#Bill Richardson Transport World

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Filet-O-Fish car, 1994. A promotional vehicle based on a Suzuki Carry kei van at Bill Richardson Transport World in Invercargill, New Zealand. It appears to have been imported from Japan

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 15, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 16, 2023

Extremist Republicans today shut down House business by refusing to pass a procedural vote to take up a spending bill, as they had threatened to do in retaliation for the passage yesterday of the continuing resolution to fund the government into the new year. This is the fourth time the extremists have defeated special rules in the House this year, and as deputy chief of staff for Representative Don Beyer (D-VA) Aaron Fritschner pointed out, their doing so is highly unusual. In the previous 20 years the House voted down no such measures at all. 

Although they were in the middle of a 17-vote series, the Republicans then recessed the House until after Thanksgiving. 

Members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus made it clear they are angry that their own demands are not being met. “We’re sending a shot across the bow,” caucus chair Scott Perry (R-PA) told reporters. “[W]e are done with the failure theater here.” 

Representative Chip Roy (R-TX) angrily said to his colleagues: “One thing. I want my Republican colleagues to give me one thing. One. That I can go campaign on and say we did. One! Anybody sitting in the complex, if you want to come down to the floor and come explain to me, one material, meaningful, significant thing the Republican majority has done besides, ‘Well, I guess it’s not as bad as the Democrats.’” 

In contrast, the Democrats with the same slim majority in the last Congress passed a series of sweeping bills that are already changing the country. Today marks the second anniversary of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Act that invested $1.2 trillion—$550 billion of it new spending—in roads, water systems, electrical grids, broadband, bridges, and so on.

So far, that act has seen the start of more than 37,000 projects across the country. Bridges, airports, and supply chain projects are underway, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs. The Democrats today emphasized that they are delivering on the things that make people’s lives easier, and the White House listed a number of Republicans who voted against the measure only to boast of the benefits of the infrastructure investments to their constituents.

 “And,” Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said in a video in which he echoed the tagline of the administration: “the great news is, we’re just getting started.” 

The investment in infrastructure is part of what has created a booming U.S. economy. Growth is far better in the U.S. than in Europe or China, where a property bubble and local government debts have led to deflation. 

That economic strength is standing behind President Joe Biden in San Francisco, where he traveled yesterday for a summit of the 21 member economies of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum (APEC groups economies, not nations). APEC economies make up almost half of world trade and about 62% of global gross domestic product. 

Today, Biden met with Chinese president Xi Jinping in a much anticipated second meeting since Biden took office. But even before today’s discussion, the two leaders announced a new climate agreement. The U.S. and China are the world’s two largest climate polluters, accounting for 38% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions. 

China did not agree to phase out coal, which is the dirtiest fossil fuel, but both countries agreed to ramp up renewable energy capacity around the world and to reduce emissions in their power sectors overall. This is the first time China has agreed to cut emissions. In two weeks the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference will take place in Dubai. Observers hope the willingness of China and the U.S. to make this announcement, even with its limitations, will jump-start negotiations there. 

Remarks by Biden and Xi before their meeting were cordial but tense. Biden emphasized that their “meetings have always been candid, straightforward, and useful,” telling Xi: “I value our conversation because I think it’s paramount that you and I understand each other clearly, leader to leader, with no misconceptions or miscommunication. We have to ensure that competition does not veer into conflict. And we also have to manage it responsibly—that competition.”

Xi responded that the China-U.S. relationship “is the most important bilateral relationship in the world,” and while it “has never been smooth sailing over the past 50 years and more…, it has kept moving forward amid twists and turns. For two large countries like China and the United States, turning their back on each other is not an option. It is unrealistic for one side to remodel the other, and conflict and confrontation has unbearable consequences for both sides.”   

In their four-hour meeting, the two leaders agreed to recommence military communications more than a year after China broke them off when then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan. The two countries also agreed to strengthen cooperation on stopping the flow of what are known as precursor chemicals—the chemicals needed to make street fentanyl—which are produced in China and shipped to drug operations primarily in Latin America. The U.S. has cracked down hard on that trade; additional Chinese cooperation will be welcome. 

They agreed to continue to work together to address climate change, as well as to address the risks of artificial intelligence. 

On the rest of their discussions, concerning Taiwan, human rights, the Middle East, and Ukraine, the two leaders “exchanged views,” according to the White House readout. Later in the day, meeting with business leaders who have grown nervous about investing in China, Xi assured them that China wants to be friends with the U.S., and “does not seek spheres of influence, and will not fight a cold or hot war with any country.”

In his remarks welcoming APEC leaders this evening, in the city of the famous Golden Gate Bridge, Biden emphasized the power of building bridges to span space and time, the past and the future. He spoke of connecting diverse communities: “All across the traditions, cultures, and languages, we find the common dreams we share for ourselves and for our children.” 

Biden urged his audience to “take full advantage of this summit to make new connections and spark new partnerships, because every step we take to deepen our cooperation, to launch a new venture, to tackle the challenges that impact on all of us is a step toward realization of the enormous potential of our Asian Pacific future…, a future where our economics are strong, vibrant, and sustainable because our workers are empowered and protected; women and girls are full and equal participants in every aspect of our society; young people…can envision for themselves the lives and hope for unlimited possibilities.”

The strongest tools we have to meet this era’s challenges, he said, are “connection, cooperation, collective action, and common purpose. That’s why we’re all here.”  

Late tonight, by a vote of 87 to 11, the Senate passed the continuing resolution to fund the government into the new year. One Democrat and ten Republicans voted no.

—

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[fuckyeahwheelz2]

MASSIVE CLASSIC TRUCK COLLECTION - Bill Richardson Transport World Automotive Museum

[weshipyourride]

2022 UCI Track Champions League Recap

What takes four weeks, spans four countries and includes many of the fastest bike racers in the world? If you answered the UCI Track Champions League, you’d be correct! BikeFlights was on hand throughout November and into December as the official bicycle shipping service for all five rounds of the second-year international track racing series featuring 72 of the best track riders from all over the globe.

BikeFlights Delivery Manager Kent Sanchez spearheaded a successful on-the-ground effort to move riders’ bikes from round 1 in Mallorca, Spain to round 2 in Berlin, Germany to round 3 in Paris, France and finally, onto the last two rounds in London, England. Thirty-six men and thirty-six women would spend four weekends racing each other on world-class velodromes in each city.

"It was a fantastic experience to not only get to watch the world’s top track racers compete in iconic cities across Europe, but also to be thanked by the riders for transporting their bikes to the next location," said Kent.

At the end of the series, champions would be crowned in two disciplines: sprint and endurance. Sprint riders competed in events like the match sprint and keirin whereas endurance riders battled in events such as the scratch race and elimination.

Congratulations go to all of the series winners:

Women's Endurance: Jennifer Valente (United States)

Men's Endurance League - Sebastian Mora (Spain)

Women's Sprint League - Mathilde Gros (France)⁠

Men's Sprint League - Matthew Richardson (Australia)

It was our job at BikeFlights to move riders’ bikes safely and on-time from velodrome to velodrome so the riders could travel more easily from round to round without the hassle of having to take their bikes with them on planes and trains. That’s exactly what we did, plus we also shipped many riders’ bikes back home to locations within Europe after the final two rounds wrapped up in London.

For the first three rounds, Kent was assisted by BikeFlights guest staffer Nadia Gbané. BikeFlights President William Alcorn and Vice President Sue George joined in to help with the final two rounds in the United Kingdom.

When not helping to pack, label and ship riders’ track bikes, Kent, Bill and Sue took the opportunity to walk around London and explore. They visited famous landmarks such as Buckingham Palace, London Bridge, Big Ben, various Christmas street markets plus a few other famous sites.

[reading-writing-revolution]

Heather Cox Richardson:

July 29, 2020 (Wednesday)

Today, America passed 150,000 deaths from the disease caused by the novel coronavirus, Covid-19.

America has suffered more than a fifth of the world’s recorded deaths. At TalkingPointsMemo, Josh Marshall likened the U.S. to an abuse victim, its citizens unable to see just how badly we are suffering from the virus because we have come to think “catastrophe feels normal without grasping that in most other countries with a similar set of tools to the United States things really are close to normal.”

Scholars at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security warned that the U.S. “is not currently on course to get control of this epidemic…. It is time to reset." They call for testing, stay at home orders in places where the disease is spreading, and the mandatory use of masks. The Association of American Medical Colleges warns that if we do not take such steps, deaths could soar “well into the multiple hundreds of thousands.”

And yet, various Republican leaders continue to resist wearing a mask. Today, Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) tested positive for the coronavirus before a flight he was scheduled to take with the president. He assembled his staff members, who are forbidden from wearing a mask, in person, to tell them he had tested positive. He returned to his office at the Capitol, where he lives rather than having accommodations in Washington, D.C., prompting a colleague to demand he find somewhere else to quarantine.

Gohmert was present at yesterday’s House Judiciary Committee meeting, where Chair Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) reprimanded a number of other Republicans for taking off their masks. After Gohmert tested positive, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi mandated mask wearing in the House chamber, but a number of Republicans ignored the order.

Against the backdrop of this health catastrophe, the president is running a reelection campaign openly based on racism. This morning, he tweeted “I am happy to inform all the people living their Suburban Lifestyle Dream that you will no longer be bothered or financially hurt by having low income housing built in your neighborhood…. Your housing prices will go up based on the market, and crime will go down. I have rescinded the Obama-Biden AFFH Rule. Enjoy!” This is no longer even coded racial language: the 2015 Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing rule (AFFH) was explicitly intended to end racial segregation in housing.

Other members of the Republican Party are following Trump’s lead on race, manipulating the images of their Democratic opponents to make them look more stereotypically racialized. Yesterday, Georgia Republican Senator David Perdue had to pull a Facebook advertisement that featured his Jewish opponent, Democrat Jon Ossoff, with a digitally altered face. Tapping into old anti-Semitic tropes, the ad lengthened and widened Ossoff’s nose in an image of him shown over the caption “DEMOCRATS ARE TRYING TO BUY GEORGIA.” Perdue’s campaign spokesman called the ad “an unfortunate and inadvertent error” and blamed it on “an outside vendor.”

Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is facing an unexpectedly strong challenge from Democrat Jaime Harrison, is doing something similar, running a Facebook ad in which Harrison’s face has been digitally altered to make his skin appear darker than it is (Harrison is Black). When called on the manipulation, Graham’s campaign accused Harrison of “manufacturing a fake controversy to inject race into this campaign at a time of great turbulence in our country.” Like the Nazi-themed ads from the Trump campaign, the backlash against such an ad provides free news coverage for the Graham campaign. Graham is the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, in charge of overseeing the appointments of America’s judges.

But for all that Trump seems eager to win reelection, he appears to have little interest in governing. Emergency federal unemployment benefits of $600 a week, designed to help people tossed out of work as the pandemic closed businesses, are running out just as a moratorium on evictions ends. Currently, 31.8 million U.S. workers are collecting those unemployment benefits. The country is on the edge of a catastrophe, but Republican leaders in the Senate have been unable to agree to a new package of aid even amongst themselves, let alone with Democrats.

Apparently frustrated that even Republicans did not want to put $1.75 billion into the package to fund the construction of a new FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., which would keep the site from becoming a hotel that could rival his own, Trump appears to have abandoned the whole process of negotiating a new bill.

As he left Washington for an event in Texas, Trump told reporters that he wants to “send payments to the people,” but as for “the rest of it, we’re so far apart, we don’t care…. We really don’t care.” White House chief of staff Mark Meadows told reporters that it seems likely the federal unemployment benefits will lapse. “We’re nowhere close to a deal,” he said.

Instead of focusing on the looming economic crisis, Trump upset members of both parties today when he announced that he would be withdrawing 12,000 troops from Germany. This will remove the troops from a European hub with a sophisticated transportation system that enables them to move quickly, thus countering Russian aggression. Trump claims the removal is retaliation because he says Germany is not paying enough into NATO, but the removal will waste billions of dollars spent recently on upgrading US military installations, and will further weaken NATO, which is a key goal of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Both the top Democrat and the top Republican on the House Armed Services Committee criticized the plan, and almost two dozen Republican members of the committee sent an open letter to the president warning that the step will “significantly damage U.S. national security as well as strengthen the position of Russia to our detriment.” They warned that “signs of a weakened U.S. commitment to NATO will encourage further Russian aggression and opportunism.” They urged him to reject the idea.

Retired Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, who commanded the US Army in Europe, said he was “sickened by this decision and explanation. It is not tied to any strategic advantage and in fact is counterproductive to showing strength in Europe.” Admiral Jim Stravidis, the former top military commander in Europe and NATO for the US Navy, said “abruptly pulling 12,500 troops out of Germany (to put half of them in countries who spend LESS on defense) doesn't make sense financially, hurts NATO solidarity overall, and is a gift to Putin.”

Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT), a former Republican presidential nominee agreed: “The plan outlined by the Administration today to remove thousands of U.S. troops from Germany is a grave error. It is a slap in the face at a friend and ally… and it is a gift to Russia coming at a time when we just have learned of its support for the Taliban and reports of bounties on killing American troops.” Senator Robert Menendez (D-NJ), the top Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said "champagne must be flowing freely this evening at the Kremlin."

Trump has spoken at least eight times with Putin since news from U.S. intelligence broke the story that Moscow offered bounties to Taliban-linked fighters to kill U.S. and allied troops in Afghanistan. Trump and Putin spoke most recently on Friday; Trump told reporters they did not discuss the Russian bounty scandal. Indeed, the pattern of Trump’s favoritism to Russia is so marked that CNN today ran a story listing “37 times Trump was soft on Russia.”

And there is now news of another Russian attack on the U.S.: yesterday U.S. officials said that two people from Russia’s military intelligence service, the GRU, are behind an effort to spread disinformation about the coronavirus pandemic.

[newstfionline]

Headlines

Virus numbers show normal life still far away (AP) South Africa was poised on Saturday to join the top five countries most affected by the coronavirus, while breathtaking numbers around the world were a reminder a return to normal life is still far from sight. Confirmed virus cases worldwide have topped 14 million and deaths have surpassed 600,000, according to Johns Hopkins University data, a day after the World Health Organization reported a single-day record of new infections at over 237,000. Death tolls in the United States are reaching new highs, and India’s infections are over 1 million. Iran’s president made the startling announcement that as many as 25 million Iranians could have been infected, the state-run IRNA news agency reported Saturday. Iran has seen the worst outbreak in the Middle East with more than 270,000 confirmed cases. South Africa on Saturday could join the U.S., Brazil, India and Russia as the most badly hit countries as its cases near 350,000. Current case trends show it will surpass Peru.

Millions of kids told full return to school in fall unlikely (AP) Millions more children in the U.S. learned Friday that they’re unlikely to return to classrooms full time in the fall because of the coronavirus pandemic as death tolls reached new highs. It came as many states—particularly in the Sunbelt—struggled to cope with the surge and governments worldwide tried to control fresh outbreaks. In a sign of how the virus is galloping around the globe, the World Health Organization reported nearly a quarter-million new infections in a single day. In the U.S., teams of military medics were deployed in Texas and California to help hospitals deluged by coronavirus patients. The two most populous states each reported roughly 10,000 new cases and some of their highest death counts since the pandemic began. Big numbers in Florida, Arizona and other states also are helping drive the U.S. resurgence that’s forcing states to rethink the school year.

Stress rises for unemployed as extra $600 benefit nears end (AP) A major source of income for roughly 30 million unemployed people is set to end, threatening their ability to meet rent and pay bills and potentially undercutting the fragile economic recovery. In March, Congress approved an extra $600 in weekly unemployment benefits as part of its $2 trillion relief package aimed at offsetting the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. That additional payment expires next week unless it gets renewed. For Henry Montalvo, who was furloughed from his job as a banquet server and bartender in Phoenix in mid-March, the expiration of the $600 will cut his unemployment benefits by two-thirds. He uses the money to help support his three children and pregnant girlfriend. “Now that it’s about to end, that grim and uneasy feeling is coming back and really fast,” Montalvo said. The unemployment insurance program has emerged as a crucial source of support at a time when the jobless rate is at Depression-era levels. In May, unemployment benefits made up 6% of all U.S. income, ahead of even Social Security.

Half of Oklahoma is ‘Indian country.’ What if all native treaties were upheld? (The Intercept) The U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision last week that altered the map of Oklahoma. The eastern half of the state, including much of Tulsa, is now, for legal purposes, Indian country. The Supreme Court decision was uncommon—Indigenous people have seen few victories so sweeping in the high court—but treaty violations like those that occurred in Oklahoma are not. “The rule of thumb is every treaty’s been broken,” said Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University. Going back to the original treaty texts would make broad swaths of the nation Native territory. That means Indigenous people would have a stronger voice on environmental enforcement, more of a say on fossil fuel infrastructure construction, be able to better control the fate of Native children removed from their parents’ home, and less likely to be tried in local courts where district attorneys are elected using racist, tough-on-crime politics. Beyond control over the land itself, the treaties lay the groundwork for obligations requiring the federal government to provide adequate resources to support health care, safety, and education—which have never been fulfilled.

Mexican cartel shows its might as president visits its heartland (Reuters) A video depicting a sprawling military-style convoy of one of Mexico’s most powerful drug cartels circulated on social networks on Friday just as President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador visited the group’s heartland. In the two-minute clip, members of the fearsome Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG) stand in fatigues alongside a seemingly endless procession of armored vehicles. The video’s release coincided with Lopez Obrador’s visit to the states of Guanajuato, Jalisco and Colima, some of the cartel’s strongholds. “They are sending a clear message... that they basically rule Mexico, not Lopez Obrador,” said Mike Vigil, a former chief of international operations for the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.

Panama extends suspension of international flights by a month due to coronavirus (Reuters) Panama’s civil aviation authority said on Friday it will extend a suspension of international flights by another month due to the coronavirus crisis. International flights were first suspended in March as the spread of the virus prompted authorities to impose measures to better contain it.

Richardson meets with Maduro, but fails to secure release of American prisoners (Washington Post) Former New Mexico governor Bill Richardson concluded a four-day special mission to Venezuela on Friday, succeeding in opening a direct channel with President Nicolás Maduro but failing in his immediate objective: the release of eight high-profile prisoners being held in Caracas, including seven Americans. In a telephone interview with The Washington Post—his first since leaving Caracas—Richardson, an elder statesmen of the Democratic Party and former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said his initial optimism about securing the rapid release of at least some of the prisoners had turned to disappointment after catching Maduro “on a bad day.” The trip nevertheless amounted to the most significant diplomatic effort in Caracas by an American since Washington severed ties with Maduro and shuttered the U.S. Embassy there early last year. Though officially a private humanitarian mission, the trip was “coordinated” with the U.S. government, Richardson said.

EU tells US: Stop threatening our companies with sanctions (AP) The European Union is warning the Trump administration to hold off threatening trade sanctions against EU companies involved in the completion of new German-Russian and Turkish-Russian natural gas pipelines and instead discuss differences as allies. This week, the Trump administration warned companies involved in the projects they will be subject to U.S. penalties unless they halt their work. The move has further increased tension in already fraught U.S.-European ties. “I am deeply concerned at the growing use of sanctions, or the threat of sanctions, by the United States against European companies and interests,” EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said in a statement, adding similar attempts had already been made in cases involving Iran, Cuba and the International Criminal Court. “Where policy differences exist, the European Union is always open to dialogue. But this cannot take place against the threat of sanctions,” Borrell said. “European policies should be determined here in Europe, not by third countries.”

Greece’s great declutter at battle coastline (AP) Greece is commemorating one of the greatest naval battles in ancient history this year at Salamis, the claw-shaped island skirting the mainland near Athens. It’s where the invading Persian navy suffered a heavy defeat 2,500 years ago, their large vessels unable to properly maneuver in the narrow seaways. Salamis, now known as Salamina, has become an extended suburb of the capital, a blue-collar retirement and summer home spot. It still looks out over a fleet of sunken and partially sunken vessels. Heavily rusted cargo ships and tugboats, battered sailboats and fishing trawlers are scattered and abandoned between Salamina and Greece’s largest industrial zone with oil refineries, shipyards and a massive Chinese-owned container port. With the main commemoration events just months away, Greece is in a race to declutter the coastline and has already salvaged dozens of ships, which are dragged to shore, cut up and transported to scrapyards in central Greece.

Mass protests rock Russian Far East city again (AP) Tens of thousands of people in the Russian Far East city of Khabarovsk took to the streets on Saturday, protesting the arrest of the region’s governor on charges of involvement in multiple murders. Local media estimated the rally in the city 6100 kilometres (3800 miles) east of Moscow attracted from 15,000 to 50,000 people. The protests against the arrest of Furgal have taken place every day this week, with hundreds of people rallying in the city center every day, and reflected widespread anger over the arrest of the popular governor and a simmering discontent with the Kremlin’s policies. Furgal, a member of the nationalist Liberal Democratic Party, was elected governor in 2018. His unexpected victory in the gubernatorial election reflected growing public frustration with President Vladimir Putin’s policies and marked a painful setback for the main Kremlin party, United Russia.

China says it’s not trying to replace US, won’t be bullied (AP) China isn’t seeking to confront or replace the United States as the world’s top technological power, but will fight back against “malicious slander” and attacks from Washington, a foreign ministry spokesperson said Friday, responding to a litany of recent accusations from the Trump administration. Hua Chunying said China’s chief concern is improving the livelihoods of its citizens and maintaining global peace and stability, despite what critics say is an increasingly aggressive foreign policy that looks to expand Chinese influence in the military, technology, economic and other spheres. Her comments came in response to a speech Thursday by U.S. Attorney General William Barr in which he cautioned American business leaders against promoting policies favorable to Beijing. He asserted that China at the beginning of the coronavirus pandemic had not only dominated the market for protective gear, exposing American dependence on Beijing, but had also hoarded supplies and blocked producers from exporting them to countries in need. Barr also accused hackers linked to the Chinese government of targeting American universities and businesses to steal research related to coronavirus vaccine development, leveling the allegation against Beijing hours after Western agencies made similar claims against Russia. “The People’s Republic of China is now engaged in an economic blitzkrieg—an aggressive, orchestrated, whole-of-government (indeed, whole-of-society) campaign to seize the commanding heights of the global economy and to surpass the United States as the world’s preeminent technological superpower,” Barr said.

Major Beirut medical centre lays off hundreds as crisis bites (Reuters) Zawqan Abdelkhalek, a nurse at the American University of Beirut’s (AUB) medical centre since 2012, was laid off on Friday along with hundreds of colleagues as even hospitals buckle under the weight of Lebanon’s economic collapse. “I have a baby daughter, I need to get her food and water and pay for her vaccines,” the 29-year-old said. A currency crash means his pension in Lebanese pounds is now worth just around $500, he said. He blamed the ruling elite for daily power cuts, skyrocketing prices and pushing the country to the brink. Local media and employees said the AUB, one of the country’s oldest universities and a regional medical hub, laid off more than 500 workers. At least 220,000 jobs in the private sector were shed between October and February, a survey by research firm InfoPro showed, with the figures only expected to get worse.

[fantasyfoucault]

Course Post #8: Sleeping on the Future’s Authenticity

Doktor Sleepless broadcasting on 98.3 Heaven’s Pirates

Warren Ellis’s Doktor Sleepless pushes the biopunk genre to new limits by combining its cyberpunk vision of a futuristic world that integrates technology with biology with anarchist philosophy. Situated in Heavenside, where much of Reinhardt’s is still at play and has created the “grinder” culture, which are “people [who] practise homebrewed extreme body modification” (Ellis).

The series protagonist, John Reinhardt, has turned into the maniacal Doktor Sleepless, his grinder name, after leaving Heavenside upon realizing the lie at the heart of humanistic thought. Reinhardt is a biohacker-turned-bioterrorist, or, Doktor Sleepless, and is a tech genius who has no friends or loved ones. He is particularly interested in biotechnology and biocybernetics that have allowed the transhuman grinder culture to form in Heavenside. Additionally, he is well-trained in computer programming, security and hacking, as we see when he shows Nurse Igor his control over the Apocalypse Bunker. Basically, he is the foil to Tony Stark’s techno-humanistic ideals. He is responsible for many technologies in the future city of Heavenside, such as Clatter, a wireless IM Lens instant messaging system built on soft contact lens that people put in their eyes and allows for cross platform services. Reinhardt is also the creator of Shriekyware, a technology that has manifested the “Shrieky Girl” subculture. Shriekyware is a set of networked receivers and transmitters like two fake fingernails, fake teeth or tongue-rings combined with an IM lens, like Clatter. This technology forms a motion-capture unit and haptic interface that allows the transmission of touch between users, which unifies all its users on the net with the same sensation and feeling, essentially creating a co-human existence. Another of Reinhardt’s technologies that is connected to Clatter are the I.D. Tags, electronic capsules that people ingest that identifies the person and enables one to vote, receive medical care, and make payments on bills. Earlier this semester we read an article by Maureen Meadows and Matthijs Kouw called “Future Making: Inclusive Design and Smart Cities” that hearkens to Doktor Sleepless’s futuristic Heavenside but on an individualistic level. In this article they discuss the possibilities that smart technologies hold in “enabl[ing] the efficient governance of urban public spaces, energy flows, and mobility patterns” (Kouw, Meadows). These smart technologies are various information and communication technologies (ICTs) like sensors, big data-processors, wearable technologies, and even autonomous cars that “will lead to more innovative and sustainable cities and dramatically improve urban life” (Kouw, Meadows). Meadows and Kouw argue for the consideration of different approaches in which all of society can team together in order to create a single vision for future cities. This is where Doktor Sleepless’s Heavenside deviates, as most of the technologies developed by Reinhardt are for the sole purpose of enhancing the individual, not society as a whole. In fact, Doktor Sleepless has become disgusted with how far grinder technology has evolved into creating such a deviant and solipsistic culture.

One of the comic’s prevalent themes is Doktor Sleepless’s Boemerian fatalist philosophy based on Henrik Boemer’s book The Darkening Sky (1966). Doktor Sleepless’s fatalist philosophy and plan to turn Heavenside on itself by awakening grinder culture from its own false consciousness is because he believes that Heavenside is “not the future we were promised... if we can't have that, then we shouldn't have anything at all” (Ellis). Using 98.3 Heaven’s Pirates frequency, Doktor Sleepless preaches his Boemerian philosophy to incite social anxiety and agitation at the complacency and privileged lifestyle that has enveloped Heavenside. In his first broadcast, Doktor Sleepless calls out the Heavenside residents for their obliviousness to the future they’re in, and their complacency:

“Everywhere I go I hear the same thing: ‘Where’s my fucking jet pack? Where’s my flying car?’ . . . You live in the future and you don’t know it. Half of you know where your friends are by looking inside your eyeball, for God’s sake . . . You can rebuild your own fucking bodies at home with stuff you bought from the hardware store . . . The future sneaks up on us. It leaks through the small, ordinary things. You want your jetpack, but you don’t even think about your IM lenses and your phones, were you born with them? No. You’re science fictional creatures. Each and every one of you” (Ellis)

This idea of an absent in the present—the absence of a jetpack and flying car in Heavenside’s futuristic present—reminds me of Tim Richardson’s reiteration of Warren Ellis’s “’science fiction condition,’ [which is] how ‘we can measure the contemporary day by the things that have become absent’” in his essay “The Authenticity of What’s Next.” For Richardson, we could measure change “by the removal or absence or invisibility of things . . . things [that] never even have to exist to register as absent.” The idea of opening a space of vacancy leads him to speculate that “maybe the best way to sell an authentic future is to remove something we don’t notice now, so that an authentic-seeming future wouldn’t be drawn as us with the addition of jet packs, but as us with the subtraction” of everyday tools, methods of transportation or anything else we tend to look as in the rear-view mirror (Richardson). Certainly, the Heavenside residents’s dissatisfaction with their present reality indicates a “futurity that is already upon us as the technology we take for granted, that we’re even bored with, that has fundamentally changed the way we work and live” (Richardson). For Doktor Sleepless, however, it is not so much about presenting an authentic future as much as challenging those of us sleeping on authenticity, or what we think it means to be “real.�� For Doktor Sleepless, “Authenticity is bullshit. Never more so than today. We can be anyone we can imagine being. We can be someone new every day . . . ‘You should be happy with who you are.’ ‘Be yourself.’ . . . We’re not real enough. We’re not authentic to our society. Free speech does not extend to our bodies” (Ellis). Doktor Sleepless’s brash words are truly authentic, which is perhaps why it takes a comic book character whose existence is absent in our present reality to utter for them to (hopefully) register into our own individual practice. If, as Richardson speculates that “hacking seems about reuse and—more importantly—repurposing,” then Doktor Sleepless is the ultimate hack insofar as he is hacking, or repurposing, the grinders consciousness, challenging them to abandon their transhuman obsession and gain autonomy from the system of biotechnology. Doktor Sleepless pleads the grinders to “Be authentic to your dreams. Be authentic to your own ideas about yourself. Grind away at your own minds and bodies until you become your own invention.” In the same way, Ellis is pleading with us today to hack our own “minds and bodies” and become our “own invention[s].” Society has always told us who we should be. Michel Foucault and Judith Butler say that the moment we are born we are tossed into power relations and discourses that inscribe us with social norms and regulations in order to be heterosexual, be “manly,” be XYZ, be docile bodies. We are taught to hate others based on the color of their skin or who they love because of deep-seated ideological power structures. Heteronormative gender roles have embedded every facet of society and regulate the free-market capitalist economy that feeds off our own complacency and dissatisfaction with our present future. Cosmetic surgery and body modification offer us opportunities to modify our bodies to our liking according to what society demands of us. Social media like Instagram, Facebook, and Snapchat, to name a few, offer us the possibility of creating a copy of our original selves in order to present it to the rest of the world, creating a simulacra where we all play an inauthentic role. Richardson describes an outbreak as “a localized occurrence or symptom of something already in the system more widely. To force an outbreak is to exploit a potential that’s already there.” I believe that in this era of Trumpian right-wing white supremacy, the potential for an outbreak is perhaps as visible as ever but the collective consciousness still fails to hack itself. Yet the collective relies on the individual. I guess then the question is, “What does hacking look like for you?” Perhaps it is our unconscious slumber, our deep sleep to the future’s authenticity, that prevents us from finding any semblance of an answer. Maybe that’s why Doktor Sleepless never sleeps.

Source: http://enculturation.net/authenticity

“I grew up in Heavenside. I know every inch of it… I know it like the face and body of my first love. We’re going to burn it all down. Because this is not the future we were promised. And if we can’t have that, then we shouldn’t have anything at all.” --Doktor Sleepless

[roswellroamer]

Day 9. February 7, 2020. Invercargill day rides. 192km.

Woke up to blue skies. Slept in a bit as there was no official Burt Munro event in the AM. Left a little after 9 to ride a suggested scenic loop (this sort of ride promoted via map/brochure is commonplace at motorcycle rallies... after all the attendees love nothing more than riding!). This one went west to the coast at Riverton, then over to Culac Bay and Orepuki. We stopped for photos we couldn't pass up at Riverton bridge, the beach at Culac Bay and coastline shots at Orepuki. We had selected a cafe close to the Orepuki beach and it didn't disappoint. We were the first bikers there and only one other table was occupied. Within :30 the place was full and more than half were bikers. NZ is one of those places that one may be less amazed than the USA with small world coincidences due to the population gap however this was a good one. While at our table we see a few bikes roll in. One of the riders, who happened to be on a wheelchair cleverly stowed between the bike and a sidecar, came to our table and started chatting. Turns out his brother Andrew is co-owner of Kiwi Motorcycle rentals from whom we rented our BMWs. Small world Brett! The eggs Benedict, the fried blue cod, the broccoli soup were all excellent. The road then came within a tantalizing distance of high mountains but we will aim more in that direction on Sunday when we leave here. Gusts over 40 for much of the day made it feel a good bit colder than the high 50's but the scenery and temps and twisty roads made one want to pinch themselves! A turn toward Tuatapere brought us to a road closed sign. We could always turn around and retrace if needed. However then an obviously local truck blew by the road closed signage and cone so we decided we would ride until we couldn't ride any further. Turns sour after we passed a few more road closures signs that we had passed through the entire closed area. I think they were just slow to get to all the road closures and remove the signage faster than the waters have receded.

We aimed back south toward Invercargill and rode to the Richardson's Transport Museum. https://www.transportworld.co.nz/transport-world/

It was overwhelming. I spent 15' in a room full of Ford cars including one of the world's most complete collection of the early "letter cars" and and then the trucks... oh my word they had so many trucks! The number and quality of old gas pumps, every sort of oil memorabilia, tools, toys, signs, earned near anything you can think of relating to transportation and this guy had an immaculate and comprehensive collection of it. Even the bathrooms carry through with transport themes. Really impressive. And there were loads of bikes parked around and mostly obstructing the entrance. It was a place where you could spend all day and not see everything. They were also screening the Anthony Hopkins biopic on Burt Munro in one of the rooms at the very large museum. They have an active workshop where they seemingly restore everything to perfection. There is one room of trucks awaiting restoration but the rest of the place... whoa. A VW room, a Caterpillar section, a Mini section, a farm section, cricket exhibit, model cars, jacks, overwhelming but excellent. Highly recommend this museum. They are also affiliated with a "Dig It" here which I think is also located in Vegas. You get to operate all sorts of heavy machinery. Didn't do it but sounds fun. Then rode to the Oreti beach where the organizers created a speedway in the beach. A narrow time window of a few hours reveals enough beach to allow room for spectators, a fence and a one mile long oval. Vendors provided gear, food and it was fun to stroll the paddock beforehand. Cars and bikes were parked on both sides of the road approaching the beach the last kilometer. We kept riding and they were allowing cars and bikes to park on the beach. Bikes to the right, closest to the makeshift speedway. Over an hour prior to the start it was already crowded. Found a spot atop one of the long wavy grassy covered dunes and settled in. The Yak-3 (Russian plane) pilot was staying in the same apartment hotel and Ted had spoken with him as they're both pilots. The Yak pilot had repainted his plane with Burt Monro's number as an homage to him and he made a number of high speed passes over the beach. All sorts of rolls and loops against the blue sky. Cool! With the crowd revved up the practice runs started, then the races. About 15 races averaging 2-3 laps then the 50 mile grand finale. Super windy with regular gusts over 40mph led to salt spray covering your shades, sandy grit in your teeth but the races were so fun to watch. They would fly down the half mile straightaway then the good racers would slide into their turns. Wow. All sorts of bikes. Many were street bikes hardly modified. One poor chap on a KTM 1190 dropped it three times on the turn right in front of us and his body language became more comical with each drop. Also he was having progressively more difficulty lifting that beast. The third time the PA announcer had to get the crowd involved with a "one...two...three...Heave" cheer. One of the guys one a dirt bike won the Burt Munro trophy. It was very hard to hear the announcer due to the wind blasting your ears coupled with the bike noise. A bit sunburned and definitely wind burned we found our beaches bikes and ran the 10k back to the apartment. A google search had us find a pretty good Thai place just up the street which we had to hustle a bit to make before they closed at 9:30. Topped off the night with some Emerson Porter at the Speight's Ale house and some live entertainment. Great day!

[protectorsofthewood]

Abby and Wendy - Episode 36

AN UNUSUAL MEETING

Lluvia slowly steered the canoe toward the right bank. A wide view of Evansville opened up before their eyes. The river seemed to grow and spread out, creating space for many docks lining the shoreline. The tall buildings were all on the left side. On the right-hand side a long finger of parkland extended along the shoreline all the way from Half Moon. The Evansville College of Arts and Sciences was nestled among tall trees like a town of mostly low buildings. Beyond the college, Riverside Boulevard ran all the way to River City.       

Docks owned by the Parks Department and the College clustered together, creating a marina of boats, all quite small by ocean standards. The depth of the river was only about 5 to 8 feet, and varied radically with rainfall and the tide. No large yachts or ferryboats could safely navigate the river until the Maywood River joined the Half Moon a few miles downstream. At that point the river became wider, deeper, and crowded in a more urban landscape, climaxing at the great metropolis of River City.

Lluvia maneuvered the canoe along crowded docks to a separate, spacious area owned by the college. They tied the boat to cleats in the wooden platform and a young man in a college tee shirt gave them a hand up. Lluvia told him their business and departure time Sunday morning. He wanted student identification, and for a moment they were stuck, unsure what to do. 

Then they heard Abby’s name called, and Sara came rushing up the dock. She was obviously nervous and impatient. “Where have you been?”

“Sorry, sorry,” Phoebe answered. “An emergency, and my phone is gone. None of us have a phone. I’ll tell you more later.”

“Hi Bill,” Sara greeted the dock attendant. “They’re all with me, meeting in the energy building with Professor Richardson. He’ll approve it.”

“We picked up a stray boat,” Lluvia said. “It was floating free a mile upriver. Can you look for an owner?”

In a moment the three visitors and Sara were hurrying across a wide pathway onto the college campus. Old buildings, generally only two stories, were spread out among trees and lawns, and connected by flagstone paths. Abby had never seen anything like it. Wisteria grew up old stonewalls, and discreet signs were posted to guide visitors. The scene was calm and lovely in the early evening shadows. But Sara led them at a furious pace. Phoebe lagged behind, pulling her right leg stiffly forward.

Abby checked her timer. “Hey Sara,” she called. “It’s only 6:30.”

“We’ve reserved the private meeting room starting at six. Ricardo Richardson and a grad student and Freddy Baez are there already. We’ve made a dinner reservation for seven o’clock. This is a big deal. And we’re running out of time.” She’s the organizer, the mover and shaker,Abby told herself. Just follow along.

They practically ran through a maze of buildings where students walked in and out of dormitories and gathered in groups on the lawn. Cars full of arriving students and their luggage jammed the courtyard. Finally, Sara led the group to a modern one-story building with a picture window, glass doors, and wings built out from both sides. A limestone porch with benches and potted gardenias surrounded the main entrance. An elegant bronze sign read, ‘Energy in the Age of Climate Change’.

Groups on the benches said hello to Sara and stared as they hurried by, practically running down a carpeted hallway to wooden double doors. A quiet living room spread out before them. Lamps on poles, couches and easy chairs, bookshelves, paintings, and a sideboard of refreshments were scattered around a wide area. Three men stood to greet them.

Sara took charge. “Professor Richardson, Evansville Record editor Freddy Baez, and assistant professor Henry Tims, this is Abby, Phoebe, and…” Sara waited for the name.

“Lluvia,” Abby told them. They shook hands.

“Call me Ricardo, please. We’re here to talk as equals. Can I get you some coffee, wine, tea, club soda?” The visitors asked for coffee, and Ricardo served them himself. 

Freddy showed them to a long couch with a coffee table, and looked at his watch. “Can we delay dinner half an hour at least?” he asked Ricardo. “We need the time.”

“Henry, see if they can give us until 7:30. Tell them we apologize, but it’s important.”

Ricardo Richardson, the host and head of the department, wore a dark tailored suit and a pale blue tie. He was tall and lean, in his forties, brown skinned, with black hair cut very short. A gold ring with a small blue stone glowed on his right ring finger. Freddy Baez did not seem to be concerned about his appearance. He looked just the same to Abby as he had appeared in Reverend Tuck’s office: balding, in his fifties, needing a haircut around the ears, a bit overweight, wearing a shabby pale suit with no tie. He sipped his wine and glanced around impatiently.

Henry Tims looked maybe 25 or 26 years old, very young for an assistant professor. He was short and light skinned, with wispy blond hair falling over his forehead, and a vulnerable baby face free of wrinkles. His jeans and pinstriped shirt were clean and ironed, giving him a bit of formality. 

“Yes, right away,” he said, and hurried out the door.

Abby and Phoebe were struggling to keep their eyes off the blue stone in Ricardo’s ring. It’s dreamstone, its dreamstone!Their thoughts were buzzing, and they met each other’s eyes with a look of elated recognition. Here’s someone on our side, they thought. Abby glanced at Lluvia and noticed her wide-eyed look. She knows.

Sara retreated to a corner of the room and made a quick phone call. She wore her usual uniform: STAFF tee shirt, jeans, and wide red headband. “Amy will be here in a minute,” she told them.

“Ah! Excellent.” Ricardo gave a sigh of relief. “Let me give all of you a chance to drink your coffee and relax.” He spoke slowly and gently, with the hint of a Spanish accent. “I want you to know how grateful we are to see you here on our home turf. It’s a tremendous favor. I know you’ve overcome obstacles to be here… you folks are under a microscope these days. But now we have a chance to put our minds together in hopes of a better future. This is a moment blessed by fate.”

Henry returned, nodded to Ricardo, and pulled up a chair.

“We’re just getting started,” his professor told him. He was silent for a minute as the young women drank coffee.

Well, well…thought Abby. Quite an introduction. She was determined to play her role with all the concentration at her command, and bring in Phoebe and Lluvia to offer all those things that she could not.

The door suddenly opened and Amy Zhi walked into the room. Sara hugged her, and introduced her to Lluvia and Phoebe. Amy waved to all and sat in an upholstered armchair to the side of the couch. Henry hurried to get her a cup of coffee. 

The professor met everyone’s eyes and began: “I think we’ve all done a good job of arranging this off-the-record meeting, and I think we can count on each other’s confidentiality.”

They nodded.

“Please bear with me while I give a brief description of our situation. We’ll be discussing renewable energy developments that are still in an early, fragile stage, but are becoming too prominent to ignore. As you know, tomorrow the Evansville Board of Trustees will be responding to our student/faculty declaration of climate change commitments. I realize that this document is technically open to change and negotiation. But most of us, including the trustees, are aware that we are drawing a red line, a firm position that we intend to implement with all the influence we can find.” 

He paused and drank from a glass of wine. “Okay, now here’s some news. We’ve obtained through the grapevine a summary of the trustees’ response. They will point out that not only our college, but also our city and state, are nowhere near ready to achieve %100 renewable energy. Therefore they – the trustees – will not promise to withdraw all fossil fuel related investments. They will say we are decades, thirty years at a minimum, from banishing fossil fuels from our economy. Therefore, they must continue to invest in enterprises that are currently essential to the welfare of our population, such as fossil fuel heat, transportation, electricity, fertilizer, plastic, and so on. We know that this argument is shared by many of the powers that be in our world, and could have merit, except that over the past thirty years they have done nothing except continue business as usual. And the business interests that the trustees represent have no wish to change, and are ignoring the perilous consequences of delay.”      

“Hurry it along, Ricardo!” interrupted Freddy Baez. “We’re from the news business, we’re used to rushing. And in twenty minutes we’re supposed to be eating dinner.”

“I understand, Freddy. But tonight, I don’t care if all the food is overcooked or stone cold. I’ve been waiting a long time for this day. Everyone will get a chance to say their piece.”

He took another swallow of wine. “In maybe ten years, with supporting policies like an escalating carbon taxes, regulations, and investments into solar and wind projects, electricity could be just about 90% renewable. But as we know all too well, our state and nation and most of the globe, do not have the political will to achieve anything drastic at the moment. We don’t have the batteries yet to store enough energy to get through days with no wind and winters with little sun. Without the invention of better batteries, generators will need to continue using natural gas at least part of the time. We don’t have the grid, the heating and cooking equipment, the cars and jet fuel and household appliances to move to 100% renewable, even with a carbon tax and enormous subsidies. And for all those places off the grid the situation is hopeless. Propane tanks populate the countryside like mushrooms. And world-wide, that adds up to an insurmountable problem…except for one thing. The problems look different if you include biogas.

Ricardo looked around the room. “That’s what we need to discuss tonight. We know that all organic material can produce biogas, mostly methane. We know that landfilled organic material gives off methane into the atmosphere where it becomes a greenhouse gas. We know that landfilling organic material is expensive. We know that biogas is much more environmentally friendly than burning wood and related materials. We know waste organic material can be collected from a village or a city or a farm. We know the production of biogas can be a local enterprise or a colossal industry. We know that fracking can be banned as soon as we have better batteries for electrical storage and biogas for furnaces, stoves, and generators. Millions of families already use it all over the world. And tonight, we need to talk about the little-known fact that biogas is used by thousands of households right here in the Half Moon Valley. How did this happen, given the political and business support for fossil fuels? Why can’t we study and discuss it?”

The participants looked at each other, but no one answered. Ricardo waited, and then went on: “We’ve discovered that one of our trustees, Herbert Irving, is alarmed that his Valley Fuels distribution network is losing customers. He’s already investigating the production of biogas by our Parks Department. We know he will convince the governor and his allies to close down that operation unless they meet very strong resistance. We know that Rivergate is already 100% renewable, and Half Moon maybe 50% renewable, and Middletown is rapidly getting into the act. Why can’t we replicate this process? Why can’t we argue that with intelligent biogas production – by intelligent, I mean refusing to grow crops for biofuels on land suitable for food crops, refusing to cut down forests… in other words, producing biogas only from waste, organic garbage, wood that is already being chipped by the Parks Department as a matter of ordinary maintenance, grasses grown on land with soil too poor for human food… Why can’t we study, publicize, and argue for intelligent biogas production?”

He looked at his watch. “Thank you for your patience. The ball is in your court.”

“We’ve got a problem among the students,” Sara replied. “They’re all fired up about Abby’s interview, the mysteries surrounding Middletown, the gender and spiritual issues… but… it seems that they don’t understand biogas very well. It’s not clean and pure like solar and wind. It burns and gives off carbon dioxide, just like fracked gas.”

“Mmmm…” Ricardo smiled. “Tell them the squirrels and the dogs and humans give off carbon dioxide. The tree that falls in the forest and turns into compost gives off carbon dioxide. Cow manure gives off carbon dioxide. But the fracked gas didn’t have to give off itscarbon dioxide. It’s been safely underground for millions of years, and could have stayed there, if we didn’t mine it and burn it. We’re adding carbon to the life cycle, carbon that has been sequestered for eons. That’s the problem. We should stick to our basic talking points: KEEP IT IN THE GROUND. BAN FOSSIL FUELS. And by the way, the organic material that produces biogas has a desirable byproduct: solid compost, pure and ready to use as fertilizer. It’s far better to make biogas out of organic material than to burn it.”

“It seems to me,” Sara retorted, “that you should get those professors in first year earth science to do a better job. The facts seem self-evident to you, but not to most other people.”

“Good point. Yes, a better education is essential. But that will take time, a year at a minimum. We need to act over the next couple of months.”

Freddy Baez leaned forward. “I’m sorry to say this, but you’re all on the wrong track. Sure, improve education, explain the issues, argue your case. But we’ve got hot news here, very hot. That interview with Abby… it’s gone around the world. The attention of the public is at a peak I’ve rarely seen. This wave of interest must be fed, or it will break and disappear. News items are stories. What story should we tell? I ask you, Abby… what story would you recommend?”

She had been waiting for this moment. Her mind was well prepared, the words on the tip of her tongue. “I agree we have to move fast. This public attention you’re talking about… it also includes the wrong kind of attention. It alerts our enemies, and they investigate and create their own story. That’s natural. They’re threatened. This Herbert Irving you mentioned who runs Valley Fuels, he’s losing money. Large parts of this whole system will lose wealth and power, and strike back. And fossil fuels are a cultural as well as an economic problem. The self-esteem of part of our population seems to be married to fossil fuels. If we don’t get our story out there in a powerful way, we’ll be crushed.”

[glitterypeanutmugnickel]

April 11, 2022

Heather Cox Richardson

Apr 12

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Last week, we lost a crucially important voice in the media when media reporter Eric Boehlert died unexpectedly. In his last column for his publication Press Run, titled “Why is the press rooting against Biden?,” Boehlert wrote that there is such a “glaring disconnect between reality and how the press depicts White House accomplishments” that it seems the press is “determined to keep Biden pinned down.”

Boehlert pointed to the extraordinary poll showing that only 28% of Americans know the country has been gaining jobs in the last year—7 million jobs, in fact—while 37% think the country has lost jobs. Under Biden, the U.S. has added more than 400,000 jobs a month for 11 months, the longest period of job growth since at least 1939. And yet, Boehlert pointed out, on the day the latest job report was released, cable news used the word “inflation” as many times as “jobs.” On Sunday, NBC’s “Meet the Press” ignored the economy and instead featured conversations about two problems for the Democrats in the midterms: immigration and Trump.

It is no secret that we are in a battle between democracy and authoritarianism in America and around the world. It seems to me that the Biden administration is seeking to weaken the ties of misguided voters to authoritarianism by proving that a democratic government can answer the needs of ordinary Americans. The administration appears to be taking the position that focusing on the latest outrage from the right wing locks the country into their view of the world: you are either for Trump or against him. Instead, the administration seems to be trying to demonstrate its own worldview, but with the press glued to Trump and the Republicans, the administration is having a hard time getting traction.

The White House has taken on the idea that the Democrats are unpopular in rural areas. On March 31, the Department of the Interior announced a $420 million investment in clean water in Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, North Dakota and South Dakota. Today, the president announced a $440 million commitment to an “America the Beautiful Challenge” to attract up to $1 billion in private and philanthropic donations to conserve land, water, and wildlife across the country.

It also released today a 17-page bipartisan “playbook” to help rural communities identify more than 100 programs designed to fund rural infrastructure. It explains how to apply for funds to expand rural broadband, clean up pollution, improve transportation, fix rural bridges and roads, ensure clean water and sanitation, prepare for disasters including climate change, upgrade the electrical grid, and so on. These are critical needs that local communities, which cannot afford lobbyists, might need help navigating.

The administration is also sending officials into rural communities to make sure that billions of federal dollars and the resources they command reach across the country. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm, EPA Administrator Michael Regan, Interior Secretary Deb Haaland, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, and Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu will all be on the road.

Also today, the administration took steps to address medical billing practices and medical debt. It will collect information on how more than 2000 providers handle patients, and will weigh that information into grant-making decisions as well as sharing potential violations with law enforcement. The newly rebuilt Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, gutted by the former president, will investigate and hold accountable debt collectors that violate patients’ rights. The administration is also eliminating medical debt as a factor for underwriting in federal loan programs.

Last week, Biden extended the moratorium on most federal student loan programs through the end of August—sooner than most Democrats wanted—and expunged the defaults of roughly 8 million federal student loan borrowers, permitting them to resume payments in good standing.

Finally, today, Biden nominated Steve Dettelbach, a former U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, to direct the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF). The bureau has not had a Senate-confirmed director since 2015 because gun-rights groups oppose those nominated to the position. The Senate has confirmed only one director in the past 16 years. Dettelbach is Biden’s second nominee; the Senate scuttled the first, a former ATF agent who called for gun regulations.

The administration today announced a Justice Department rule that manufacturers of gun kits, which enable people to build weapons at home, will be considered gun manufacturers and must be licensed, the gun parts must have serial numbers, and buyers must have background checks. So-called ghost guns, assembled at home and unmarked and untraceable, are increasingly widespread. From 2016 to 2020, law enforcement recovered nearly 24,000 ghost guns at crime scenes.

Polls widely show that more than 80% of Americans support background checks for gun buyers. Nonetheless, Gun Owners of America vowed to fight the rule.

Biden’s worldview in which the government works for ordinary people contrasts with what we are learning about the worldview of the former administration under Trump, where a lack of oversight meant that money went to grifters and well-connected people.

There have been plenty of stories about the misuse of funds under the Trump administration, including the story on March 28 by Ken Dilanian and Laura Strickler of NBC that prosecutors are calling the distribution of funds under the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), designed to keep businesses afloat during the pandemic, “the largest fraud in U.S. history.” As much as 10% of the relief money—$80 billion—was stolen in 2020, as money went out the door without verification checks (the Biden administration has since imposed verification rules). Swindlers also stole $90 billion to $400 billion from the Covid unemployment relief program, and another $80 billion from a different Covid relief program.

We have also learned that the State Department can’t account for the foreign gifts Trump, former Vice President Mike Pence, and other administration officials received in office because the officials did not submit an accounting, as is required by law.

But those stories pale in comparison to the news broken last night by ​​David D. Kirkpatrick and Kate Kelly of the New York Times: six months after Trump left office, an investment fund controlled by the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, Mohammed bin Salman (MBS), invested $2 billion with Trump’s senior advisor and son-in-law Jared Kushner, despite the fact that the fund advisors found Kushner’s new company “unsatisfactory in all aspects.” At the same time, they also invested about $1 billion in another new firm run by Trump’s former treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin.

Kushner has little experience in private equity, and his firm consists primarily of that Saudi money; no American institutions have invested with him. The Saudi investment will net Kushner’s firm about $25 million a year in asset management fees, and the investors required him to hire qualified investment professionals to manage the money.

It certainly looks as if Kushner is being rewarded for his work on behalf of the kingdom, and perhaps in anticipation of influence in the future. Kushner defended MBS after news broke that the crown prince had approved the killing and dismemberment of U.S. resident and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. Kushner helped to broker $110 billion in arms sales to Saudi Arabia, even as Congress was outraged by MBS’s war in Yemen. Most concerning, though, is that Kushner had access to the most sensitive materials in our government. Career officials denied Kushner’s security clearance out of concern about his foreign connections, but Trump overruled them.

We also know that classified material labeled “Top Secret” was in the 15 boxes of documents belonging to the National Archives and Records Administration that Trump took to his home at Mar-a-Lago after he left the White House. The Federal Bureau of Investigation is currently investigating.

[carsthatnevermadeitetc]

Citroën SM, 1971. On display at Transport World, an early SM (they were in production from 1970-1975) with a 2.7 litre Maserati V6 and 5-speed manual transmission. The car on display appears to be an original, unrestored example

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 9, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

After weeks of pleading with Americans to get vaccinated as Republican governors opposed mask mandates, ICUs filled up, and people died, today President Joe Biden went on the offensive.

Saying, “My job as President is to protect all Americans,” he announced that he was imposing new vaccination or testing requirements on the unvaccinated. The U.S. government will require all federal employees, as well as any federal contractors, to be vaccinated. The government already requires that all nursing home workers who treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid have to be vaccinated; Biden is expanding that to cover hospital workers, home healthcare aides, and those who work in other medical facilities. “If you’re seeking care at a health facility, you should be able to know that the people treating you are vaccinated.”

Using the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Biden will also make employers with 100 or more employees require that their employees either be vaccinated or show a negative coronavirus test at least once a week. He pointed out that big companies already are doing this, including United Airlines, Disney… and the Fox News Channel.

Together, the new vaccine requirements will affect about 100 million Americans, making up two thirds of all U.S. workers.

Biden also urged those who run large entertainment venues to require vaccines or show a recent negative test for entry. He has already required teachers at the schools run by the Defense Department to get vaccinated, and today he announced that the government will require teachers in the Head Start program, which is federally funded, to be vaccinated. He called on governors to require that all teachers and staff be vaccinated for coronavirus, as their states already require a wide range of vaccinations for other diseases.

Calling out those like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has taken a stand against mask mandates and is threatening to withhold the salaries of school officials who defy him, Biden said that “if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as President to get them out of the way.”

He is using the Defense Production Act to increase production of rapid tests and has worked with major retailers to sell those tests at cost for the next three months. The government has also expanded free testing at 10,000 pharmacies and will spend $2 billion to distribute nearly 300 million rapid tests to community health centers, food banks, and schools. He has ordered the Transportation Safety Administration to double the fines on travelers that refuse to mask.

After deploying nearly 1000 healthcare workers to address this summer’s surges in 18 states, the president is now sending in military health teams from the Defense Department. Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. continues to donate vaccines to the rest of the world, “nearly 140 million vaccines over 90 countries so far, more than all other countries combined, including Europe, China, and Russia.... That’s American leadership on a global stage, and that’s just the beginning.” The U.S. is now shipping 500 million more Pfizer vaccines to 100 lower-income countries.

“Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated, even though the vaccine is safe, effective, and free,” Biden said. More than 175 million Americans are fully vaccinated, and for the past three months we have created 700,000 new jobs a month. But while nearly three quarters of those eligible have gotten at least one shot, the highly contagious Delta variant has ripped through the unvaccinated, who are overcrowding our hospitals, threatening the health of our children, and weakening our economic recovery.

“[D]espite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot…. And to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19,” Biden said. “Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they’re ordering mobile morgues for the unvaccinated dying from COVID in their communities. This is totally unacceptable.”

“[W]e have the tools to combat COVID-19, and a distinct minority of Americans—supported by a distinct minority of elected officials—are keeping us from turning the corner…. We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of protecting the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal.”

“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us,” he said. “So, please, do the right thing.”

The Biden administration is pushing back, too, on Texas’s Senate Bill 8, which prohibits abortion after 6 weeks and thus outlaws 85% of abortions in the state. Today, the United States of America sued the state of Texas for acting “in open defiance of the Constitution” when it passed S. B. 8 and deprived “individuals of their constitutional rights.” The United States has a “profound sovereign interest” in making sure that individuals’ constitutional rights can be protected by the federal government, the lawsuit declares. "The act is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

What is at stake in this case is the ability of the federal government to defend Americans’ constitutional rights against local vigilantes, a power Americans gave to the federal government in 1868 by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution after white former Confederates in southern states refused to accept the idea that their Black neighbors should have rights.

Since the 1950s, the Supreme Court has used federal power to protect the rights of minorities and women when state laws discriminated against them. S. B. 8 would strip the government of that power, leaving individuals at the mercy of their neighbors’ prejudices. The government has asked the U.S. district court for the western district of Texas to declare the law “invalid, null, and void,” and to stop the state from enforcing it.

This issue of federal supremacy is not limited to Texas. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times today called out that in June, Missouri governor Mike Parson signed the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which declares federal laws—including taxes—that govern the use of firearms “invalid in this state.” Like the Texas abortion law, the Second Amendment Preservation Act allows individuals to sue state officials who work with federal officials to deprive Missourians of what they consider to be their Second Amendment rights. “Obviously, it’s about far more than simply gun rights,” one of the chief proponents of the bill, far-right activist Aaron Dorr, said to Thrush about his involvement.

There were other wins today for the Biden administration. Today was the deadline for federal agencies to produce a wide range of records surrounding the events of January 6 to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and according to the committee’s Twitter feed, those records have, in fact, been forthcoming.

And Taliban officials did allow a plane carrying about 115 Americans and other nationals to leave Afghanistan.

Biden’s new approach to the pandemic is, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out, good politics as well as good for public health. About 65% of the voting age population is already vaccinated, and older people are both more likely to be vaccinated and more likely to vote. With most Americans vaccinated and increasingly frustrated with those who refuse, there is little political risk to requiring vaccines, while Republicans standing in the way of public health measures are increasingly unpopular. Florida, where deaths from coronavirus soared to more than 300 a day in late August, has begun to limit the information about deaths it releases.

If Biden’s new vaccine requirements slow or halt the spread of the coronavirus, the economic recovery that had been taking off before the Delta variant hit will resume its speed, strengthening his popularity. Those Republican lawmakers furious at the new vaccine requirements are possibly less worried that they won’t work than that they will.

Notes:

https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/lawsuit-doj.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/09/remarks-by-president-biden-on-fighting-the-covid-19-pandemic-3/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/politics/biden-administration-texas-abortion-law/index.html

https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-committee-issues-sweeping-demand-executive-branch-records

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/09/09/business/economy-stock-market-news

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b3CD2rFn105IQ7ziTfcTT5m8bzv1gBXE5-RXEV0phMM/edit

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/us/politics/missouri-gun-law.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-news-taliban-to-let-americans-evacuate-flights-from-kabul-airport/

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/as-covid-deaths-soar-florida-curtails-public-records-on-which-counties-hit-hardest/2547538/

Josh Marshall @joshtpmThe vax mandate is good public health. It’s also good politics. A big majority of the voting age population is already vaxed. About 65%. Propensity to vote and likelihood of being vaxed both rise with age. The vaxed are losing patience w the voluntarily unvaxed who …

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September 10th 2021

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[faithnfrivolity]

Heather Cox Richardson…

On January 6, insurrectionists trying to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election stormed the U.S. Capitol and sent our lawmakers into hiding. Since President Joe Biden took office on January 20, just two weeks after the attack, we have been engaged in a great struggle between those trying to restore our democracy and those determined to undermine it.

Biden committed to restoring our democracy after the strains it had endured. When he took office, we were in the midst of a global pandemic whose official death toll in the U.S. was at 407,000. Our economy was in tatters, our foreign alliances weakened, and our government under siege by insurrectionists, some of whom were lawmakers themselves.

In his inaugural address, Biden implored Americans to come together to face these crises. He recalled the Civil War, the Great Depression, the World Wars, and the attacks of 9/11, noting that “[i]n each of these moments, enough of us came together to carry all of us forward.” “It’s time for boldness, for there is so much to do,” he said. He asked Americans to “write an American story of hope, not fear… [a] story that tells ages yet to come that we answered the call of history…. That democracy and hope, truth and justice, did not die on our watch but thrived.”

Later that day, he headed to the Oval Office. "I thought there's no time to wait. Get to work immediately," he said.

Rather than permitting the Trump Republicans who were still insisting Trump had won the election to frame the national conversation, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, as well as the Democrats in Congress, ignored them and set out to prove that our government can work for ordinary Americans.

Biden vowed to overcome Covid, trying to rally Republicans to join Democrats behind a “war” on the global ​​pandemic. The Trump team had refused to confer during the transition period with the Biden team, who discovered that the previous administration had never had a plan for federal delivery of covid vaccines, simply planning to give them to the states and then let the cash-strapped states figure out how to get them into arms. "What we're inheriting is so much worse than we could have imagined," Biden's coronavirus response coordinator, Jeff Zients, said to reporters on January 21.

Biden immediately invoked the Defense Production Act, bought more vaccines, worked with states to establish vaccine sites and transportation to them, and established vaccine centers in pharmacies across the country. As vaccination rates climbed, he vowed to make sure that 70% of the U.S. adult population would have one vaccine shot and 160 million U.S. adults would be fully vaccinated by July 4th.

At the same time, the Democrats undertook to repair the economy, badly damaged by the pandemic. In March, without a single Republican vote, they passed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan to jump-start the economy by putting money into the pockets of ordinary Americans. It worked. The new law cut child poverty in half by putting $66 billion into 36 million households. It expanded access to the Affordable Care Act, enabling more than 4.6 million Americans who were not previously insured to get healthcare coverage, bringing the total covered to a record 13.6 million.

As vaccinated people started to venture out again, this support for consumers bolstered U.S. companies, which by the end of the year were showing profit margins higher than they have been since 1950, at 15%. Companies reduced their debt, which translated to a strong stock market. In February, Biden’s first month in office, the jobless rate was 6.2%; by December it had dropped to 4.2%. This means that 4.1 million jobs were created in the Biden administration’s first year, more than were created in the 12 years of the Trump and George W. Bush administrations combined.

In November, Congress passed a $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill that will repair bridges and roads and get broadband to places that still don’t have it, and negotiations continue on a larger infrastructure package that will support child care and elder care, as well as education and measures to address climate change.

Bloomberg and the Wall Street Journal report that U.S. economic output has jumped more than 7% in the last three months of 2021. Overall growth for 2021 should be about 6%, and economists predict growth of around 4% in 2022—the highest numbers the U.S. has seen in decades. China’s growth in the same period will be 4%, and the eurozone (the member countries of the European Union that use the euro) will grow at 2%. The U.S. is “outperforming the world by the biggest margin in the 21st century,” wrote Matthew A. Winkler in Bloomberg, “and with good reason: America’s economy improved more in Joe Biden’s first 12 months than any president during the past 50 years….”

With more experience in foreign affairs than any president since George H. W. Bush, Biden set out to rebuild our strained alliances and modernize the war on terror. On January 20, he took steps to rejoin the World Health Organization and the Paris Climate Accords, which his predecessor had rejected. Secretary of State Antony Blinken emphasized that Biden’s leadership team believed foreign and domestic policy to be profoundly linked. They promised to support democracy at home and abroad to combat the authoritarianism rising around the world.

“The more we and other democracies can show the world that we can deliver, not only for our people, but also for each other, the more we can refute the lie that authoritarian countries love to tell, that theirs is the better way to meet people’s fundamental needs and hopes. It’s on us to prove them wrong,” Blinken said.

Biden and Blinken increased the use of sanctions against those suspected of funding terrorism. Declaring it vital to national security to stop corruption in order to prevent illicit money from undermining democracies, Biden convened a Summit for Democracy, where leaders from more than 110 countries discussed how best to combat authoritarianism and corruption, and to protect human rights.

Biden began to shift American foreign policy most noticeably by withdrawing from the nation’s twenty-year war in Afghanistan. He inherited the previous president's February 2020 deal with the Taliban to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan by May 1, 2021, so long as the Taliban did not kill any more Americans. By the time Biden took office, the U.S. had withdrawn all but 2500 troops from the country.

He could either go back on Trump’s agreement—meaning the Taliban would again begin attacking U.S. service people, forcing the U.S. to pour in troops and sustain casualties—or get out of what had become a meandering, expensive, unpopular war, one that Biden himself had wanted to leave since the Obama administration.

In April, Biden said he would honor the agreement he had inherited from Trump, beginning, not ending, the troop withdrawal on May 1. He said he would have everyone out by September 11, the 20th anniversary of the al-Qaeda attacks that took us there in the first place. (He later adjusted that to August 31.) He promised to evacuate the country “responsibly, deliberately, and safely” and assured Americans that the U.S. had “trained and equipped a standing force of over 300,000 Afghan personnel” who would “continue to fight valiantly, on behalf of the Afghans, at great cost.”

Instead, the Afghan army crumbled as the U.S began to pull its remaining troops out in July. By mid-August, the Taliban had taken control of the capital, Kabul, and the leaders of the Afghan government fled, abandoning the country to chaos. People rushed to the airport to escape and seven Afghans died, either crushed in the crowds or killed when they fell from planes to which they had clung in hopes of getting out. Then, on August 26, two explosions outside the Kabul airport killed at least 60 Afghan civilians and 13 U.S. troops. More than 100 Afghans and 15 U.S. service members were wounded.

In the aftermath, the U.S. military conducted the largest human airlift in U.S. history, moving more than 100,000 people without further casualties, and on August 30, Major General Chris Donahue, commander of the U.S. Army 82nd Airborne Division, boarded a cargo plane at Kabul airport, and the U.S. war in Afghanistan was over. (Evacuations have continued on planes chartered by other countries.)

With the end of that war, Biden has focused on using financial pressure and alliances rather than military might to achieve foreign policy goals. He has worked with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) allies to counter increasing aggression from Russian president Vladimir Putin, strengthening NATO, while suggesting publicly that further Russian incursions into Ukraine will have serious financial repercussions.

In any ordinary time, Biden’s demonstration that democracy can work for ordinary people in three major areas would have been an astonishing success.

But these are not ordinary times.

Biden and the Democrats have had to face an opposition that is working to undermine the government. Even after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, 147 Republican members of Congress voted to challenge at least one of the certified state electoral votes, propping up the Big Lie that Trump won the 2020 presidential election. Many of them continue to plug that lie, convincing 68% of Republicans that Biden is an illegitimate president.

This lie has justified the passage in 19 Republican-dominated states of 33 new laws to suppress voting or to take the counting of votes out of the hands of non-partisan officials altogether and turn that process over to Republicans.

Republicans have stoked opposition to the Democrats by feeding the culture wars, skipping negotiations on the American Rescue Plan, for example, to complain that the toymaker Hasbro was introducing a gender-neutral Potato Head toy, and that the estate of Dr. Seuss was ceasing publication of some of his lesser-known books that bore racist pictures or themes. They created a firestorm over Critical Race Theory, an advanced legal theory, insisting that it, and the teaching of issues of race in the schools, was teaching white children to hate themselves.

Most notably, though, as Biden’s coronavirus vaccination program appeared to be meeting his ambitious goals, Republicans suggested that government vaccine outreach was overreach, pushing the government into people’s lives. Vaccination rates began to drop off, and Biden’s July 4 goal went unmet just as the more contagious Delta variant began to rage across the country.

In July, Biden required federal workers and contractors to be vaccinated; in November, the administration said that workers at businesses with more than 100 employees and health care workers must be vaccinated or frequently tested.

Rejecting the vaccine became a badge of opposition to the Biden administration. By early December, fewer than 10% of adult Democrats were unvaccinated, compared with 40% of Republicans. This means that Republicans are three times more likely than Democrats to die of Covid, and as the new Omicron variant rages across the country, Republicans are blaming Biden for not stopping the pandemic. Covid has now killed more than 800,000 Americans.

While Biden and the Democrats have made many missteps this year—missing that the Afghan government would collapse, hitting an Afghan family in a drone strike, underplaying Covid testing, prioritizing infrastructure over voting rights—the Democrats’ biggest miscalculation might well be refusing to address the disinformation of the Republicans directly in order to promote bipartisanship and move the country forward together.

With the lies of Trump Republicans largely unchallenged by Democratic lawmakers or the media, Republicans have swung almost entirely into the Trump camp. The former president has worked to purge from the state and national party anyone he considers insufficiently loyal to him, and his closest supporters have become so extreme that they are openly supporting authoritarianism and talking of Democrats as “vermin.”

Some are talking about a “national divorce,” which observers have interpreted as a call for secession, like the Confederates tried in 1860. But in fact, Trump Republicans do not want to form their own country. Rather, they want to cement minority rule in this one, keeping themselves in power over the will of the majority.

It seems that in some ways we are ending 2021 as we began it. Although Biden and the Democrats have indeed demonstrated that our government, properly run, can work for the people to combat a deadly pandemic, create a booming economy, and stop unpopular wars, that same authoritarian minority that tried to overturn the 2020 election on January 6 is more deeply entrenched than it was a year ago.

And yet, as we move into 2022, the ground is shifting. The House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the U.S. Capitol is starting to show what it has learned from the testimony of more than 300 witnesses and a review of more than 35,000 documents. The fact that those closest to Trump are refusing to testify suggests that the hearings in the new year will be compelling and will help people to understand just how close we came to an authoritarian takeover last January.

And then, as soon as the Senate resumes work in the new year, it will take up measures to restore the voting rights and election integrity Republican legislatures have stripped away, giving back to the people the power to guard against such an authoritarian coup happening again.

It looks like 2022 is going to be a choppy ride, but its outcome is in our hands. As Congressman John Lewis (D-GA), who was beaten almost to death in his quest to protect the right to vote, wrote to us when he passed: “Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part.”

[andyinotago]

at Bill Richardson Transport World https://www.instagram.com/p/CCTz-u1pOIv/?igshid=i49bcn7jl5p8