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This evening's music features slide guitarist Homesick James. Enjoy!

“Among the rich you will never find a really generous man even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egotistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it.”

-- G.K. Chesterton

News and Opinion

Just 12 US Billionaires Now Own More Than $1 Trillion in Combined Wealth

New research published Monday by the Institute for Policy Studies shows that the dozen richest American billionaires now collectively own more than $1 trillion in wealth, a finding one analyst described as "a disturbing milestone in the U.S. history of concentrated wealth and power."

According to IPS, a progressive think tank, the 12 top U.S. billionaires have seen their combined wealth soar by 40%—or $283 billion—since the coronavirus began spreading rapidly across the U.S. in mid-March, sparking widespread economic shutdowns and mass job loss.

"During the first stage of the pandemic, between January 1 and March 18, the collective wealth of the Oligarchic Dozen declined by $96 billion," wrote IPS researchers Chuck Collins and Omar Ocampo. "But their wealth quickly rebounded and surpassed their September 2019 Forbes 400 wealth level. The only exception is Warren Buffett, who is still $2 billion below his September 2019 wealth, but is currently worth $80 billion."

Last Thursday, the billionaires' combined wealth reached $1.015 trillion—the first time in U.S. history that the collective net worth of the top 12 American billionaires has topped the trillion-dollar mark. According to IPS, Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has seen his wealth jump by $48.5 billion since mid-March, making him the "biggest pandemic profiteer" of the group.

"This is simply too much economic and political power in the hands of twelve people," Collins, director of IPS' Program on Inequality and the Common Good, said in a statement.

On Bombs And Bombings

For a full week now the Israeli army has been bombing Gaza, a population that is about to run out of fuel for its only power plant due to a years-long Israeli program of deliberate siege warfare.

Yesterday the US ordered an airstrike on Syrian forces, killing one, when they refused to let the illegal occupying force past a checkpoint in northern Syria.

In both cases an arm of the US-centralized empire used wildly disproportionate force against people who stood against a hostile occupation of their own country. In both cases the more powerful and violent occupiers claimed they were acting in “self-defense”. In both cases dropping explosives from the sky upon human beings barely made the news. ...

ISRAEL is dropping bombs on Gaza and no one is talking about it.. WHYYYYY.????#Gaza #GazaUnderAttack pic.twitter.com/gGhl8bYKOk

— Elaa Naqvi (@greyhairs_) August 17, 2020

There’s a lot of pushback nowadays against the racism and prejudices that are woven throughout the fabric of our society, and rightly so. But what doesn’t get nearly enough attention in this discourse is the fact that while some manifestations of bigotry may have been successfully scaled back somewhat in our own countries, it was in a sense merely exported overseas.

The violence that is being inflicted overseas in our name by the US-centralized empire is more horrific than any manifestation of racism we’re ever likely to encounter at home. It is more horrific than the pre-integration American South. It is more horrific than even slavery itself. Yet even the more conscious among us fail to give this relentless onslaught of violence a proportionate degree of recognition and condemnation, even while the consent for it is largely born of the unexamined bigoted notion that violence against people in developing and non-western countries does not matter.

Is there an "-ism" to describe a complete lack of regard for the lives of people in developing nations?https://t.co/M1Hm3sF0jL

— Geri Danton (@DantonGeri) March 20, 2019

Like many other forms of bigotry, this one has been engineered and promulgated by powerful people who benefit from it. If the mainstream news media were what it purports to be, namely an institution dedicated to creating an informed populace about what’s truthfully going on in the world, we would see the bombings in foreign nations given the same type of coverage that a bombing in Paris or London receives.

This would immediately bring consciousness to the unconscious bigotry that those in the US-centralized empire hold against people in low and middle income countries, which is exactly why the plutocrat-owned media do not report on it in this way. The US-centralized empire is held together by endless violence, and the plutocrats who run it have built their kingdoms upon the status quo of that empire.

The truth about war with Danny Sjursen, combat veteran and West Point graduate.

The propagandists are at it again:

US intelligence indicates Iran paid bounties to Taliban for targeting American troops in Afghanistan

US intelligence agencies assessed that Iran offered bounties to Taliban fighters for targeting American and coalition troops in Afghanistan, identifying payments linked to at least six attacks carried out by the militant group just last year alone, including a suicide bombing at a US air base in December, CNN has learned.

"Bounties" were paid by a foreign government, identified to CNN as Iran, to the Haqqani network -- a terrorist group that is led by the second highest ranking leader of the Taliban -- for their attack on Bagram Air Base on December 11, which killed two civilians and injured more than 70 others, including four US personnel, according to a Pentagon briefing document reviewed by CNN. ...

The lack of public condemnation of Iran or the Taliban and the decision not to pursue a diplomatic or military response also highlights the administration's apparent desire to protect peace talks with the Taliban -- which culminated in an agreement that was signed in February -- at all costs with the goal of helping Trump fulfill his long-stated campaign promise of removing American troops from Afghanistan. ...

While US intelligence officials acknowledge that the Haqqani Network would not necessarily require payment in exchange for targeting American troops, the internal Pentagon document reviewed by CNN notes that the funding linked to the December 11 attack at Bagram "probably incentivizes future high-profile attacks on US and Coalition forces." ...

But despite acknowledging that the relationship "poses a significant threat to US interests," National Security Council officials ultimately recommended in late March that the administration should not take specific steps toward addressing the underlying Iran-Haqqani Network nexus as officials concluded that any response would likely have a negative impact on the peace efforts, according to an internal memo obtained by CNN.

Mainstream Media Caught Using Fake Sources!

Trump calls out New Zealand’s 'terrible' Covid surge, on day it records nine new cases

Donald Trump has called out New Zealand for its recent Covid-19 outbreak, saying the places the world hailed as a success story is now facing a “big surge” in cases. “The places they were using to hold up now they’re having a big surge … they were holding up names of countries and now they’re saying ‘whoops!.

“Do you see what’s happening in New Zealand? They beat it, they beat it, it was like front-page news because they wanted to show me something,” the US president said at a campign rally in Mankato, Minnesota. “Big surge in New Zealand, you know it’s terrible, we don’t want that, but this is an invisible enemy that should never have been let to come to Europe and the rest of the world by China.”

On Monday Auckland recorded nine new cases of the virus, while the US recorded just under 42,000. ...

Overall 22 people have died from Covid-19 in New Zealand, compared with more than 170,000 in the US, the highest death toll in the world. It accounts for nearly 22% of deaths globally.

Google giving far-right users' data to law enforcement, documents reveal

A little-known investigative unit inside search giant Google regularly forwarded detailed personal information on the company’s users to members of a counter-terrorist fusion center in California’s Bay Area, according to leaked documents reviewed by the Guardian.

But checking the documents against Google’s platforms reveals that in some cases Google did not necessarily ban the users they reported to the authorities, and some still have accounts on YouTube, Gmail and other services. The users were often threatening violence or otherwise expressing extremist views, often associated with the far right.

The documents come from the so-called “Blueleaks” trove, which hackers acquired from the servers of a hosting company in Texas which had been used by several law enforcement agencies. It contains hundreds of thousands of documents from more than 200 agencies, dated between 1996 and June 2020. ...

The Google documents containing subscriber information are signed by the company’s CyberCrime Investigation Group (CIG). CIG has been mentioned in coverage of criminal proceedings based on their reports, but its raw output to law enforcement agencies has never been exposed to public view. ...

Steven Renderos, executive director of MediaJustice, a nonprofit campaigning for a more just and participatory media wrote in an email: “In a moment of reckoning on the failure of police to keep people safe, it is reckless for Google to hand off private user information to law enforcement.” Renderos added: “While the prevalence of hateful activities across Google owned platforms is a real problem, deflecting responsibility to police is not the solution.”

Pentagon Weighing $2.2 Billion in Cuts to Military Healthcare Just After Passage of $740 Billion Budget

Shortly after both chambers of Congress approved a $740 billion Defense Department budget for fiscal year 2021, Pentagon officials are reportedly pushing for more than $2 billion in cuts to military healthcare over the next five years, potentially threatening the coverage of millions of personnel and their families amid a global pandemic.

Politico reported Sunday that the proposed $2.2 billion cut to the military healthcare system is part of a "sweeping effort" by Defense Secretary Mark Esper to "eliminate inefficiencies within the Pentagon's coffers."

"Ever notice that it's never a cut to things used to send kids to war?" asked Josh Moon of the Alabama Political Reporter. "It's always—always—a cut to the promises we make to get them to volunteer for us. What a disgrace."

According to Politico, "Esper and his deputies have argued that America's private health system can pick up the slack" for any servicemembers who lose coverage.

"Roughly 9.5 million active-duty personnel, military retirees, and their dependents rely on the military health system, which is the military's sprawling government-run healthcare framework that operates hundreds of facilities around the world," Politico noted. "The military health system also provides care through TRICARE, which enables military personnel and their families to obtain civilian healthcare outside of military networks."

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.), co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said the push for billions in healthcare cuts shows once again that the Pentagon "puts more effort in protecting defense contractor profits than the lives of our troops."

Democrats urge FBI to open criminal inquiry into postmaster general

Two members of a key congressional committee have asked the FBI to open a criminal investigation of the leadership of the US Postal Service (USPS), alleging the postmaster general, a Donald Trump mega-donor, has slowed mail delivery in an attempt to rig the presidential election.

“There is evidence that making mail-in balloting more difficult may be one of the motivations for the changes instituted at the Post Office,” Ted Lieu of California and Hakeem Jeffries of New York, both Democrats, wrote in a letter to the FBI director, Christopher Wray.

An unprecedented number of states have instituted mail-in voting in response to the coronavirus pandemic, citing the efficacy of the process in states that have used it for years. The USPS has come under intense scrutiny for policy changes announced as Trump attacks mail-in voting.

The two Democrats’ letter referred to reports that the postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, and the USPS board of governors “have retarded the passage of mail”, and said evidence suggests actions have been taken “to affect mail-in balloting or was motivated by personal financial reasons”.

“We request the FBI to look into whether postmaster general Louis DeJoy, or members of the board of governors of the US postal service, committed any crimes,” the congressmen wrote.

Louis DeJoy: is Trump's new post office chief trying to rig the election?

About a month ago, a United States Postal Service (USPS) mail carrier named Mark arrived at his post office in central Pennsylvania and got some shocking news from his station manager. Mark and his coworkers were told they would have to depart the office for deliveries a few hours earlier each day, even if that meant leaving behind much of the day’s mail.

In the weeks that followed, higher-ups at the station instructed carriers to abandon hundreds of pieces of mail in order to depart a mere 10 or 20 minutes earlier. As the days went on, the excess mail started to pile up, and now Mark estimates there are thousands of undelivered letters and packages sitting in his station.

“The supervisors are cracking the whip, making sure we leave,” Mark told the Guardian. “Meanwhile carriers are walking by and saying, ‘Look at all this fucking mail we’re walking past, it’s just sitting there.’”

When Mark and his coworkers confronted the station manager he said he was only following orders from the new USPS postmaster general, Louis DeJoy. Since taking office in June, DeJoy has executed sweeping changes at the struggling US Postal Service, shaking up agency leadership and rolling out policies that have led to delays in mail delivery. These changes, which DeJoy has said are designed to cut down on labor costs, have angered advocates and Democratic politicians, who have accused him of trying to tamper with the election just weeks before millions of Americans start casting their ballots through the mail.

Now, the controversial logistics executive and Trump mega-donor arguably has more power than any other official in the country to affect the outcome of this year’s presidential election.

Ryan Grim Reveals Dem Attempted COVERUP In Alex Morse Smear Job

Worth a full read.

Massachusetts State Party Leader Told College Democrats to Destroy Communication Records

The executive director of the Massachusetts Democratic Party, as the scandal around congressional candidate Alex Morse began to implode, told student leaders to delete records of communications between themselves and the state party, according to five sources with knowledge of the matter. The executive director, Veronica Martinez, had personally coordinated with College Democrats ahead of the release of allegations of sexual impropriety against the Holyoke mayor.

Martinez, one of at least three senior members of the party who spoke with the College Democrats of Massachusetts about the Morse allegations, made the demand after reporting from The Intercept early last week revealed the existence of a long-running scheme by some members of CDMA and the organization’s UMass Amherst chapter to undermine Morse, according to two people involved with College Democrats of Massachusetts leadership and three members of the commonwealth’s Democratic State Committee, all of whom spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals. The College Democrats have also been advised not to put anything additional in writing. 

On Friday, Martinez flatly denied the suggestion that she demanded records of her communications with CDMA members be destroyed, saying simply, “That’s completely false.” The instructions were delivered verbally, but call records obtained by The Intercept line up with the timing, and other statements from Martinez on the timeline and her involvement have also been proven wrong by documents reviewed by The Intercept. Multiple attempts throughout the weekend to reach Martinez for follow-up comments were unsuccessful.

Evidence of the communications was not successfully destroyed, and, along with multiple sources, formed the basis of an Intercept report Friday that Mass Dems leadership was in communication with the College Democrats about the concerns they raised regarding Morse, including offering coaching on how to deal with the press. Martinez on Thursday told The Intercept that her involvement with the CDMA letter ended when she and Mass Dems chair Gus Bickford referred members of the student organization’s board to legal counsel — a lawyer who turned out to be Jim Roosevelt, a powerful attorney with ties to players in state and national Democratic politics.

Bickford on Monday insisted that party leadership was only involved in referring CDMA to Roosevelt and rejected the suggestion that the state party put its thumb on the scale. “We absolutely do not get involved in contested primaries, and this race is no different,” he said.

Krystal Ball: DNC Allows John Kasich To Define AOC Out Of The Dem Party

Did Americans Want A Political Revolution?

Can elections be won by telling Americans the truth about what we must do to survive the crises threatening our survival? ...

Sanders told America that if he won the White House, it would not be the end of the battle — it would be the beginning of a protracted war to defeat the elite and transform US society. He leveled with the country by acknowledging that taxes would have to go up and systems would have to be rebuilt or built from scratch. But he went further than merely challenging our conception of policy — he asked America to think beyond its psychological affinity for the path of least resistance. He told us that there is no easy path to attaining the kinds of policies that are necessary to save millions of lives as well as our democracy. ...

Biden told America the opposite story. Evoking Warren G. Harding’s famed “return to normalcy” theme, he insisted that there is an easy path. The former vice president essentially argued that Donald Trump is the singular problem in the United States, and that once Trump is defeated, the battle is over — we can restore stability and go back to the kind of incrementalism that has defined Democratic presidencies for more than forty years. “I believe history will look back on four years of this president and all he embraces as an aberrant moment in time,” Biden said at the beginning of his primary campaign, and a year later, he capped off that primary run by telling NBC News that “Americans aren’t looking for revolution.”

In the interim, Biden’s campaign spent months telling voters that we can solve climate change with a “middle ground” policy, we can solve the health care crisis with an incremental public option and we can solve economic inequality even if we make sure that “nothing would fundamentally change” for billionaires. If the Sanders-Biden battle was perceived as a choice between Sanders’s daunting promise of an exhausting revolutionary struggle and Biden’s promise of a glide path back to normal, then it’s no mystery why Biden ultimately prevailed. Easy street was an understandably alluring vision for an electorate already tired out by Trump’s never-ending conflicts and controversies.

In reality, though, this was not a choice between two possibilities — it was a choice between honesty and fantasy, and Democratic voters picked the latter.

Trump in final push to open up Alaska's Arctic refuge to oil and gas drilling

The Trump administration is taking the final steps to let oil and gas companies drill in the Arctic national wildlife refuge – which environment advocates call the nation’s “last great wilderness”.

The US interior department will auction leases before the end of the year, secretary David Bernhardt told the Wall Street Journal. That could make it harder for Democrats to reverse the decision if Joe Biden wins the election in November.

The 19-million-acre refuge in north-east Alaska, known as ANWR, is a wellspring for wildlife. The move will open up the 1.6 million-acre coastal plane, where polar bears and foxes reside and to or through which millions of migratory birds fly. The porcupine caribou herd is critically important to the indigenous Gwich’in people, many of whom make their homes on or near its migration route. ...

“There’s no good time to open up America’s largest wildlife refuge to drilling, but it’s absolutely bonkers to endanger this beautiful place during a worldwide oil glut,” said Kristen Monsell, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity’s oceans program. “An oil spill in this special sanctuary could devastate polar bears and caribou and cause irreparable harm to a pristine Arctic ecosystem. We’ve reached a dangerous new low in the Trump administration’s obsession with expanding the extraction of dirty fossil fuels.”

Greenland's glaciers pass point of no return

Extreme weather just devastated 10m acres in the midwest. Expect more of this

I know a stiff wind. They call this place Storm Lake, after all. But until recently most Iowans had never heard of a “derecho”. They have now. Last Monday, a derecho tore 770 miles from Nebraska to Indiana and left a path of destruction up to 50 miles wide over 10m acres of prime cropland. It blew 113 miles per hour at the Quad Cities on the Mississippi River.

Grain bins were crumpled like aluminum foil. Three hundred thousand people remained without power in Iowa and Illinois on Friday. Cedar Rapids and Iowa City were devastated. The corn lay flat. Iowa’s maize yield may be cut in half. A little napkin ciphering tells me the Tall Corn State will lose $6bn from crop damage alone.

We should get used to it. Extreme weather is the new normal. Last year, the villages of Hamburg and Pacific Junction, Iowa, were washed down the Missouri River from epic floods that scoured tens of thousands of acres. This year, the Great Plains are burning up from drought. Western Iowa was steeped in severe drought when those straight-line winds barreled through the weak stalks.

A multi-decade drought is under way in the Central Plains and the south-west. Wildfires are spreading from Arizona to California, and are burning ridges north of Los Angeles not licked by flames since 1968. Cattle in huge Kansas, Texas and Oklahoma feedlots will drink the Ogallala Aquifer dry in 20 years. This drought, which could rival or exceed the Medieval Drought that occurred about AD1200, could last 30 to 50 years, according to research from the Goddard Space Institute. It will become difficult to grow corn in southern Iowa, and impossible in western Kansas. By mid-century, corn yields could decline by 30%, according to the Iowa State University climatologist Dr Gene Takle.

Takle notes that the 20th century was the wettest on record. This could be the driest. “The last century was our Goldilocks period,” Takle said. “Just right. And that period is coming to an end.”

Governor demands investigation after Californians left without power in extreme heat

California’s governor has demanded an investigation into why residents were left without electricity during an extreme heatwave and a pandemic, with no prior warning or time to prepare, after the state saw rolling blackouts over the weekend for the first time in nearly two decades. ... He signed an emergency proclamation allowing some energy users and utilities to use backup sources during peak times.

Still, millions of Californians could be subject to more rolling blackouts this week, according to the state’s largest electrical grid manager, the California Independent System Operator (ISO). On Monday, the California ISO said it will probably order utility companies to turn off power starting around 4pm local time, as demand for electricity to cool homes soars during the hottest part of the day.

Steve Berberich, California ISO’s CEO and president, said that the state is short about 4,400 megawatts, meaning that up to 3.3m homes may lose power, and those affected can expect to lose power for about two hours. He did not say where the outages might occur, which are up to the state’s utilities.

The electricity outages have arrived as the coronavirus pandemic continues to devastate the state, and amid a bout of dramatic weather that brought on lightning storms, fire tornadoes, and a near-record temperature of 54.4C (129.9F) to California’s Death Valley.

The recent outages were not triggered – as past power shutoffs have been – as a safety measure to prevent wildfires from sparking. Rather, they were caused by energy supply issues. Californians seeking to cool their homes as temperatures soared into triple digits caused a surge in the demand for electricity through the weekend. Demand is likely to exceed supply early this week as the broiling, record breaking heatwave persists.

Also of Interest

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

Reuters (Unsurprisingly) Looks Away as Ecuador Tries to Outlaw Opposition Parties

In Poland we've become spectators at the dismantling of democracy

What is Next for Washington After Its Failed Venezuela Strategy?

US Attacks Syrian Army Checkpoint, One Killed

How Northern California’s Police Intelligence Center Tracked Protests

The Contours of Atlanta’s Policing Debate

Charles Koch Walks a Tight Rope — Shaping Elections to His Liking while Quietly Using Popular Consumer Brands Like Dixie and Brawny to Fund His Agenda

Bird photographer of the year 2020 – in pictures

Democracy Now - Bernie Sanders: 2020 Election Is a Fight Against Trump, Authoritarianism, Greed, Oligarchy & Bigotry

Keiser Report | Free Money Drives Hard Money Higher

Minnesota AG Keith Ellison Explains Biden Era Divide In Dem Party

A Little Night Music

Homesick James - Crossroads

Homesick James - My Baby's Sweet

Homesick James - Early One Morning

Homesick James - Meet Me In The Bottom

Homesick James - Tell Me Who

Homesick James & Snooky Pryor - Cross Town

Homesick James - Go Away

Homesick James - Homesick Sunnyland Special

Homesick James - Homesick

Homesick James - Ain't Sick No More

Homesick James - Set A Date