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This evening's music features West Coast blues guitarist Pee Wee Crayton. Enjoy!

"Governments regard their own citizens as their main enemy, and they have to be - protect themselves. That's why you have state secret laws. Citizens are not supposed to know what their government is doing to them."

-- Noam Chomsky

News and Opinion

Biden administration fights to keep details of CIA torture of detainee secret

The US supreme court is set to hear arguments about the government’s ability to keep what it says are “state secrets” from a Palestinian man who endured brutal torture by the CIA following 9/11 and is now held at Guantánamo Bay. At the center of the case being heard on Wednesday is whether Abu Zubaydah, who was captured in Pakistan in 2002, can get information related to his detention.

Zubaydah and his lawyer want to question two former CIA contractors about Zubaydah’s time at a secret CIA facility in Poland where they say he was held and tortured. A federal appeals court sided with Zubaydah, and said that though the government maintained that the information should be kept secret, a judge should determine whether any information he is seeking can be disclosed. ...

Zubaydah, the first person in the CIA program, spent four years at CIA black sites before being transferred to Guantánamo Bay in 2006. He was initially described as an al-Qaida leader, but the agency by 2006 had concluded he had not even been a member of the group. He has, however, been held at Guantánamo ever since, with no prospect of release.

He is seeking information from former CIA contractors James Mitchell and John “Bruce” Jessen, who are considered the architects of the interrogation program. Zubaydah wants evidence from them as part of a criminal investigation in Poland into his detention at a black site there. ...

The Biden administration, like the Trump administration before it, says the information should not be disclosed because it would do significant harm to national security.

Heh, Ryan Grim acts as media gatekeeper:

Kim Iversen: Is The Military Industrial Complex Teeing Up WWIII With China, Taiwan Conflict?

US Tells Israel It Will ‘Turn to Other Options’ If Diplomacy With Iran Fails

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan hosted his Israeli counterpart Eyal Hulata in Washington on Tuesday to discuss Iran. In the meeting, Sullivan conveyed to Hulata that the US is prepared to “turn to other options” if diplomacy with Iran fails.

“Mr. Sullivan explained that this administration believes diplomacy is the best path to achieve that goal, while also noting that the President has made clear that if diplomacy fails, the United States is prepared to turn to other options,” NSC spokesperson Emily Horne said in a readout of the meeting.

President Biden first said the US would “turn to other options” with Iran alongside Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett when the two leaders met in August. Iran took Biden’s comments as a threat, and for good reason. The Israelis are pushing the Biden administration to abandon its stated plans to revive the nuclear deal and take a more hawkish approach towards Iran.

‘Everyone here hated the Americans’: Rural Afghans live with the Taliban and a painful U.S. legacy

The white flags flutter in the apple orchards of this serene hamlet ringed by oatmeal-colored mountains. They mark the precise spots where U.S. airstrikes killed Afghans. In the village center lies the destroyed shell of a building that once housed shops; down the road is a mangled, rusted car.

There are white flags there, too.

Together, they’re reminders of the legacy the United States has left in many rural areas across Afghanistan.

“Everyone here hated the Americans,” said Zabiullah Haideri, 30. His shop was shattered by an airstrike in 2019 that killed 12 villagers. “They murdered civilians and committed atrocities.”

In Kabul and other Afghan cities, the United States will be remembered for enabling two decades of progress in women’s rights, an independent media and other freedoms. But in the nation’s hinterlands, the main battlegrounds of America’s longest war, Afghans view the United States primarily through the prism of conflict, brutality and death. ...

But any sense of relief is tempered by new woes. The Taliban takeover triggered freezes in funds in Afghanistan’s central bank and humanitarian aid; international charities have pulled out of the district, and the economy is in free fall.

“There are no airstrikes, no night raids, no bombings,” said Haideri, tall and wiry with a black beard and wavy hair. “But the problem now is there is no work and no money. People here are facing hunger.”

MSNBC FOOLED As Deep State 'Havana Syndrome' Revealed As Total FRAUD

Congress May Let Opioid Billionaires Get Legal Immunity

As a coalition of lawmakers tries to hold the billionaire Sackler family accountable for its role in the opioid crisis, Washington’s most powerful business lobby group has now jumped into the intensifying battle over whether courts can grant sweeping legal immunity to those accused of corporate crime. At issue is a feature of bankruptcy law known as a non-debtor release, which the Sackler family — owners of opioid maker Purdue Pharma — is trying to use to shield its entire corporate empire from current and future litigation. Facing a barrage of lawsuits over its role in the opioid epidemic, Connecticut-based Purdue declared bankruptcy in a New York court known for being friendly to corporate litigants.

Last month, Judge Robert Drain approved the Sackler family’s sweeping immunity plan in the U.S. bankruptcy court for the Southern District of New York. The Biden administration is now appealing that ruling.

Earlier this year, Democrats introduced the Stop Shielding Assets from Corporate Known Liability by Eliminating Non-Debtor Releases (SACKLER) Act, a bill that would have prevented the Sacklers from obtaining liability releases. Although the legislation has 63 co-sponsors, the measure has been stalled in committee since March, more than five months before the court accepted Purdue’s plan. Meanwhile, federal records show the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, one of the nation’s best-funded corporate lobbying groups, has joined Purdue Pharma in lobbying on the bill. Lobbying records filed with the Senate show that the Chamber began lobbying on the SACKLER Act between April and June. A Chamber affiliate, the Institute for Legal Reform, has also jumped into the fray. Disclosures show the group hired a former Republican aide to the Senate Judiciary Committee to lobby on the issue. ...

For years, the Chamber has been leading a larger legislative campaign to try to shield corporations from legal liability. In the case of the SACKLER Act, the Chamber and its members may be trying to fortify a lucrative legal shield for not just the Sackler family, but for all of corporate America.

McConnell FOLDS On Debt Crisis After CEOs FREAK OUT

Biden Gives Democrats a Green Light to Weaken the Filibuster for Debt Ceiling Votes

After previously opposing such a move, President Joe Biden on Tuesday said it is a "real possibility" that Democrats will change Senate rules to exempt debt ceiling votes from the 60-vote legislative filibuster—a reversal that comes as the U.S. is careening toward a default on its financial obligations.

Progressives viewed Biden's brief comments to reporters as a green light that Senate Democrats should take advantage of as their Republican counterparts, led by Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), continue to obstruct efforts to suspend the debt limit and avert a potentially devastating economic crisis. ...

Earlier Tuesday, Biden warned that there are "not many options" left for Democrats to raise or suspend the debt ceiling before October 18, the day the Treasury Department says it will exhaust its ability to prevent a default. The debt ceiling is the amount of money the U.S. can legally borrow to cover its obligations.

"There's not much time left to do it by reconciliation," the president said, referring to the filibuster-proof process that Democrats are currently using to advance social spending and climate investments without GOP support. Biden expressed concern that if Democrats include a debt ceiling measure in the reconciliation package, Republicans could easily gum up the works and "keep us on the floor for hundreds of amendments."

"They can just delay this," Biden said.

In an interview on CNBC Tuesday morning, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said it would be "catastrophic to not pay the government's bills, for us to be in a position where we lacked the resources to pay the government's bills."

"I fully expect it would cause a recession as well," added Yellen, who has voiced support for abolishing the debt limit outright.

Krystal Ball: Media SILENT as MASSIVE Strike Wave ROILS the Country

Why Does Congress Fight Over Funding Childcare But Not F-35s?

President Biden and the Democratic Congress are facing a crisis as the popular domestic agenda they ran on in the 2020 election is held hostage by two corporate Democratic Senators, fossil-fuel consigliere Joe Manchin and payday-lender favorite Kyrsten Sinema.

But the very week before the Dems' $350 billion-per-year domestic package hit this wall of corporate money-bags, all but 38 House Democrats voted to hand over more than double that amount to the Pentagon. Senator Manchin has hypocritically described the domestic spending bill as "fiscal insanity," but he has voted for a much larger Pentagon budget every year since 2016.

Real fiscal insanity is what Congress does year after year, taking most of its discretionary spending off the table and handing it over to the Pentagon before even considering the country's urgent domestic needs. Maintaining this pattern, Congress just splashed out $12 billion for 85 more F-35 warplanes, 6 more than Trump bought last year, without debating the relative merits of buying more F-35s vs. investing $12 billion in education, healthcare, clean energy or fighting poverty.

The 2022 military spending bill (NDAA or National Defense Authorization Act) that passed the House on September 23 would hand a whopping $740 billion to the Pentagon and $38 billion to other departments (mainly the Department of Energy for nuclear weapons), for a total of $778 billion in military spending, a $37 billion increase over this year's military budget. The Senate will soon debate its version of this bill—but don't expect too much of a debate there either, as most senators are "yes men" when it comes to feeding the war machine.

Two House amendments to make modest cuts both failed: one by Rep. Sara Jacobs to strip $24 billion that was added to Biden's budget request by the House Armed Services Committee; and another by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for an across-the-board 10% cut (with exceptions for military pay and healthcare).

After adjusting for inflation, this enormous budget is comparable to the peak of Trump's arms build-up in 2020, and is only 10% below the post-WWII record set by Bush II in 2008 under cover of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. It would give Joe Biden the dubious distinction of being the fourth post-Cold War U.S. president to militarily outspend every Cold War president, from Truman to Bush I.

In effect, Biden and Congress are locking in the $100 billion per year arms build-up that Trump justified with his absurd claims that Obama's record military spending had somehow depleted the military.

As with Biden's failure to quickly rejoin the JCPOA with Iran, the time to act on cutting the military budget and reinvesting in domestic priorities was in the first weeks and months of his administration. His inaction on these issues, like his deportation of thousands of desperate asylum seekers, suggests that he is happier to continue Trump's ultra-hawkish policies than he will publicly admit.

In 2019, the Program for Public Consultation at the University of Maryland conducted a study in which it briefed ordinary Americans on the federal budget deficit and asked them how they would address it. The average respondent favored cutting the deficit by $376 billion, mainly by raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations, but also by cutting an average of $51 billion from the military budget.

Even Republicans favored cutting $14 billion, while Democrats supported a much larger $100 billion cut. That would be more than the 10% cut in the failed Ocasio-Cortez Amendment, which garnered support from only 86 Democratic Reps and was opposed by 126 Dems and every Republican.

Most of the Democrats who voted for amendments to reduce spending still voted to pass the bloated final bill. Only 38 Democrats were willing to vote against a $778 billion military spending bill that, once Veterans Affairs and other related expenses are included, would continue to consume over 60% of discretionary spending.

"How're you going to pay for it?" clearly applies only to "money for people," never to "money for war." Rational policy making would require exactly the opposite approach. Money invested in education, healthcare and green energy is an investment in the future, while money for war offers little or no return on investment except to weapons makers and Pentagon contractors, as was the case with the $2.26 trillion the United States wasted on death and destruction in Afghanistan.

Sanders Pushes Back After Manchin Says He Doesn't Want to Create 'An Entitlement Society'

Senate Budget Committee Chair Bernie Sanders responded forcefully on Wednesday to remarks from Sen. Joe Manchin, one of just two senators holding up the Build Back Better budget reconciliation package containing key parts of President Joe Biden's agenda.

Machin (D-W.Va.), who has proposed a $1.5 trillion investment over a decade versus the $3.5 trillion favored by the vast majority of Democrats, said Wednesday that "I don't believe that we should turn our society into an entitlement society."

"I think that we should still be a compassionate, rewarding society," he continued. "Compassion means taking care of those who can't take care of themselves, whether they're young, whether they've had some type of a challenge in life, whether it be mental or physical, those are responsibilities that we have and we can all meet those responsibilities."

While Manchin expressed support for some of the policies being negotiated—including reforms targeting the beneficiaries of the GOP's 2017 tax cuts and allowing Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices—Sanders (I-Vt.) responded by asking his colleague to "tell us with specificity, not generalities …what he wants and what he does not want, and to explain that to the people of West Virginia and America."

During his afternoon press conference, Sanders highlighted that the proposed $3.5 trillion investment is backed by not only the American public and Biden but also most Democratic caucus members in the House and all but two—Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-Ariz.)—in the Senate. He also noted who is "vigorously" opposed to the bill: the pharmaceutical, health insurance, and fossil fuel industries as well as the tax-avoidant "billionaire class."

Pointing to Manchin's "entitlement society" comment, Sanders launched into a series of questions for the West Virginian, beginning with: "Does that mean that we end the $300 direct payments for working-class parents, which have cut childhood poverty… in half? Is protecting working families and cutting childhood poverty an 'entitlement'?"

"At a time when millions of seniors… have teeth in their mouths that are rotting, when they can't afford hearing aids in order to communicate with their grandchildren, and when they can't afford a pair of glasses in order to read a newspaper, does Sen. Manchin really believe that seniors are not entitled to digest their food and that they're not entitled to hear and see properly?" Sanders continued. "Is that really too much to ask in the richest country on Earth?"

Sanders also questioned whether Machin believes that "we have to end the absurdity of the United States paying, by far, the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs."

"Does Sen. Manchin believe that we should be the only major country on Earth not to guarantee paid family and medical leave?" Sanders said. "And that working mothers should not be able to stay home with a child who is sick? Are workers not entitled to be able to do that?"

"Does Sen. Manchin believe that working-class parents in West Virginia and Vermont… should have to pay 25 or 30% of their incomes on child care?" he asked. "Are the children of this country not entitled to high-quality child care and pre-K education?"

Sanders also inquired about Manchin's position on whether working families are entitled to affordable housing—noting that hundreds of thousands of people are homeless—and whether Americans are "entitled to at least two years of free community college," particularly "at a time when we have a major labor shortage… because our young people lack the skills they need."

"And, perhaps, most importantly, does Sen. Manchin not believe what the scientists are telling us, that we face an existential threat regarding climate change, and that it is absolutely imperative that we move boldly to cut carbon emissions?" Sanders asked. "Does Sen. Manchin not believe that our children and grandchildren are entitled to live in a country and a world that is healthy and is habitable?"

Manchin responded to the press conference by doubling down on his earlier comments. According to The Washington Post, he said: "Respectfully, Sen. Sanders and I share very different policy and political beliefs. As he and I have discussed, Sen. Sanders believes America should be moving towards an entitlement society while I believe we should have a compassionate and rewarding society."

Questioned by reporters after his prepared remarks, Sanders made clear that he was not there to "disparage" Manchin but suggested that his and Sinema's ongoing opposition to a version of the reconciliation package backed by most Democrats is irresponsible.

While mostly taking aim at Manchin and his "entitlement" comment, Sanders also said that Sinema should "absolutely" make her positions on various parts of the package clear to the public.

Big Oil Lobby Spending Millions to Gut Key Build Back Better Climate Provisions: Report

As House Democrats prepare to grill representatives of Big Oil about their efforts to spread climate misinformation, a new InfluenceMap report details how fossil fuel trade groups are spending millions of dollars to mislead Americans against President Joe Biden's widely popular $3.5 trillion Build Back Better plan and its robust climate provisions.

"Industry associations including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the National Association of Manufacturers (NAM), and Business Roundtable, as well as fossil fuel interest groups like the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the American Gas Association (AGA), are strategically deploying their policy influence to weaken or remove the critical climate elements of the bill," the briefing paper, which was published last week, states.

"The groups are using tactics such as public messaging and joint letters to policymakers to push back on the plan," the report continues. "In addition, the API and the AGA appear to be using targeted advertising campaigns in multiple states to sway key congressional votes on the bill."

According to federal disclosures, API and its front group Energy Citizens spent more than $2 million in the first six months of 2021 directly lobbying members of Congress. API—whose members include ExxonMobil, Chevron, and BP—has also spent seven figures on television advertisements targeting Build Back Better provisions.

Struggling renters find help where they can as US evictions moratorium ends

After a slow start, the pace to distribute the first $25bn installment of $46.5bn in rental assistance is picking up. Treasury department officials said the program had served 420,000 households in August – up from 340,000 in July – and distributed $7.7bn since January.

Treasury officials said the strong signs of progress came from New Jersey, New York and South Carolina, which at first struggled to get their programs going. New Jersey, for example, sent out no money in the first quarter but now has distributed 78% of its first-installment money and doubled the number of households served in August compared with July.

Spending in Florida increased from $60.9m in July to $141.4m in August, while South Carolina increased its spending from $10.6m to $25.3m. New York saw a jump from $8.5m to $307m.

“These numbers are still early, uncertain and there is likely additional pain and hardship not showing up in these reports,” said Gene Sperling, a senior adviser to Joe Biden who is charged with overseeing implementation of the president’s $1.9tn coronavirus rescue package. ...

On Wednesday, the Department of Housing and Urban Development issued a new rule barring landlords from evicting tenants in Hud-subsidized public housing without providing them 30 days’ notice and information about available federal emergency rental assistance.

Buffalo's Socialist Mayoral Candidate WARNS Woke Left On Cancel Culture

Canada invokes 1977 treaty with US as dispute over pipeline intensifies

The Canadian government has invoked a decades-old treaty with the United States in its latest bid to save a pipeline that critics warn could be environmentally catastrophic if it were to fail. For nearly 67 years, Calgary-based Enbridge has moved oil and natural gas from western Canada through Michigan and the Great Lakes to refineries in the province of Ontario.

But Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, says that one section of the company’s pipeline – Line 5, which crosses the Great Lakes beneath the environmentally sensitive Straits of Mackinac – is a “ticking time bomb” and has ordered it shut down.

Court-ordered mediation talks between Enbridge and the government of Michigan have broken down, and as tensions mount, Canada this week invoked a 1977 treaty obliging both countries to allow oil to flow uninterrupted. By invoking the treaty – which would bring the dispute to binding arbitration – Canada has shown a rare frustration with president Joe Biden’s administration and its refusal to wade into the feud.

“While Biden may want to duck the issue to please [Whitmer] and keep the environmentalists in the Democratic caucus on side, the fact is that the treaty guarantees uninterrupted pipeline transit, except in exceptionally grave emergencies,” said Lawrence Herman, an international trade lawyer and senior fellow at the CD Howe Institute. “And even in those emergency cases, any interruption is only allowed for temporary periods.”

Line 5 delivers nearly half the oil needs of both Ontario and Quebec, as well as propane for the state of Michigan, and the treaty was initially pushed by the US to ensure oil could flow from Alaska, through Canada. Senators made the point that it ensured Canadian provinces couldn’t interfere with the movement of oil. “Now the situation is reversed and the Americans aren’t respecting legal obligations they steadfastly endorsed at the time.”

'Another Day, Another Catastrophic Oil Spill': Leak in Texas Fuels Calls to 'Keep It in the Ground'

A crude oil spill at a Marathon Petroleum refinery in Texas City outside of Houston on Wednesday—just the latest in a series of recent leaks—sparked fresh calls for rapidly phasing out fossil fuels and transitioning to 100% renewable energy.

"The crazy thing is to expect that this won't keep on happening every damn day until we just keep the oil in the ground. #KeepItInTheGround," tweeted Nathaniel Stinnett, executive director of Environmental Voter Project, with footage of the scene at the Marathon Galveston Bay Refinery.

ABC 13 reports that Bruce Clawson, interim director of Homeland Security for Texas City, said the failure of a pump seal at the facility caused oil to pour out of the side of a tank. No one was injured but the incident led to road closures, according to Chron.

Both Clawson and Marathon Petroleum spokesperson Jamal T. Kheiry said the spill is contained to the facility, which has a refining capacity of 593,000 barrels of oil per day.

‘It is there pretty much forever’: Huntington Beach oil spill may permanently affect birds

The full scale of the ecological damage from the Huntington Beach oil spill will take some time to become clear, with birds and marine mammals hardest hit in the short term. That’s the view of experts with experience of other incidents as they consider a suspected underwater pipe leak that spilled roughly 126,000 gallons of crude oil just miles off the southern Californian coast. “The recovery is going to be very uneven,” Steve Murawski, a fisheries biologist and marine ecologist at the University of South Florida, said.

Dead birds and fish reportedly washed up along the miles of black-splotched shore as rescue workers rushed to recover oiled animals. Seven birds have been saved from the scene and another, a pelican, had to be euthanized. So far, there are no official reports tallying fatalities of animals or invertebrates. ...

Murawski said birds and marine mammals will be harmed, especially those that congregate along southern California’s offshore islands or pass through its coastal wetlands. Smaller creatures like plankton could take a hit, but their fast lifecycle will likely ensure they bounce back quickly. “The longer alive and the slower growing things, like abalone and other things that can’t get out of the way,” he said, “that might be more problematic.”

The effects could be felt long after the sand is cleared of the black sludge, especially in the affected marshes and wetlands – critical habitats for migratory and shorebirds and several endangered species. ... “You will have to go through a number of rounds of beach cleanup and every time you have a storm you are going to see those tar balls back up on the beach,” Murawski said, noting that British Petroleum, the company responsible for Deepwater Horizon, was pulling up huge nets of tar and sand for years after the disaster. “I would imagine that that’s going to be a persistent headache for the people who are supposed to clean the beach up.”

Clearing oil from the sand and surface waters is a somewhat straightforward process, but it gets far more complex in the delicate marshes and wetlands. These areas, which arehome to a diverse array of species including migratory birds and endangered plants and animals, might be permanently affected by the oil spill. “Once the oil is in the marsh and it gets down below the level of the sediments,” Murawski said, “it is there pretty much forever.”

‘Eco-anxiety’: fear of environmental doom weighs on young people

The climate crisis is taking a growing toll on the mental health of children and young people, experts have warned. Increasing levels of “eco-anxiety” – the chronic fear of environmental doom – were likely to be underestimated and damaging to many in the long term, public health experts said.

Writing in the British Medical Journal, Mala Rao and Richard Powell, of Imperial College London’s Department of Primary Care and Public Health, said eco-anxiety “risks exacerbating health and social inequalities between those more or less vulnerable to these psychological impacts”. Although not yet considered a diagnosable condition, recognition of eco-anxiety and its complex psychological effects was increasing, they said, as was its “disproportionate” impact on children and young people.

In their article, they pointed to a 2020 survey of child psychiatrists in England showing that more than half (57%) are seeing children and young people distressed about the climate crisis and the state of the environment. A recent international survey of climate anxiety in young people aged 16 to 25 showed that the psychological burdens of climate crisis were “profoundly affecting huge numbers of these young people around the world”, they added. ...

Research offered insights into how young people’s emotions were linked with their feelings of betrayal and abandonment by governments and adults, they said. Governments were seen as failing to respond adequately, leaving young people with “no future” and “humanity doomed”.

Also of Interest

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

Media Praise ‘Mavericks’ for Blocking Aid to American People

Chinese ‘Disinformation’ and US Propaganda

The Anonymous Executioners of the Corporate State

Trashing the planet and hiding the money isn’t a perversion of capitalism. It is capitalism

The Correct Level of Profits in an Economy

Black families passed their homes from one generation to the next. Now they may be lost

Thousands of Police Killings Are Unreported

Benito Mussolini's granddaughter, Rachele wins most votes in Rome city council election

Ursus gluttonous maximus: 480 Otis wins Alaska’s Fat Bear Week contest

Democracy Now - Ethiopia: New Reports Expose Ethnic Cleansing & Illegal Arms Shipments on Commercial Flights

Biden's CATASTROPHIC Polling Spells Doom For Midterms

Texas abortion law: Federal judge temporarily blocks enforcement of ban

Los Angeles: Dozens of cargo ships still waiting to dock at long beach

Neocon Iraq War architect Bill Kristol destroyed in debate with anti-war writer Scott Horton

A Little Night Music

Pee Wee Crayton - Texas Hop

Pee Wee Crayton - Let The Good Times Roll

Pee Wee Crayton - You Know Yeah

Pee Wee Crayton - Hillbilly Blues

Pee Wee Crayton - Git to Gittin´

Pee Wee Crayton - Poppa Stoppa

Pee Wee Crayton - My Kind Of Woman

Pee Wee Crayton - Red Rose Boogie

Pee Wee Crayton - Do Unto Others

Pee Wee Crayton - Barefooting