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“The man who reads nothing at all is better educated than the man who reads nothing but newspapers.”

-- Thomas Jefferson

News and Opinion

Worth reading in full. Mother Jones magazine has degraded into a rag unworthy of the name it bears. Kevin Drum needs to find another profession. Even yuppie moron David Brooks displays more compassion for those struggling with the ill-effects of capitalism than Drum does.

Scholars Say Mother Jones Distorted Their Research for Anti-Homeless Article

An article published on July 14 by Mother Jones produced widespread anger. The piece, written by Kevin Drum, began by discussing newly published research from two political science professors on public perceptions of homeless people. Drum addressed the seemingly contradictory findings that people generally support aid to the homeless but also favor banning panhandling and sleeping in public.

Drum’s controversial passage came when he attempted to reconcile these views with this reasoning (emphasis in original):

The researchers solved their conundrum by suggesting that most people are disgusted by the homeless. No kidding. About half the homeless suffer from a mental illness and a third abuse either alcohol or drugs. You’d be crazy not to have a reflexive disgust of a population like that. Is that really so hard to get?

Drum hastened to say that “none of this means we can’t or shouldn’t have empathy for the homeless,” adding, “of course we should, if we want to call ourselves decent human beings.” But he again reiterated his view that disgust for homeless people is natural and sane: “There’s just no need to deny that these reflexes are both innate and perfectly understandable.” ...

The profound problems with Drum’s argument are self-evident. ... But perhaps the most serious problem is one raised by the researchers on whom the Mother Jones article purports to rely. In an email to me, which I promptly posted on Twitter, one those researchers — professor Spencer Piston of Boston University — objected that the Mother Jones article profoundly misrepresented their research:

Especially infuriating to me is that he misinterpreted our scholarship to do so. We argue that media coverage of homeless people often portrays them as unclean or diseased, which activates disgust among the general public. But he cites our research as proof that homeless people are inherently disgusting — which perpetuates the very problem in journalism our research was trying to solve.

Lindsey Graham: Trump is prepared to strike North Korea

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., said Tuesday that President Trump has indicated to him that the administration is prepared to strike North Korea to prevent an attack against the U.S.

"There is a military option to destroy North Korea's program and North Korea itself," Graham said on NBC about potential plans to respond to North Korea's increasingly offensive posture. "If there's going to be a war to stop him [Kim Jong Un], it will be over there. If thousands die, they're going to die over there, they're not going to die here and he's [Trump] told me that to my face."

"And that may be provocative, but not really. When you're president of the United States, where does your allegiance lie? To the people of the United States. This man, Kim Jong Un, is threatening America with a nuclear tip missile. President Trump doesn't want a war, the Chinese can stop this, but to China, South Korea, and Japan, Donald Trump is not going to allow this missile," Graham added.

U.S. tests ballistic missile as tensions with North Korea heat up

The U.S. announced it had successfully tested an unarmed intercontinental ballistic missile Wednesday, as hostilities with North Korea continue. The news came after several senior U.S. officials warned Pyongyang that all options were on the table Tuesday, with one Republican senator claiming a military response was “inevitable.”

FULL STORY: The U.S. Air Force launched the ICBM at 2:10 a.m. PT from an air base about 130 miles northwest of L.A. https://t.co/eDfDwb5n9q

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 2, 2017

The Air Force said the test was not a direct response to North Korea’s recent missile test, but was designed to show “that the United States’ nuclear enterprise is safe, secure, effective and ready to be able to deter, detect and defend against attacks on the United States and its allies.”

How US Policy Helps Al Qaeda in Yemen

In a world of bad actors, one of the “baddest” of all is the Yemen-based al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which the CIA once branded “the most dangerous regional node in the global jihad.” It masterminded the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000; nearly blew up a U.S. passenger jet flying into Detroit on Christmas Day, 2009; brought down a UPS cargo plane in 2010; and sponsored the 2015 attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris, killing 11 and wounding another 11. All of which raises an embarrassing question: Why is the United States supporting AQAP’s main ally in Yemen, Saudi Arabia?

The respected news publication Middle East Eye reports that Abdulmajid al-Zindani, a Yemeni cleric, “veteran al-Qaeda supporter,” and “former spiritual adviser to Osama bin Laden,” has been operating freely in Saudi Arabia, even posting YouTube videos lauding the Saudi war in his home country. Apparently no one in Riyadh cares that he’s been on the U.S. Treasury’s Specially Designated Global Terrorist List since 2004, identified as a recruiter for terrorist training camps and a key purchaser of weapons for al-Qaeda and other extremist groups. Indeed, Zindani “has been warmly received by senior clerics and officials,” including one adviser to the Royal Court, according to Middle East Eye. ...

In a weird twist, typical of the war’s endlessly shifting alliances, AQAP has also joined pro-Saudi forces in bloody offensives to retake the southern city of Taiz from Houthi rebels. “We fight along all Muslims in Yemen, together with different Islamic groups,” against the Houthis, said Qasim al-Rimi, the senior military commander of AQAP, this spring. Although the United States put a $5 million price on al-Rimi’s head, Associated Press reported that his forces “regularly receive funds and weapons from the U.S.-backed Saudi led coalition.” ...

No wonder the International Crisis Group recently reported that “The Yemeni branch of al-Qaeda is stronger than it has ever been,” and that AQAP “is thriving in an environment of state collapse, growing sectarianism, shifting alliances, security vacuums and a burgeoning war economy.” AQAP, it added, has “emerged arguably as the biggest winners of the failed political transition and civil war that followed.”

Yemen: more than one million children at risk of cholera

More than one million malnourished children aged under five in Yemen are living in areas with high levels of cholera, the charity Save The Children warned on Wednesday as it began sending more health experts to the worst hit areas. The scaling up in response came after latest figures show that a deadly cholera epidemic that started in April 2015 has infected more than 425,000 people and killed almost 1,900.

Save the Children said children under the age of 15 are now accounting for about 44 percent of new cases and 32 percent of fatalities in Yemen where a devastating civil war and economic collapse has left millions on the brink of starvation.

“The tragedy is both malnutrition and cholera are easily treatable if you have access to basic healthcare,” said Tamer Kirolos, Save the Children’s Country Director for Yemen. “But hospitals and clinics have been destroyed, government health workers haven’t been paid for almost a year, and the delivery of vital aid is being obstructed.“

US plan to improve Afghan intelligence operations branded a $457m failure

A $457m (£345m) Pentagon-funded programme to develop the intelligence capacity of Afghan defence and security forces has failed to meet its aims, according to a US watchdog. The claim comes weeks after a scathing report found the US government had wasted $28m on Afghan uniforms with “forest” camouflaged patterns rather than the desert pattern better suited to 98% of the country’s terrain.

The report, by the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (Sigar) said there was “no indication of improvement in overall intelligence operations” as a result of five contracts for training and mentoring, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, run by Legacy Afghanistan R&D and Afghanistan Source Operations Management (Asom). Only 47% of intelligence sites are ready to transfer to the Afghan government.

The watchdog’s audit of training and mentoring contracts awarded to the Afghanistan national defence and security forces (ANDSF) between 2010 and 2013 said it was “almost impossible” to gauge the US government’s return on investment. This was due to a lack of performance metrics to track progress, said the report. Sigar found that neither Imperatis, the contractor, nor New Century Consulting, the subcontractor operating the programme, retained complete training records.

The watchdog also noted that Imperatis billed, on average, more than $1.8m a month under the Legacy contract for the period from March to December 2011, even though the training courses were cancelled in February 2011.

Donald Trump signs bill imposing sanctions against Russia

Donald Trump on Wednesday signed a bill imposing new sanctions on Russia, after pressure from Congress forced him to undercut his own attempts to build a warmer relationship with Moscow.

The legislation is aimed at punishing Russia for interfering in the 2016 presidential election and for its military aggression in Ukraine and Syria, where the Kremlin has backed the president, Bashar al-Assad. The bill also imposes financial sanctions against Iran and North Korea.

Rex Tillerson: risk of 'open conflict' if US-China relations continue to grate

Relations between the United States and China have reached “a pivot point”, Rex Tillerson has warned, calling for efforts to avoid “open conflict” between the world’s two largest economies.

At a rare state department briefing held amid reports that Donald Trump was preparing to order a wide-ranging investigation into Chinese trade practices, the US secretary of state told reporters that ties were at a crossroads following “a long period of no conflict” that had lasted more than four decades.

Experts believe Trump had hoped to strike “grand bargain” with Xi Jinping by which he would have given the Chinese president a pass on issues such as trade or its controversial South China Sea island-building campaign in exchange for cooperation on North Korea. But after initially positive signs, such as a two-day summit at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate, the relationship appears to be souring.

Tillerson said the question now was: “How should we define this relationship [with China] and how do we ensure that economic prosperity to the benefit of both countries and the world can continue, and that where we have differences – because we will have differences, we do have differences – that we will deal with those differences in a way that does not lead to open conflict?

Former Netanyahu chief of staff 'in negotiations to become state witness'

Benjamin Netanyahu’s former chief of staff is reportedly in negotiations to become a state witness – which would make him the second prominent figure to do so – in a series of police investigations into the Israeli prime minister and his inner circle.

According to widespread reports in the Hebrew media, Ari Harow, for years one of Netanyahu’s closest political associates, is in talks with police to give evidence, allegedly in exchange for a lesser sentence over accusations of wrongdoing in the sale of his consulting company.

Last week Mickey Ganor, a businessman and key player in an allegedly corrupt deal to buy submarines from Germany, struck a deal with authorities to become a state witness.

Netanyahu has strenuously denied wrongdoing in relation to any of the cases, and is not a suspect in the submarine case. However, a series of high-profile investigations have in recent months inched ever nearer to his closest circles, touching on everything from allegations of corruption in arms purchases, to the prime minister’s attempts to control the Israeli media, and on gifts to him and his family from wealthy benefactors. ...

Three investigations into Netanyahu and his close circle – known as cases 1000, 2000 and 3000 – have gripped the Israeli public, prompting almost weekly revelations in domestic media and regular demonstrations outside the home of the country’s attorney general, who is accused of acting slowly in his handling of the cases.

Brazil's president appears safe in vote despite opposition and low rating

Brazil’s president, Michel Temer, appeared to have the upper hand in a key vote by the lower chamber of congress on whether to suspend him and put him on trial over an alleged bribery scheme to line his pockets.

Despite a 5% approval rating in opinion polls and myriad calls for him to resign the last few months, Temer has been able to maintain most of his governing coalition in the chamber of deputies, where he was the presiding officer for many years. ...

The numbers appeared to be on Temer’s side. To suspend the president, two-thirds of the 513 members, or 342, would have to vote against him. The government said it had at least 50 more supporters than necessary for Temer to survive.

The speaker of the house, Rodrigo Maia, a Temer ally, has repeatedly said the government has the votes to win.

The Yoda of capitalism sees a looming menace

Much like Yoda is former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan. Old he is, at 91. ...

Great danger he senses in a bond bubble overdue to burst.

“The real problem is that when the bond-market bubble collapses, long-term interest rates will rise,” Greenspan told Bloomberg. “We are moving into a different phase of the economy — to a stagflation not seen since the 1970s.” ...

When bond prices are elevated, like now, yields tend to be low. But at times when prices fall sharply, borrowing costs go up. In really extreme cases, like the historic crisis of 2008, the bond market can just freeze up entirely as participants either become too afraid to lend to each other at all or demand very high yields to cover their risk.

During the dark times of the ’70s that Greenspan alluded to in his Bloomberg interview, inflation was high, so the Fed raised its official interest-rate target sharply, to a peak of 20 percent in 1981. This was the path to higher borrowing costs for everything from mortgages to credit cards to business loans.

Justice Department reportedly planning to go after affirmative action

The Justice Department’s civil rights division is recruiting attorneys for an initiative aimed at suing colleges that the Trump administration suspects of using affirmative action policies to discriminate against white applicants, the New York Times reported Tuesday evening.

An internal memo, obtained by the New York Times, asked for Justice Department lawyers interested in pursuing “investigations and possible litigation related to intentional race-based discrimination in college and university admissions.” While the phrasing of that announcement doesn’t specifically single out affirmative action or white applicants, the reported phrase “intentional race-based discrimination” set off warning bells for supporters of affirmative action.

Democrats' New Economic Message Even Worse Than You Think

No 'litmus test' on abortion? Shame on Democrats backing anti-choice candidates

As Donald Trump and his cast of flatterers continue their incompetent war on the American people, the Democrats seem more determined than ever to bungle their comeback from 2016’s humiliating defeat. From small-thinking policy proposals (as outlined in Chuck Schumer’s New York Times editorial last week) and slogans that read like satire (“I mean, have you seen the other guys?”) to their quixotic obsession with wooing “moderate” Republicans and the rich to the detriment of progressives and the poor, their strategy is, at best, a wet fart. At worst, it’s a plan to sell out everything they once stood for.

The latest principle to be jettisoned like so much dead weight, or at least the latest one people are talking about: a woman’s right to choose.

In a recent interview with the Hill, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee chairman, Ben Ray Luján, maintained there would be no “litmus test” on abortion for candidates as the party scrambled to to take back a majority in the House. “As we look at candidates across the country, you need to make sure you have candidates that fit the district, that can win in these districts across America,” he said. From this, diligent followers of the discourse can deduce the DCCC will support anti-choice candidates if it thinks they can win, despite a paucity of evidence that Republicans in 2017 can be convinced to switch their votes to “D”.

This is hardly the first time Democrats have waffled on this issue. While Hillary Clinton stood firm on it during her 2016 election campaign, she said in an appearance on The View that “of course” you could be anti-choice and a feminist. The man she chose as her running mate, Tim Kaine, has a severely mixed record on abortion rights. The House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi, said that “of course” candidates could be anti-choice and receive the support of the party (of course!), and that abortion was “kind of fading as an issue” for Democrats.

Seymour Hersh discussing Wikileaks DNC leaks Seth Rich & FBI report

Explosive Lawsuit: White House & Fox Peddled Seth Rich Conspiracies to Distract from Russia Probe

Court Kneecaps EPA's Plan To Slash Regulation

A panel of judges on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit Court delivered a blow to Pruitt’s agenda Monday, forcing the EPA to implement an Obama-era methane rule that, under Pruitt, it had tried to delay. The decision indicates one of the main deregulatory tactics that Pruitt’s EPA has employed — delaying the implementation of Obama-era rules long enough to gut them — can be successfully challenged in the courts.

In the case of the methane rule, the agency is still considering a two-year stay on its implementation. The agency is holding the comment period and will try again to get the rule stayed, but Monday’s ruling made clear the courts are not playing ball with its delay tactics.

It’s currently the EPA’s most effective maneuver, and the agency has used it to sandbag a rule that imposed tighter safety rules on the oil, gas, and chemical industries and to enact a 90-day stay on a rule that regulates methane emissions from landfills. Both are the subject of legal actions. And the EPA’s promised replacement for Obama’s Clean Water Rule, which has been stayed since 2015, will likely come before the courts as well.

The breakneck pace at which the EPA has rolled back rules is likely slow as more courts grapple with the issue. The ruling could also have implications for the wider deregulatory agenda that Trump’s been pursuing — not just at the EPA, but across all agencies.

The Earth is exhausted - we're using up its resources faster than it can provide https://t.co/ASZ6IinQ4F #EarthOvershootDay pic.twitter.com/kymLjz7cZD

— dwnews (@dwnews) August 2, 2017

'Earth Is Exhausted': Humans Have Already Consumed the Planet's Annual Resources

With several months left until the end of 2017, humans have already used up more natural resources than the planet can regenerate in a year, making today Earth Overshoot Day. For the rest of the year, humanity is "living on credit."

"This means that in seven months, we emitted more carbon than the oceans and forests can absorb in a year, we caught more fish, felled more trees, harvested more, and consumed more water than the Earth was able to produce in the same period," World Wildlife Fund and Global Footprint Network said in a statement.

"The costs of this global ecological overspending are becoming increasingly evident around the world," the groups added, "in the form of deforestation, drought, fresh-water scarcity, soil erosion, biodiversity loss, and the buildup of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere."

Last year, Earth Overshoot Day fell on August 8, an indication that the world's population is accelerating the pace with which it blows through the planet's annual resource budget from year to year.

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Intercepted Podcast: Pyongyang and the White House Gang

When Syrian War Ends, Woe to the Kurds

Thousands Died in Opioid Crisis While Trump Commission Stalled on Delivering Crucial Report

A Blacklisted Film and the New Cold War

Talking About a Revolution

National Geographic travel photographer of the year 2017 winners

A Little Night Music

Peppermint Harris - Got A Big Fine Baby

Peppermint Harris - Markin' Time

Peppermint Harris - Nighty Night

Peppermint Harris - Have Another Drink And Talk To Me

Peppermint Harris - Angel Child

Peppermint Harris - Black Cat Bone

Peppermint Harris - Ain't No Business

Peppermint Harris - Texarkana Bound

Peppermint Harris - Wasted Love

Peppermint Harris - Fat Girl Boogie