The Post-Partisan Emporium

FULL CIRCLE! Truckers tired of taking blame for congestion crisis at California ports California port truckers say there’s not a driver shortage — just look at the lines As Miguel Silva surveyed his truck yard just outside the Port of Oakland last week, he pointed to shipping containers filled with corn and soybean seed bound for impoverished nations in Africa and elsewhere around the globe. Silva said his customers’ genetically modified seed, which can’t be reused because it’s engineered in a lab, should have been loaded on a cargo ship weeks ago to arrive in time for the planting season. However, appointment times can be scarce. The terminal operators’ push toward automation, which Silva and other trucking company owners say isn’t always reliable, requires drivers to check for appointment times day and night and on weekends to see if more time slots open up.  Miguel Silva, president of Intermodal Logistics “I have customers calling me daily, telling me to...

The Italian Higher Institute of Health has drastically reduced the country’s official COVID death toll number by over 97 per cent after changing the definition of a fatality to someone who died from COVID rather than with COVID. Italian newspaper Il Tempo reports that the Institute has revised downward the number of people who have died from COVID rather than with COVID from 130,000 to under 4,000. “Yes, you read that right. Turns out 97.1% of deaths hitherto attributed to Covid were not due directly to Covid,” writes Toby Young. Of the of the 130,468 deaths registered as official COVID deaths since the start of the pandemic, only 3,783 are directly attributable to the virus alone .* “All the other Italians who lost their lives had from between one and five pre-existing diseases. Of those aged over 67 who died, 7% had more than three co-morbidities, and 18% at least two,” writes Young. “According to the Institute, 65.8% of Italians who died after being infected with C...

40,000 containers in LA and 18,900 in Long Beach have been sitting for 9-plus days The penalties on 58,900 containers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach are officially racking up charges. These containers were part of the 60,000 containers the ports alerted the ocean carriers last Monday to move or face a daily $100 penalty per container, increasing in $100 increments per day. American Shipper reached out to both ports for updates on the removal of the “lingering” containers. According to Port of Los Angeles Executive Director Gene Seroka, there are a total of 84,000 total imports on docks waiting to be transported, a total that is 3,000 higher than a week ago. Of those 84,000, a whopping 40,000 of those containers have been at the Port of LA for nine-plus days, which is considered lingering. Containers are considered long-dwelling if the boxes are waiting over nine days for truck, six days for rail. “This is the wrong direction,” said Seroka. The Port of Long...

Drug clearinghouse, retirements, infrastructure among factors affecting driver availability   John Gallagher, Washington Correspondent   Tuesday, November 2, 2021 The trucking industry is desperate to get drivers into seats at a time when the supply chain needs them most, but a variety of factors is stalling the industry’s ability to gain traction. Chief among those factors is the Drug and Alcohol Clearinghouse . Since January 2020 when the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration began recording substance abuse violations in the clearinghouse database, over 91,000 drivers have been taken off the road for testing positive or refusing to take a test. That number is expected to hit 100,000 before the end of the year. While this is considered proof that the clearinghouse is doing its job — keeping unsafe drivers off the road — it is also increasing pressure on carriers trying to deal with unprecedented freight demand. “We’ve lost, at least temp...

The status quo response would be amusing if the consequences weren't so dire. Rather than stare at empty shelves, you have two options for distraction: you can don a virtual-reality headset and cavort with dolphins in the metaverse, or you can trade various forms of phantom wealth that always go up (happy happy!) because the Fed . Neither distraction actually solves any real-world problems, a reality we can call the Revenge of the Real World We've entered a peculiar phase in American history in which illusions of wealth and control are the favored distractions from the unraveling of the real world economy and social order. Printing trillions of currency units can't restore the global supply chain or social cohesion, Rather, jacking phantom wealth to the moon is only accelerating the collapse of the social order and the economy even as it accomplishes absolutely nothing in terms of solving real-world problems. Let's start with the core economic realities ...

The latest updates on the “new normal” – chronicling the lies, distortions, and abuses by the ruling class. “First they came for the grandmas, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a grandma. Then they came for the marines, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a marine. Then they came for the kindergartners, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a kindergartner. Then they came for me.” The undisputed #1 global leader in medical rape, Warlord Fauci — who carries on the legacy of Genghis Khan in the modern age — finally got the highly-anticipated green light from a captured FDA panel to go after the kindergartners: “The benefits of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine for children ages 5 to 11 outweigh its risks, according to an independent panel of vaccine experts* that advises the FDA.” *”Independent panel of vaccine experts” = propaganda-speak for a consortium of government-funded academics, industry insiders, and Big Pharma-funded researchers with a vested interest ...