This Blog is created to stress the importance of Peace as an environmental directive. “I never give them hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s hell.” – Harry Truman
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It is costing something like $50 million per day or something to shut down the restaurants and pay the people that worked there. Some of those people may be moving to surrounding countries. They should seek out employment in those countries with McDonalds as soon as they get there.
Those same people are going to be new consumers once they get their feet under them. They will be looking to settle into housing at least temporarily. That is a lot of new consumers for those countries as well as refugees. They are also bringing children for McDonald's Playland.
Those same people once employed again will need Amazon and all the other resturants and merchants in their new place to live for right now. Perhaps, someday, they will return to Ukraine, but, until then they will be more than refugees, but, additional consumers as soon as they find work.
This is just one of Putin's Big Lies.
Now Russia (click here) accuses US of 'experimenting with bat coronavirus samples' and carrying out research on ANTHRAX in Ukraine as White House warns Putin could use chemical or biological weapons after spreading 'preposterous propaganda'
Mass graves, the method resorted to when dictators rule. This is ethnic cleansing. I will tell you why. It is one thing for a powerful country to demand land as it's own and warn the people they have a certain amount of time to decide to stay or leave. It is something else to simply decide a local civil war isn't accomplishing it's goal and invade ruthlessly and relentlessly to kill as many people as possible with hatred measured only by a death count.
They are dead and their children and grandchildren dead because Putin doesn't want insurgents. He wants the land, not the people.
Putin wants his own DMZ (demilitarized zone).
He wants the port for whatever reason he thinks it is important. There won't be much trade going to The West out of that port now or in the future. He expected The West to look the other way because their money was more important than these peoples' lives.
President Zelenskyy may be correct. The West might be looking the other way at World War Three. Could be. The question is does Vladimir Putin love Russian people more than his hate wants to kill everyone else? He lies to them on a regular basis, he doesn't seem to think their opinion is important at all. He is probably so far gone in his ideology he just sees his power as a vehicle rather than a presidency.
Graphic images (click here) show mortuary workers digging trenches 25m long at one of the old cemeteries in the besieged port city of Mariupol, and making the sign of the cross as they pushed dead bodies wrapped in carpet or bags over the edge
...there are more than 20,000 battle hardened soldiers that have volunteered to President Zelenskyy's call.
This is interesting.
Russia is likely sending paid mercenaries into Ukraine to help along its invasion of the country, a British government ministry said.
This is being reported today, about TWO days ago the cases of financial abuse I am following of elderly women in the USA had an uptick within an hour of each other. I suppose one can read that for what they want, but, within an hour as if a call went out and the men needed money? Really. One man is in Somalia, the other in Turkey and the third in Doha, Qatar. Two European white guys and an Arab that claims he is a USA citizen.
It is anyone's guess.
The government of President Vladimir Putin “almost certainly maintains extensive links” with Russian companies that sell mercenary fighting services, the U.K. Ministry of Defence.
I always thought there was a sovereign country involved in this mess. I should post that, especially now.
Such mercenary services already operated in eastern Ukraine prior to Russia’s current invasion, according to the U.S. government.
President Biden hasn't met with Xi yet, has he? Quite possibly Xi wanted Trump in office, too. I think The West has to come to terms with their own idea of promoting Wall Street and capitalism as a tool to peace has failed.
It seems to me the communists have closed ranks and are moving to a greater expansionism to a global order far different than democracy has seen as a vision. The West is dealing with ideologues. There is no peace here. There is no possible peace if they have a far different agenda than The West has understood.
I think we are headed right back to the Cold War and the Era of Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev. That is where Putin wants to be. No one can deny that.
I do not believe COVID-19 was developed for germ warfare on the entire planet. That was caused because an incompetent Donald John Trump decided the USA should stop paying scientists to tend to issues within the population of China. What people don't understand about the Chinese government is a crime. I swear.
Never measure the sophistication of a country by it's elite, measure a country by it's poor. Both China and Russia are Third World countries and chronically welcome The West to assist in their domestic affairs when it comes to the well being of it's people. At least until the last few years. When Trump pulled the scientists out of China, no one replaced them.
The poor of any country is very close to serious and profound poverty that causes famine, death and disease. Lifting up the poor improves the world for all of us and makes Earth a much safer place to live.
China and Russia have some very profound poverty in their country, much worse than the poverty found in the USA. I mean, the Chinese are eating wild animals like civets and the viruses are crossing species boundaries. In Russia, during the Olympics, Russians lost their homes in order to build the stadiums in Sochi. Russia didn't improve the housing or living standard of those displaced, they simply displaced them and basically wished them well to find a new place to live if they can.
The so called "Russian Occupied Territories" aren't doing any better with the influence of the Russian government than before they were occupied. The elite are happier, but, the people generally are not. There is a reason why Mariupol is emptying out of citizens. Putin doesn't care about those people, he wants the port to call his own. He doesn't care if there is a building standing.
Ideologies as a national standard is about politics, not a workable governance. What is going on with Ukraine is ideology. Ukraine wanted to trade with Russia. The Post Soviet Countries wanted to trade with Russia. Russia did not want to trade with them. Why? Because in his hearts of hearts Putin only saw communism as the one true god and The West is poison to it.
There are lots of ways to povide a so called "buffer zone" to a country's borders. Walls if that is an idea that actually works, but, also mutual economic benefit is a huge way to build national security without owning real estate. Mutual economic benefit is about jobs and national debts and deficits. It is a gigantic sense of security regardless the borders of a country. That measured, Russia and China should be great allies. They aren't and if they don't see the light of day by now, they never will.
I think in the issue of Ukraine, China will probably be unhelpful. I hope I am wrong, but, basically Xi is a dictator now as is Putin and they like it that way. In 2000, China and Russia signed "The Friendship Pact." I think that says it all. South Korea has a new president, by the way. I haven't read up about him yet, but, let's hope it isn't one that Bannon decided to make money on. Otherwise, we are stuck with another ideologue to deal with.
March 9, 2022 By Ian Johnson
...China's current system (click here) was launched in the late 1970s under Deng Xiaoping, who was willing to relax Communist Party control over society to allow China to flourish. Deng's two hand-picked successors, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, had their flaws but possessed relatively similar ideas about broadening the Communist Party's appeal and pursuing better ties with neighbors.
Xi has none of these instincts. Raised by one of the country's founding fathers, he is the first leader to be born and raised in the People's Republic. He has a relatively limited education -- not his fault because it was due to the political turmoil of the Mao years -- but still telling. Once the turmoil ended in the late 1970s, his well-connected father put him on a track to success, with one careerist job following the next.\
Xi's vision is essentially to recreate the Chinese Communist Party of his father's generation. Soon after the party took power in the 1950s, so the myth goes, it was incorruptible, popular, and firmly in charge of society.
To that end, Xi's main goal is to strengthen party control over the economy, politics, education, and minority areas such as Xinjiang, or relatively autonomous regions, such as Hong Kong. In its own way, Xi's vision is ambitious in his effort to turn the clock back on 40 years of reforms, but it is a limited and inward-focused ambition. As the Australian scholar Geremie Barmé puts it, it is an "empire of tedium."...
This is exactly what occurred in Syria. There is no conscience in their warring. This is completely unconsionable in a civilized country. All of it is, but, this is completely barbaric.
This is ethnic cleansing. There is no other possible description for it.
Syria was all about chemical weapons and strikes on hospitals. The Ukraine military should be outfitted for chemical weapons release. Putin is not above any measure. He is full of hate.
March 9, 2022
Mariupol - A Russian airstrike (click here) devastated a maternity hospital Wednesday in the besieged port city of Mariupol and wounded at least 17 people, Ukrainian officials said, amid growing warnings from the West that Moscow’s invasion is about to take a more brutal and indiscriminate turn.
The ground shook more than a mile away when the Mariupol complex was hit by a series of blasts that blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building. Police and soldiers rushed to scene to evacuate victims, carrying out a heavily pregnant and bleeding woman on a stretcher.
Another woman wailed as she clutched her child. In the courtyard, mangled cars burned, and a blast crater extended at least two stories deep....
The long lines at gas pumps is due to consumers seeking the lowest price. It has nothing to do with scarcity.
The list of companies leaving Russia in it's dust has grown at last by two, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Pizza Hut. Congratulations on joining the community of humanity.
NASA is seeking assistance in guidance as to how to best keep the ISS in service without Russian help. It is a good chance for entering into a contract for service to NASA if the qualifications match the need. No Russians need apply.
President Joe Biden (click here) announced a ban on Russian oil imports on Tuesday as Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine continues to drive gas prices to record highs. But will this latest move spike prices even higher?
“We will not be part of subsidizing Putin’s war,” Biden said in a televised statement on Tuesday, adding that Americans should expect gas prices to continue their steady march upward. “I’m going to do everything I can to minimize Putin’sprice hike here at home.”
Bay Area residents are particularly feeling the pinch in one of the most expensive metro regions in the country, with average gasoline prices topping $5.50, over $1.30 more per gallon than the national average, according to A A A . Average gas prices in California were $4.68 a gallon one month ago, and $4.80just a week ago...
States need to investigate their petroleum market for price gouging and corruption.
March 9, 2022
Gov. Gavin Newsom touted California (click here) as an economic powerhouse leading the way on vexing issues from chronic homelessness, a warming climate and improving public education in his State of the State speech Tuesday and promised relief as the state’s already high gas prices hit records.
“People have always looked to California for inspiration,” Newsom said in remarks at the Natural Resources Agency headquarters in Sacramento. “And now, in the midst of so much turmoil with stacking stresses and dramatic social and economic change, California is doing what we have done for generations, lighting out the territory ahead of the rest, expanding the horizon of what’s possible.”
Republicans have called on Newsom and his fellow Democrats to give motorists a gas tax holiday as average prices hit about $5.50 a gallon. The governor proposed pausing the gas tax increase that would kick in this summer in his budget but said “it’s...
As far as I am concerned this is price gouging. Demand for fuel has not spiked and the Russian supply of oil to the USA is only 8 percent. It is ridiculous to believe the price of fuel has nearly doubled in less than 2 and a half months.
It is price gouging at the pump as fasciliated by a hungry Wall Street that has deeply missed it's oil commodity which acts no different than cash in it's ability to be liquid.
The problem is that Wall Street is feasting on the idea of a gasoline shortage. That is nonsense. The demand for fuel has not spiked and the supply has not dwindled to the point of scarcity. This entire idea that somehow the cost of "fueling up" has to double because of scarcity is all artificial. I am not saying the local fueling station is gouging the consumer, it is the big boys on Wall Street that seek profit at any cost regardless the reason.
The petroleum industry supplied commodities that act like cash in it's value and return as well as it's ability to be sold in an instant to facilitate oher transactions. During the pandemic when fuel was abundant, did the cost come down? No. So, why now is the cost of the products from the petroleum companies skyrocketing?
This is nothing more than greed at a time that supplies excuses such as the invasion into Ukraine by Russia.
In a statement, CERN said it 'will not engage in new collaborations' with the Russian Federation and its institutions 'until further notice'.
CERN also said it will promote initiatives to support Ukrainian collaborators and Ukrainian scientific activity in the field of high-energy physics....
Russia has proved itself unworthy of trust. I don't know if that level of trust will ever return. Russia has clearly demonstrated it does not have good governance to allow a single man the power of killing a vast number of ethnic people, including the elderly and children. Not only that the science involved here is at the pinnacle of many achievements. The science community needs to protect the integrity of such projects and not allow discoveries to be used for nefarious purposes.
Russia has clearly demonstrated it can live to existances at once. A nation of people completely unaware of a war against peace loving people in Ukraine and a Duma that is the servant to Putin, the mad dictator. That was mad and not insane.
This episode with Russia has opened the eyes of many and caused the world to sink into dispair over the dead in Ukriane. So many have died in such a short time it is completely impossible to look the other way. It could be any one of a number of countries that can fall to Putin's hate filled aggression. A a community of human beings the global community should have reigned in the killing in Syria and perhaps this would never have occurred in the first place. The global community is far to tolerant of violence and too scared of spawning nuclear war. Putin chronically uses nuclear brinkmanship tto carry out wayward purposes of his military and this is not the first time.
Perhaps Russia is a terrorist state, it certainly without doubt is a rouge state.
A police officer (click here) says goodbye to his son as his family flees from advancing Russian troops as Russia's attack on Ukraine continues in the town of Irpin, March 8, 2022
Every person that works for McDonalds has a right to be proud of their employer. Shutting down Russian business attachments by USA companies is the right thing to do.
Every company withdrawing from Russia is to be congratulated. It seems to me Western business, although sometimes the first to break down barriers, are out of place in communist countries. I think economic capitalism is out of place in those countries as well. Capitalism brings better quality of life if the profits are distributed among the working class and now sequestered to the elite. Was introducing capitalism in communist countries a good idea
8 March 2022
Associated Press and Stephen M. Lepore
The burger giant (click here) said it will continue paying its 62,000 employees in Russia 'who have poured their heart and soul into our McDonald's brand'
But in an open letter to employees, McDonald's President and CEO Chris Kempckinski said closing those stores for now is the right thing to do
'Our values mean we cannot ignore the needless human suffering unfolding in Ukraine,' Kempczinski said
Kempczinski said it's impossible to know when the company will be able to reopen its stores
McDonald's has also temporarily closed 108 restaurants in Ukraine and continues to pay those employees
The Chicago-based company said its restaurants in Russia and Ukraine contributed 9 percent of its annual revenue, or around $2billion...
Seizing (click here) of money - laundered Super Yachts belonging to Russian oligarches. There is one more yacht to be seized, theScheherazade, which belongs to Putin. In case the name Scheherazade sounds familiar, it is (click here).
The reason the oligarches and Putin play their wealthy and indulgent games is the purpose of money laundering. Why purchase a cheap boat when so many more rubles can be laundered. That goes for their land, homes and apartments abroad. It isn't as though they don't enjoy themselves, but, the lavish lifestyle provides reasons to launder money for Russia. This is not personal wealth, it is facilitated by the Russian government and invested abroad for the purpose of returning real assets to a country where the ruble is basically worthless.
Every country is doing their part. We all should be proud of the role we have in leveraging against a tyrant in the Kremlin.
As Russian President Vladimir Putin (click here) expands his murderous attacks on civilians across Ukraine, regular citizens are becoming front-line troops. Syrians, who have been facing Russian military attacks for seven years, are ready to help Ukrainians organize their first responders. Ukrainians will need all the help they can get to save as many innocent lives as possible in what could be a long struggle.
Since 2015, when Putin dispatched his troops to Syria to help President Bashar al-Assad maintain his hold on power, the Russian military has been attacking civilians in opposition-held areas, reportedly committing war crimes on a regular basis by targeting hospitals, schools and critical infrastructure. Those tactics are now being used in several Ukrainian cities, complete with attacks on fleeing families and credible reports of illegal weapons such as cluster bombs. Last week, the International Criminal Court said it would “immediately proceed” with an investigation into alleged Russian war crimes in Ukraine.
The Syrian Civil Defense force, known as the White Helmets, has been working to rescue, evacuate and give emergency care to civilians under attack since 2014. The all-volunteer force says it has saved more than 100,000 civilian lives and that at least 252 of its members have been killed in the process. Now, the White Helmets are turning their attention to Putin’s latest victims...
It is a complicated battle field. Ukraine should allow asylum requests for those that oppose the brutality of the war Putin has begun. Ukraine states 11,000 Russian soldiers have died. That is about 6 percent of the 190,000 troops estimated to have been at Ukraine's borders before the invasion Putin ordered. There are burnt and blown up Russian tanks (see left).
The Pentagon (click here) said Monday it believes that Russia is now trying to recruit Syrian fighters to bolster the Russian war effort in Ukraine.
The Wall Street Journal first reported the story Sunday, saying Russia is seeking Syrians who have taken part in urban combat and could help Russia take control of cities such as Ukraine's capital Kyiv.
"The accounts of the Russians seeking Syrian fighters, to augment their forces in Ukraine, we do believe there's truth to that," Pentagon spokesman John Kirby told reporters. "It's interesting that (Russian President Vladimir) Putin would have to rely on foreign fighters."
Kirby said he had no information on the numbers or the caliber of the Syrian fighters that the Russians are trying to sign up.
During his speech to the British Parliament President Zelensky said something interesting. He stated Russia should be considered a terrorist state. Perhaps, he is correct. I never thought Vladimir Putin was capable of such carnage. Obviously, he is.
Vladimir Putin had no honorable motives in executing this war. He also persists.
Besides the USA, the British and French Foreign Ministers should be attending the meetings for peace between Ukraine and Russia.
My deepest fear for Ukraine at this juncture is the fact Putin, when defeated will lay waste to Ukraine. I believe that is his goal. The only question is will he discharge a nuclear device over Ukraine with or without his own troops in battle? I also believe China's alliance in this matter needs to be measured as well.
"In parallel, work was underway in the country to modernize existing and create new missile weapons that can be used as a means of delivering nuclear weapons," the representative said.
He stressed that at the same time, Kiev "covers" most of the developments with the implementation of joint projects with other countries, RT New reported...
Iowa is having a difficult week. My understanding is that the alert system for mobile phones was delayed in delivering messages to people facing a tornado warning. The sirens still work, but, the problem is people turn to their mobile phones more often than listening for alert sirens.
Iowa needs to run tornado siren drills to keep everyone listening. I have to wonder if the delay is a cyber attack.
March 5, 2022 By John Murphy
Officials said at least seven people (click here) were killed in Iowa over the weekend due to an outbreak of severe weather that unleashed more than two dozen tornadoes, including one EF3 twister. By Monday morning, the weather pattern had shifted to a wintry one and residents in several of the hard-hit areas were dealing with fresh snowfall....
Sincerest sympahies for all the people that face the loss of loved ones and friends in both these tragic episodes.
March 7, 2022
Authorities (click here) say one person has been killed and two others were critically wounded in a shooting outside an Iowa school....
...“It is a punch in the gut that we have three kids in the hospital," he said, “but we are hoping for the best for them.”
He said calls started pouring in around 2:50 p.m., shortly before classes were scheduled to dismiss for the day. The district said in a series of tweets that the school was initially locked down but later it announced that students were being allowed to go home.
Police said they do not believe there is a continued threat to the public.
“It is sad but we do train for this. We do have to be prepared for it and this is why."
The motive wasn't immediately released and he had no details on the potential suspects....
Oddly, Senator Grassley, proposed a bill to attempt to end school shootings.
Grassley, a Republican, says the bill would expand the role of the U.S. Secret Service’s National Threat Assessment Center to identify and manage threats from teenagers before they result in more tragedies.
Grassley says, “We would, by amending that assessment center, give it responsibility not only to do what the Secret Service already does there but to prevent school violence.”...
I appreciate the effort, but, it seems a little removed from local issues with gun violence. The Secret Service is supposed to understand that a teenager has access to weapons that kill and act on that information to prevent the tragedy ahead of it happening.
It would be great if it worked, but, that seems like a tall order for the Secret Service.
Senator Jodi Ernst has distanced herself from gun issues. She hasn't really discussed guns for nearly two years. She seems to have bowed to the gun lobby.
The leadership of the UN Humanitarian Mission states with all the problems in the world, the organizations that help through the UN didn't need this and there was no warning it was coming.
This "timing" has to be considered when deciding about crimes against humanity. Militaries often use adverse conditions to weigh in their favor. That along with the direct shelling of residential homes adds to the brevity of Russia's actions and crimes.
What is very clear is that the humanitarian efforts are starting from a standstill and will take time to set up supply chains. That means the people in Ukraine are compromised as the humanitarian efforts are crippled at this point to begin a sincere effort to supply food, clean water and medical care. That all has to be added to the understanding that Russia is committing human rights violations.
There is a report children are being targeted by soldiers no matter how sheltered they appear. These are innocent people that are being killed and deprived of food, water and medical needs.
A captured Russian commander (click here) has begged for 'mercy' for Putin's forces attacking Ukraine, saying they were duped into invading in the false belief that the government had been overthrown by Nazis and needing liberating.
The man, who claimed he is a lieutenant-colonel in the Russian national guard's special rapid response unit, said his countrymen have been 'brainwashed' into supporting the war but - having seen the situation in Ukraine for himself - he now feels 'shame' in taking part in 'genocide' and says Ukrainians are 'right' to resist.
Astakhov Dmitry Mikhailovich said his doubts solidified when he saw two of his favourite boxers - Oleksandr Usyk and Vasiliy Lomachenko - agreeing to fight for the resistance....
This is exactly the problem. The soldiers have feelings about an invasion wrongly carried out on the basis of lies. The Russian military should stop their assault and ask for asylum in Ukraine or return home to tell the Russian people the truth.
Every refugee coming to the UK will be background checked before being allowed to enter the country. The refugees with family or a sponsor will be allowed to enter the country. He states by removing the "cap" on these two routes of entery to the UK there could be tens of thousands coming for safety.
Sounds as though Russia is admitting it was a foolish venture into Ukraine. Dare I hope Russia has been stopped. Ukraine is ungovernable, unless it is the people themselves doing the governing. Putin has the wrong idea about Ukraine. It has already been accepted into the European Union.
It was the most explicit Russian statement so far of the terms of its demands
To end its brutal invasion, Russia is demanding Ukraine ceases its military action
It is also demanding Ukraine enshrine neutrality in its constitution, acknowledge Crimea as Russian territory and Donetsk and Lugansk as independent territories
Peskov's statement came as a third meeting is set to be held between the sides
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ukrainian counterpart Dmytro Kuleba are also due to meet at a forum in Turkey on Thursday, Ankara said
The evacation corridors must be into non-warring countries. The routes proposed by Russia are POW routes. All Russia and Belarus propose are untrustworthy.
Belarus and Russia are welcome to leave Ukraine through their own corridors as soon as possible.
March 7, 2022 By Yaron Steinbuch
Ukraine on Monday (click here) blasted Moscow’s announcement of “humanitarian corridors” to allow citizens to evacuate three cities as “completely immoral” – because their escape routes would lead into Russia or its ally Belarus.
Russia announced a limited ceasefire starting Monday morning to allow civilians to evacuate Kyiv, Mariupol, Kharkiv and Sumy.
But Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Iryna Vereshchuk later rejected the offer....
The Russian military needs to turn around and go home, unless they want asylum in Ukraine. They have been decieved by Putin when war games turned into an invasion.
Admiral Sir Tony Radakin said Russia's troops were 'in a mess' and the invasion was 'not going well'.
His comments yesterday represent the most optimistic assessment yet of how the conflict may end – but came on another bleak day, with Russian forces firing on families as they fled the fighting....
The Russian military should put down their weapons and walk away. It is looking like a stalemate. The Ukrainians may have received a shipment of new weapons.
Map of Invasion (click here). With all the effort by Russia the advance is minimal. Take Crimea and Eastern Ukraine off the map and the invasion is not going well. Certainly, it is not going as Putin invisioned it.
The West needs to address the refugee crisis in at least NATO countries such as Poland.
7 March 2022 By Chris Pleasance
Russia's invasion of Ukraine (click here) appears to have ground to a halt with no significant territory captured despite a weekend of heavy fighting, with Kyiv's men claiming to have taken out dozens of helicopters and recaptured a city this morning - sparking hopes that the unlikeliest of victories may be on the cards.
Putin's men renewed their bombardments on Mariupol, Chernihiv, Mykolaiv and Kharkiv this morning as his forces also tried to surround Kyiv in preparation for an assault, but have not significantly advanced their frontline since the city of Kherson and nuclear power plant at Zaporizhzhia were captured last week.
Meanwhile the Ukrainian armed forces claimed to have destroyed up to 30 Russian helicopters that had been moved to Chornobaivka airport, near Kherson, overnight and to have retaken the city of Chuhuiv, near Kharkiv, killing two Russian commanders - Lt. Col. Dmitry Safronov, and Lt Col. Denis Glebov - in the process....
Fighting inflation and the climate crisis is NOT on the Republican agenda today or anytime in the future.
Republicans want to run on inflation so they are stonewalling the hearings and votes to fill the vacancies. They know a full compliment of qualified people running the Federal Reserve will act on inflation. The Republicans don't want to end the struggle of the Middle Class in the USA so they will believe President Biden is ineffective. It isn't President Biden that is ineffective, it is the Republicans.
January 14, 2022 By Scott Horsley
President Joe Biden (click here) announced three additional nominees for the Federal Reserve Board on Friday, rounding out the central bank's governing body as it prepares to tackle the highest inflation in nearly four decades.
Biden is tapping former Fed governor Sarah Bloom Raskin to serve as Vice Chair for Supervision — a key regulatory role. In addition, Biden nominated academic economists Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson to fill the remaining vacancies on the Fed's seven-member governing board.
"This group will bring much needed expertise, judgement and leadership to the Federal Reserve while at the same time bringing a diversity of thought and perspective never seen before on the Board of Governors," the president said in a statement.
If confirmed, Cook and Jefferson would be two of only five African American Fed governors in the central bank's 108-year history, and the first since 2006....
The petroleum industry owns the Republicans and this is proof. Americans want to bring inflation under control and they want the climate crisis to stop and reverse. The American people are not happy when Republicans play dirty trick to cater to cronies while their lives spiral out of control. The Republicans won't even vote on the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. This has to stop. We need the Federal Reserve to function not flounder.
March 2, 2022
By Jane Mayer
As the American economy faces market turmoil (click here) fuelled by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the highest inflation rate in forty years, and continuing damage from the covid-19 pandemic, the Federal Reserve System’s board of governors has become a ghost ship. There are multiple vacancies on the panel, and its chairman, Jerome Powell, is awaiting Senate confirmation to a second four-year term. Last month, instead of voting on the confirmation of President Biden’s slate of five nominees to run the world’s most powerful central bank, the Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee staged a boycott....
...The Republicans’ goal was to block a single nominee: Sarah Bloom Raskin, Biden’s pick for vice-chair for supervision. Had they met to vote as scheduled, her nomination would likely have survived a party-line tie, which under the Senate’s current rules would have advanced it to the Senate floor for the full body’s consideration. Instead, after the twelve Republicans on the committee failed to show up, the meeting adjourned, “We just want them to show up for work,” he said of his Republican colleagues. “In the midst of an attack, the Russians attacking Ukraine… they’re saying we’re not going to confirm the chair of the Federal Reserve, the vice-chair of supervision, the vice-chair of the Fed, and the other two governors.”...
...A boycott to stop a vote is extraordinary under any circumstances, but experts said they were stunned, given the magnitude of the country’s current economic challenges. “It’s an enormous dereliction of duty,” Joseph Stiglitz, a Nobel Prize-winning economist, told me. Stiglitz, a progressive professor at Columbia University who has advised Democratic presidents, stressed that “the Federal Reserve is the most important economic institution in the U.S., and the U.S. is the most important economy in the world. To leave this many vacancies is just mind boggling to the rest of the world. It is just amazingly irresponsible.”...
...So what, exactly, is the problem? In Stiglitz’s view, “It’s very simple: special interests.”...
...The fossil-fuel industry would have seemingly little say over who runs the Federal Reserve, but it has donated generously to the campaigns of all twelve Republican members of the Senate Banking Committee. According to OpenSecrets, the nonpartisan campaign-finance watchdog group, the industry has contributed more than eight million dollars to the collective campaigns of the dozen senators....
It is perfectly obvious the Republicans in the US Senate aren't interested in a government that works so much as one that appears to be ineffective. There is nothing wrong with the country and it's agencies, it is the Republicans that are ineffective, manipulative and hate the USA Constitution that requires participation in all government nominations.
This is corruption by the 12 Republican Senators and nothing short of it. It is quid pro quo and every one of the twelve should face an ethics investigation.
Very early on, Vladimir Putin stated Ukrainian President Zelenskyy is a White Supremacist. That is a lie and the free world knows it. The facts are clear, Vladimir Putin is backing White Supremacists in eastern Ukraine. That makes Putin as much a White Supremacist as any of those he supports.
This is where it gets tricky for Putin. Within Russia proper he is portraying himself as a liberator of African American people under seige in the United States of America. So, the Russian people view him as a necessary link in protecting African Americans anywhere in the world, including Russia.
Putin finds it convenient to
History Ph.D. candidate (click here) Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon’sinterest in all things Russian started with a childhood illness. It forced her to stay home from fifth grade for a few weeks at her family’s farm in the rural southwest Texas community of Dayton, population about 7,000. “To pass time I watched this eight-hour miniseries on the History Channel called ‘Russia, Land of the Czars’ and it blew my mind,” she says. “In sixth grade I was the only student in my little middle school to do a book report on someone who wasn’t American: I did mine on Joseph Stalin.” And so, a Russian historian was born. Her current research in theSchool of Arts & Sciences revolves around how the African American experience in the Soviet Union shaped Black identity and how the presence of people of color shaped ideas and understandings of race, ethnicity, and nationality policy in the Soviet Union and post-Soviet space....
Just because Dr. Kimberly St. Julian-Varnon is studying Russia and it's lack of racial strife doesn't mean she should stop, she absolutely should continue her focus and her work. I am quite confident Dr. St. Julian-Varnon has no idea she is playing into Putin's narrative.
That happens, yes? Where an American is carrying out research or writing for publications with a focus that a communist leader finds helpful. To oppress that which Putin finds helpful is counter to the American story. The American story is that we guarantee freedom of speech and consider scholars research and writing invaluable.
But, for those that pump propaganda into Russians this focus might flatter the idea of a raceless country where bigotry does not exist and all people are happy. That is the type of propaganda that
The point is the Russian people, including it's military, are cut off from reality. We see it in the USA with the extremist right political wing which embraces White Supremacy to add to the voter count in any election.
Vladimir Putin has a problem. He decided Crimea and eastern Ukraine were his to take simply because he expects to reconstitute the Soviet Union. He is an ideologe and not a leader that finds himself with an entire country's military to carry out his planned and expected atrocities. All that for a false idea that he can turn history back three decades or more. That is grossly ill conceived priorities. Nearly two generations of people have matured and been born during that time. The world is different and Putin is basically unwanted as a leader with a false sense of himself.
This, today, in the year 2022 is what the people of the world face with a man with his hand on the nuclear button. This is a dangerous time on Earth for many reasons and Putin is one of them.
