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This evening's music features Walter "Furry" Lewis. Enjoy!

"While the high-level climate talks pursue their stately progress towards some ill-defined destination, down in the trenches there is an undercurrent of suppressed panic in the conversations. The tipping points seem to be racing towards us a lot faster than people thought."

-- Gwynne Dyer

News and Opinion

IPCC report: ‘now or never’ if world is to stave off climate disaster

The world can still hope to stave off the worst ravages of climate breakdown but only through a “now or never” dash to a low-carbon economy and society, scientists have said in what is in effect a final warning for governments on the climate. Greenhouse gas emissions must peak by 2025, and can be nearly halved this decade, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to give the world a chance of limiting future heating to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels.

The final cost of doing so will be minimal, amounting to just a few percent of global GDP by mid-century, though it will require a massive effort by governments, businesses and individuals. But the chances were narrow and the world was failing to make the changes needed, the body of the world’s leading climate scientists warned. Temperatures will soar to more than 3C, with catastrophic consequences, unless policies and actions are urgently strengthened.

Jim Skea, a professor at Imperial College London and co-chair of the working group behind the report, said: “It’s now or never, if we want to limit global warming to 1.5C. Without immediate and deep emissions reductions across all sectors, it will be impossible.”

The report on Monday was the third and final section of the IPCC’s latest comprehensive review of climate science, drawing on the work of thousands of scientists. IPCC reports take about seven years to compile, making this potentially the last warning before the world is set irrevocably on a path to climate breakdown.

Great, when is Biden's trial for civilian killings in several countries?

Biden calls for Putin to face war crimes trial over civilian killings in Ukraine

Joe Biden has called for Vladimir Putin to be tried for war crimes as western leaders prepared a fresh round of economic sanctions against Moscow amid mounting global outrage over claims of civilian killings by Russian soldiers in Ukraine.

The US president was responding to harrowing images broadcast around the world after the discovery over the weekend of a mass grave and bodies in civilian clothes, some with their hands bound, in the town of Bucha, near Kyiv. ...

The scale of the killings is still unclear. Ukraine’s chief prosecutor, Iryna Venediktova, has said 410 civilian bodies were recovered in the greater Kyiv area after Russian troops withdrew, while the mayor of Bucha, Anatoly Fedoruk, said the town had buried 280 people in mass graves because its cemeteries were under fire.

Bucha killings: Russian UN envoy rejects Russia's responsibility, blames Ukraine

Kim Iversen: No FLUB— Biden AGAIN Calls For Putin REGIME CHANGE, Provokes Another FOREVER WAR?

Biden Demands War Crimes Trial for Putin, But Will US End Its Opposition to ICC?

While U.S. President Joe Biden echoed human rights defenders on Monday by calling Russian President Vladimir Putin "a war criminal" in response to what Ukrainian officials described as a "deliberate massacre" in Bucha, the American leader's remarks also highlighted a refusal by his government to acknowledge or face consequences for the United States' crimes abroad. ...

The International Criminal Court (ICC) launched an investigation into the situation in Ukraine shortly after Russian forces invaded in late February. Over the past six weeks, war crime allegations—largely against Russian invaders—have continued to mount and have been met with global outrage.

The Intercept's Jeremy Scahill wrote in March that "while many statements from Western leaders may be accurate regarding the nature of Russia's actions, the U.S. and other NATO nations are in a dubious position to take a moralistic stance in condemning Russia. That they do so with zero recognition of their own hypocrisy, provocative actions, and history of unbridled militarism—particularly in the case of the U.S.—is deeply problematic."

"Vladimir Putin and the Russian officials responsible for this invasion of Ukraine should face justice," he continued. "Once the evidence has been gathered, every war crime should be investigated, indictments issued, and prosecutions undertaken. The obvious venue for this would be before the International Criminal Court. Yet here is an inconvenient fact: The U.S. has refused to ratify the Rome Statute, which established the ICC."

Recalling that in 2002, then-President George W. Bush "signed legislation that authorizes the U.S. to literally conduct military operations in The Hague to liberate any American personnel brought to trial for war crimes," Scahill wrote that "it is indefensible that the U.S. has established a precedent that powerful nations need not be held accountable for their crimes. It is a precedent that Russia knows well, exploits regularly, and will certainly use again and again." ...

While Biden is under growing pressure to reform his administration's position on the court given current conditions, some also charge—as Joel Mathis wrote for The Week on Monday—that the United States still "can't provide much leadership in the matter of Russia's alleged war crimes against Ukraine."

Pointing to recent calls from members of the Biden administration for accountability for any crimes in Ukraine, Mathis made the case that the U.S. "is ill-positioned to help bring about that justice—not without cloaking itself in immense hypocrisy." Like Scahill and Ochs, he emphasized that in recent decades, "the U.S. has used intimidation, sanctions, and the heft of its hegemonic power to guarantee that none of its soldiers or officials will ever be brought before the court, no matter how deserving they might be."

"There has been plenty to investigate," he noted. "The ICC's existence has coincided almost precisely with America's 'forever war' era. During the last 20 years, the U.S. has launched an unprovoked war of aggression against Iraq; tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo Bay, and black sites around Europe; bombed civilians in Syria; and committed countless other acts worthy of scrutiny. Accountability has been rare. Gina Haspel ordered the destruction of evidence of torture and then was named CIA director. Others received pardons and were transformed into heroes for the Fox News set."

Pundits Who Advocate Hot War With Russia Are Enemies Of Humanity

In an appearance on the MSNBC show Velshi, The Modern War Institute’s John Spencer explicitly advocated direct US military conflict with Russia due to allegations of war crimes in the Ukrainian city of Bucha.

“I’m ready to commit at this moment — unlike I was before this day — to put people in direct contact with Russia, to stop Russia,” Spencer said. “Call it peacekeeping. Call it what you will. We have to do more than provide weapons. And by ‘we,’ I mean the United States. Yes, we’ll do it as a coalition with lots of other people, but we are the example. So put boots on the ground, send weapons directly at Russia.”

Notice the bizarre verbal gymnastics being used by Spencer to obfuscate the fact that he is advocating a hot war with a nuclear superpower: “put people in direct contact with Russia,” “send weapons directly at Russia”. Who talks like that? He’s calling for the US military to fire upon the Russian military, he’s just saying it really weird.

To be clear this isn’t just some arms industry-funded think tanker saying this; The Modern War Institute is part of the Department of Military Instruction for the United States Military Academy, which is operated directly by the Pentagon.

Asked by the show’s host Ali Velshi what he thought of warnings that direct military confrontation with Russia could lead to nuclear war, Spencer said, “It is a huge risk, I understand that. But today is different.”

Velshi himself was much more to the point than his guest, both online and on social media.

“We are past the point of sanctions and strongly-worded condemnations and the seizing of oligarchs’ megayachts,” Velshi told his MSNBC audience. “If this is not the kind of moment that the United Nations and NATO and the UN and the G-20 and the Council of Europe and the G-7 were made for, what was the point of these alliances if not to stop this? The world cannot sit by as Vladimir Putin continues this reign of terror.”

“The turning point for the west and NATO will come when the sun rises over Kyiv on Sunday, and the war crimes against civilian non-combatants becomes visible to all,” Velshi said on Twitter over the weekend. “There is no more time for prevarication. If ‘never again’ means anything, then this is the time to act.”

Asked what specifically he meant by this, Velshi clarified that he was advocating “Direct military involvement.”

“Lines have been crossed and war crimes have been committed by Putin that make direct military intervention something NATO now must seriously consider,” Velshi added.

When I called Velshi a fucking lunatic for expressing these views (to my mind the only sane response to such madness), he argued that going to war with Russia for Ukraine would not necessarily lead to nuclear war, claiming that “A no fly zone is not so different from the endless supply of weaponry the west is sending in to Ukraine.”

These are not sane or acceptable things for mainstream pundits to be telling people. Directly attacking the Russian military would indeed risk unleashing a chain of rapid escalations that could easily lead to full-scale nuclear war; there would be far too many small, moving parts for this to be anywhere remotely close to predictable or controllable. A no-fly zone over Ukraine would immediately put NATO powers in direct hot war with Russia, which is in fact completely different from shipping weapons to Ukrainian forces.

The fact that a nuclear superpower cannot be regarded in the same way as a nation without nukes has been basic, common sense orthodoxy for all major powers since Stalin got the bomb. This is not some kind of advanced esoteric understanding that you can only grasp if you’ve been studying this stuff for years; as far as I know children are still learning about the history of nuclear weapons and Mutually Assured Destruction in grade school. This isn’t something you should have to explain to grown adults, much less influential mainstream news media pundits.

But it’s becoming more and more common. The line that we’re already in World War 3 and need to begin acting accordingly is showing up more and more often. The idea that NATO powers might be able to get away with attacking the Russian military in Ukraine without sparking a nuclear exchange is fast becoming its own genre of western foreign policy punditry, and that trend looks to accelerate with the latest (arguably pretty dubious) claims of Russian atrocities in this war.

Already we’ve got Velshi’s cries for World War 3 joined by the likes of Human Rights Foundation Chairman Garry Kasparov, who apparently spent so long training to beat a machine that he turned into one.

You’ve also got opinion makers in outlets like The New York Times telling people that “The United States and NATO should be less deferential to Mr. Putin’s attempt to wield the threat of nuclear weapons — not only for the sake of supporting Ukraine but also to ensure global geopolitical stability in the future.”

There’s also the galling White House press conferences in which ambitious reporters aggressively demand to know why the Biden administration isn’t doing more to escalate against Russia, as clear an illustration as you could ask for of the fact that the mainstream press are only allowed to be pushy and confrontational with US government officials when they’re demanding more bloodshed.

As we’ve discussed previously, even if these increasingly loud calls for hot war between nuclear superpowers don’t immediately succeed, what they do is push the Overton window of mainstream discourse all the way over toward the most warmongering extreme possible so that calls for more escalation seem moderate and calls for de-escalation look like extremist apologia for Vladimir Putin. In the very best-case scenario they leave people far more open to consenting to far more nuclear brinkmanship than any thinking person should ever consent to.

This is not okay. It is not okay for them to do this to us. It is not okay for them to normalize the idea of escalations that could easily end humankind. That is the most insane position that any person could possibly take. More insane than Nazism, or any other extremist ideology you could think of. Supporting actions that may lead to human extinction makes these people enemies of our entire species.

Ukraine is still accepting foreign volunteers. If these omnicidal war sluts are so horny for “direct military involvement” against Russia, I wish they would just get on a plane and go do it themselves without trying to drag all of humanity into it with them.

You want direct military involvement? Fine. Go do it yourself. Be the direct military involvement you want to see in the world.

The “Squad” Pushes War & Imperialism In Ukraine

JP Morgan boss: US should take stronger stance over Russia

The JP Morgan chief executive, Jamie Dimon, has warned that the US bank could lose up to $1bn (£763m) from its exposure to Russia, as he called on the US government to deploy more troops, restructure supply chains and launch a new “Marshall plan” to ensure energy supply in response to the war in Ukraine. ...

Dimon, who is one of the most high-profile bosses to comment on the conflict so far, also detailed the bank’s potential $1bn losses because of its direct exposure to Russia. JP Morgan announced it was winding down its Russia operations – which employ about 160 staff – last month.

“As I write this letter, the war in Ukraine has been raging for well over a month and is creating a significant refugee crisis. We do not know what its outcome ultimately will be, but the hostilities in Ukraine and the sanctions on Russia are already having a substantial economic impact. They have roiled global oil, commodity and agricultural markets,” he said.

However, Dimon said the war’s wider impact, including the “potential restructuring of the global order – is far more important”.

Noting that the war could impact geopolitics for decades, he added: “We must confront the Russia challenge with bold solutions.”

Russian Ruble STABILIZES As Sanctions BACKFIRE

Pressure mounts on German ministers to embargo Russian energy

The German government is facing growing pressure at home and abroad to introduce an energy embargo against Russia as reports of atrocities committed on Ukrainian civilians in Bucha increased the urgency of calls for action.

Berlin has so far pushed back on appeals for an outright ban on energy imports from Russia, warning that the consequences for Europe’s largest economy and the entire European Union would be devastating. However, discussions are widespread about reducing industry production times to save energy, while ordinary Germans are being urged to turn down thermostats and drive more slowly.

Pressure from Germany’s neighbours has been growing, particularly the Baltic states and Poland. Mateusz Morawiecki, the prime minister of Poland, on Monday accused Germany of “standing in the way” of harder sanctions against Russia. “Anyone who reads the notes of EU meetings knows that Germany is the biggest impediment when it comes to more decisive sanctions,” he told journalists in Warsaw.

A spokesperson for the German government said it would not be considering an immediate energy embargo but it was determined to speed up its efforts to wean Germany off Russian gas and oil.

Russia Advances in Donbass Macron Calls for More Sanctions, Orban and Vucic Win in Hungary, Serbia

Victory of Putin ally Orbán in Hungary may trigger freeze on EU funding

Vladimir Putin has congratulated Hungary’s strongman leader, Viktor Orbán, on his decisive election victory, amid signs that European Union authorities will launch a sanctions process against Budapest that is intended to safeguard EU funds at risk from democratic-backsliding member states.

Two members of the European parliament said they expected the European Commission to launch the “rule of law conditionality mechanism” against Hungary, a legal process that could ultimately switch off billions in EU payments to Budapest.

EU countries that have government-controlled courts and captured state institutions can be deprived of EU funds, but the law has never been tested. ...

On Monday, Putin offered his congratulations to Orbán, who is a long-term Kremlin ally, despite Hungary’s support for EU sanctions against Russia. “Despite the difficult international situation, the further development of a bilateral partnership fully accords to the interests of the peoples of Russia and Hungary,” a Kremlin statement said.

Britain’s Nigel Farage, France’s Marine Le Pen and Italy’s Matteo Salvini were also quick to congratulate Orbán. “When the people vote, the people win,” tweeted Le Pen, the French far-right leader, who is vying to unseat Emmanuel Macron as president in imminent elections.

Biden’s Punishment of Desperate Afghanistan

An international aid group warned last week that Afghanistan is on the brink of complete collapse as the Biden administration and European governments refuse to release the war-torn nation’s central bank reserves, depriving the economy of critical funds as millions face poverty and starvation.

In a statement ahead of an international donor conference for Afghanistan, the International Rescue Committee (IRC) said the country “is now the world’s largest-ever humanitarian appeal, requiring a staggering $4.47 billion in humanitarian aid — quadruple the needs at the start of 2021 and more than is required for either Syria or Yemen.”

Since the Taliban retook power last August following two decades of U.S.-led warfare, IRC noted, “the speed of Afghanistan’s economic collapse has been unprecedented.” Following the withdrawal of American troops, the Biden administration froze billions of dollars in Afghan central bank assets held in the U.S. despite warnings that the move would push the country closer to full-scale economic ruin.

Last month, U.S. President Joe Biden issued an executive order aiming to permanently seize Afghanistan’s assets and split them between the families of 9/11 victims and an ill-defined “trust fund” for Afghans. Blocked from accessing its own reserves, Kabul has struggled to afford even the import taxes on containers of badly needed food.

Moreover, the Biden administration has left in place crippling economic sanctions that could kill more civilians than 20 years of war, according to one analyst.

Pakistan in Crisis After PM Imran Khan Dissolved Parliament & Accused U.S. of Plotting Regime Change

Pakistan’s supreme court delays verdict on fate of Imran Khan

Pakistan remains without a government and engulfed in political turmoil after the supreme court delayed its verdict on whether the prime minister, Imran Khan, had violated the constitution by dissolving parliament rather than face a no-confidence vote.

Khan’s decision to call for parliament to be dissolved on Sunday, rather than allow a no-confidence vote on his premiership that was expected to oust him, had been justified by him on the basis that it was an alleged “foreign conspiracy” led by the west against his government.

Khan, a former playboy cricketer turned conservative Islamist politician, alleged that almost 200 members of the opposition had colluded with the US to topple his government – though Washington has denied involvement. ...

But despite the chief justice promising to issue a verdict on Monday, the hearing was adjourned in the afternoon without any evident reason. It will resume on Tuesday but it is unclear when there will be a ruling. ...

Many believe that while Khan has lost the support of the powerful military establishment and even members of his own ruling coalition, the delay by the court indicates it is unlikely to go against the prime minister and will agree that fresh elections, rather than a no-confidence vote, should take place.

Starbucks CEO Declares 'ASSAULT' As Union Organizer FIRED

Amazon workers in New York City have two words for Jeff Bezos: Ha ha

The first Amazon union was always going to be a big fucking deal. But it’s hard to imagine how it could have been any sweeter than this one was. When it became official on Saturday morning that more than 8,000 workers in an Amazon warehouse in Staten Island had voted to unionize with the independent Amazon Labor Union, it meant that America’s most powerful non-union company has just been cracked open not by some deep-pocketed institutional force, but instead by a former employee, with no real experience or budget, who started organizing just because he saw that it needed to be done.

Before we plumb the analytical depths of the import of this for the future of the American working class, we must just say, to Amazon founder and mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos, recently returned to Earth from a short trip to space in a personal luxury rocket: Ha. Hahahaha. ...

Happily, we can now say that Amazon is no longer a union-free company. Much of the credit for starting and carrying out the union drive at the Staten Island warehouse goes to Chris Smalls, a former Amazon worker who the company fired after he led a walkout over safety concerns. We should all feel free to bask in glee at the fact that leaked memos in April 2020 showed Amazon’s general counsel saying that the company should “make [Smalls] the face of the entire union/organizing movement” because he was “not smart or articulate”. Now, Smalls and the dozens of volunteers who helped him and thousands of those who actually do the work at the warehouse have done what many highly paid consultants assured Amazon was impossible.

Imagine a pie smashing Jeff Bezos’s face, for ever. Ha. Ha.

Dem Congresswoman Maxine Waters Tells Homeless To “GO HOME”

Obama RETURNS TO White House To Try And Save Biden

Jackson's SCOTUS Nomination Clears Deadlocked Senate Judiciary Committee

Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson's historic nomination to the United States Supreme Court cleared a minor hurdle Monday after the U.S. Senate overcame a deadlocked Judiciary Committee via a procedural vote in the upper chamber, where her confirmation is all but guaranteed.

The Judiciary Committee voted 11-11 on advancing Jackson's high court candidacy to a full Senate vote, meaning that for the first time since 1853 the upper chamber had to hold vote on discharging her nomination from the panel. The full Senate subsequently voted 53-47 to discharge the nomination.

Three Republican senators who have declared their support for Jackson's nomination—Susan Collins of Maine, Alaska's Lisa Murkowski, and Mitt Romney of Utah—joined all 50 members of the Senate Democratic Caucus in voting to discharge the federal judge's nomination from the Judiciary Committee.

The Washington Post reports a final vote on Jackson's confirmation is expected to occur on the Senate floor Thursday or Friday.

Judge tells jury to consider entrapment defense in trial of alleged Michigan governor kidnap plotters

The jury in the trial of four men accused of plotting to kidnap and possibly kill the governor of Michigan completed its first seven hours of deliberations in US District Court in Grand Rapids on Monday without a verdict. Deliberations began following closing arguments and jury instructions on Friday. In a significant move, Judge Robert Jonker told the jury that it can consider entrapment defense even though this legal position was not specifically raised by the lawyers for the defendants during the trail. Judge Jonker said the jury can consider whether the government, through its informants, persuaded the defendants to commit the crimes they are charged with.

In a 40-minute explanation covering all the charges, Jonker said that if a defendant was already willing to commit the crime, this would not be entrapment even if FBI agents provided an opportunity or made it easier for the defendant to commit the crime.

The 12-person jury paused their deliberations and returned to the courtroom in the afternoon on Monday to ask Judge Robert Jonker a question about the legal definition of a weapon. The judge explained to the jury that a weapon is “Something that can be used to injure, kill or destroy someone or something, as opposed to something you would use for fun.” Jonker also said that the definition of a weapon could be applied very broadly, from a fist to a chair, to a weapon of mass destruction.

The four men—Brandon Caserta, Barry Croft Jr., Adam Fox and Daniel Harris—have been charged with kidnap conspiracy for plotting to take Michigan Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer hostage, tie her up and take her by boat into the middle of Lake Michigan and abandon her there. Three of the four, Croft, Fox and Harris, have also been charged with conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. Part of the alleged plot—and a critical element of the prosecution’s case against the men—included the construction of an explosive that was to be used to blow up a bridge to distract law enforcement while Governor Whitmer was being apprehended at her summer cottage near Elk Rapids, Michigan.

Bird populations in Panama rainforest in severe decline, study finds

Bird populations in a Central American tropical rainforest are suffering severe declines, with likely factors including climate breakdown and habitat loss. Scientists from the University of Illinois tracked species of birds in a protected forest reserve in central Panama to determine if and how populations had changed from 1977 to 2020.

There are very few long-term studies on population trends for tropical birds, and the report provides insights into how species are coping with habitat loss and the climate crisis. A new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found that the majority of sampled species had declined in abundance, many of them severely.

Twice a year over four decades, the authors deployed mist nets in multiple study sites, identifying and banding thousands of birds. Next, the authors modelled populations and estimated changes in the abundance of 57 species. Of the declining species sampled, 35 out of 40 lost more than 50% of their initial abundance. Only two species increased in numbers.

The declines extended across different bird families and were generally independent of ecological traits such as body mass, foraging type, or the species’ initial abundance. According to the authors, establishing declines and identifying the underlying ecological mechanisms should be a conservation priority.

The scientists said human activity was likely to be driving the drops in numbers, with changing rainfall patterns, increasing temperatures and deforestation causing stress to bird populations. They said: “Deforestation in the humid tropics accelerated 62% between 1990 and 2010, resulting in a net loss of about 8m hectares (20m acres) during this time period, and losses have continued to accrue in recent years.

Yellowstone national park offers an annual pass – that won’t work until 2172

Yellowstone national park is offering an annual pass valid for entry in 2172 in exchange for a $1,500 donation, part of a fundraising efforts in honor of the park’s 150th birthday.

The park hopes that the tickets, dubbed “The Inheritance Passes”, will be used by the donor’s descendants. Yellowstone Forever, the park’s fundraising arm, will use the money to support park projects such as trail improvements, education, native fish conservation and scientific studies.

“It is our way of celebrating 150 years of Yellowstone national park and to help preserve the park for the next 150 years,” Lisa Diekmann, president and CEO of Yellowstone Forever, told The Billings Gazette. ...

The Inheritance Passes will be annual valid for entry into Yellowstone in 2172. Donors will also receive a pass to enter Yellowstone that is good for a period of a year after its first use, said Wendie Carr, chief marketing officer for Yellowstone Forever.

Yellowstone, America’s first national park, celebrated its 150th anniversary on 1 March. The milestone comes as the park and its caretakers grapple with a host of challenges, including the climate crisis and the pressures of surging visitation.

Also of Interest

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

Questions Abound About Bucha Massacre

Imperialist powers escalate Ukraine war over allegations of Russian war crimes in Bucha

The Bucha Provocation

Zelensky Rejected German Security Proposal Before Russian Invasion

How Biden’s Huge Strategic Oil Release Could Backfire

Ellen Brown: The Coming Global Financial Revolution: Russia Is Following the American Playbook

Parliament Moves, Elections Let Empire Losses Accumulate

Hedges: Let Us Now Praise Amazon Unionists

Antitrust Day of Action Takes Aim at Power of Tech Giants

The Poor People's Campaign Gears Up for Its National March in June

A Pipeline Election?

CNBC BEGS Amazon Union Leader To Bow To Bezos

Saagar Enjeti: Can Elon Musk Bring FREE SPEECH BACK To Twitter?

NYC Mayor Unleashes More Police On Poor People

BLM Secretly Bought A $6M SoCal House

Laptop from hell entered into the official Congressional Record

A Little Night Music

Furry Lewis - I Will Turn Your Money Green

Furry Lewis - Good Morning Judge

Furry Lewis - Mean Old Bed Bug Blues

Furry Lewis - Furry's Blues

Furry Lewis - When My Baby Left Me

Furry Lewis - I'm Going to Brownsville

Furry Lewis - Billy Lyons And Stack O'Lee

Furry Lewis - Kassie Jones

Furry Lewis - Shake'Em On Down