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“The difference between faith and insanity is that faith is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence, whereas insanity is the ability to hold firmly to a conclusion that is incompatible with the evidence.”

-- William Harwood

News and Opinion

Propaganda and Evidence

Finally. Finally our mainstream press and broadcasters show signs of waking up to the cynical, pervasive, propaganda campaign official Washington wages to obscure its imperial pursuits. Finally there is some suggestion—not more—that the mainstream may someday stop participating in the antidemocratic onslaught of lies and subterfuge they have very willingly assisted in inflicting upon us for most of this century.

I refer to two remarkable confrontations between the press and official government spokespeople this past week. At the State Department last Thursday Matt Lee, diplomatic correspondent of The Associated Press ran department spokesman Ned Price straight to the ground on one of the government’s most familiar, most nonsensical tropes: We told you, and telling you is evidence that what we told you is true. Aboard Air Force One, National Public Radio correspondent Ayesha Rascoe reacted similarly when Jen Psaki, the president’s press secretary, tried on the same ruse in the matter of civilian casualties during the raid Thursday on the Syrian hideout of Abu Ibrahim al–Hashimi al–Qurayshi, the putative head of the Islamic State. What? Do you dare not believe me? the rarely-to-be-believed Psaki asked aggressively.

At last.

Let us not read too much into these developments. The AP and NPR have been card-carrying purveyors of liberal authoritarian orthodoxies for a very long time. Demanding evidence to support official assertions of authority on two occasions is hardly an indication of some new determination to reclaim surrendered ground as independent poles of power. But we ought not miss the potential significance of this turn, either. The wall of propaganda that towers over us, resting on an insidious culture of irrationality that has come to suffuse the American polity, is weakening. In my read, the doggedness of independent media has forced the mainstream to begin reckoning with its own complicities. ...

Among the notable features of these two exchanges is how surprised the two official spokespeople appeared to be when asked to support their assertions with evidence. And why should they have been otherwise? The mainstream press and broadcasters, along with “progressive” publications such as Mother Jones and The Nation, have eagerly embraced official accounts of events, while accepting these accounts as evidence in themselves.

The Ukraine and Syria crises, the treatment of Uighurs in China, what is or is not going on in Cuba, Venezuela, and Nicaragua, Moscow’s supposed interventions in American politics: All of these questions and numerous others are an absolute blur—a mess of mis– and disinformation—if you rely on mainstream accounts alone. Were it not for the more conscientious independent publications, there would be no true record of these matters.

Minsk agreements best means to protect Ukraine, says Macron

Talks between Macron and Putin fail to produce Ukraine breakthrough

Emmanuel Macron and Vladimir Putin did not appear to reach a breakthrough in marathon talks at the Kremlin on Monday evening aimed at fending off a Russian attack on Ukraine. After five hours of negotiations, Macron warned that the two sides needed to work quickly to avoid the risk of an escalation.

“Right now the tension is increasing and the risk of destabilisation is increasing,” Macron said, according to a simultaneous translation of his remarks following the talks. “Neither Russia, nor the Europeans want chaos or instability, when nations have already suffered from the [coronavirus] epidemic. So we need to agree on concrete measures.”

Macron is due to travel to Kyiv on Tuesday, where he will hold talks with the president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy. He said he plans to brief Putin on the results of the discussions in a phone call. It is not clear how Macron’s shuttle diplomacy can satisfy Russia’s demands that Ukraine membership in Nato be ruled out while maintaining that the alliance’s open door policy is “existential for Europe”, as he said in opening remarks.

Without going into specifics, Putin said it was possible to consider “a number of [Macron’s] proposals and ideas … in order to lay a foundation for our further steps.” But he also blasted Nato’s open door policy, saying it only benefited the United States. He also appeared to be needling Ukraine’s Zelenskiy by saying that Russia was ready to offer political asylum to his rival Petro Poroshenko, who has been charged with treason over his alleged involvement with financing Moscow-backed separatists.

'Do you want the war between Russia & NATO?!' - Putin

Wave of Coups Disrupts Africa as U.S.-Trained Soldiers Play Key Role in Overthrowing Governments

House Dems Vow to Introduce War Powers Resolution for Yemen

A pair of progressive U.S. lawmakers on Monday said that if President Joe Biden does not stop supporting the Saudi-led war against Yemen, they will work to pass a new war powers resolution to "end unconstitutional U.S. participation" in the conflict.

"We will not sit by as the Constitution is ignored and the Yemeni people suffer seven years into this unauthorized war," Reps. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.)—who heads the Congressional Progressive Caucus—and Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.) wrote in The Nation. "If the administration refuses to act, Congress will force them to. In advance of the seventh anniversary of this war, we will work with our colleagues in Congress to pass a new Yemen War Powers Resolution."

"Our aim is clear: to reassert Congress's constitutional war powers authority, terminate unauthorized U.S. involvement in this endless war, reinvigorate diplomatic efforts, and ease this devastating humanitarian disaster," they continued. "American complicity has persisted in this conflict for too long—now it's time for Congress to act."

Julian Assange NFT Fundraiser Raises $38 MILLION In Efforts To Free Wikileaks Founder

America COMPETES Act Ignores Social Needs, Feeds Tensions With China: Analysis

A researcher at a progressive think tank warned Monday that a bill passed last week by the House of Representatives "stokes future U.S.-China conflict" while prioritizing spending on militarized technology at the expense of "urgent human needs."

The analysis, authored by Ashik Siddique of the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies, calls the America COMPETES Act—which on Friday passed the House by a vote of 222-210—"part of a dangerous trend of feeding tensions between the U.S. and China."

"The bill is framed heavily in terms of national security and competition with China and could easily pave the way for boosting the already massive military budget in years to come," Siddique asserts.

The measure "is also a sign of failed priority-setting by people in government," he argues. "A country that refuses to contribute enough to global vaccine efforts, and where leaders fail over and over to secure funding for clean energy, has bigger problems than China's industrial growth."

"The America COMPETES bill would authorize hundreds of billions of dollars in new federal spending on initiatives intended to boost the United States in its competition with the world's other largest economy, even while other critical components of the U.S. economy are chronically underfunded," Siddique contends.

Taking aim at the bill's allocation of $52 billion in incentives for domestic semiconductor manufacturing over the next five years—the CHIPS for America Act—Siddique laments that "our government can fund billions for making computer chips, but can barely spend a dime to expand domestic manufacturing of clean energy against the climate crisis."

Siddique also calls the bill's $2 billion proposed expenditure on a "public-private partnership" in which the U.S. Department of Defense and corporations would produce microelectronic products "a blatant grab for more profits from an agency with a $778 billion budget, half of which already goes to corporate contractors."

The author warns that the Senate version of the America COMPETES Act is "much more openly militaristic," and that the two iterations must be reconciled before being sent to President Joe Biden's desk.

"That means the bill can still get worse, as labor and environmental provisions included by Democrats in COMPETES are likely to be threatened in reconciliation, while components of the Senate bill that stoke military competition and domestic racism may still survive," Siddique writes. "But prioritizing any version of the bill over all the ongoing crises that people are dealing with today in the U.S. shows that getting an edge over China is apparently our government's most urgent priority."

IRS cancels plan to use facial recognition on millions of taxpayers

The United States’ Internal Revenue Service will no longer use third-party facial recognition technology on millions of Americans who use the agency’s website to pay taxes or access documents.

The IRS said on Monday it would transition away from using the identity verification company ID.me in the coming weeks and develop a new authentication system that does not use facial recognition. The announcement comes hours after US lawmakers asked the IRS to “halt its plans” to use the technology.

“The IRS takes taxpayer privacy and security seriously, and we understand the concerns that have been raised,” said the IRS commissioner, Chuck Rettig. “Everyone should feel comfortable with how their personal information is secured and we are quickly pursuing short-term options that do not involve facial recognition.” ...

Digital rights groups warned using facial recognition systems for identity verification when filing taxes raises myriad privacy and discrimination issues. Studies have shown both technologies ID.me uses in its identity fraud and verification processes – face-matching and facial recognition systems – often misidentify Black and brown faces. The use of such technologies also creates a massive database of information that can be vulnerable to cybersecurity attacks or shared with other government entities.

Despite 2020 Promise, Jill Biden Confirms Free Community College Plan Is Dead

Confirming that the Biden administration has abandoned its efforts to pass tuition-free community college—a signature campaign promise—First Lady JIll Biden on Monday offered a stark reminder, according to one critic, of "how low we, the people, are on the U.S. list of priorities."

The first lady spoke at the Community College National Legislative Summit in Washington, D.C., telling attendees that President Joe Biden has not found a way to keep the community college provision in the Build Back Better Act, his social spending and climate package, as Democrats continue to negotiate the bill.

"Joe has also had to make compromises," said Biden, a longtime educator who currently teaches at a community college. "Congress hasn't passed the Build Back Better legislation—yet. And free community college is no longer a part of that package."

Biden expressed her own disappointment in the Democratic Party's failure to coalesce around the president's domestic agenda, suggesting that right-wing Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia—who pressured the White House to remove key climate and social spending provisions from the package last year only to announce in December that he would not support it—was to blame.

"I was disappointed," the first lady told the room of community college leaders from across the country. "Because, like you, these aren't just bills or budgets to me, to you, right? We know what they mean for real people, for our students."

"It was a real lesson in human nature that some people just don't get that," Biden added.

‘Homelessness is lethal’: US deaths among those without housing are surging

The number of Americans dying while homeless has surged dramatically in the past five years, an exclusive analysis by the Guardian in conjunction with an academic expert at the University of Washington has shown. An examination of 20 US urban areas found the number of deaths among people living without housing shot up by 77% in the five years ending in 2020.

The rise from 2016 through 2020 was driven by many factors, including ever-rising numbers of people living on the street and the growing dangers they face, such as violence, untreated disease and increasingly deadly illicit drug supplies. ...

While the federal government makes no effort to count deaths nationally of people deemed homeless, the Guardian worked with Matt Fowle, University of Washington researcher and co-creator of the organization Homeless Deaths Count, to collect local data from large urban areas, where consistent year-to-year counts were available. The stark results stretch from Los Angeles and Seattle to New York, Philadelphia and Miami, via the heartland.

The Guardian’s analysis counted 18,000 people who died homeless over five years in encampments, on sidewalks or in shelters, including 5,000 deaths in 2020 alone. In most cases, the deaths were tracked by county coroners and medical examiners, but in a few locations only local non-profits kept track. Experts at the non-profit National Health Care for the Homeless Council say that, in many places, the people who perish without housing are never counted. They estimate the total number of deaths is actually between 17,000 and 40,000 every year.

In all but two of the 20 cities or counties examined by the Guardian, numbers rose significantly over five years. For instance, the homeless death toll in Los Angeles almost doubled to more than 1,600 in 2020 from 871 in 2016, while New York’s total more than doubled to 685 from 290.

Cover-Up in Minneapolis? Police "Executed" Amir Locke in "No-Knock" Raid, Say His Parents, Activists

Policing on Trial: Attorney Ben Crump on Fed Case Against Three Cops Involved in George Floyd Murder

Trump’s incendiary Texas speech may have deepened his legal troubles, experts say

Donald Trump’s incendiary call at a Texas rally for his backers to ready massive protests against “radical, vicious, racist prosecutors” could constitute obstruction of justice or other crimes and backfire legally on Trump, say former federal prosecutors. Trump’s barbed attack was seen as carping against separate federal and state investigations into his efforts to overturn the 2020 election results and into his real estate empire.

Trump’s rant that his followers should launch the “biggest protests” ever in three cities should prosecutors “do anything wrong or illegal” by criminally charging him over his efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s victory, or for business tax fraud, came at a 30 January rally in Texas where he repeated falsehoods that the election was rigged.

Legal experts were astonished at Trump’s strong hints that if he runs and wins a second term in 2024, he would pardon many of those charged for attacking the Capitol on 6 January last year in hopes of thwarting Biden’s certification by Congress. ...

Dennis Aftergut, a former federal prosecutor who is of counsel to Lawyers Defending American Democracy, told the Guardian that Trump “may have shot himself in the foot” with the comments. “Criminal intent can be hard to prove, but when a potential defendant says something easily seen as intimidating or threatening to those investigating the case it becomes easier,” Aftergut said.

Aftergut added that having proclaimed “his support for the insurrectionists, Trump added evidence of his corrupt intent on January 6 should the DoJ prosecute him for aiding the seditious conspiracy, or for impeding an official proceeding of Congress”. Likewise, a former US attorney in Georgia, Michael Moore, said Trump’s comments could “potentially intimidate witnesses and members of a grand jury”, noting that it is a felony in Georgia to deter a witness from testifying before a grand jury.

SCOTUS Rejects AL Dems Redistricting Plan, Reinstates Map Critics Say Is BIASED Against Black Voters

Supreme court lets Alabama use maps decried as biased against Black voters

Alabama does not have to redraw its congressional map for the 2022 elections, the US supreme court ruled on Monday, a win for Republicans that will leave in place a plan that has been described as a textbook example of discrimination against Black voters in the US.

Monday’s supreme court ruling boosts the party’s chances to hold six of the state’s seven seats in the House of Representatives.

The court’s action, by a 5-4 vote, means the upcoming elections will be conducted under a map drawn by Alabama’s Republican-controlled legislature that contains one majority-Black district, represented by a Black Democrat, in a state in which more than a quarter of the population is Black. Chief Justice John Roberts joined with the court’s three liberal justices in dissenting from the ruling. ...

Justices Brett Kavanaugh and Samuel Alito, part of the conservative majority, said a lower court acted too close to the 2022 election cycle. Kavanaugh said he had not reached a conclusion on the larger question in the case – whether Alabama had violated the Voting Rights Act – but cited a legal principle saying that courts should not change election rules close to an election.

Justice Elena Kagan blasted that argument in a dissenting opinion on behalf of the court’s three liberal justices. Alabama’s primary isn’t until 24 May, she noted, and lawmakers were able to draw the state’s current congressional map in less than a week. The plaintiffs in the case challenged the maps hours after they were signed into law, and the lower court quickly reached a decision.

Dem SuperPAC Behind Rogan Smear Campaign

California subsidies for dairy cows’ biogas are a lose-lose, campaigners say

A coalition of climate, environmental and animal welfare groups is calling for California to remove the huge subsidies provided to dairy farms to turn animal waste into a form of energy called biogas. Manure, which emits the potent greenhouse gas methane, is a big problem for US farms, and is particularly stark in California, where the dairy industry accounts for nearly half the state’s methane emissions.

Since 2011, California has been running a policy called the low carbon fuel standard (LCFS), which now includes incentives for dairy farms to convert methane into energy to fuel vehicles by enabling them to sell offset credits. This is intended to be a win-win: reducing farm emissions while allowing fossil fuel companies to mitigate their own greenhouse gas emissions by buying these offsets. The number of anaerobic digesters used to produce the biogas has surged in the state especially among large dairy farms.

But environmental advocates argue that the environmental benefits of biogas are exaggerated, and that the LCFS encourages the expansion of factory farms and could end up increasing emissions and pollution. In a petition to the California Air Resources Board (Carb), the state government’s clean air agency that runs the LCFS, six environmental groups called for dairy farms to be excluded from the policy. In January, Carb turned down the request but said it would continue to engage with the petitioners.

This decision will “kick the can down the road [and] ensures that the program will remain fundamentally compromised and California will fall further behind its climate goals,” said Tyler Lobdell, a staff attorney with Food & Water Watch, one of the organizations involved in the petition.

First Nations Land Defenders File Submission to UN Human Rights Council

First Nations land defenders on Monday filed a submission to the United Nations detailing how their territory and human rights are being violated by Canadian and British Columbian authorities in service of a fossil fuel corporation's gas pipeline.

The submission to the United Nations Human Rights Council was filed by the Gidimt'en—one of the five clans of the Wet'suwet'en Nation—who for years have been fighting to stop the construction of Coastal GasLink's pipeline through their territory in northern British Columbia.

The filing notes that "ongoing human rights violations, militarization of Wet'suwet'en lands, forcible removal and criminalization of peaceful land defenders, and irreparable harm due to industrial destruction of Wet'suwet'en lands and cultural sites are occurring despite declarations by federal and provincial governments for reconciliation with Indigenous peoples."

All five Wet'suwet'en clans oppose the pipeline, which is being built on tribal land that the Canadian Supreme Court acknowledges as unceded. Canadian authorities, including the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP), have answered nonviolent Wet'suwet'en land defense with heavily armed officers employing heavy-handed removal tactics.

Scores of Wet'suwet'en land defenders, including four hereditary chiefs, have been arrested and charged, as have journalists and legal observers. In December, Coastal GasLink dropped charges against two journalists who were arrested while covering a militarized police raid last November 19.

More than 30 land defenders are scheduled to appear in the British Columbian Supreme Court in Prince George, built on the site of a burned Lheidli T'enneh village, next week.

Meanwhile, construction continues on the 416-mile pipeline, which will carry gas from Michif Piiyii (Métis) territory in northeastern British Columbia to an export terminal in coastal Kitimat, on the land of the x̣àʼisla w̓áwís (Haisla) people.

"By deploying legal, political, and economic tactics to violate our rights, Canada and B.C. are contravening the spirit of reconciliation, as well as their binding obligations to Indigenous law, Canadian constitutional law, UNDRIP, and international law," the Gidimt'en submission states, referring to the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples.

Gidimt'en Checkpoint spokesperson Sleydo' said in a statement that "we urge the United Nations to conduct a field visit to Wet'suwet'en territory because Canada and B.C. have not withdrawn RCMP from our territory and have not suspended Coastal GasLink's permits, despite the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination calling on them to do so."

"Wet'suwet'en is an international frontline to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples and to prevent climate change," she added. "Yet we are intimidated and surveilled by armed RCMP, smeared as terrorists, and dragged through colonial courts. This is the reality of Canada."

Worth a full read, here's a snippet:

“What If I Can’t Insure My Home At All?”

Major insurance companies are choosing to protect the fossil fuel industry while abandoning homeowners whose safety and livelihoods are being threatened by the industry’s carbon emissions. Insurance giants Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and AIG are three of the biggest insurers of fossil fuel infrastructure around the world. But the companies have just announced plans to scale back their homeowner coverage in California, where they insist future climate-related losses will likely prevent them from turning a profit.

The coverage withdrawals may soon ignite a big money battle in the state’s legislature, pitting insurance giants against lawmakers trying to preserve coverage for their constituents. Meanwhile, climate campaigners are decrying what they say is a fundamental hypocrisy. “Insurance companies have known about climate risk for decades,” said Elana Sulakshana, senior campaigner at the Rainforest Action Network. “Yet instead of actually tackling the root of these disasters, they’re making short-term adjustments and refusing to fundamentally change their relationship to the fossil fuel industry.”

Though they’re not as high profile as fossil fuel companies or airlines, insurance companies are some of the biggest drivers of climate change. That’s not only because they invest hundreds of billions of dollars of consumers’ premiums in fossil fuel companies, but also because their coverage provides the financial safeguard that enables tremendously costly oil, gas, and coal exploitation projects to go forward. “You’re not going to get financing for a fossil fuel project that doesn’t have insurance,” noted Jamie Kalliongis, senior communications campaigner at the climate advocacy group Sunrise Project.

“There’s a small number of players playing a really critical role” in the oil and gas insurance market, she added, since few insurance companies are big enough to do the due diligence required to insure massive mines or pipelines. Top insurers in the space include Chubb, Liberty Mutual, and AIG, all of which are now withdrawing coverage from high fire-risk areas in California.

Also of Interest

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

Looking for evidence? Trust us, Biden administration says

'We will be willing to provide political asylum for Poroshenko... for humanitarian reasons' - Putin

‘NATO directly calls Russia a threat’ - Putin

Blinken’s Booby Traps – How The US Propaganda Paper Released In Madrid Proposes to Go to War With Russia While Claiming to Do The Opposite

'Russian Troop Build-Up' - Eight Years Of Crying Wolf

Is Sacha Baron Cohen Working For the CIA?

Sleazy Edit By Canadian State Media Frames Video Blogger As An Agent Of Beijing

Traffic, tickets, gas: rideshare and delivery app workers fight to unionize

The Hawaiian elders awaiting trial for protesting the world’s largest telescope

Rumble Offers Joe Rogan $100 Million For JRE, Andrew Yang DEFENDS Host Amid Racism Controversy

A Little Night Music

Josh White - Lazy Black Snake Blues

Josh White - There's A Man Goin' Around Taking Names

Josh White - Bad Housing Blues

Josh White - John Henry

Josh White - Jesus Gonna Make Up My Dying Bed

Josh White - Outskirts of Town

Josh White - One Meat Ball

Josh White - While The Blood Runs Warm In Your Veins

Josh White - Uncle Sam Says

Josh White - Freedom Road