Day: September 27, 2019

How To Deal With The Climate Crisis

Closing Thought–27Sep19

We have heard all the lies and the innuendoes about climate change and how we should approach the problem.

I read a workable plan for dealing with the climate and I believe it came out of Canada.

The meat of the article was…what if we treated the climate crisis like a war?  Remember these are just suggestions…..all of which I do not agree with but at least there is someone thinking about a solution before it is too late……

“We ended WWII with the highest debt-to-GDP ratio ever,” Klein said. ”But it also marked the beginning of the strongest economic performance the country has ever seen. It wasn’t a drag on the economy; it was quite the opposite.”

There are plenty of reasons to question this kind of all-in jingoist climate stimulus plan. The government would need to consider measures to control inflation, or the possibility that rich people would just move their money somewhere else. Researchers have also suggested we might enter an unhinged new era of eco-nationalist propaganda, which would surely add to, not subtract from, a general sense of doom.

https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/vb53x9/what-would-happen-if-canada-treated-climate-crisis-like-war

Canada has a plan for the environment…it is called a “Just Transition Act”……..

A re-elected Liberal government would halve the corporate tax rate for companies that develop or manufacture products with zero emissions — part of the party’s plan to move to net-zero emissions by 2050, Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau announced today.

Taxes for small clean technology businesses would be reduced to 4.5 per cent from the current nine per cent under the Liberal plan, while larger companies would pay 7.5 per cent in taxes instead of the current 15 per cent.

Eligible sectors could include manufacturing related to renewable energy, production of renewable fuels, zero emission vehicles and batteries for them, carbon capture and removal technology and electric vehicle charging systems.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/liberals-climate-change-action-plan-2050-1.5295027

Has anyone else noticed that plans are about saving corporations money not so much about the planet.  I believe that this very thing is what Greta Thunberg was bitching about at the UN….

In case you have NO idea what I am talking about here is a transcript of her speech to the General Assembly….

https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit\

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As The Whistle Blows

A new opportunity for the grand standing politicians that do love to act up for the cameras.

It is that call to Ukraine by Pres. Trump and someone in the intel service found it disturbing and wrote to his IG….you are caught up with this saga……..and now we have the rest of the story….

We begin the saga with the transcript of the accusation……

Wednesday brought the release of a rough transcript of President Trump’s call with Ukraine’s leader. Thursday brings the release of the nine-page whistleblower report that followed. Read it for yourself here. It makes two central allegations: that President Trump asked a foreign leader to interfere in the 2020 election on his behalf, and that alarmed White House officials then tried to “lock down” all records of the call. Details:

  • Interference: “In the course of my official duties, I have received information from multiple US government officials that the President of the United States is using the power of his office to solicit interference from a foreign country in the 2020 US election,” wrote the unidentified intelligence official in the complaint, per the Washington Post. “This interference includes, among other things, pressuring a foreign country to investigate one of the President’s main domestic political rivals,” says the complaint, referring to Joe Biden. “The President’s personal lawyer, Mr. Rudolph W. Giuliani, is a central figure in this effort. Attorney General (William) Barr appears to be involved as well.”
  • ‘Lock down’: “In the days following the phone call, I learned from multiple US officials that senior White House officials had intervened to ‘lock down’ all records of the phone call, especially the word-for-word transcript of the call that was produced—as is customary—by the White House Situation Room,” say the complaint, per the New York Times. “This set of actions underscored to me that White House officials understood the gravity of what had transpired in the call.”
  • Specifically: White House officials say they were directed by White House attorneys “to remove the electronic transcript from the computer system in which such transcripts are typically stored,” per the complaint.
  • ‘Personal gain’: White House officials “told me that there was already a discussion ongoing with White House lawyers about how to treat the call because of the likelihood, in the officials’ retelling, that they had witnessed the President abuse his office for personal gain.”
  • Trump strikes back: As the House begins an impeachment inquiry over the matter, Trump issued an all-caps rebuttal on Thursday: “The Democrats are trying to destroy the Republican Party and all that it stands for,” he wrote. “Stick together, play their game, and fight hard Republicans. Our country is at stake!”

Reminder–release of a rough transcript of President Trump’s call with Ukraine’s leader.

Do yourself a favor and read the document before you try to pretend you understand what is happening.

Now we have the Congressional Hearing……

President Trump has questioned the patriotism of the intelligence official who filed a whistleblower complaint against him, but the acting director of national intelligence feels otherwise. “I think the whistleblower did the right thing,” Joseph Maguire said Thursday during testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, per Reuters. “I think he followed the law every step of the way.” Maguire also defended his initial refusal to release the whistleblower report to Congress, saying the matter was unprecedented in how it touched on “complicated and sensitive issues including executive privilege.” Maguire’s testimony began just after the House panel made a declassified version of the whistleblower report public.

Maguire thinks this case “is unique and unprecedented,” said Maguire. He added that even he doesn’t know the identity of the whistleblower, while deeming the complaint “credible” and “important,” reports the Hill. Committee Chair Adam Schiff said the complaint showed that Trump “has betrayed his oath of office, betrayed his oath to defend our national security, and betrayed his oath to defend the Constitution.” But GOP Rep. Devin Nunes countered with sarcasm: “I want to congratulate the Democrats on their latest information warfare effort against the president,” he said in his opening remarks.

Read the report……made a declassified version of the whistleblower report public. 

Not to let the process go forward our president attacks everything that he can….the process, the evidence and the people……

It’s another day of non-stop developments on the impeachment front—including the release of the whistleblower report and the testimony of the director of national intelligence—and President Trump made some related headlines of his own. Speaking at a breakfast Thursday morning, the president likened the still-unidentified person who filed the whistleblower complaint to a spy who committed treason, reports the Los Angeles Times. The newspaper obtained a recording of Trump’s remarks at the Intercontinental Hotel in New York. Highlights and related developments, including a report that the whistleblower is a CIA officer.

  • Tough words: Trump said the person who filed the complaint is “almost a spy,” as is anyone who gave him details about the phone call. “I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information?” Trump said. “Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”
  • Other comments: Trump lashed out at the whistleblower in particular because he did not directly hear the famous July phone call between Trump and Ukraine leader Volodymyr Zelensky; he called reporters “scum;” he insulted Joe Biden’s intelligence and reiterated that it’s Biden who should be the focus of an investigation; and he accused Democratic senators including Chris Murphy of Connecticut of having “strong-armed” Zelensky on a visit there.
  • CIA official? The New York Times reports that the whistleblower is a CIA officer who worked at the White House but has since ended that assignment. The newspaper does not identify the officer by name, and his attorneys would not confirm. The complaint made public on Thursday suggests he is “an analyst by training” and “steeped in details of American foreign policy toward Europe” with a particular expertise in Ukraine politics, per the Times.
  • Giuliani: Asked about the whistleblower’s allegation that senior White House officials were so alarmed about the phone call they tried to “lock down” its contents, Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani tells CNN he has “no knowledge of any of that crap.” He specifically refuted the allegation that two State Department officials spoke to him to “contain the damage” after Trump’s phone call. At Vanity Fair, an analysis by Bess Levin poses the question, “Will Trump Throw Rudy Giuliani Under The Ukraine Bus?”
  • Pelosi: The House speaker says it’s clear what the newly released whistleblower report reveals: “This is a cover-up,” Nancy Pelosi told reporters, reports Politico. Then she repeated, “This is a cover-up.” Earlier, Trump accused Pelosi of being “hijacked by the radical left.”
  • Takeaways: A Washington Post analysis has takeaways from the whistleblower report, and Pelosi would agree with No. 1: “The White House allegedly tried to bury the Trump-Zelensky call.”

Yesterday was a day that should be studied….but all that will be seen is the attacks and the babble…..

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United Nations For The 21st Century

This week has been the annual meetings of the world leaders at the General Assembly….and as usual was full of drama and theatrics.

I admit it…I am not as gung-ho as I use to be about the United Nations (UN)……what started off as a great idea and the elimination of the necessity for war has become a joke among international analysts (me included).

I have tried to explain the reason why the UN seems ineffectual…..https://lobotero.com/2015/06/30/why-hate-the-united-nations-un/

I read a lot of papers trying to keep up to date since I left the international relations field…..and this one is a paper about the limitations and capabilities of the UN in conflict management……

A plethora of contemporary challenges have exposed the UN to criticism in its ability to evolve with changes in geopolitics, most notably the organization’s responsive rather than reactive approach to confronting international crises and the rise in nations disinterested in international consensus building. “The protection of civilians, the threat of violent extremism… and the dilemmas of state building” have presented obstacles that have forced both the UN General Assembly (UNGA) and the UNSC to reevaluate their ability to comprehensively address today’s global challenges.[8] However, the primary obstacle threatening the capacity of the UN remains “how to deal with conflicts – be they between or within states – without offending the national sovereignty of its member states”.[9] Additionally, the UNSC remains controversial for its lack of global representation amongst the P-5 members with the ability to veto vital resolutions brought before the body. Given that the organization “remains largely unchanged since its founding in 1946”, debate regarding “its efficacy and authority as a mediator on matters of international security” is ongoing and increasingly prevalent in light of presently deteriorating modern conflicts.[10] With the determination of the P-5 having been structured in the aftermath of World War II, critics note that the current authority of the body disproportionately favors the positions of the permanent members, thus hindering the UNSC’s ability to distance itself from the sovereign interests of states when attempting to combat international security risks. Respective geopolitical aims of hegemons are evident in the present stalemate in the UNSC between Russia and the United States, with the veto power granted to permanent members constraining “the Council from engaging in the resolution of civil wars within their borders and in areas of perceived vital interest”.[11] Evidently, there is a disconnect between present threats to international security and the capacity for entities such as the UNSC to effectively mediate and mitigate conflict. The archaic structure of the UN and its entities makes it unable to address transitions in conflict that have complicated the need for resolution vis-à-vis mediation between nation states.

The Limitations and Capabilities of the United Nations in Modern Conflict

I think there is a place for the UN in the management and resolutions of conflict but to do so there would need to be a change…..for one get rid of the permanent members of the Security Council…those members have done NOTHING to make the world a safer place.

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Afghanistan–The Saga Continues

I have been writing about Afghanistan, the US longest war ever, sometimes I feel like I am wasting my time for most people seem to not give a crap what goes on in this country.

But I continue to watch and write…why? Americans are dying in this country and we should be all concerned with this simple fact.

So until it ends I will write and give my observations….looks like I shall be at an end before this damn war.

Recently the peace talks collapsed between the US and the Taleban and that brought a close to the chance of an end for our troops….our vets have let their feelings known about this war….

After 18 years of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, that waiting game continues, leaving some veterans questioning whether the conflict — and the personal risks they took for their countrymen — were worth it. President Donald Trump, who has complained about wasted “blood and treasure” in Afghanistan and has vowed to pull all U.S. troops, now seems less sure of a full withdrawal.

“Afghanistan is an unwinnable war, an empire killer,” says James, who is now running for a Democratic congressional seat in New York. “Ask Alexander the Great, ask the Russians. America is no different.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/21/afghanistan-war-veterans-want-peace-deal-question-conflict-failed-taliban-trump-talks/2357935001/

Women are always on the lips of anyone analyzing Afghanistan……as it is now they are second citizens and have little rights…..but what do these women really want?

The survey shows that life in Afghanistan in 2018 was, on many levels, worse than at any point in the past decade. Afghans felt less safe, struggled more to find work and afford the basics, and rated their lives worse than anyone else on the planet.

Underscoring their desperation in this environment, more Afghans than ever also said they would like to leave their country permanently if they could — and join the mass exodus that has taken place in the country since 2015, according to the survey.

In the midst of the deadliest year for Afghan civilians since the United Nations began documenting casualties–and as millions of Afghans also grappled with food insecurity–a record-high 41% of Afghans said they would move to another country permanently if they could.

The big question as it is every year is…what is next for Afghanistan?

The answer may lie here…..https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2019/09/19/afghanistan__whats_next_114754.html

We have an election approaching….maybe more attention should be paid to our endless wars….just a thought.

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