Collapse, contamination: Mexican scientists sound alarm at Mayan Train

Reuters
January 04, 2023

By Cassandra Garrison and Jose Luis Gonzalez

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Parts of Mexico's remote southern jungles have barely changed since the time of the ancient Maya.

In the eyes of President Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador, a railway his government is building - known as the Tren Maya - will bring modern connectivity to areas for generations deprived of significant economic benefits.

But the railway and its hasty construction also critically endanger pristine wilderness and ancient cave systems beneath the jungle floor, droves of scientists and environmental activists say.

The railway "is splitting the jungle in half," said Ismael Lara, a guide who takes tourists to a cave that shelters millions of bats near the Calakmul Biosphere Reserve. Lara fears the train, due to pass close by, will disrupt wildlife routes and attract too much development to fragile ecosystems.

Over almost a year, Reuters photographed construction at points along the full length of the planned rail track, documenting the evolution of the flagship project which Lopez Obrador has pledged to finish by the end of 2023.

The 1,470 km (910 miles) of rail are set to carry diesel and electric trains through the Yucatan Peninsula and connect Mexico's top tourist destination Cancun to the ancient Mayan temples of Chichen Itza and Palenque.

The railway has deeply divided Mexicans and the controversies surrounding the construction exemplify struggles developing countries across the globe face to balance economic progress with environmental responsibility.

FONATUR, Mexico's tourism agency charged with the project, has said the railway will lift more than a million people out of poverty and could create up to 715,000 new jobs by 2030. Construction costs are seen at up to $20 billion, Lopez Obrador said in July.

But with the project already billions of dollars over budget and behind schedule, scientists and activists say the government cut corners in its environmental risk assessments in a bid to complete it while Lopez Obrador is still in office.

In December, United Nations experts warned the railway's status as a national security project allowed the government to side-step usual environmental safeguards, and called on the government to protect the environment in line with global standards.

FONATUR defended the speed with which the studies were produced. "Years are not required, expertise, knowledge and integration capacity are required," it said in response to questions from Reuters. It declined to comment on the U.N. statement.

CENOTES

The Tren Maya route cuts a swathe up to 14 meters (46 ft) wide through some of the world's most unique ecosystems, bringing the modern world closer to vulnerable species such as jaguars - and bats.

It will pass above a system of thousands of subterranean caves carved out from the region's soft limestone bedrock by water over millions of years.

Crystalline pools known as cenotes punctuate the Yucatan peninsula, where the limestone surface has fallen in to expose the groundwater. The world's longest known underground river passes through the caves, which have also been the site of discoveries such as ancient human fossils and Maya artifacts like a canoe estimated to be more than 1,000 years old.

If built badly, the railway risks breaking through the fragile ground, including into yet-to-be explored caves below, says Emiliano Monroy-Rios, a Mexican geochemist with Northwestern University who has extensively studied the area's caves and cenotes.

Diesel, he adds, could also leak into the network of subterranean pools and rivers, the main source of fresh water on the peninsula.

With less than 20% of the subterranean system believed to have been mapped, according to several scientists interviewed by Reuters, such damage could limit important geological discoveries.

The government's environmental impact study for Section 5, the most controversial stretch, says environmental impacts are "insignificant" and have been adequately mitigated. The study says the risk of collapse was taken into account in the engineering of the tracks, and that the area will be observed through a prevention program.

Dozens of scientists disagree, writing in open letters that the assessments are riddled with problems, including outdated data, the omission of recently discovered caves and a lack of input from local hydrology experts.

"They don't want to recognize the fragility of the land," said Fernanda Lases, a Merida-based scientist with the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), calling the problems identified "highly worrisome."

The names of the 70 experts who participated in the government study were redacted from the publication.

One piece of research used by the government to support its conclusions was taken from a blog by Monroy-Rios, who says he was never contacted by the authors of the report. His research highlights the need for extensive surveillance and monitoring for any infrastructure project in the region. He says this has not happened.

"I guess their conclusions were pre-formatted," Monroy-Rios said. "They want to do it fast and that's part of the problem. There’s no time for the proper exploration.”

An expert who participated in the reports and spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the work had been done quickly.

"There was pressure, especially due to delivery times," the expert said.

The expert expressed concern the government would not properly mitigate risks experts had highlighted in the government's impact studies or dedicate the necessary resources to the train's maintenance.

FONATUR said the project would have resources and follow-up care in the future, including programs established for environmental protection.

"The Mayan Train project is of course safe, monitored and regulated by the environmental authorities as has happened up to now," the agency told Reuters.

Inecol, Mexico’s ecology institute which produced the reports, did not respond to repeated requests for comment. A spokesman for Lopez Obrador did not respond to a request for comment.

FORGOTTEN SOUTHEAST

Despite the concerns about the railway, it has the support of many in villages that for decades have felt largely forgotten in national development plans.

In Xkuncheil, a small dusty town of about 140 people on Section 2 of the train that runs through Campeche state, Luz Elba Damas Jimenez, 69, owns a small store selling soda and snacks near the tracks. Many of her neighbors, especially the young men, are working on the project, she said. She also has more customers now.

"The government is working on good things for the country... Sometimes there just isn't work in these small towns, but now they have jobs," she said. "The truth is that we have benefited."

Martha Rosa Rosado, who was offered a government payout to move when an earlier plan for the tracks was set to go through her home in Campeche's Camino Real neighborhood, echoed those sentiments.

"No government ever remembers the southeast. Everything goes to the north, and the southeast is forgotten," she said as she grilled pork outside her home of 40 years.

Some 450 kilometers (280 miles) away, in Playa del Carmen, near the beach resorts bustling with tourists, a group of volunteers - clad in helmets and head lamps - descend into the caves at weekends to monitor their condition.

Roberto Rojo, a biologist in the group, says the train will put the entire ecosystem above and below ground at risk.

"They are doing studies now that needed to be done at least four years ago," Rojo said inside one cave directly below where the train is due to pass.

Behind him, tree roots descend from the ceiling of the cave like coarse rope, stretching down to be quenched by the water pooled at his feet.

"This is our life. We are putting in risk and in danger the stability of this ecosystem," he said.

($1 = 19.2527 Mexican pesos)

(Reporting by Cassandra Garrison and Jose Luis Gonzalez; Editing by Frank Jack Daniel)

This is the disturbing truth about how much unearned wealth and power has been accrued by elites

Sonali Kolhatkar, Independent Media Institute
January 04, 2023

Wealthy People (Shutterstock)

There is a common feeling that many of us have experienced in professional or academic environments, especially when we struggle against gender or racial bias. It’s called “imposter syndrome”—the feeling that one doesn’t deserve one’s position and that others will discover this lack of competence at any moment. I felt this way as a female graduate student in a science field in the 1990s. I felt it as a young journalist of color in a white-dominated industry.

The rich and the elite among us appear to feel the opposite—that they are deserving of unearned privilege. A recent series of stories in New York Magazine headlined “The Year of the Nepo Baby” has struck a chord among those who are being outed for having benefited from insider status. Nepo babies are the children of the rich and famous, the ones who are borne of naked nepotism and whose ubiquity exposes the myth of American meritocracy. Nepo babies can be found everywhere there is power.

The New York Magazine stories have predictably generated defensive responses from nepo babies. Jamie Lee Curtis, actor and daughter of famed Hollywood stars Janet Leigh and Tony Curtis, wrote a lengthy post on Instagram defending her status. Although she admitted that she benefitted from her parents’ fame—“I have navigated 44 years with the advantages my associated and reflected fame brought me, I don’t pretend there aren’t any”—she also clapped back at critics, saying she was tired of assumptions that a nepo baby like her “would somehow have no talent whatsoever.” Curtis went further in claiming that the current focus on people like her was “designed to try to diminish and denigrate and hurt.”

Curtis is clearly a talented actor, of that there is no doubt. But, in defending her privilege from critique, she reveals just how deserving she considers herself. It is the converse of imposter syndrome—the insider syndrome.





The act of calling out nepotism doesn’t necessarily imply that nepo babies are not talented. (Nepo babies are sometimes talented—and sometimes not.) It means pointing out that some talented people are able to benefit from family connections and fame that other equally talented people are not able to.

The critique is intended to call out elitism, not “diminish,” “denigrate” or “hurt,” as Curtis accuses journalists of doing. Journalism that exposes power and its corruptive influence among elites punches up, not down. Curtis is hardly a disadvantaged person whose well-being will suffer from such coverage. Rather, stories pointing out her parental advantages could potentially help to even the playing field so that it is unacceptable in the future to consider family connections in film and TV auditions.

Recall the college admissions scandal of 2019 when it was revealed—again through good journalism—that wealthy parents like TV star Lori Loughlin used all the power and money at their disposal to bend the rules of elite school admissions for their children. Many of those children may well have deserved to get into the schools they attended. But, in the face of stiff competition, untold numbers of equally deserving youth who did not have powerful and wealthy parents willing to break rules were not admitted. Now, many of those same nepo babies’ parents who were tried and convicted are using their money and connections to win shortened prison sentences.

But Hollywood celebrities, however much they enjoy prestige and privilege, are an easy target. Nepotism is rife in all the halls of power—in the world of art, sports, and even journalism, and especially in corporate and political circles.

Billionaires (especially those in tech) may propagate the myth of the merit-based American dream, but some of the most dramatic success stories began with a parent using their wealth or connections to give their child the upper hand. Take Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, who became one of the world’s wealthiest people in his 30s. Gates’s early success was largely due to the well-documented connections that his parents flexed on his behalf to get his fledgling company off the ground. Other tech nepo babies include Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, whose father loaned him $100,000 to start his company, and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, whose parents were early investors in his online retail business to the tune of nearly $250,000.

Nepotism is part of the fabric of capitalism. For centuries, unfair advantages were available to those who have historically faced fewer hurdles, through the sheer luck of being born into a family with wealth, connections, or respect within their field. Indeed, in order to beat back the imposter syndrome, many advise channeling the unearned confidence of a mediocre straight white man.

Our economy is rigged to encourage nepotism by ensuring that the already wealthy pass their wealth—and by extension the power that their money buys—to their children. The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) pointed out how the tax code is written in order to benefit the moneyed classes. According to a CBPP report, “High-income, and especially high-wealth, filers enjoy a number of generous tax benefits that can dramatically lower their tax bills.”

Nepo babies who defend their status reinforce the notion that wealth, fame, and privilege equal brilliance, talent, and genius. The reality is that the privileged among us simply have the means to cheat. The rest of us are sold the lie that working hard will bring rewards—rather than unearned wealth.

This, in turn, encourages cheating among those who cannot rely on nepotism to gain power. One well-known example of the “fake-it-till-you-make-it” approach is Anna Sorokin, a woman whose fabricated lies about wealth and power landed her in prison and made her the focus of a Netflix show. Sorokin faked being a nepo baby—a German heiress—in order to live a lavish lifestyle. Sorokin learned that to gain the edge that moneyed elites have, one must internalize the insider syndrome.

Republican Congressman George Santos, who was recently exposed as a fraud for lying about his work experience, wealth, and even ethnicity, is another prime example. His political party has made a habit of encouraging (real or fake) nepo babies like Donald Trump, who openly admitted to tax avoidance in a debate and whose company was convicted of criminal tax fraud.

The GOP has for years led the charge to protect the interests of the wealthy while insisting on means testing and drug testing for the rest of us to receive benefits.

In truth, the emperor has no clothes. The meritocracy of American capitalism is a myth built on smoke and mirrors, on lies and false confidence. The current long-overdue conversation around nepo babies may help to further class consciousness among Americans who may see a bit more clearly now just how scantily clad the emperor really is.


Sonali Kolhatkar is an award-winning multimedia journalist. She is the founder, host, and executive producer of “Rising Up With Sonali,” a weekly television and radio show that airs on Free Speech TV and Pacifica stations. Her forthcoming book is Rising Up: The Power of Narrative in Pursuing Racial Justice (City Lights Books, 2023). She is a writing fellow for the Economy for All project at the Independent Media Institute and the racial justice and civil liberties editor at Yes! Magazine. She serves as the co-director of the nonprofit solidarity organization the Afghan Women’s Mission and is a co-author of Bleeding Afghanistan. She also sits on the board of directors of Justice Action Center, an immigrant rights organization.


This article was produced by Economy for All, a project of the Independent Media Institute.

Reducing nitrogen use key to human and planetary health: study

Agence France-Presse
January 04, 2023

Chemical fertilizer (Photo: iStock) THE OTHER BLUE PILL

Better management of nitrogen-rich fertilizers through alternating crops, optimizing use and other measures can yield huge environmental and health benefits, but must boost food production at the same time, researchers warned Wednesday.

Reducing nitrogen pollution from global croplands is a "grand challenge," the group of international researchers said in a study in Nature outlining a dozen urgently-needed reforms.

The intensive use of chemical fertilizers helped fuel the four-fold expansion of the human population over the last century, and will be crucial for feeding 10 billion people by 2050.

But the bumper crops of what was once called the Green Revolution have come at a terrible cost.

Today, more than half the nitrogen in fertilizers seeps into the air and water, leading to deadly pollution, soil acidification, climate change, ozone depletion and biodiversity loss.

"Given the multiple health, climate and environmental impacts of reactive nitrogen, it has to be reduced in all the mediums such as air and water," lead author Baojing Gu, a professor at Zhejiang University, told AFP.

The benefits of doing so far outstrip the costs, he added.

- Nitrogen cycle -

The world is naturally awash in nitrogen, which is critical for the survival of all life on Earth, especially plants.

Nearly 80 percent of Earth's atmosphere is nitrogen, albeit in a gaseous form (N2) of little direct use to most organisms.

It is made available to plants when microbes that live within plants or soils turn it into ammonia through biological nitrogen fixation.

This process funnels some 200 million tonnes of nitrogen into the soil and oceans every year.

Various forms of the element are eventually transformed and find their way back into the atmosphere with the help of bacteria, especially in wetlands, and after leaching into the oceans or being burned.


But this natural "nitrogen cycle" has been massively imbalanced by the use of some 120 million tonnes of chemical fertilizer each year, according to the study.

Less than half of that input is actually absorbed by plants, with the rest seeping into the environment and causing a constellation of problems.

Researchers led by Gu analyzed over 1,500 field observations from croplands around the world and identified 11 key measures to decrease nitrogen losses while still enhancing crop yields.

One such method is crop rotation where a variety of crops are planted on the same plot of land, optimizing the flow of nutrients in the soil.
Benefits outweigh costs

The benefits of slashing agricultural nitrogen pollution are some 25 times higher than the implementation costs of about $34 billion, they found.

For China and India -– whose extensive and intensive use of fertilizer make them the world's top nitrogen polluters –- that cost would be about $5 and $3 billion, respectively.

Nearly half-a-trillion dollars in avoided costs are spread across reduced premature deaths from air pollution, less damage to ecosystem services and increased crop yields.

But the proposed measure could have a negative impact on the fight against climate change.

"Basically, the impact of nitrogen management on climate change is neutral, or slightly damages the climate due to the reduction of carbon sequestration in ecosystems," Gu told AFP.

Even with outsized benefits, advanced nitrogen management has up-front costs that would be beyond the reach of many smallholder farmers without the backing of strong government policies.

A nitrogen-credit-system, for example, could subsidize farmers who adopt advanced nitrogen management techniques, drawing from the economic benefits of reduced nitrogen pollution and increased food supply.


To initiate this virtuous circle, a financial budget could be secured by taxing food consumers or enterprises that use farming for commercial food production, or by taxing polluting activities and products.

© 2023 AFP

Top military general collected 'boatloads' of evidence before and during Jan. 6 attacks: report

Rodric Hurdle-Bradford
January 04, 2023

MSNBC

While the Republican party continues to downplay the Jan. 6 attack at the Capitol, in transcripts from his interview with the Jan. 6 Committee, Joint Chiefs Chair General Mark Milley states that he took the attacks seriously and warned others to do the same.

According to Politico, during his interview with the committee Milley told them he collected "boatloads" of information prior and during the Jan. 6 attacks because he knew they would become valuable evidence in the future. Milley even identified particular documents as classified to ensure only select individuals would be able to review the evidence.

The transcript of the interview is 300 pages, as Milley goes into deep details on how he took the online threats seriously compared to other colleagues. According to his interview, Milley had several discussions about the preparedness for the Jan. 6 "event" with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Vice President Mike Pence's national security adviser, retired Lieutenant General Keith Kellogg.

A detailed exercise to practice for potential violence on Jan. 6 was held at Milley's request, the exercise included turning a gym into a model of Washington, D.C. to review logistical preparedness. The practice was taped by the Secret Service.

Milley also explained that in his opinion the Jan. 6 attacks were an official attack on the country's Constitution. During the interview he gave the most credit to then-Deputy Defense Secretary David Norquist. According to the Milley's interview, Nordquist accurately predicted that the largest threat on Jan. 6 would come from "a direct assault on the Capitol."

Milley described Norquist's prediction as "clairvoyant" in retrospect.

On the contrary, Milley said that then-national security advisor Robert O' Brien thought the biggest threats were from antifa and Black Lives Matter members directly assaulting pro-Trump protesters.

In his interview, Milley also acknowledged a verbal confrontation with Kash Patel, a member of former President Donald Trump's staff who was elevated to chief-of-staff to the acting defense secretary in 2016. Milley reiterated in the interview that Patel and several other members of Trump's staff were clearly not prepared for the events of Jan. 6.

Peruvians clamor anew for president's removal
Agence France-Presse
January 04, 2023

Former Peruvian President Pedro Castillo, dressed in typical Andean attire, speaks during a massive rally calling for political and economic stability in Juliaca, Puno region, Peru in December 2021 

Carlos MAMANI AFP/File

After a fortnight-long break, Peruvians took to the streets again on Wednesday, blocking roads countrywide to demand the resignation of President Dina Boluarte, who took over from her ousted predecessor in December.

Protesters used stones and burning tires to barricade main routes in the southern regions of Puno, Cusco, Apurimac and Arequipa, as well as Junin in the center, chanting for Boluarte to leave.

She took over on December 7 as the South American country's first woman president following the impeachment and arrest of Pedro Castillo after he tried to dissolve Congress and rule by decree.

Castillo, a leftist former rural school teacher and union leader, faced vehement opposition from Congress during his 18 months in office, and had been the subject of numerous criminal investigations into allegations of widespread graft.

His ouster sparked nationwide protests, with Peru's rights ombudsman reporting 22 people killed in clashes and more than 600 injured.

Boluarte's government declared a 30-day nationwide state of emergency, while she attempted to calm the uproar by seeking to bring forward elections.

The demonstrations died down over the holiday period, but by Wednesday the protesters had remobilized.
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"There are ten blockades, mainly around Puno," government spokesman Alberto Otarola told reporters in Lima, where a crisis center was erected.

In Arequipa, police sought to break up hundreds of protesters using tear gas.

Dozens also gathered in the capital, Lima.

"The airports are functioning normally," said Otarola.

As a precaution, train services between the town of Cusco and the Inca citadel of Machu Picchu were suspended indefinitely Tuesday and some 2,000 tourists escorted from the heritage site.

In the first wave of protests, thousands of tourists found themselves stranded at Machu Picchu and Cusco for days due to road, railway and airport blockades.

Public buildings and airports expecting protests were being guarded by police and soldiers deployed under the state of emergency.

From Lima, Boluarte called Wednesday for an end to the protests she blamed for "delays, pain, economic losses" and appealed instead for "peace, calm, unity to promote development of the homeland."

Protest leader Milan Knezvich, in the mountainous Apurimac region, vowed the struggle will continue.


"No one will want to talk to her. As long as Mrs Dina Boluarte does not resign, this will continue," he told Exitosa radio.

The new government has agreed to bring forward elections set for 2026 to April next year, but many want voting to happen even sooner.

On Tuesday, marches were held in various parts of Peru against the planned restart of the anti-Boluarte protests.


© 2023 AFP

‘Monday Night Football’ telecast in which Hamlin collapsed was most watched in ESPN’s history

By Jennifer Korn and Oliver Darcy, CNN
Wed January 4, 2023

New York CNN —

The NFL showdown between the Cincinnati Bengals and Buffalo Bills, which was postponed in the first quarter after Bills safety Damar Hamlin suffered a cardiac arrest and collapsed on the field, was the most-watched “Monday Night Football” telecast in ESPN history, averaging 23.8 million viewers, according to preliminary ratings.

Nielsen said Wednesday that the broadcast had an average of 23,788,000 viewers across ABC, ESPN and ESPN2 from approximately 8:30 pm to 10:09 pm. The massive audience makes it the most-watched “Monday Night Football” broadcast since the NFL moved the series to ESPN in 2006, surpassing the previous record of 21.8 million viewers for a Packers-Vikings game in 2009.

Monday’s high-profile game, however, was suspended when Hamlin collapsed in the first quarter just moments after an open field tackle of Bengals wide receiver Tee Higgins. Hamlin had his heartbeat restored on the field and is currently in critical condition at a Cincinnati hospital.

During game play, ESPN averaged 21.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings. That audience then grew to 23.9 million viewers between 9 p.m. to 10:15 p.m. when ESPN aired news coverage of Hamlin’s collapse.

An ESPN spokesperson told CNN on Wednesday that, given the special circumstances around Monday’s game, it was not clear whether the viewership numbers would be factored into the season average or used for historical purposes.

Following Hamlin’s injury, ESPN quickly cut to a commercial break and continued the broadcast for more than an hour, reporting on Hamlin’s injury as it awaited word from the NFL on if the game would resume.

While ESPN has received praise for its calm and measured reporting that avoided speculation on the cause of Hamlin’s horrifying injury, the network notably chose not to interview medical professionals about what millions of viewers had witnessed.

Veteran “SportsCenter” anchor Scott Van Pelt, who anchored the program following the game, told CNN a decision was made to focus strictly on the facts of what had occurred.

“My personal preference was that I didn’t want to bring in a physician to speculate,” Van Pelt said. “I totally see the other side, where a well-trained eye of a physician might recognize something that might totally make sense. But I just didn’t want to be speculating.”

Before Hamlin’s devastating injury, the game was expected to be among the most-viewed Monday Night Football games in ESPN’s history. The Bills (12-3) faced off against the Bengals (11-4), the defending AFC champions, with both teams hoping to secure the number one seed in the division.

The NFL has not yet announced when the teams will continue the postponed game.

'Meltdown mode': Supercut shows Fox News in full-blown despair over McCarthy debacle

Brad Reed
January 04, 2023

Sean Hannity speaking at the 2015 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in National Harbor, Maryland. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)

Although Fox News has a reputation for spinning news stories in favor of the Republican Party, it seems the network has been unable to put a rosy gloss on the GOP's failure to nominate a Speaker of the House of Representatives for two consecutive days.

MSNBC's Ari Melber on Wednesday played a supercut of Fox News coverage of the House GOP's failed Speaker votes over the past two days, and most of the hosts did not pull any punches about how bad it looks for them.

"These twenty people are making Republicans look like idiots," said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

"House Republicans now are on the verge of becoming a total clown show," said host Sean Hannity.

"An ordinary American is sitting at home and saying, 'What the heck is wrong with these people?'" said Jeanine Pirro.

"Disaster for the Republicans," declared "Fox & Friends" host Steve Doocy. "Just a simple disaster!"

Melber, who described the reaction as being in "meltdown mode," said he was struck by how Fox News hosts made almost no effort to spin the leadership fight as good news.

Watch the video below or at this link.

McConnell holds joint infrastructure event with Biden in Kentucky, infuriating MAGA Republicans


Charles Jay
Community
Wednesday January 04, 2023 · 6

U.S. President Joe Biden (R) shakes hands with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell during an event about the bipartisan infrastructure law in front of the Clay Wade Bailey Bridge in Covington, Kentucky, on Jan. 4, 2023.


So where was Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell on Wednesday when the House GOP clown caucus failed once again to get its act together to elect a speaker? In a move sure to infuriate Republican extremists, McConnell made a rare joint appearance with President Joe Biden in Covington, Kentucky, to tout a major project funded by the $1.2 trillion bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act signed into law in November 2021.

The event offered a sharp contrast to the chaos engulfing the House with the new narrow GOP majority unable to elect a speaker on its second day in control.

Biden began his remarks by thanking McConnell for providing the votes needed to get the infrastructure bill passed according to a transcript of the speeches.

"I wanted to start off the New Year at this historic project with the bi-partisan agreement because I believe it sends an important message to the entire country," Biden said. "We can work together. We can get things done. We can move the nation forward. If we drop our egos and focus on what is needed for the country."

In his remarks, McConnell said, “Even while we have big differences on other things .. this bridge, I think, symbolizes coming together ... If you look at the political alignment of everyone involved, it’s the government is working together to solve a major problem at a time when the country needs to see examples like this, of coming together and getting an outcome … I’m proud of what we’ve been able to accomplish.”

McConnell had fully expected to take over as Senate majority leader on Tuesday when the new Congress convened. But instead, Democrats ended up increasing their Senate majority by one seat in the midterms.

Unlike his spineless House counterpart Kevin McCarthy, McConnell may realize it's beneficial for party leaders to stand up to rather than appease extremist MAGA Republicans. He has blamed Trump for putting up poor quality candidates like Herschel Walker in Georgia and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania who lost potentially winnable races that left him as minority leader.

RELATED STORY: McConnell launches mad hunt for whoever whiffed Trump's impeachment then backed his loser candidates

He doesn’t want that to happen again in 2024 when the Senate map favors Republicans. Democrats must defend three seats in states won by Trump—in Ohio (Sherrod Brown), Montana (Jon Tester), and West Virginia (Joe Manchin) as well as in purple states, including Arizona (Kyrsten Sinema, now an independent).

Additionally, Trump has insulted McConnell in posts on his Truth Social platform as an “Old Crow” RINO (Republican In Name Only) and leveled ethnic slurs at his wife, Trump’s former Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao. And Trump lashed out at McConnell and Chao again on Tuesday on his Truth Social platform in the wake of McCarthy’s failure to win the speakership. Trump is backing McCarthy’s bid for speaker.

“There is so much unnecessary turmoil in the Republican Party,” Trump said, adding that the disorder is due in large part to “Old Broken Crow” McConnell, his wife Chao “who is a sellout to China,” and their “RINO” allies. They “make it difficult for everyone else by constantly capitulating to Hopeless Joe Biden and the Democrats.”

Of course, McConnell is responsible for much of what ails the nation, including packing the judiciary with Federalist Society conservatives, including three hard-line Supreme Court justices. But McConnell has begun to take a stand against MAGA Republican extremists, even if his actions are too little, too late after he failed to vote against Trump in the 2021 Senate impeachment trial. McConnell incurred the wrath of Trump when he got 18 other Senate Republicans to join him in supporting the infrastructure bill in 2021. In the House, McCarthy opposed the bill, while only 13 Republicans supported it.

RELATED STORY: There are no ‘good’ Republicans, and the sooner that is universally acknowledged the better

He further infuriated MAGA Republicans when he helped the Senate pass the $1.7 trillion omnibus spending bill in December, including $45 billion in emergency aid to Ukraine, to fund the government in fiscal year 2023.

RELATED STORY: Santos scandal just the beginning of bind that promises to haunt Republicans straight into 2024

On Wednesday, Biden and McConnell appeared together to tout the $1.63 billion in federal grants that Kentucky and Ohio will receive to help repair the overloaded Brent Spence Bridge and build a new span adjacent to it. The bridge over the Ohio River connects Cincinnati and Covington, and is a heavily used freight route connecting the Midwest and the South.

Other speakers at the event included two Republicans, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine and former Ohio Sen. Rob Portman, as well as two Democrats, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, who is up for reelection in 2023, and Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown.

Republican Sens. Rand Paul of Kentucky and J.D. Vance of Ohio did not attend the event.

Biden has accomplished much more than expected with Democrats narrowly in control of Congress during his first two years in office. But after the November midterms, Republicans gained a narrow House majority and plan to try to stall Biden’s agenda and launch investigations into his family and Cabinet members.

Conservative commentators were irate about the joint appearance. Mark Levin called McConnell a “total fraud” on Twitter. Laura Ingraham tweeted, “Behold the uniparty!”

On Tuesday, McConnell broke the record for longest-serving Senate party leader whether in the majority or the minority, Politico reported. The record had been held by Democratic Sen. Mike Mansfield of Montana, who served as majority leader for 16 years.

In his floor remarks to open the new Congress, McConnell actually paid tribute to Mansfield: “Mansfield was a canny strategist who knew how to rally his conference. He knew when to go to battle, and when to coordinate with his counterpart Everett Dirksen,” McConnell said. “In short, he knew how to work the Senate.”

In November, McConnell beat back a leadership challenge. Ten senators voted for Sen. Rick Scott of Florida instead of McConnell.

Vice President Kamala Harris and other senior Biden administration officials will be blanketing the country this week to promote the president’s economic plan. On Wednesday, Harris will be in Chicago and Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg will visit New London, Connecticut. On Thursday, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will join White House Infrastructure Coordinator Mitch Landrieu in San Francisco, California.

Those visits are related to the following infrastructure projects funded under the 2021 bill: four moveable bridges crossing the Calumet River in Chicago; the Gold Star Memorial Bridge in New London, Connecticut; and the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

Here is a video of Biden’s visit to Covington, including the speeches by Biden, McConnell and others. McConnell’s speech begins at the 29-minute mark and Biden’s at the 35-minute mark.

(Updates throughout with details from the event in Covington, Kentucky.)

A short history of America and the world

POSTED ONJANUARY 4, 2023 BY GARY LINDORFF

Between the turn of the screw
And the twist of the knife
Between the the Twist of the twister
And Dylan’s simple twist of fate

There sometimes arise opportunities
To own the life that was given us by our mothers
To make headway against
The semi generated wind of the highway of the one-way life.

Against the inherited trauma of my grandfathers and my father
Who, fresh out of their respective world wars,
Winged being fathers with broken wings, I actually
Thought the world would be kind to an escaped chicken!

But age brought second thoughts and I flew back into the coop
In the shadow of the mined-out mountain
On the edge of Hamburger Forest where the medicines
Were all bleeding into the fishy sea

Patrolledby by giant nuclear stealth subs
With nothing better to do than stalk each other.
And while millions went starving under a full eclipse of the moon
Nations states played steal the flag and king of the hill.

But after all and in the time remaining
You’d think that someone would stop
(Besides me) for a turtle
Who is getting ready to cross the express way.

But we can’t stop can we
Because of all the reasons we just can’t stop
Eating sugar making war battling shadows
And building all those rockets to the moon

Or to blow each other away that vibrate our brains to jello
As they crawl skyward gaining momentum
Against the weight of all the guilt and heartaches of civilization.
And to think that they once called this Turtle Island.

U$A
Steady job openings, low layoffs raise doubts about recession fears

BY SYLVAN LANE -

THE HILL

 01/04/23 

WASHINGTON, DC – OCTOBER 07: A “Now Hiring” sign is displayed on a storefront in Adams Morgan Neighborhood on October 07, 2022 in Washington, DC. The Labor Department announced that in the month of September the U.S. added 263,000 jobs as the unemployment rate fell to 3.5%

 (Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

New federal data showing steady demand for workers and historically low levels of layoffs raised doubts Wednesday about how close the U.S. economy could be to a recession.

The November Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS), released Wednesday by the Labor Department, showed the job market holding steady despite high interest rates meant to weaken the economy.

Many economists still believe the U.S. will slip into a recession at some point this year, especially if the Federal Reserve follows through on more planned interest rate hikes. The technology sector, finance and other industries hit hard by rising rates are also expected to see higher layoffs.

But the JOLTS report is the latest sign that the economy on the whole will be harder to weaken than some experts expected.

“A labor market this strong means an imminent recession is highly improbable. This year will pose many challenges for the US economy, but the labor market looks set to enter with considerable strength,” said Nick Bunker, head of economic research at Indeed Hiring Lab, in a Wednesday analysis.

Job openings remained near record high, layoffs remained below pre-pandemic totals and the percentage of workers who quit their current jobs — a sign of confidence in their ability to get a new one — held steady.

“November was the 21st straight month that the layoffs rate was below its all-time low prior to 2020. Some sectors are clearly going through a painful period, but layoffs and discharges remain subdued in the aggregate,” Bunker said.

The Fed is attempting to bring inflation down by making fewer businesses and households afford goods and services at current prices. By raising interest rates, the Fed makes it harder for businesses to afford hiring workers and raising wages. The weaker job market often forces US households to cut back on their spending, which could push businesses to lower their prices.

The Fed tried to weaken the job market in 2022 by spiking interest rates at a record-breaking pace, boosting its baseline range from near-zero in March to a midpoint of 4.25 percent in December. But the U.S. still managed to add nearly 400,000 each month through November last year and keep the jobless rate near a pre-pandemic low of 3.5 percent.

Near-record numbers of open jobs and a persistent labor shortage have forced businesses to boost wages to attract candidates and prices to compensate for that higher pay. The U.S. had 10.5 million open jobs for 6 million unemployed Americans in November, according to Labor Department data.

That dynamic, Fed officials say, is one of the main forces keeping inflation high.

“We have too many jobs and too few workers, so that means that wage inflation is going to be far from a sustainable average, and we’re going to have that passing through to prices. That’s what we’re working on right now,” said Mary Daly, president of the Federal Reserve of San Francisco, at an event last month hosted by the American Enterprise Institute.On The Money — Jobs stay strong amid recession fears Energy & Environment — Republicans prepare to take on oil reserve releases

The December jobs report set to be released Friday will give the Fed and policymakers a clearer picture of their impact on the job market.

While the job market has been resilient amid forces meant to bring it down, another surprisingly strong batch of jobs data could convince the Fed to push interest rates even higher. That could boost the chances of a recession as the economy feels the brunt of steeper borrowing costs.

“Workers overwhelmingly quit their old jobs to take new ones, which is a critical fuel for wage growth. Wage growth may have moderated recently, but that slowdown is unlikely to continue if quitting remains high,” Bunker said.