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This evening's music features early blues singer Beulah "Sippie" Wallace. Enjoy!

"I think it's wrong that only one company makes the game Monopoly."

-- Steven Wright

News and Opinion

Rep. Ken Buck (R-CO) Speaks Out On Reining in Big Tech and Why Many House Members Refuse

Last June, the House subcommittee overseeing antitrust law issued a comprehensive 450-page report that concluded that four Silicon Valley companies — Facebook, Amazon, Google and Apple — are classic monopolies. It was by far the most in-depth and serious governmental attempt in the U.S. to grapple with the unprecedented and increasingly concentrated power of these tech giants. The report documented the multiple ways that the centralized power and anti-competitive practices of these four tech companies are damaging both consumers and the broader society. It proposed numerous solutions to address those harms — from breaking them up to legislative and regulatory changes to enable more competition. ...

The report, which came to be known as the Cicilline Report after subcommittee Chair David Cicilline (D-RI), was widely praised by antitrust activists and scholars. Yet it highlighted a strange political phenomenon. House Republicans have been flamboyantly waving the anti-Big-Tech banner with increasing passion and aggression, often in response to growing online censorship. Virtually every television appearance or in-district rally by a House Republican entails righteous denunciations of Silicon Valley monopoly power. Yet none of the Committee Republicans was willing to sign onto or support the Cicilline report. ...

In sum, there was a huge gap between GOP rhetoric about the evils of Big Tech and the actions of House Republicans, which not only failed to follow through on their fiery language but oftentimes seemed devoted to protecting the interests of the very Silicon Valley giants they were publicly denouncing. But now, one key House Republican — Rep. Ken Buck, who was first elected to represent Colorado’s 4th Congressional District back in 2012, when he ran as a Tea Party conservative, and became a vocal supporter of former President Trump — has changed that dynamic. Using his vital position as ranking member of the subcommittee, Buck has become increasingly outspoken about the need for legislative and regulatory action, rather than just cable-friendly rhetoric, to rein in the abuses of Big Tech, and has been working with a bipartisan coalition he helped assemble to pass consequential legislation.

Among other things, Buck is now a co-sponsor of various legislative measures that would more assertively enforce antitrust laws in order to foster greater competition. He has, as The Denver Post noted last week, been increasingly vocal in his criticism of his GOP colleagues for failing to follow through on what they tell their base. Along with his GOP Senate colleague Mike Lee (R-UT), Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), and Cicilline, Buck announced last week that this bipartisan group is urging new Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan “to pursue antitrust enforcement action against Facebook.”

The politics of this debate have become fascinating. There are key members in both parties who seem loyally devoted to shielding Facebook, Google and others from any meaningful reform, while an increasingly vocal bipartisan coalition — led by Cicilline and Buck — is clearly serious about using their legislative power to usher in more competition and reform.

Warren and Khanna Demand Probe Into Undercounting of Civilians Killed by US Military

Sen. Elizabeth Warren on Tuesday called on the U.S. Department of Defense to review "significant discrepancies in civilian casualty counts," a month after the Pentagon released its annual report on civilian deaths and injuries as a result of U.S. operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Nigeria, and Somalia.

The Massachusetts Democrat spoke out on social media days after joining Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) in writing (pdf) to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin III regarding the annual report.

The Pentagon stated in its "Annual Report on Civilian Casualties In Connection With United States Military Operations in 2020" (pdf) finding that there were "approximately 23 civilians killed and approximately 10 civilians injured" in U.S. military actions last year—numbers which did not match the findings of independent outside researchers including Airwars and Brown University's Costs of War Project.

"Sources say the real number [of casualties] is almost five times higher," than the Pentagon reported, said Warren. "Protecting civilians must be a priority—Rep. Khanna and I want Secretary Austin to investigate."

In their letter, Khanna and Warren cited research from Airwars, a U.K.-based monitoring group run by journalists and international conflict researchers, which reported at least 34 civilian deaths caused by U.S.-led attacks last year in Iraq and Syria alone. The groups also counted between seven and 13 civilian deaths in Somalia.

"The minimum public estimate of civilian deaths caused by U.S. forces during 2020 across five conflict nations was 102 fatalities," said Airwars in its own annual report last month. 

As Common Dreams reported, Airwars and the Costs of War Project found an even greater discrepancy in the Pentagon's official tally last year after the DoD claimed responsibility for 132 civilian deaths, compared to 1,100 reported by the two groups in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Syria.

This year, the Pentagon claimed responsibility for 20 deaths and five injuries in Afghanistan, but as Airwars reported, the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) "attributed 120 civilian casualties (89 killed and 31 injured) to international military forces."

Iran takes steps to make enriched uranium metal; US, Europe powers dismayed • FRANCE 24 English

Afghanistan: All foreign troops must leave by deadline - Taliban

Any foreign troops left in Afghanistan after Nato's September withdrawal deadline will be at risk as occupiers, the Taliban has told the BBC.

It comes amid reports that 1,000 mainly US troops could remain on the ground to protect diplomatic missions and Kabul's international airport. ...

Under a deal with the militant group, the US and its Nato allies agreed to withdraw all troops in return for a commitment by the Taliban not to allow al-Qaeda or any other extremist group to operate in the areas they control.

President Joe Biden set a deadline of 11 September - the 20-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on the US - for American troops to fully withdraw, but reports suggest the pullout may be complete within days.

Jovenel Moïse Dead: Haitian President Assassinated, Plunging Country into New Political Crisis

Colombian court accuses soldiers of murdering at least 120 civilians

A Colombian court has accused 10 members of the military and a civilian of forcibly disappearing 24 people and murdering at least 120 civilians and falsely presenting them as guerrilla fighters who had been killed in combat.

The charges on Tuesday marked the first time Colombia’s special jurisdiction for peace (JEP) tribunal has accused members of Colombia’s army in connection with the so-called false positives scandal, in which soldiers murdered civilians and classified them as rebels killed in combat so they could receive promotions or other benefits.

The defendants played a decisive role in the murders, which were presented as combat deaths in the Catatumbo region of Colombia’s Norte de Santander province between January 2007 and August 2008, in order to inflate body counts, the court said. The accused, identified by the JEP as those responsible for giving orders without which the crimes would not have systematically happened, include a general, six officers, three non-commissioned officers and a civilian.

Israeli PM suffers setback in vote on Arab citizenship rights law

The Israeli parliament has voted down an extension to controversial legislation that bars Arab Israelis from extending residency or citizenship rights to Palestinian spouses, in an early blow to the country’s new coalition government. After a marathon all-night voting session that ended on Tuesday morning, the Knesset decided not to renew the law in a 59-59 vote. The outcome is widely seen as a stinging defeat for the prime minister, Naftali Bennett, who failed to unite the coalition’s disparate ideological wings in what he reportedly himself referred to as a “referendum” on the new government.

The vote means the law will expire at midnight and could trigger as many as 15,000 citizenship applications from people living in the West Bank and Gaza – a development the legislation’s supporters say poses security issues and threatens Israel’s Jewish character.

The interior minister, Ayalet Shaked, tweeted after the vote that watching members of Likud, former prime minister Benjamin Neyanyahu’s centre-right party, celebrate the vote’s outcome, alongside the Religious Zionism party and the Arab Joint List, was “madness” and a “great victory for post-Zionism”.

The Citizenship and Entry into Israel Law, which human rights groups say is racist and prevents thousands of families from reuniting or living together, was introduced as temporary emergency legislation during the peak of the second intifada in 2003 in an attempt to quell terrorist attacks inside Israel. Under the legislation, Arab citizens, who comprise a fifth of Israel’s population, have had few if any avenues for bringing spouses from the West Bank and Gaza into the country. The law also applies to Jewish Israelis who marry Palestinians from the territories, although such unions are extremely rare.

The law has been renewed annually since it was introduced. Leftwing elements of the new government were unwilling to back it this time around, however, and Netanyahu and his allies in opposition saw the impasse as an opportunity to harm the coalition.

Pentagon cancels $10bn Jedi contract with Microsoft after Amazon challenge

The US defense department (DoD) has canceled its $10bn Jedi cloud-computing project, pulling the Trump-era award to Microsoft Corp and announcing a new contract that pits the big software firm against rival Amazon.com.

The contract awarded by the Pentagon in late 2019 has been on hold after Amazon filed a lawsuit challenging the decision under then president Donald Trump. Trump publicly derided Amazon’s then CEO, Jeff Bezos, and repeatedly criticized the company.

Amazon said in 2019 the Pentagon decision was full of “egregious errors”, which it suggested were a result of “improper pressure from Trump”. The company cited a 2019 book that reported Trump had directed the defense department to “screw Amazon” out of the Jedi contract.

As recently as September the defense department re-evaluated the contract proposals and said Microsoft’s submission was the best.

John Sherman, acting chief information officer for the defense department, said he expects both Microsoft and Amazon will get cloud contracts. He said the need was urgent. “I’ve got to get this now – as soon as possible – starting hopefully as soon as April,” Sherman said.

Lots of information at the link:

Meet the Consulting Firm That’s Staffing the Biden Administration

From its headquarters just blocks from the White House, a small, high-powered team of former ambassadors, lawyers, and Obama appointees has spent the past few years solving problems for the world’s biggest companies.

Less than six months into the Biden administration, more than 15 consultants from the firm WestExec Advisors have fanned out across the White House, its foreign policy apparatus, and its law enforcement institutions. Five, some of whom already have jobs with the administration, have been nominated for high-ranking posts, and four others served on the Biden-Harris transition team. Even by Washington standards, it’s a remarkable march through the revolving door, especially for a firm that only launched in 2017. The pipeline has produced a dominance of WestExec alums throughout the administration, installed in senior roles as influential as director of national intelligence and secretary of state. WestExec clients, meanwhile, have controversial interests in tech and defense that intersect with the policies their former consultants are now in a position to set and execute.

The arrival of each new WestExec adviser at the administration has been met with varying degrees of press coverage — headlines for the secretary of state, blurbs in trade publications for the head of cybersecurity — but the creeping monopolization of foreign policymaking by a single boutique consulting firm has gone largely unnoticed. The insularity of this network of policymakers poses concerns about the potential for groupthink, conflicts of interest, and what can only be called, however oxymoronically, legalized corruption. ...

“West Exec’s advisors have worked together at the highest levels of government, navigating and anticipating the impact of international crises on decision making — we can provide the same insights and strategies to business leaders around the world,” Blinken said in an early pamphlet advertising the firm. A half-year after Blinken’s return to government, the pamphlet is still featured on WestExec co-founder and managing partner Nitin Chadda’s LinkedIn profile. It’s a reminder to potential clients about the firm’s enduring proximity to power.

Maryland Says 100% of Residents Who Died of Covid in June Were Unvaccinated

A spokesperson for Maryland's governor said Tuesday that 100% of the state's residents who died of Covid-19 last month were not vaccinated, a figure seen as the latest testament to the effectiveness of the shots in preventing fatal illness and further evidence of the need to ensure widespread distribution.

Michael Ricci, communications director for Maryland's Republican Gov. Larry Hogan, also noted that 95% of new Covid-19 cases in the state last month and 93% of the coronavirus-related hospitalizations occurred in unvaccinated people. ...

Nearly 70% of Maryland residents over the age of 18 have been vaccinated, according to a New York Times database, and the state recorded roughly 130 deaths in June.

With the ultra-contagious Delta variant of Covid-19 spreading rapidly in unvaccinated pockets of the U.S., Maryland Health Secretary Dennis Schrader said last week that the state is working hard to change the minds of people who have refused to get vaccinated or hesitated to make their appointments.

"We're not giving up on any county," said Schrader. "We really believe that we've got a lot more work to do—and we're not going to slow down or stop until we get as many people vaccinated as possible."

The new figures out of Maryland come days after Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said that "about 99.2%" of coronavirus deaths across the U.S. in June were among unvaccinated people. The U.S. is currently averaging more than 190 deaths from Covid-19 each day.

Delta variant rapidly gaining ground in US west as vaccination rates stagnate

Public health authorities across the US west are sounding the alarm that the Delta variant, a “hyper-transmissible” form of Covid-19 responsible for about 25% of new US infections, is rapidly gaining significant ground. ...

In California, the Delta variant is on the rise, accounting for 35.6% of specimens sequenced that are categorized as “variants of concern” or “variants of interest” as of 21 June, up from 5.6% in May, according to the state’s public health department. Covid-19 cases have surged in excess of 20% in California since the state lifted the majority of coronavirus restrictions on 15 June, with the Delta variant spurring the greatest proportion of new cases, according to the San Francisco Chronicle,

Authorities in Los Angeles county said that the Delta variant was responsible for almost half of genetically sequenced variants, the New York Times reported. The county’s public health guidance said on 28 June that it “strongly recommends” masking indoors – regardless of vaccination status – due to increased circulation of the Delta variant.

Biden announces Covid ‘surge response teams’ amid Delta variant concerns

Joe Biden has warned that the Delta variant of the coronavirus now makes up half of cases in many areas of the US and pledged to deploy federal “surge response teams” to help local officials stop the spread. The president spoke on Tuesday after narrowly missing his self-imposed target of 70% of American adults receiving at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccine by Independence Day on 4 July.

Although he noted that coronavirus cases and deaths are down 90% since January, Biden urged younger adults in particular to get vaccinated as the Delta variant, already raging across the world, threatens to become the dominant one in America. “Our fight against this virus is not over,” he said in public remarks after a briefing by the White House Covid-19 response team. “Right now, as I speak to you, millions of Americans are still unvaccinated and unprotected and because of that, their communities are at risk. Their friends are at risk, the people that they care about are at risk.”

“We’re stepping up our preparations to respond to the outbreaks we’re going to see among the unvaccinated,” Biden said. “For that, we’re mobilising what I’m calling Covid-19 surge response teams.” The teams are made up of experts from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and other government groups. “They’re going to help states that have particular problems prevent, detect and respond to the spread of the Delta variant among unvaccinated people in communities with low vaccination rates. And some states have very low vaccination rates.”

Outbreaks are “going to happen” in such states, he said. Arkansas, Florida, Missouri and Nevada have all seen significant rises in case numbers in recent weeks.

Ryan Grim: FTC Chair TRIGGERS WSJ, Sends Wall Street Into A PANIC Over Made In USA Ruling

Ransomware hackers demand $70m after attack on US software firm Kaseya

Between 800 and 1,500 businesses around the world have been affected by a ransomware attack centered on the US information technology firm Kaseya, its chief executive said on Monday. Fred Voccola, the Florida-based company’s chief executive, said in an interview that it was hard to estimate the precise impact of Friday’s attack because those hit were mainly customers of Kaseya’s customers.

Kaseya is a company which provides software tools to IT outsourcing shops: companies that typically handle back-office work for companies too small or modestly resourced to have their own tech departments.

One of those tools was subverted on Friday, allowing the hackers to paralyze hundreds of businesses on all five continents. Although most of those affected have been small concerns – like dentists’ offices or accountants – the disruption has been felt more keenly in Sweden, where hundreds of supermarkets had to close because their cash registers were inoperative, or New Zealand, where schools and kindergartens were knocked offline.

The hackers who claimed responsibility for the breach have demanded $70m to restore all the affected businesses’ data, although they have indicated a willingness to temper their demands in private conversations with a cybersecurity expert and with Reuters.

Voccola said he had spoken to officials at the White House, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Department of Homeland Security about the breach but declined to say what they had told him about paying or negotiating. On Sunday the White House said it was checking to see whether there was any “national risk” posed by ransomware outbreak but Voccola said that – so far – he was not aware of any nationally important organizations being hit.

Eric Adams, Ex-Police Captain, Wins NYC Democratic Mayoral Primary After Absentee Ballots Counted

Eric Adams wins Democratic primary in NYC’s mayoral race

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams has won the Democratic primary for mayor of New York City after appealing to the political center and promising to strike the right balance between fighting crime and ending racial injustice in policing.

A former police captain, Adams would be the city’s second Black mayor if elected.

He triumphed over a large field in New York’s first major race to use ranked choice voting. ...

Adams will be the prohibitive favorite in the general election against Curtis Sliwa, the Republican founder of the Guardian Angels. Democrats outnumber Republicans 7-to-1 in New York City.

Emily Jashinsky: Hunter Biden Emails REVEAL Joe Biden BENEFITTED From China, MSM Ignores Corruption

Nordic countries endure heatwave as Lapland records hottest day since 1914

Nordic countries have registered near-record temperatures over the weekend, including highs of 34C (93.2F) in some places. The latest figures came after Finland’s national meteorological institute registered its hottest temperature for June since records began in 1844. Kevo, in Lapland, recorded heat of 33.6C (92.5F) on Sunday, the hottest day since 1914 when authorities registered 34.7C (94.5F), said the STT news agency. Several parts of Sweden also reported record highs for June. ...

Michael Reeder, a professor of meteorology in the school of Earth, atmosphere and environment at Australia’s Monash University, said the events on the European and North American continents were linked. Reeder has written about the meteorological conditions that allowed for the North American heatwave to form. He said a tropical low in the western Pacific, near Japan, had disturbed the atmosphere, creating ripples around the hemisphere as what is known as a Rossby wave. That wave broke off the west of Canada, triggering the conditions for the heatwave.

“It’s like plucking a guitar string. The disturbance propagated along the jet stream,” Reeder said. “It gets to North America, it (amplified) and produced a big high pressure system in the middle part of the atmosphere.” He said that had then kicked off another wave over the north Atlantic that then broke and produced the conditions for high temperatures in the Nordic regions. “So from that perspective, the high temperatures over Scandinavia are directly linked to what happened in North America.”

Utah’s Great Salt Lake has been shrinking for years. Now it faces a drought

The silvery blue waters of the Great Salt Lake sprawl across the Utah desert, having covered an area nearly the size of Delaware for much of history. For years, though, the largest natural lake west of the Mississippi River has been shrinking. And a drought gripping the American west could make this year the worst yet. The receding water is already affecting the nesting spot of pelicans that are among the millions of birds dependent on the lake. Sailboats have been hoisted out of the water to keep them from getting stuck in the mud. More dry lakebed getting exposed could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions breathe.

“A lot us have been talking about the lake as flatlining,” said Lynn de Freitas, the executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake. The lake’s levels are expected to hit a 170-year low this year. It comes as the drought has the US west bracing for a brutal wildfire season and coping with already low reservoirs. The Utah governor, Republican Spencer Cox, has begged people to cut back on lawn watering and “pray for rain”.

For the Great Salt Lake, though, it is only the latest challenge. People for years have been diverting water from rivers that flow into the lake to water crops and supply homes. Because the lake is shallow, about 35ft (11 meters) at its deepest point, less water quickly translates to receding shorelines. ...

The waves have been replaced by dry, gravelly lakebed that’s grown to 750 sq miles (1,942 sq km). Winds can whip up dust from the dry lakebed that is laced with naturally occurring arsenic, said Kevin Perry, a University of Utah atmospheric scientist. It blows through a region that already has some of the dirtiest wintertime air in the country because of seasonal geographic conditions that trap pollution between the mountains. Perry warns of what happened at California’s Owens Lake, which was pumped dry to feed thirsty Los Angeles and created a dust bowl that cost millions of dollars to tamp down. The Great Salt Lake is much larger and closer to a populated area, Perry said.

Luckily, much of the bed of Utah’s giant lake has a crust that makes it tougher for dust to blow. Perry is researching how long the protective crust will last and how dangerous the soil’s arsenic may be to people. ... Most years, the Great Salt Lake gains up to 2ft (half a meter) from spring runoff. This year, it was just 6in (15cm), Perry said. “We’ve never had an April lake level that was as low as it was this year,” he said.

‘Significant concerns’ over Florida condo near collapsed Miami building

Florida officials have said they have “significant concerns” regarding the structural integrity of another condominium near the Champlain Towers South building, which collapsed almost two weeks ago, killing at least 36 people.

Charles Burkett, mayor of Surfside, said Tuesday that a review is being conducted into Champlain Towers North, the fallen 12-story condo tower’s sister complex, which is still standing near the rubble.

Burkett told reporters Towers North is “essentially the same building, built by the same developer at the same time, with the same plans, probably with the same materials” as the Towers South building. “And given we do not know why the first building fell down we have significant concerns about that building and the residents in there,” he said. ...

“We’re going to do everything we can,” Burkett said, “to look at those structural systems including ground penetrating radar, the columns, the beams, the slabs, and try to get our arms around what may be happening, what did happen.” Still, Burkett says he’s still uneasy about the building’s integrity. “We have some concerns, not just some, but deep concerns about that building especially given that we don’t know what has happened there, but our engineer is actively working on it, as our town official is.”

Also of Interest

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

US Shoots Down Armed Drone Near Baghdad Embassy

Syria: US Stealing Grain and Oil, Building Up Military Bases – Turkey Guilty of War Crimes

Afghanistan - U.S. Sneaks Out At Night - Taliban Take Multiple Districts Per Day

Air Force Gives Raytheon $2 Billion to Develop Nuclear Cruise Missiles

20 years after 9/11, US lawsuit alleging Saudi complicity hits key moment

Lee Camp: America’s Impressive History of Bioweapons Attacks Against Its Own People

America's Drug Wars: Fifty Years of Reinforcing Racism

UN Report Calls for Reparations for Victims of Systemic Racist Police Violence

The Twisted Case of Craig Murray

If Private Platforms Use Government Guidelines to Police Content, is that State Censorship?

Yanis Varoufakis: Techno-Feudalism Is Taking Over

Native children didn’t ‘lose’ their lives at residential schools. Their lives were stolen

Water Protectors Protesting at Willow River Warn Line 3 'Is a Catastrophic Threat'

Tropical Storm Elsa lashes Florida Keys as conditions worsen

Dirty Marketing

McConnell EMBARRASSES Himself DEFENDING Corps, PROVES Establishment's SMUG Cluelessness

A Little Night Music

Sippie Wallace & Johnny Dodds - I'm a Might Tight Woman

Sippie Wallace - Up The Country Blues

Sippie Wallace - You Got To Know How

Sippie Wallace - Devil Dance Blues

Sippie Wallace - You Gonna Need My Help

Sippie Wallace with Albert Ammons & His Rhythm Kings - Buzz Me

Sippie Wallace - Murder Gonna Be My Crime

Sippie Wallace - A Man for Every Day in the Week

John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers - Shorty George