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This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist Anson Funderburgh. Enjoy!

"We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience."

-- George Bernard Shaw

News and Opinion

Afghanistan: We Never Learn

Down to their own stunningly (perfectly?) inaccurate mis-predictions of what would take place once our military forces left the country, Biden administration officials could not have scripted a worse ending to the twenty-year disaster that has been our occupation of Afghanistan. Every image coming out of Afghanistan this past weekend was an advertisement for the incompetence, arrogance, and double-dealing nature of American foreign policy leaders. Scenes of military dogs being evacuated while our troops fire weapons in the air to disperse humans desperate for a seat out of the country will force every theoretical future ally to think twice about partnering with us.

The pattern is always the same. We go to places we’re not welcome, tell the public a confounding political problem can be solved militarily, and lie about our motives in occupying the country to boot. Then we pick a local civilian political authority to back that inevitably proves to be corrupt and repressive, increasing local antagonism toward the American presence. In response to those increasing levels of antagonism, we then ramp up our financial, political, and military commitment to the mission, which in turn heightens the level of resistance, leading to greater losses in lives and treasure. As the cycle worsens, the government systematically accelerates the lies to the public about our level of “progress.” ...

The look of genuine shock on the face of Tony Blinken this weekend as he jousted with Jake Tapper about Biden’s comments from July should tell people around the world something important about the United States: in addition to all the other things about us that are dangerous, we lack self-knowledge. Even deep inside the machine of American power, where everyone paying even a modicum of attention over the last twenty years should have known Kabul would fall in a heartbeat, they still believe their own legends. Which means this will happen again, and probably sooner rather than later.

Ret. Col. Ann Wright on Reopening U.S. Embassy in Kabul in 2001 & Why She Supports Troop Withdrawal

Defiant Biden stands ‘squarely behind’ decision to withdraw from Afghanistan

A defiant Joe Biden has insisted that he stands “squarely behind” his decision to pull US forces rapidly out of Afghanistan while attempting to shift blame for events unfolding there to his predecessor, Donald Trump, and the unwillingness of Afghan forces to fight the Taliban. Biden is facing the biggest crisis of his presidency after the stunning fall of Afghanistan to the extremist insurgent force caught his administration flat-footed and raised fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.

With recriminations flying in Washington over the chaotic retreat, Biden made an unscheduled trip on Monday from the presidential country retreat, Camp David, to address reporters in the ornate east room of the White House, under greater pressure than at any point in his seven month presidency.

The mission, he said, had never been about nation building but counterterrorism, a threat that has now “metastasised” well beyond Afghanistan. Biden had inherited a deal from Trump to withdraw forces by 1 May, he added, leaving him with a choice to either follow through belatedly on the agreement or escalate the conflict by sending thousands of troops into combat.

“I stand squarely behind my decision,” the president said, maintaining a calm demeanour at the lectern. “After 20 years, I’ve learned the hard way that there was never a good time to withdraw US forces. That’s why we’re still there. We were clear eyed about the risk. We planned for every contingency but I always promised the American people that I would be straight with you. The truth is, this did unfold more quickly than we had anticipated. So, what’s happened? Afghanistan political leaders gave up and fled the country. The Afghan military collapsed sometimes without trying to fight.” ...

But far from admitting error, he claimed the events of the past few days vindicated his decision because US troops, he said, should not fight a war that Afghan solders are not willing to fight themselves.

Azmat Khan: Deadly U.S. Air War in Afghanistan Helped Taliban Gain New Recruits Who Wanted Revenge

Afghanistan’s military collapse: Illicit deals and mass desertions

he spectacular collapse of Afghanistan’s military that allowed Taliban fighters to walk into the Afghan capital Sunday despite 20 years of training and billions of dollars in American aid began with a series of deals brokered in rural villages between the militant group and some of the Afghan government’s lowest-ranking officials. The deals, initially offered early last year, were often described by Afghan officials as cease-fires, but Taliban leaders were in fact offering money in exchange for government forces to hand over their weapons, according to an Afghan officer and a U.S. official.

Over the next year and a half, the meetings advanced to the district level and then rapidly on to provincial capitals, culminating in a breathtaking series of negotiated surrenders by government forces, according to interviews with more than a dozen Afghan officers, police, special operations troops and other soldiers. ...

The Taliban capitalized on the uncertainty caused by the February 2020 agreement reached in Doha, Qatar, between the militant group and the United States calling for a full American withdrawal from Afghanistan. Some Afghan forces realized they would soon no longer be able to count on American air power and other crucial battlefield support and grew receptive to the Taliban’s approaches. “Some just wanted the money,” an Afghan special forces officer said of those who first agreed to meet with the Taliban. But others saw the U.S. commitment to a full withdrawal as an “assurance” that the militants would return to power in Afghanistan and wanted to secure their place on the winning side, he said.

The Doha agreement, designed to bring an end to the war in Afghanistan, instead left many Afghan forces demoralized, bringing into stark relief the corrupt impulses of many Afghan officials and their tenuous loyalty to the country’s central government. Some police officers complained that they had not been paid in six months or more.

Taliban consolidate power in Kabul, announce 'amnesty'

DISMANTLING Media's Forever War LIES About Biden's Afghanistan Withdrawal

Texas mask mandate ban can stay as Covid court challenges proceed

The Republican governor of Texas, Greg Abbott, will temporarily be allowed to enforce an order banning mask mandates, the state supreme court ruled on Sunday. However, the ultimate fate of mask mandates in Texas is far from clear, as school districts and localities fight to maintain control of public health orders and Covid-19 caseloads driven by Delta variant infections among unvaccinated people surge.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has recommended masks for all schoolchildren, unvaccinated individuals and vaccinated people in areas with substantial transmission of Covid-19.

“Local mask mandates are illegal under GA-38,” the office of the Texas attorney general, Ken Paxton, tweeted on Sunday evening, after the ruling was released. ...

Abbott has said his order does not ban mask-wearing. “Anyone who wants to wear a mask can do so, including in schools,” he said in a tweet on Sunday. But local officials dealing with a growing volume of Covid-19 cases and school districts hoping to curb spread among students have continued to fight back, arguing the governor should not have the authority to usurp local emergency powers.

Biden Admin Backs BOOSTER SHOTS As Media Ignores Vaccine Hesitancy

Pfizer CEO to Public: Just Trust Us on the Covid Booster

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla was confident in June about the ability of his company’s vaccine to protect against the highly contagious delta variant, as it marched across the globe and filled U.S. hospitals with patients. “I feel quite comfortable that we cover it,” Bourla said.

Just weeks later, Pfizer said it would seek authorization for a booster shot, after early trial results showed a third dose potentially increased protection. At the end of July, Pfizer and BioNTech announced findings that four to six months after a second dose, their vaccine’s efficacy dropped to about 84%.

Bourla was quick to promote a third dose after the discouraging news, saying he was “very, very confident” that a booster would increase immunity levels in the vaccinated. There’s one hitch: Pfizer has not yet delivered conclusive proof to back up that confidence. The company lacks late-stage clinical trial results to confirm a booster will work against covid variants including delta, which now accounts for 93% of new infections across the U.S.

Pfizer announced its global phase 3 trial on a third dose in mid-July. That trial’s completion date is in 2022. Phase 3 results generally are required before regulatory approval. ...

Meanwhile, Pfizer recently said that if a third dose couldn’t combat the delta or other variants, the drugmaker is poised to come up with a “tailor-made” vaccine within 100 days.

Worth a click and a full read:

Stalled US Debt Relief Is the Latest Setback to Black Farmers

Out of 3.4 million farmers working in the United States, fewer than 50,000 are Black, according to the most recent Census of Agriculture taken in 2017. That disproportionately small number is due in large part to historic racial discrimination in federal farm programs—and now efforts to address that history are themselves being attacked as discriminatory.

Black farmers, most of whom work land in the South, suffered yet another blow from the U.S. government earlier this summer when a federal judge halted $4 billion worth of debt relief that was targeted to Black and other disadvantaged farmers through the American Rescue Plan, the economic stimulus bill passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in March. Opponents, who so far have been winning in court, claim the aid is "reverse racism."

The debt relief was blocked nationwide in June, when U.S. District Judge Marcia Morales Howard in Florida issued a preliminary injunction in a lawsuit filed by on behalf of a white farmer citing race discrimination, according to the Washington Post. The targeted debt relief program had already been temporarily blocked by a restraining order in a separate case brought by a white farmer in Wisconsin using the same argument.

Black farmers and their advocates said the fate of the promised debt relief was discouraging but not shocking to them, given their deep distrust of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).

"I'm not surprised. It's to be expected. I just wish that the disbursement of the funds had happened immediately, within 30 days of the American Rescue Plan passing," said Jillian Hishaw, an attorney who worked in agricultural law for 15 years and founded the nonprofit Family Agriculture Resource Management Service (FARMS) based in Rock Hill, South Carolina.

Tracy Lloyd McCurty is an attorney who serves as executive director of the Black Belt Justice Center and co-organizer of the Black Farmers' Appeal: Cancel Pigford Debt Campaign. She also told Facing South that many Black farmers believe the USDA did not act in good faith on the law's debt provisions.

"There is a very real sentiment amongst the Black agrarian community that the USDA engaged in obstructionism and sabotage by slow-walking the implementation of the debt cancellation provision," she said. "I think it's really important to understand that this debt is contested, that it's racialized, and that it was a tool of oppression to dispossess African American farmers of their farmlands and intergenerational wealth."

Jayapal Says There's Nothing 'Moderate' About Tanking Medicare Expansion, Climate Action

Addressing the nine conservative House Democrats threatening to vote down their party's $3.5 trillion budget resolution, Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington said Sunday that there's nothing "moderate" about tanking an effort to expand Medicare, invest in green energy development, and establish long-overdue paid family and medical leave programs.

"We can't call people moderate Democrats if they vote against child care, paid leave, healthcare, and addressing climate change," Jayapal, chair of the nearly 100-member Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), wrote Sunday. "This is the Democratic agenda, it's the president's agenda, and it's what we promised people across America. Now we must deliver."

Jayapal's comments came days after a group of nine House Democrats—almost invariably described as "moderates" in press coverage—sent a letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declaring that they will not consider voting for the Senate-passed budget resolution until the lower chamber first approves a $550 billion bipartisan infrastructure bill, which has been widely criticized as inadequate and potentially damaging to the climate. The Senate passed the bipartisan bill last Tuesday.

The conservative Democrats' letter on Friday augured a stand-off between the right wing of the House Democratic caucus and the chamber's progressives, many of whom have committed to withholding their votes for the bipartisan infrastructure bill until the Senate also passes a sweeping budget reconciliation package that includes their priorities.

"Our caucus is clear: the bipartisan bill will only be passed if a package of social, human, and climate infrastructure—reflecting longstanding Democratic priorities—is passed simultaneously through budget reconciliation," Jayapal said last week.

In order to begin crafting a reconciliation bill that can pass Congress without Republican support, both the House and Senate must first approve an identical budget resolution that sets the spending boundaries of the legislation. Last week, the Senate passed a $3.5 trillion budget resolution, and the House is expected to take up the measure when members return from recess next week.

Pelosi, who has said she will not allow a vote on the bipartisan bill until the Senate greenlights a reconciliation package, wrote in a "Dear Colleague" letter on Sunday that the leadership's "goal is to pass the budget resolution the week of August 23rd so that we may pass Democrats' Build Back Better agenda via reconciliation as soon as possible."

In an apparent attempt to placate the nine conservative Democrats threatening to revolt, Pelosi added that she has "requested that the Rules Committee explore the possibility of a rule that advances both the budget resolution and the bipartisan infrastructure package."

"This will put us on a path to advance the infrastructure bill and the reconciliation bill," Pelosi wrote. "When the House returns on August 23rd, we will proceed in a way that builds consensus in our caucus, promotes the values of our party and advances the President’s transformative vision to Build Back Better."

But in a joint statement Sunday night, the conservative group led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) rejected Pelosi's proposal, arguing that "we should vote first on the Bipartisan Infrastructure Framework without delay and then move to immediate consideration of the budget resolution."

Given Democrats' narrow control of the House and the GOP's unanimous opposition, Pelosi can only afford three defections from the budget resolution. And progressives likely have the votes to block the bipartisan infrastructure bill, depending on how many House Republicans support it.

Billionaire space-penis man throws hissy fit:

Bezos’s Blue Origin sues US over Nasa’s decision to award contract to SpaceX

Jeff Bezos’s Blue Origin has sued the US government over Nasa’s decision to award a $2.9bn lunar lander contract to Elon Musk’s SpaceX. Bezos, the founder of Amazon and one of the world’s richest people, founded Blue Origin to pursue the dream of commercial space flight, which saw him, his brother and two other crew members blast off from Texas last month.

After that flight, Blue Origin offered Nasa $2bn if it would change its mind on the lunar lander contract. It did not, and the Blue Origin lawsuit was filed in the US court of federal claims on Friday. In a court filing, the company said it was challenging “Nasa’s unlawful and improper evaluation of proposals”.

Last month, the federal Government Accountability Office (GAO) sided with Nasa over its decision to pick a single lunar lander provider, rejecting Blue Origin’s protest.

Poll Shows Gavin Newsom In Serious Danger Of Getting Recalled

Biggest US reservoir declares historic shortage, forcing water cuts across west

Officials have declared a dire water shortage at Lake Mead, the US’s largest reservoir, triggering major water cuts in Arizona and other western states. The US Bureau of Reclamation’s first-ever declaration of a “tier 1” shortage represents an acknowledgment that after a 20-year drought, the reservoir that impounds the Colorado River at the has receded to its lowest levels since it was created in the 1930s.

Already, the lake is at about 35% capacity – the white “bathtub ring” that lines its perimeter indicates where the water level once was. The lake’s level is projected to fall even lower by the end of the year, prompting cutbacks in January 2022, the Bureau of Reclamation announced Monday.

Arizona will be hardest hit, losing nearly a fifth of the water it receives from the Colorado River. In Pinal county, farmers and ranchers will see the amount of water they get from the river drop by half next year, and disappear altogether by 2023, when the federal government is projected to enact even more severe cuts. Farmers, who have already had to make some land fallow, will probably have to continue to do so in the coming years and rely increasingly on groundwater. ...

Household water supplies will remain unaffected, though families are likely to see their water prices tick up.

Nevada will lose 7% of the water it gets from the Colorado River, though residents are unlikely to feel a real change because the state has alternative water sources and has begun to use its supplies more efficiently. Mexico will see its supply reduced by 5%, and California will be unaffected.

The Context Of Climate Change

Petroleum refineries shut down by climate-intensified storms and flooding. Oil pipelines threatened by thawing ice. A fracking state’s population centers choked by air pollution from fracking sites. A climate-denying senator fleeing an extreme weather event for a Cancun vacation. These are just some of the most powerful symbols of the insanity, nihilism and willful ignorance that define the era of climate change — and this weekend, one of America’s oil bastions added another. Torrential rains flooded the halls of the Texas state Capitol just a few months after lawmakers in that same building passed some of America’s most radical initiatives to boost the fossil fuel industry.

For years, scientists have been warning that Central Texas — and Austin in particular — is threatened by storms made bigger by climate change. On Sunday, what had once been a typical month’s worth of rain poured down on Austin in the span of 30 minutes, flooding the Capitol building. But those warnings, and climate-linked catastrophes throughout the state, have not deterred Texas’s oil-bankrolled officials from doing everything they can to boost the fossil fuel industry that is creating the climate disaster. On the contrary, the flooding occurred less than three months after GOP Gov. Greg Abbott signed a pair of laws designed to prevent local communities and corporations from reducing their carbon footprints.

One new law makes a mockery of politicians’ paeans to “local control,” using state authority to ban communities from using zoning regulations and codes to restrict or ban fossil fuel infrastructure in new construction. The Texas Tribune noted that the bipartisan legislation was a response to a growing number of cities — including Austin — considering mandates requiring new developments be built to all-electric standards. The Texas prohibition on such forward-thinking climate policy is being replicated in other states. The other bill signed by Abbott is just as extreme: As more and more institutional investors press the companies they own stakes in to reduce their carbon emissions, Texas will now deny government contracts to companies that stop doing business with the fossil fuel industry.

The law applies not only to procurement, but also to the state’s massive market-moving public retirement systems, in an effort to halt the growing success of the divestment movement. Depending on how the Texas law is interpreted, it could mean the state’s pension overseers will be forced to continue investing hundreds of billions of dollars of workers’ retirement savings in corporations that are knowingly exacerbating the same climate crisis now wreaking havoc in Texas. The Texas laws were produced by a political system that in the last decade alone has been flooded with more than $100 million of oil industry campaign cash. That includes a whopping $25 million to Abbott.

They fought for clean air. They didn’t know they were part of a gas industry campaign

Diesel truck pollution from the busiest port complex in the United States has fouled the air in nearby neighbourhoods in southern California for decades. So when port officials asked for feedback on cleaning up that pollution, hundreds of people weighed in. Los Angeles and Long Beach officials hoped residents would help them decide whether to require zero-pollution electric trucks or instead promote vehicles powered by natural gas, a fossil fuel.

What officials didn’t know was that some of the locals who urged support for natural gas trucks were being paid by a firm hired by the natural gas industry.

A joint investigation by the Times and the news outlet Floodlight in partnership with the Guardian found that in 2017, at least 20 local residents were organised by Method Campaign Services to push for “near-zero-emission” trucks at the ports. Their comments at public meetings and press conferences bolstered successful industry lobbying for trucks that run on natural gas, which is less polluting than diesel but still contributes to lung-damaging emissions and climate change.

San Pedro resident Sholeh Bousheri, who was hired by Method to speak at public hearings, was one of several paid campaigners who said they learned later that their work was part of a natural gas industry effort. Bousheri said Method led her to believe she would be “standing up for sustainability” as part of an environmental campaign. She said she pieced together the gas industry’s role when she was paid to hand out pamphlets featuring the logo of the nation’s largest gas utility, Southern California Gas Company, which is often referred to as SoCalGas. ...

Method was being paid at the time by Clean Energy Fuels Corp, which owns natural gas fueling stations and like SoCalGas has resisted the state’s transition away from fossil fuel infrastructure. Clean Energy paid at least $10,000 to Method in 2017, according to financial disclosures. ... The gas industry ultimately won the debate at the ports. Citing community support as a factor, officials approved a plan that opened the door to natural gas trucks.

Parts of the US are getting dangerously hot. Yet Americans are moving the wrong way

Science has provided America with a decent idea of which areas of our country will be most devastated by climate change, and which areas will be most insulated from the worst effects. Unfortunately, it seems that US population flows are going in the wrong direction – new census data shows a nation moving out of the safer areas and into some of the most dangerous places of all.

To quote Planes, Trains and Automobiles: we’re going the wrong way. The Census Bureau’s new map of the last decade’s population trends shows big growth in the west and on the coasts – and declines in the inland east coast and Great Lakes region.

Now compare that map to ProPublica maps documenting the areas most at risk of extreme heat, wildfires and flooding, and you see the problem. While there has been some recent anecdotal evidence of pragmatic climate migration, overall the census data shows America’s population growth is shifting out of areas that may be the best refuges from the most extreme effects of climate change, and into many areas that are most at risk.

Put another way: if climate change were an enemy in a war, America is not fortifying our population in the safest places – the country’s population is moving into the areas most at risk of attack.

Dixie fire rages amid threat of strong winds and possible power shutoffs

Firefighters battling flames in northern California were preparing for fresh bouts of windy weather, as a utility warned it might cut electricity for thousands of people to prevent new fires from igniting. Conditions that suppressed the huge Dixie fire overnight were expected to give way late in the day to winds that could push flames toward mountain communities, in a region where drought and scorching summer heat have turned vegetation to tinder.

Information officer Jim Evans said: “In this environment, any type of wind, no matter what direction – especially the way the fire’s been going – is a concern for everyone.”

The Dixie fire has scorched 890 sq miles (2,305 sq km) in the northern Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades since it ignited on 13 July and eventually merged with a smaller blaze called the Fly fire. More than 1,100 buildings have been destroyed, including 625 homes, and more than 14,000 structures remained threatened.

Numerous evacuation orders were in effect. ...

On Sunday evening, PG&E notified 39,000 customers that it may have to shut off power Tuesday evening due to a forecast of dry winds out of the north-east.

Also of Interest

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

‘The US should be held accountable’: Guantánamo survivor on the war on terror’s failure

Afghanistan - Chaos Pictures Increase Fallout From U.S. Defeat

In Somalia, the US is bombing the very ‘terrorists’ it created

Afghanistan’s peace will suck. It’s better than endless war.

Barack Obama’s Fall from Grace

Artists pull work from Whitworth gallery after Palestine statement removal

Is Western U.S. Experiencing a ‘Megadrought’?

Biden Treasury Guidance Fails to End US Support for Fossil Fuels Abroad

Tropical Storm Fred lashes Florida with heavy rain and howling winds

AFGHANISTAN PAPERS AUTHOR: The Years Of Lies Which Led To Fall Of Kabul

Krystal Ball: Liberals who WHITEWASHED Bush Reap What They Sow

Kim Iversen: FAILED STATE? Why Americans Are On Gun-Buying SPREE

Pelosi SHOCKS With Attack On Corporate Dems. Siding With Progressives To SAVE Legacy, Speakership

A Little Night Music

Anson Funderburgh at Big Bugg's Island Blues Bash - Woke Up This Morning

Golden State Lone Star Blues Revue - Sidetracked

Anson Funderburgh & the Rockets - Howling For My Darling

Anson Funderburgh - Deal With It

Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets feat. Sam Myers - I Don't Want You Cuttin' Off Your Hair

Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets - Young Fashioned Ways

Anson Funderburgh & The Rockets - She Knocks me out

Little Charlie Baty & Anson Funderburgh - Hideaway

Sam Myers & Anson Funderburgh - 20 Miles, Hold That Train Conductor & Look On Yonder's Wall