Welcome to The Now

 Remember when that was a thing?

 From a "I wanna win" standpoint this makes sense, but at it's core it's a very immature stance: "I can help my friends/allies, but you can't." But economically, this is what the US is doing :  The US Treasury Department on Friday took what it called “one of its most significant sanctions actions to date” to crack down on those aiding Moscow’s war against Ukraine, targeting Russia’s metals and mining sector, its financial institutions, its military supply chain and individuals and companies worldwide that are helping Moscow avoid existing sanctions. These latest actions by the Treasury Department are among a series of new measures announced by the Biden administration Friday that are meant to strengthen Kyiv and deter those providing support to Moscow as the war enters its second year without signs of abating. Friday’s sweeping actions are meant to fill in gaps in existing sanctions that have been imposed over the past year of the war and are intended to...

 So NGO Safeguard Defenders, formally known as "China Action," presented CNN with a story of how China is outsourcing their law-enforcement by using Chinese businesses abroad as makeshift police stations .   Ignoring the irony of any American being shocked at this knowing that the US has military bases all around China , places like the Loon Fung in Glasgow, Scotland were identified as one of these "secret police base."  Accept, according to The Herald , this is pretty much a nothing-burger : The restaurant denied any wrongdoing, with the manager telling press: “There are no secret police here.” At the time, First Minister Nicola Sturgeon told MSPs she was extremely concerned by the report and that she had discussed it with Police Scotland.  Asked for an update today, Detective Chief Superintendent Stuart Houston said: “Officers visited a restaurant on Sauchiehall Street, Glasgow as part of ongoing enquiries. "We are continuing to assess all information, in c...

  As mentioned earlier , the disagreements on the American Left is not just between Revolutionaries and Reformists. Even in the Revolutionary camp, their are "Radicals" and the "Refined." This is becoming more clear with this interview/exchange between Sabby Sabbs and WSWS journalist Eric London:

 Or more accurately, revert : A federal pandemic policy that guaranteed Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of Connecticut residents is coming to an end. Typically, people who receive Medicaid, known as HUSKY in Connecticut, go through an annual process to confirm whether they still qualify for the program. But, during the pandemic, the federal government instituted a policy, known as “continuous enrollment,” that prevented states from kicking people off of Medicaid, even if they no longer qualified or failed to update their eligibility information. But, on March 31, continuous enrollment will end, kicking off a year-long process called “unwinding,” where everyone whose Medicaid coverage has been extended as part of the public health emergency will need to reevaluate their eligibility. In Connecticut, around 434,000 residents have had Medicaid coverage extended at some point over the past three years under the continuous eligibility rules. “Just the numbers alone make this r...

 When some threatened to remove their health care rights, look what happened:

 Apparently, the answer is "yes": Nissan has tapped into the popularity of lofi videos on YouTube by creating a four-hour-long ad — and people aren’t hating it. Released on February 2, the video is titled Enjoy the Powerfully Peaceful ARIYA. It’s a low-touch advertisement for the company’s latest EV, the Nissan ARIYA. At the time of writing the video had over 1.6 million views and 625 comments which were largely positive. This may seem surprising for an advertisement that’s four hours long . But this is where Nissan has been quite clever. The entire video is an animation of a woman driving the ARIYA to a soundtrack of lofi music . These kinds of videos are incredibly popular on YouTube — they’re incredibly chill and great for background calm background music for work and study. One of the most popular is the Lofi Girl channel which streams lofi hip hop beats 24 hours a day across two ‘radio’ channels. With almost 12 million subscribers, it’s most recognisable for its anime-s...

 Take notes, Don Lemon :

 When it comes to making substantial political change, you need numbers. Anyone who is frustrated with the status quo and wishes to change it should understand this, and many do. The question is: "How to get those numbers?" What is the best way to get enough people to rally against the system? At one point, it seemed that most of the American Left was divided into two factions: Reformists and (more radical) Revolutionaries. The former basically believes in working with and/or in the system in order to change it, where the latter prefers a more outsider, non-electoral politics approach. Of course, there's room for hybrids (i.e., ignore national politics and focus on the local). Currently, the best way to discern between the two is by what you see on cable news or in the halls of government: if they are on TV or radio denouncing the status quo, odds are they are reformists; anyone going the extra step of including the current two major parties in their critique are rarely h...

 The human rights and environmental lawyer who Chevron tried to put under a jail shows us why big polluting companies want him off the board : Earlier this month, a train carrying toxic chemicals derailed in eastern Ohio, exploding into flames and unleashing a spume of chemical smoke on the small town of East Palestine. The train’s freight included vinyl chloride, a chemical known to cause liver cancer and other sicknesses. In response, government and railway officials decided to “burn off” the vinyl chloride – effectively dumping 1.1m lbs of the chemical into the local community, according to a new lawsuit. Officials said that they did so to avert the vinyl chloride from exploding; in contrast, an attorney for the lawsuit has said that the decision was cheap, unsafe, and more interested in restoring train service and appeasing railway shareholders than protecting local residents. East Palestine residents are reporting headaches, sore throats, and burning eyes; dead pets and chicke...

 It's 5 hours long, but now you have the choice of watching the whole thing or check around for certain moments:

 Second Thought explains why social democracy isn't what the name implies:

 The guy pulls no punches, but sometimes that's what it takes:

 Last week, noted investigative reporter Seymour Hersh published an article titled, " How America Took Out the Nord Stream Pipeline ." Lee Camp , Danny Haiphong and Richard Medhurst , among others, have covered this revelation (you can find a copy of the story here as well ).  Now despite many, many political figures lamenting the destruction of Nord Stream 2: Many of the people (in the Biden Administration) named have not commented (but some of their spokespeople have): So instead of taking into account the reporting of the man responsible for exposing abuses during Vietnam and Abu Ghraib and correcting the record on how Osama bin Laden was killed and what happened in the Syrian gas attack , they to smear him. And not just politicians and government officials, but other journalists: Considering Hersh's track record of getting the big things correct, we would be smart to believe his report. Of course, if it's true, this means that the United States attacked an ally...

 There is a "Wage Against the War Machine" Rally coming to Washington, DC on Sunday, 2/19/23. There's a website with all the relevant information .  There has been some...pushback because it appears that the "left" and the "right" are "uniting" behind this event. People more astute than myself have made cases for and against participating.  Not really going to touch this argument on the merits; people of various political beliefs can be anti-war and if they choose to join under that particular banner and such joining can bare fruit, than fine.  My hesitation to either commend or condemn the event wholesale is due to a few factors: The "left" isn't unified itself on enough issues . Whether it's those who are more socialist who disagree with the social democrats on FTV, the railroad strike debacle or funding Ukraine or those who lean more Marx versus those who lean more Trotsky, the left hasn't come to much of a consensus...

  Via WSWS :  Howard University in Washington D.C. has been awarded a five-year, $90 million contract by the US Department of Defense and the US Air Force to fund a research center dedicated to developing advanced technology for the military. The center will be one of the Pentagon’s 15 officially designated UARCs (University Affiliated Research Centers) and the first to be based at a historically black college/university (HBCU), a dubious “honor” that was announced with great fanfare on January 23 by university President Wayne A.I. Frederick. Of course, the academic perspective tries to invoke diversity: Howard’s partnership with the most reactionary and bloodstained institution on the planet is presented as a progressive advance for “people of color.” Speaking to The Dig, Howard Professor Bruce Jones explained, “There is a dearth of people of color going into these areas of tactical autonomy, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cyber security… This [contract] enabl...

 Gus Griffin explains : The first Black symbolism is worse than an empty gesture.  It is actually dangerous in that it often serves as a “Trojan Horse” able to advance Neoliberal policies at home and imperialist machinations abroad under the cover of a Black face as the leader. I am not suggesting that all that is symbolism is without substance.  Even within sports, at Mexico City in the 1968 Olympics, track stars John Carlos and Tommie Smith raised their fists on the winner’s podium symbolizing Black Power. The substance of the moment was that it reflected an evolutionary period of the movement from civil rights to human rights, from limited tactics to unlimited tactics, from domestic to international focus in the struggle for Black liberation.  Likewise, former NFL QB Colin Kaepernick’s symbolic kneeling was of substance in that it forced millions into a conversation about police terrorism that many preferred to ignore. We must be able to identify empty symbolic ge...

 Second Thought looks into this:

 More than some are willing to admit, apparently:

  Via Black Agenda Report's Margaret Kimberley : After nearly a year of conflict, European nations have literally given their all militarily, with very little left in the way of materiel to provide to Ukraine. They have given up cheap Russian natural gas and now purchase US liquified natural gas, which costs more and creates more environmental damage. Now even the Rand Corporation, which is funded by the military industrial complex and fossil fuel companies, and pushed for war with Russia in 2019 , is waving red flags about the overreach. In an article entitled Avoiding a Long War , Rand concludes, “In short, the consequences of a long war - ranging from persistent elevated escalation risks to economic damage - far outweigh the possible benefits.” Rand is no peacemaker, believing that challenging China should be the focus and not the Ukraine stalemate. Warnings from a friendly party show that the best laid plans for hegemonic regime change have gone wrong once again. The U.S. has p...

 And it's a very good conversation:

 

 Why else would he now admit that the laptop was his?

 So... this happened : And while there's some acknowledgment of the obvious seemingly contradictory message of police giving recognition to the demographic they are known to shoot/beat/kill with little regard, the artist behind this is pushing nuanced understanding: Unlike the typical Miami police car, which is white and blue in color, this special edition is coated black with red, yellow and green stripes — colors commonly used to represent pan-African solidarity. The vehicle is also embellished with four raised fists, an outline of the African continent and the words "Miami Police Supports Black History Month." Lavish N Looney (Lump), the Miami-based artist who created the special design for the patrol car, said that unity and paying homage to Africa were major themes in the artwork. He said he went through several designs before a version was finalized, adding that earlier drafts included images of Martin Luther King Jr. and former President Barack Obama . Lump said h...

  How can people even compare one balloon to over 20 bases? But this is America, the country that freaked out over missiles being delivered in Cuba (and told school children to hide under wood and metal to protect them from a potential nuclear fallout) but thinks that half of European and Asian countries into military outposts is just a precaution and China (or Russia) shouldn't be worried.

 Second Thought talks about making some long overdue changes to work life:

 Corporate America is being critiqued by two of the best:

 Richard Medhurst explains why it's a big deal.

 African countries are recognizing that China and Russia are offering better economic deals (and a more equal relationship) than the United States:

 " In deciding to supply Leopard battle tanks to Ukraine, Olaf Scholtz breaks the self-imposed constraints on the military’s role in German foreign policy that had been in place since the end of WWII. "

 Danny Haiphong breaks it down: There's even mention of this on her Wikipedia page .