W.J. Astore
America the Unbeautiful
Bank failures are never encouraging, and the recent failure of Silicon Valley Bank points to the instability of our American moment. President Biden made a short speech to affirm depositors would get their money back, only to exit the stage without taking any questions from reporters. As Biden slowly walked away from the podium, closing carefully the door behind him, I couldn’t help but see the whole act as symbolic of a tired America that has lost its way.
Yes, Biden acted to reassure markets and to rescue affluent depositors, yet he hardly reacted at all to the recent train wreck that poisoned East Palestine, Ohio. If only the train wreck had struck a major bank …
Tallying up Biden’s broken campaign promises, another one, an especially egregious one, was announced with the plan to allow oil drilling in pristine wilderness in northern Alaska. Biden had promised no more drilling on federal lands. Period. And then he approved the massive Willow drilling project on federal land in Alaska, an act of climate terrorism, notes Rebecca Solnit.
Meanwhile, Biden released his proposed Pentagon budget for 2024. You won’t be surprised to learn it’s soared to $886 billion, an almost inconceivable sum, or that the Biden budget focuses most of its discretionary spending on weaponry, wars, security, police, and prisons. Here’s a handy diagram:
I suppose the government will need all those warriors and guards with guns to maintain order while banks fail and the environment is poisoned, whether from oil drilling or train wrecks.
Perhaps you’ve seen the Daniel Day-Lewis movie about oil drilling’s early days. Its title is suggestive to what is to come: “There will be blood.”
Bracing Views 
Is the Oscar winner ”Everything Everywhere All at Once’ prescient, and a SIGN of our Times?
With the WARS and rumours of WARS, potential environmental disaster worse than we’ve seen already, and now potential Economic collapse with Bank failures, what comes next, and how will the MASSES react, especially in the US with so many weapons in the hands of the MASSES with what we’ve seen so far?
Living on $1311 USD a month to pay for everything, I’m not too concerned with high finance, but I’m aware enough to know even that could disappear if the leading indicators of everything everywhere all at once continue as they are.
For those who do have substantial cash in the Banks, stocks, bonds and 401Ks, you will want to listed to Jim Rickards explaining the implications of what has transpired with the collapse of 3 Banks in the last week. He explains high finance those who don’t have it can understand.
https://d2z65klgtz99km.cloudfront.net/AWN/emergency_briefing_031323/index.html
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Its summed up in one word Bill – “priorities”.
The fact is there is plenty of money in the US to provide Universal Healthcare.
If the US can afford the F35 – it can afford Universal Healthcare
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Krystal Ball does a nice job comparing the rapid and generous response of the government to the banking crisis to the slow and ungenerous response to the train wreck in East Palestine
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On the theme of Everything Everywhere All at Once, Scott Ritter has an interesting piece debunking the alternative to Sy Hersh’s investigation saying the US did the Act of WAR against Russia and Germany blowing up Nord Stream I & II.
‘SCOTT RITTER: The Nord Stream-Andromeda Cover Up’
U.S. intelligence was too quick to leak information about the German investigation to The New York Times. It raises the distinct impression that the real culprit is nervous about the investigative work of Seymour Hersh.
Back in 2000, the television series “Andromeda” premiered, based upon unused material from Gene Roddenberry, the creator of the Star Trek series and franchise. The plot is premised on the notion of a spaceship, “Andromeda,” frozen in time, which is given the opportunity to reverse the clock and undo history.
The series ran five years.
Fast forward to the present.
History has dealt a tough hand to the administration of U.S. President Joe Biden, who openly confessed his intent to “bring an end” to the Nord Stream pipeline system which delivered Russian natural gas to Europe through four pipelines (Nord Stream 1 and Nord Stream 2, consisting of two pipelines each).
Since then, the Biden White House was compelled to deny the president’s stated intent after an explosive report by Pulitzer-Prize winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh detailed damning information which, if true (and there is no reason to suspect it’s not) casts the responsibility for a series of underwater explosions that took place on Sept. 26, 2022, on Biden himself.
Hersh’s report was ignored by the mainstream media in the United States, with neither The New York Times, for whom Seymour Hersh wrote on national security issues for many years, nor The Washington Post even hinting that the greatest living investigative journalist had broken a blockbuster story……………………..
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/03/14/scott-ritter-the-nord-stream-andromeda-cover-up/
WATCH: Sy Hersh at Press Club Tonight LIVE
The Committee for the Republic is hosting investigative reporter Seymour Hersh at the National Press Club in Washington Tuesday evening at 7 pm EDT to speak about his Nord Stream reporting. Consortium News will bring it to you live……………………………………….
https://consortiumnews.com/2023/03/14/watch-sy-hersh-at-press-club-tonight-live/
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i admit to being more than a bit surprised, Bill, by Your apparent surprise at ~ and disappointment about ~ what Biden has done and not done as President, and which campaign “promises” he broke.
Before he became President and Vice President, Biden had been a Senator from the.Home of Corporatism in America ~ the Great State of Delaware ~ since Nixon was in the White House.
Is there, has there ever been, or could there ever be a more perfect champion of the Corporatist Agenda than Uncle Joe? Has there ever been a more resolute and dedicated instruction follower and script reader than Comatose Joe? Other than, of course, Trump, Obama, Cheney/Bush the Lesser, Clinton, Bush the Elder, Bozo, and The Peanut Farmer? And all those embedded folks over the years up on The Hill down at the other end of Pennsylvania Avenue?
And as far as The Willow Project is concerned: There are a LOT of Alaskans who are totally and completely in favor of maximal “Drill, Baby, Drill” ~ as Sarah once put it ~ because it puts free money in their pockets thru Alaska’s “Permanent Fund Dividend,” thru which Alaskans get an annual chunk of money based on the State’s revenues from Oil drilling.
And there are a Lot of Alaskans who are equally against Willow. It will be very interesting to see what falls out from this whole project as far as State politics is concerned.
ps: One promise he did keep as President, tho, was to see the Nord Stream Pipeline rendered inoperational: an Act of War against Russia and, particularly, NATO buddy Germany.
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Sachs, Hersh, Wikerson and others with their views on what’s happening in our Times. It’s not a discussion but excerpts in a collage,
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‘Reaper drone takedown augurs ill for Crimea offensive’
Russia’s downing of US drone could be first salvo of coming Crimea battle that will drag US dangerously deeper into the war
The Pentagon says that the takedown of the Reaper drone by Russian Su-27 pilots was “unsafe and unprofessional.” But the Pentagon has not explained what the drone was doing flying near Crimea, nor has it told the public about the unique capabilities of the MQ-9 Reaper.
The Russians say that the drone was in a prohibited area and that the Russians had notified everyone, including the United States, that the area was off-limits. As it turns out, the drone’s location was about 60 kilometers (37 miles) southwest of the Crimean port of Sevastopol, according to Russian reports………
https://asiatimes.com/2023/03/reaper-drone-takedown-augurs-ill-for-crimea-offensive/
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