toolbox to force people to get vaccinated or else face dire consequences.

Off the Top of My Head

Should We Hold Them Down Kicking and Screaming While We Jab Their Arms?

by John Lawrence

Oh, I forgot. We're not an autocracy. We are free to infect others, free to not get vaccinated, free to die and cause others to die. That's what makes us so great. We're not like one of these autocratic countries where they can mandate that everyone get vaccinated ... or else. Freedom has reached its rational limit and become toxic. We are also free to shoot people. We are not an autocratic country where they can mandate that with a few exceptions no one can own a gun. So we are free to kill each other, commit mass murder, assemble an arsenal in our parents' basement or read up on the internet about how to build a ghost gun or a bomb. Then Joe Biden wonders why autocrats laugh at the US' version of democracy. It's not about democracy, Joe. It's about too much freedom. We have created a nation of spoiled brats. America has forgotten the concept of community responsibility. Other democracies limit freedom, limit guns and limit the freedom to infect other. We have also let the virus be free to mutate to more virulent strains which might escape the vaccines that we have painstakingly developed.

There was just too much hoopla around having everyone mask free by July 4. Even Joe Biden was promoting that. Oh we'll all be free to hug Grandma and Grandpa, but wait a minute. No sooner had we hugged Grandma and Grandpa than we did a switchroonie and woke up to the fact that only 48% of the people had been vaccinated and the Delta variant had arrived on our shores. Now we are starting to realize that fully vaccinated people are getting COVID and even suffering quite severe symptoms. However, they are not dying so that's a good thing. The lesson is don't just go about living normally even if you're fully vaccinated especially if you're a senior citizen. The few fully vaccinated people who have died were over 65. So now we are having to pay people to get vaccinated? Just like we have to pay them to join the military? It's because we are too free. We are fee to ignore what's best for the community. We are free to think only of ourselves.

So what is public health? What is public anything? Ronald Reagan said the 9 most feared words in the English language are, "We're from the government, and we're here to help." Translation: Don't trust the government. The government can't do anything to help you so why should you do anything to help the government, including but not limited to, paying taxes. So everyone who can hire a financial advisor to tell them how to avoid paying taxes, which includes most rich people, proceeds to not do so. Not paying taxes is endemic among rich people who then have more money to spend on space ships. They give lip service to helping those of us who are earthbound after they have seen the curvature of the earth as if that triggered a moral awakening which they never had an inkling of before.

So Joe Biden, who I think is doing a fantastic job (but he can't do everything all at once), thinks that American democracy has the wherewithal to compete against his friends Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin who are openly skeptical about it. When it comes to vaccinations and guns, he may be wrong. Like Yogi Berra sid, "It ain't over till it's over" Truer words have never been said when it comes to COVID. The virus has one up on us with the Delta variant, and it may have others up its sleeve. Celebrating on July 4th like everything was back to normal was just a little bit premature.

Off the Top of My Head

What Will Happen to All Those Vaccines That Have Passed Their Use-By Date?

by John Lawrence

Joe Biden, with the help of various corporations, produced enough vaccine to give every American 2 shots. Only problem is that over half of Americans have refused to get them. So are those vaccines not taken going to spoil? After all they do have a finite shelf life. Some Americans' refusal to get vaccinated is putting more Americans at risk - vaccinated and unvaccinated, particularly children who aren't even eligible to get vaccinated. The Delta variant is causing many more "breakthrough" cases of COVID, which demonstrates that, even though you may be fully vaccinated, you're still at risk. As time passes with COVID still not under control, the virus has increased chances to mutate to an even more virulent strain, one which can escape the vaccine completely.

COVID is spreading like wildfire among the unvaccinated. Yet the US is incapable of imposing a mandate that everyone get vaccinated for fear that it would infringe on Americans' "freedom." Yes, Americans have the freedom to die and also to cause others to die. The unvaccinated will say that they are free to take their chances without even mentioning or considering that they're not only putting their own lives at risk, they are putting other lives at risk as well. They will say that they are young and healthy and think that their immune system is strong enough to fight off the virus. Meanwhile, they are transmitting it to others even if they are asymptomatic. What if the World War II generation took the same attitude about sacrificing for the war effort. Chances are we would be speaking German today.

CNN reported on July 20:

The surge in Covid-19 cases fueled by the Delta variant and vaccine hesitancy has now led to increasing rates of hospitalizations and deaths.

Data from Johns Hopkins University shows:

 

-- The average number of new Covid-19 cases each day the past week was 32,278. That's a 66% jump from the average daily rate the previous week, and 145% higher than the rate from two weeks ago.

 

-- An average of 258 Americans died from Covid-19 each day this past week -- up 13% from the rate of daily deaths the previous week.

 

The US has a glut of life saving vacciines while at the same time a majority of Americans who refuse to avail themselves of them. Most of these are in red states, states controlled by Republicans and states that voted for Donald Trump. Fox News and other right wing media is responsible for the dumbing down of the already dumbed downed. They see their job being to make stupid Americans even stupider in return for sending them money. They're missing the "entertainment" that Trump provided for them. Marjorie Taylor-Greene is doing her best to pick up Trump's dropped mantle. Facebook is not being aggressive enough in suspending the accounts of the worst offenders of bogus information providing. The whole free speech conundrum is causing big problems. A benign dictator wouldn't allow free speech which amounts to misinformation and disinformation, but the US is in a quandary about what free speech actually is and relies too heavily on the court system to settle all disputes. Instead of outright outlawing certain things, the attitude is "Let them fight it out in court."

Off the Top of My Head

Billionaires in Space and One on the Ground

by John Lawrence

We have been treated to media coverage of billionaires in space squandering their fortunes to have a "wonderful experience" while one has not gone to space. Instead he has spent billions eradicating disease and poverty in the world, furnishing children with computers and contributing to the effort to control the pandemic. In fact he warned us a pandemic was coming in 2015 in a Ted talk. Bill Gates is a true hero while Richard Branson and Jeff Bezos are spoiled brats relishing their "experiences" and astronaut wings. Of course it's Bill Gates who is denigrated on right wing media and those peddling conspiracy theories. Anyone who tries to do good in the world usually ends up with a similar fate. Such are human beings. For rich billionaires their rocket ships represent nothing more than "boys with their toys."

Bill Gates latest book, "How to Avoid a Climate Disaster," should be read by everyone and touted by the media. He didn't need to go to space and look back at the earth to have a mind altering experience. I'm so tired of these billionaires like Branson saying things like, "Well after I saw the curvature of the earth, it made me feel a common bond with all humanity." Yeah. Blah. Blah. Blah. Now he wants to do something about climate change? Well, let's see what. He is a mental and philanthropic lightweight compared to Gates. Where's his book about climate change and his Ted talk about the pandemic? He's all show and no action. It's all about showmanship and "wonderful experiences", and maybe you too will win a raffle and be able to go into space, or maybe some day when the price comes down, then you'll be able to go. Hooray and Hallelujah! It's just the way it is, you see. First the rich people get to go, and then some day it'll be cheap enough even for the middle class just like it was with air travel.

Google the Gates Foundation and these words come up: "We are a nonprofit fighting poverty, disease, and inequity around the world." This is what the other billionaires should be about as well as other rich nations of the world. I think the US, temporarily at least during the Biden administration, is about that. But that could change quicker than an augenblick if another Trump like government comes along. For the year ending in 2019, the Gates Foundation spent more than $5 billion on 1869 grants helping people all over the world. The US government by contrast spent $1 trillion on its military-industrial complex, something even Joe Biden has not had the nerve to change at least so far. He gets massive kudos, however, for ending the war in Afghanistan despite all the military-think Generals who want us to stay there in perpetuity just in case another bin Laden might be born some day.

Some good verbiage from the Gates website: "From poverty to health, to education, our areas of focus offer the opportunity to dramatically improve the quality of life for billions of people. So we build partnerships that bring together resources, expertise, and vision—working with the best organizations around the globe to identify issues, find answers, and drive change. Our work depends on grantees and partners across the United States and in more than 130 countries who have on-the-ground expertise, a deep understanding of the issues we care about, and strong ties with the communities in which we aim to make a difference. At the same time, we have learned the value of having foundation representatives based in key regions—to help us build relationships with partner organizations and governments, better understand the policy environment, and remain culturally sensitive. We focus on issues we think are the biggest barriers that prevent people from making the most of their lives. For each issue we work on, we fund innovative ideas that could help remove barriers. Some of the projects we fund will fail. We not only accept that, we expect it—because we think an essential role of philanthropy is to make bets on promising solutions that governments and businesses can’t afford to make. As we learn which bets pay off, we adjust our strategies and share the results so everyone can benefit."

Going into space is like getting a sugar high. The self indulgent billionaires who do it are wasting their money on frivolities. The Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, despite the fact that the Gates's are getting divorced, are doing the work that needs to be done to bring the planet into alignment with our best natures. At the same time others are peddling bullshit misinformation to make as much money as possible even if it kills people. Expect the Republican base to be decimated because of right wing talk hosts like Tucker Carlson who are discouraging people from getting vaccinated. His watchers are the ones who will die from COVID. Democrats can stand by and watch while their competitors in the Republican party losing their constituents. It is a war by other means that Democrats are winning by default. Less people voting Republican is not an entirely bad thing even though health care workers will be working overtime to do their best to save them. Oh what tangled webs we weave.

Off the Top of My Head

Radicalized Veterans Supporting Trump in the Vanguard of January 6 Insurrection

by John Lawrence

Time magazine has an excellent article by Vera Bergengruen/Arab, Ala. and W.J. Hennigan/Washington, "From Combat to Conspiracy" detailing how radicalized veterans led the insurrection on January 6. I wrote about this previously in an article The Militarization of the American Mind. The fact of the matter is that the US military-industrial complex is composed not only of active military and corporations profiting from military hardware, but also a large number of civilians who are ex-military. The whole meme about honoring veterans - "Thank you for your service" - presupposes that these people are loyal Americans, not an out of control mob attempting to overthrow the government. Veterans are routinely honored at least in lip service and discounts, but the truth is far more disconcerting. These men and women have been processed through a system that has taught them not to think critically but to follow orders. They are more or less taught to espouse conservative politics.The Times article continues: "Of the more than 500 people arrested in connection with the Jan. 6 riot, at least 1 in 10 was a current or former member of the U.S. military, according to a George Washington University analysis. Many had served in the protracted post-9/11 conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, returning home to a country that paid them lip service but moved on without much notice to the wars they had fought."

The insurrectionists' attitude is a reflection of the fact that the US is a militarized nation with over 800 bases in almost every country of the world. Defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Northrop Grumman and others form the economic backbone of the nation. Is it any wonder then that at least a sizable minority of the nation's people favor an autocrat like Donald Trump to an experienced public servant like either Hilary Clinton or Joe Biden? When I worked in the military-industrial complex for General Dynamics and the Naval Electronics Laboratory, we were encouraged to vote Republican for fear our funding would decline under a Democratic administration and we would be RIFed (Reduction in Force-ed). This is how insidious the militarization of the American mind actually is. The Times article continues: "[One veteran] became involved with local chapters of the Oath Keepers in central Florida, whose recruiting materials reminded members that their oath was forever. “America’s veterans truly are like a sleeping giant. It is time to awaken them and fill them with a terrible resolve to defeat the domestic enemies of our Constitution,” says one chapter’s mission statement, according to documents reviewed by TIME. “If we can’t get the veterans to step up … to save our Republic, then how can we expect to get the rest of our people to do what must be done?”"

"As with other veterans whose involvement in right-wing groups like the Oath Keepers led them to the Capitol on Jan. 6, James’ descent into alleged extremism seemed less an expression of long-held political fervor than the desire to be part of a larger patriotic cause.

"Little data is kept on how often and why veterans get involved with extremist groups, but there are plenty of high-profile examples throughout American history. Nathan Bedford Forrest, a Confederate army general, was the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. George Lincoln Rockwell, a Navy veteran, founded the American Nazi Party. Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, both Army veterans, were convicted of the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing.

"Founded by a former Army paratrooper in 2009, the Oath Keepers has quickly become one of America’s largest antigovernment extremist groups. It heavily recruits current and former military and law-enforcement members, encouraging them to see themselves as “the last line of defense against tyranny,” according to Oath Keepers websites. The group’s name refers to the oath sworn by members of the military and law enforcement “to defend the Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.” Some members falsely believe that the federal government has been taken over by “a cabal of elites actively trying to strip American citizens of their rights,” according to the FBI."

The military had become for many veterans a way of life that they missed after returning to civilian life. "“Militia groups have really familiar structures of command,” [author] Belew says. “They have structures of fraternal bonding, they have the organizational social elements that are very similar to the armed forces—and they’re built that way deliberately.

"Only now are federal authorities formally drawing up a strategy to handle the problem of military veterans’ joining extremist groups. The Biden Administration’s strategy to combat domestic terrorism includes plans to prevent veterans from being recruited by extremists. Currently, there are no efforts that focus on veterans once they have left service, despite evidence that they are increasingly the targets of online misinformation and extremist recruitment.

"Security analysts, veterans’ groups and experts say it will be vital to combat both the isolation and the fear-mongering that lead former service members to think of their fellow Americans as the enemy or, worse, take the law into their own hands. “It’s important not to fixate too much on the Oath Keepers as an organization but to think of them as a concrete example of a broader phenomenon in America,” says Sam Jackson, a homeland-security expert at the University of Albany who wrote a book on the group. The alleged radicalization of James, the growth of local chapters and the national organization should be “seen as a Russian nesting doll” that shows a much larger movement, he says, “of people who view America as being hijacked by internal and external enemies.” But little is likely to change unless more Americans come to agree on what it means to be an extremist and what it means to be a patriot."

Wake up, America, and smell the coffee. The militarization of the American mind reflects the militarization of America's purported purpose in the world which is to exert military force projected over the whole world. A person like exPresident George W Bush, who lied us into the war in Iraq, has the nerve to criticize Joe Biden for withdrawing American forces from Afghanistan after a 20 year futile war which accomplished nothing. We got Bin Laden in an operation which had nothing to do with boots on the ground in Afghanistan. He was in Pakistan. Afghanistan had nothing to do with 9/11. The attitude of both civilian and military leaders from the top down legitimizes the US' continued military presence throughout the world and thoroughly indoctrinates American veterans and civilians in the military mindset. Until the US becomes a nation which is more interested in promoting development throughout the world and contributing to the betterment of peoples' lives throughout the world, a large number of Americans will favor right wing causes and conservative politics.

'This Summit Was a Failure': Biden-Merkel Meeting Ends With No Deal on Vaccine Patent Waiver

U.S. President Joe Biden and German Chancellor Angela Merkel hold a joint press conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington, D.C. on July 15, 2021. (Photo: Saul Loeb/AFP via Getty Images)

Biden's inability to persuade Merkel to drop her opposition to the patent waiver "delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic," said one critic.

 

Jake Johnson

July 16, 2021

The brief bilateral summit between U.S. President Joe Biden and outgoing German Chancellor Angela Merkel ended Thursday without any commitment from the European leader to drop her opposition to a temporary patent waiver for coronavirus vaccines, a result that public health campaigners dubbed a major failure as infections continue to surge across the globe.

"Tens of millions of lives and livelihoods worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging Covid outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for a vaccine-resistant strain emerging."
—Lori Wallach, Public Citizen

Lori Wallach, director of Public Citizen's Global Trade Watch, said in a statement that Biden's inability to move Merkel on the patent waiver "delivers a punishing blow to efforts to end the pandemic."

"People around the world dying for lack of vaccines were relying on Biden to get Merkel to stop blocking the waiver given that he promised that if elected president, he wouldn't allow Big Pharma monopolies to block global vaccine and treatment access," said Wallach. "Tens of millions of lives and livelihoods worldwide are left in peril, including here, given that raging Covid outbreaks anywhere increase the chances for a vaccine-resistant strain emerging. We urge the president to redouble his efforts to get the waiver enacted."

While Biden reportedly raised the patent waiver during his private meeting with Merkel on Thursday, it's unclear to what extent he pressed the German leader on the issue—and the president did not mention the proposal during a news conference following their discussion.

Merkel, who was also silent on the patent waiver during the media briefing, said that "we are convinced... that overcoming this pandemic is only possible if as many people as possible are vaccinated in our countries."

"We have to also support the rest of the world with vaccines. We work together with COVAX," the German leader said, referring to the World Health Organization-backed global vaccination initiative that has struggled to meet its goals due to supply shortages.

Experts and public health advocates have argued that the only way to ensure the speedy production and equitable distribution of at least 11 billion vaccine doses—the number believed to be necessary to end the pandemic worldwide—is to temporarily suspend intellectual property protections that are allowing major pharmaceutical companies to maintain a vice grip on vaccine formulas and key technology.

Activists amplified that message outside the White House and across the nation during Merkel's U.S. visit, lining up body bags in the nation's capital to symbolize the preventable deaths caused by the European leader's continued obstruction of the waiver proposal, which India and South Africa first introduced at the World Trade Organization (WTO) back in October.

Proponents argue that a suspension of certain intellectual property protections for the duration of the pandemic would help facilitate the production of generic vaccines, which could then be distributed to low-income nations that have struggled to obtain doses thanks in part to hoarding by wealthy countries.

"As long as Germany withholds its approval of the TRIPS waiver, it threatens the lives of millions of people around the world and our ability to crush the virus."
—Rep. Pramila Jayapal

According to Our World in Data, just 1% of people in low-income countries have received at least one vaccine dose. Haiti—in the midst of a political crisis following the assassination of its president—had yet to administer a single vaccine dose as of Thursday, when 500,000 doses donated by the U.S government through COVAX arrived in the country.

Jean Gough, UNICEF's regional director for Latin America and the Caribbean, said in a statement that "thanks to this donation, hundreds of thousands of Haitians will receive their shots against Covid-19."

"Yet, despite the collective efforts to kickstart the vaccination campaign soon, most of the Haitian population is at risk of remaining unvaccinated due to the limited availability of doses currently in the country," Gough warned.

Biden garnered widespread applause after he voiced support for the temporary patent waiver in May, but the president has since come under fire for not doing enough to convince other world powers—including Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom—to follow suit. Because the WTO operates by consensus, a handful of rich countries have the power to block a proposal backed by more than 140 countries.

"This summit was a failure," Wallach said Thursday, "and we urge Biden to prioritize getting the WTO waiver enacted ASAP so more Covid vaccines and treatments can be produced worldwide."

With Germany and other rich countries stonewalling the patent waiver, the ultra-contagious Delta variant of the coronavirus is running rampant in undervaccinated regions of the world, including Africa, South America, and pockets of the United States. The World Health Organization said Thursday that Africa reported a million coronavirus cases in just the past month, the fastest surge of new infections on the continent thus far.

"As long as Germany withholds its approval of the TRIPS waiver, it threatens the lives of millions of people around the world and our ability to crush the virus," U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said in a statement Thursday, referring to the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement.

"The pandemic isn't over until it's over everywhere," Jayapal added.

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