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"For manipulation to be most effective, evidence of its presence should be nonexistent... It is essential, therefore, that people who are manipulated believe in the neutrality of their key social institutions."

-- Herbert Schiller

News and Opinion

Biden Says He Would Go to War With Iran as 'Last Resort'

U.S. President Joe Biden said in an interview aired Wednesday that he would be willing to go to war with Iran to prevent the country from obtaining a nuclear weapon, a position that drew condemnation from advocacy groups and foreign policy analysts who questioned the moral, strategic, and legal bases for such a stance.

Biden also reiterated in the sit-down interview with Israeli broadcaster N12 that he is committed to keeping the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) on the U.S. State Department's Foreign Terrorist Organizations list, even if it means sinking the prospects of a deal to revive the nuclear accord that former President Donald Trump violated in 2018.

While acknowledging that Trump's decision to abandon the seven-country deal was a "gigantic mistake," Biden said he would not delist the IRGC to advance nuclear talks that have hit a wall in recent weeks.

Biden offered a one-word answer—"yes"—when asked whether he would keep the IRGC on the terror list "even if that means that kills the deal."

The U.S. president went on to say that he's prepared to use military force "as a last resort" to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Iran has repeatedly said it is not pursuing a nuclear weapon and that its nuclear energy program is designed for peaceful domestic purposes.

Peace organizations were outraged by the president's interview, noting that the terror designation is largely symbolic while the nuclear deal was a substantive diplomatic achievement that lifted devastating economic sanctions in exchange for limits to Iran's nuclear program.

"Let's be clear: Congress has not authorized—and the American people overwhelmingly do not support—the use of force against Iran," said the Friends Committee on National Legislation. "If the president is committed to preventing nuclear proliferation, he should return to the nuclear deal and prioritize diplomacy. War is not the answer."

Matt Duss, foreign policy adviser to U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), responded that "it makes absolutely zero sense that he won't delist the IRGC to prevent an Iranian nuke but would launch a war to prevent an Iranian nuke."

The president's remarks came days after his administration announced new sanctions targeting Iranian firms and individuals, a move seen as further evidence that Biden remains wedded to the failed "maximum pressure" campaign that his predecessor launched, imperiling any remaining hopes of a breakthrough in the stalled nuclear talks.

"Astonishing to see the president say he is willing to throw away the diplomatic progress his team has made and invite war with Iran over pointless partisan symbolism," said progressive advocacy group Win Without War.

Siversk About to Fall, Serbia Says Putin Planning 'Final Offer' on Ukraine Once Donbass Taken

This Proxy War Has No Exit Strategy

The International Committee of the Democratic Socialists of America has released a statement opposing the US government’s ongoing proxy war in Ukraine, saying the billions being funneled into the military-industrial complex “at a time when ordinary Americans are struggling to pay for housing, groceries, and fuel” is “a slap in the face for working people.” The statement advocates a negotiated settlement for peace, saying continuing to pour weapons into the country will “needlessly prolong the war, resulting in more civilian deaths” and that it “risks escalating and widening the war – up to and including nuclear war.”

In response to this entirely reasonable and moderate position, the DSA is currently being raked over the coals with accusations of Kremlin loyalty and facilitation of murder and bloodshed by blue-checkmarked narrative managers on Twitter. This is because the only acceptable positions for anyone of significant influence to have about this war range from supporting continuing current proxy warfare operations to initiating a direct hot war between NATO and Russia.

That’s how narrow the permissible spectrum of debate has been shrunk regarding this conflict: status quo hawkish to omnicidal hawkish. Anything outside that spectrum gets framed as radical extremism. As Noam Chomsky said: “The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.”

The DSA is once again getting viciously attacked for making the extremely controversial recommendation that the US pursue a diplomatic settlement instead of endless weapons shipments. Never ceases to be amazing that this is now considered a crazed, radical, radioactive position: https://t.co/d2YKS9C7Xx

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) July 13, 2022

This spectrum of debate has been shrunk on the one hand by imperial spinmeisters continually hammering home the message that any support for de-escalation and diplomatic solutions is “appeasement” and indicative of Russian sympathies, and on the other by hawkish pundits and politicians pushing for the most freakishly aggressive responses to this war possible. By forbidding the spectrum of acceptable debate to move toward peace while shoving it as hard as possible in the direction of warmongering extremism, imperial narrative managers have successfully created an Overton window wherein the only debate permitted is over how directly and forcefully Russia should be confronted, with calls for peace now falling far outside that window.

Which is a problem, because both direct NATO hot war with Russia and continuing along the empire’s current course of action in Ukraine are stupid. Direct conflict between nuclear powers likely means a very fast and very radioactive third world war, and the status quo proxy warfare approach isn’t stopping Russia as more and more territory is taken in the east in cool defiance of western claims that Ukraine is bravely vanquishing its evil invaders. Biden administration officials have told the press that they doubt Ukraine will even be able to reclaim the territory it has lost already. Unless and until something significant changes, Ukraine has no apparent path to victory in this war anytime soon.

In short, there is no exit strategy to this proxy war. There are no plans in place to deliver Putin a swift defeat, and the Biden administration remains steadfastly dismissive of even the slightest gestures toward diplomacy with Moscow. Boris Johnson has reportedly been buzzing around admonishing Ukraine’s President Zelensky, France’s President Macron and who knows who else not to work toward peace in Ukraine. The doors to ending this war quickly by either winning it or negotiating a peace settlement are both bolted shut, all but guaranteeing a long and bloody slog.

Which as it turns out suits Washington just fine. Biden administration officials have stated that the goal is to use the Ukraine war to “weaken” Russia, and the US already has an established pattern of working to draw Moscow into costly military quagmires as we saw in both Afghanistan and Syria. Continuing to pour weapons and military intelligence into Ukraine while working to cut Russia off from the world stands no chance of ending the war in a timely manner, but it does stand a pretty good chance of bleeding and weakening Moscow.

And since this is the course of action that has been taken by the empire, we can only assume that this is its desired outcome: not victory, not peace, but a long and gruelling war.

One of the major recurring criticisms of the Iraq invasion was that Bush rushed into it without an exit strategy, without a plan for ending the war once it had been started. This proxy war with Russia not only lacks a strategy for ending the war, it apparently only has strategies for not ending the war. No exit strategy is the strategy.

Whenever you point out the insanity of this approach you’ll get useful idiots of the empire objecting that by criticizing US proxy warfare and supporting a negotiated settlement you are guilty of “appeasement” and exactly the same as Neville Chamberlain, because the only argument empire apologists ever have is to compare every US-targeted government to Nazi Germany.

According to these propaganda-addled empire automatons, having the story of not compromising with Putin-Hitler and not committing the sin of “appeasement” is worth sacrificing everyone in the entire nation of Ukraine for. They will happily throw every Ukrainian life into the gears of this war while they sit safe at home eating Funyuns and tweeting, just so they can have that “we didn’t compromise with Putin” story hanging on their mental mantlepiece.

How many more lives are such people prepared to feed into an unwinnable war which the west knowingly provoked? How many more of other people’s children are they prepared to sacrifice? How long does the bloodshed need to drag on before their “no appeasement” story loses value to them? How long until people wake up from their propaganda-induced comas and realize we’ve been manipulated into supporting a proxy war which benefits ordinary people in no real way, and in fact impoverishes us and threatens our very lives?

There is no morally consistent argument for continuing this proxy war in the way it has been going. If you actually value life and peace, the only way out is through negotiation and compromise.

European Parliament Member Spews Fire Condemning NATO

House Votes Down Amendments to Cut 'Outrageous' Military Budget

Progressive campaigners rebuked members of Congress who on Wednesday night voted down a pair of amendments to the latest National Defense Authorization Act that would have significantly limited the U.S. military budget.

With the U.S. House of Representatives set to vote this week on the NDAA for fiscal year 2023, progressive Reps. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) and Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) sought to include two amendments in $839 billion bill.

One of the measures would have reduced the overall Pentagon budget by $100 billion, while the other would have rescinded the $37 billion in additional Pentagon funding added in committee to President Joe Biden's topline request. The former measure was defeated by a vote of 78-350, while the latter was voted down 151-277.

"We are racing toward a trillion-dollar military budget that tolerates and encourages mind-blowing waste, rewards military-industrial complex political spending with unfathomably large contracts—and fails to address priority national security needs," Robert Weissman, president of the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement.

Biden Almost Calls Slain Palestinian-American Journalist 'Shireen Abu AL-QUEDA' In Atrocious Gaffe

Joe Biden defends human rights record ahead of Saudi visit

Joe Biden has defended his imminent trip to Saudi Arabia, saying he will not avoid human rights issues on the final leg of his Middle East tour, despite refusing to commit to mentioning the murder of the dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi when he meets the kingdom’s crown prince. Speaking during a news conference with the interim Israeli prime minister, Yair Lapid, in Jerusalem on Thursday, the US leader said his stance on Khashoggi’s killing was “absolutely” clear.

“I have never been quiet about talking about human rights,” the president said. “The reason I am going to Saudi Arabia though, is much broader, it’s to promote US interests.

“And so there are so many issues at stake, I want to make clear that we can continue to lead in the region and not create a vacuum; a vacuum that is filled by China and/or Russia.” ...

After a cursory meeting with Palestinian leaders in Bethlehem on Friday, the president will fly to the Saudi city of Jeddah with the aim of convincing Gulf oil producers to increase supply, as well as lobbying for fully integrating Israel into the emerging regional defence architecture.

Sanders Unveils Resolution to End US Support for 'Catastrophic' Saudi-Led War in Yemen

As U.S. President Joe Biden visits the Middle East this week, three senators introduced a joint resolution to end the United States' involvement in the Saudi-led war on Yemen.

The resolution is sponsored by Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.)—and, according to the trio, it is already backed by a bipartisan group of over 100 House members.

"We must put an end to the unauthorized and unconstitutional involvement of U.S. armed forces in the catastrophic Saudi-led war in Yemen and Congress must take back its authority over war," Sanders said in a statement, detailing the dire conditions in the region.

"More than 85,000 children in Yemen have already starved and millions more are facing imminent famine and death," he pointed out. "More than 70% of Yemen's population currently rely on humanitarian food assistance and the U.N. has warned the death toll could climb to 1.3 million people by 2030."

"This war has created the world's worst humanitarian crisis today and it is past time to end U.S. complicity in those horrors," Sanders declared. "Let us pass this resolution, so we can focus on diplomacy to end this war."

While a cease-fire in Yemen has held over the past few months, peace advocates and progressive lawmakers have continued to call for an end to U.S. support for the yearslong war.

"The war in Yemen has been an unmitigated disaster for which all parties to the conflict share responsibility," Leahy said Thursday. "Why are we supporting a corrupt theocracy that brutalizes its own people, in a war that is best known for causing immense suffering and death among impoverished, defenseless civilians?"

Both Leahy and Warren emphasized that U.S. participation was never congressionally authorized.

"The American people, through their elected representatives in Congress, never authorized U.S. involvement in the war—but Congress abdicated its constitutional powers and failed to prevent our country from involving itself in this crisis," Warren said.

Not long after taking office last year, Biden announced an end to U.S. support for the Saudi-led coalition's "offensive operations" in Yemen. However, his administration has continued to allow arms sales and provide maintenance and logistical support.

Italian prime minister Mario Draghi to resign after coalition partner snub

The Italian prime minister, Mario Draghi, has said he will resign after the Five Star Movement (M5S), a key party in his broad coalition, snubbed a crucial confidence vote, triggering a political crisis that could pave the way for early elections.

The vote on a controversial cost of living bill passed in the Senate, but Draghi said: “The pact of trust underlying the government has failed. ...

The former European Central Bank chief met the president, Sergio Mattarella, after the vote and was expected to offer his resignation. However, Mattarella rejected Draghi’s resignation on Thursday night and asked him to address parliament to try to get a clearer picture of the political situation.

Draghi will give a speech in parliament on Wednesday, but it is not yet clear if this will involve a vote of confidence. If he can’t solidly stitch together enough support to carry out his economic reforms, Mattarella could pull the plug on parliament, setting the stage for an early election as soon as late September. Currently, the parliament’s term is due to expire in spring 2023.

Mexican President Lectures Biden About How To Lower Gas Prices

Global recession risk rising as economic outlook ‘darkens significantly’, IMF says

The outlook for the global economy has “darkened significantly” in recent months, the head of the IMF has warned, and the world faces an increasing risk of recession in the next 12 months. The commodity price shock from the war in Ukraine had exacerbated the cost-of-living crisis for hundreds of millions of people, Kristalina Georgieva said on Wednesday, and it was “only getting worse”.

Inflation was also higher than expected, she said in a blogpost that came on the same day as the latest figures showed that prices in the US rose at a 40-year high of 9.1% in June. Economists and investors now think the US Federal Reserve could hike interest rates by a historic 1% when its board meets in two weeks’ time.

The Bank of Canada shocked markets on Wednesday by raising its base rate by a full percentage point, while the Reserve Bank of New Zealand increased its benchmark rate by 0.5% this week, as did the Bank of Korea. Singapore’s central bank also tightened its monetary policy on Thursday.

The DISASTROUS Effects of Ending Pandemic Aid

Sanders Warns Congress Is Working 'Behind Closed Doors' on $50 Billion in Corporate Welfare

Sen. Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor Wednesday to criticize fellow members of Congress for working to approve billions of dollars in handouts to major corporations as the country is embroiled in a worsening cost-of-living crisis, a deadly pandemic, and an intensifying climate emergency.

"What is Congress doing right now, at a time when we face so many massive problems?" asked Sanders, the chair of the Senate Budget Committee. "The answer is that for two months, a 107-member conference committee has been meeting behind closed doors to provide over $50 billion in corporate welfare with no strings attached to the highly profitable microchip industry."

"No, we're not talking about healthcare for all," the Vermont senator lamented. "No, we're not talking about making higher education affordable. No, we're not talking about making sure that young people can earn decent salaries when they become teachers. No, we're not talking about leading the world in combating climate change. We're talking about giving $50 billion in corporate welfare with no strings attached—a blank check—to the highly profitable microchip industry."

The legislation drawing Sanders' ire is the long-stalled United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), a bill purportedly designed to bolster domestic semiconductor manufacturing—an industry that has been lavished with taxpayer subsidies in recent years—and ramp up investment in research and development.

As Politico describes it, the USICA "would shower the semiconductor industry with $52 billion of incentives to ramp up chip-making in America."

"China hawks like the bill because it makes the U.S. less reliant on Chinese imports," the outlet adds. "The Biden administration hails it as a policy that will strengthen the supply chain, boost domestic manufacturing, and 'help us outcompete China.'"

A bipartisan conference committee made up of lawmakers from both the House and the Senate is currently working to reconcile the differences between versions of the legislation passed by each chamber.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), meanwhile, is threatening to tank the bill entirely if Democrats move ahead with a party-line reconciliation package that aims to lower prescription drug prices and boost renewable energy funding.

Punchbowl reported Thursday that top Senate Democrats are mulling whether to just "pass $52 billion in funding for semiconductor manufacturers instead of a broad USICA package."

Sanders, who voted against the Senate bill's passage in March, has argued that the USICA should contain safeguards to ensure that taxpayer funding doesn't go to companies that engage in union-busting, offshore U.S. jobs, or buy back their own stock. In May, Republican and Democratic senators voted down motions from Sanders that encouraged such conditions.

The progressive senator has also spotlighted a provision of the USICA that would approve $10 billion in NASA funding for moon landers, money that Sanders has warned could benefit billionaire Jeff Bezos. Sanders has urged lawmakers to strip the provision from the bill.

"If you can believe it," Sanders said Wednesday, "this legislation may... provide a $10 billion bailout to Jeff Bezos, the second-wealthiest person in America, so that his company, Blue Origin, can launch a rocket ship to the moon."

"I know this may be a radical idea in the halls of Congress, but no, I do not believe that this legislation should approve a $10 billion bailout for Jeff Bezos to fly to the moon," Sanders added. "Maybe, just maybe, a middle class which is struggling, which is falling behind, should not see their taxpayer dollars go to the second-wealthiest person in America."

Manchin Puts FINAL NAIL In The Biden Agenda Coffin

'They Want to Hold Women Captive': GOP Blocks Bill Protecting Right to Travel for Abortion

Democratic leaders and reproductive rights advocates swiftly blasted anti-choice Republican lawmakers on Thursday after U.S. Sen. James Lankford blocked a bill intended to protect the right of pregnant people across the country to travel for abortion services.

The GOP senator from Oklahoma—which banned nearly all abortions this year even before the Roe v. Wade reversal—objected to Democrats' effort to pass by unanimous consent the Freedom to Travel for Health Care Act of 2022.

Introduced this week by Democratic Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto (Nev.), Kirsten Gillibrand (N.Y.), Patty Murray (Wash.), and Sheldon Whitehouse (R.I.), the bill would make clear that patients can cross state lines for abortion care and empower the U.S. attorney general and affected individuals to take legal action against those who attempt to restrict that right.

While Lankford took action to block the bill, its sponsors and other supporters emphasized that his party is behind the ongoing and sweeping assault on reproductive rights on a national scale.

Murray took aim at her GOP colleagues on the Senate floor, declaring that "Republican lawmakers have already set their sights on ripping away the right to travel. Let's be really clear what that means: They want to hold women captive in their own states."

Texas says that it wants to kill women and the feds can't stop 'em, nyah, nyah:

Texas sues over White House guidance on providing emergency abortions

Texas sued the federal government on Thursday over new guidance from the Biden administration directing hospitals to provide emergency abortions regardless of state bans on the procedure.

Those state bans came into effect in the wake of the US supreme court’s reversal of its landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision.

Republican Texas attorney general Ken Paxton in the lawsuit argued the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was trying to “use federal law to transform every emergency room in the country into a walk-in abortion clinic”. ...

The lawsuit focused on guidance issued on Monday advising that a federal law protecting patients’ access to emergency treatment requires performing abortions when doctors believe a pregnant woman’s life or health is threatened.

Yosemite wildfire continues to grow as it pushes east into Sierra national forest

The wildfire sweeping through Yosemite national park swelled to more than 4,375 acres (1,770 hectares) by Thursday morning, and is now pushing east into the Sierra national forest.

Raging across steep and rugged terrain, firefighters have faced challenges battling the blaze, which has exhibited extreme fire behavior, officials said. Warm and dry conditions as well as dried out vegetation have upped the intensity, spurring flames that, in some areas, stretched high into the canopies of the tall trees and produced large plumes of smoke that billowed into the sky.

Winds have, however, remained light in the area where the so-called Washburn fire continues to burn. Temperatures lingered just below 100F (38C) on Thursday and relative humidity remained in double digits, aiding firefighters as they achieved roughly 23% containment on the fire. But the blaze continues to grow, and officials said it will probably smolder through the rest of the year, until rains and snows terminate the risk completely.

“It is moving away from populated areas as it moves east, moving into the Sierra national forest,” said Stanley Bercovitz, a public information officer with the interagency team managing the fire response, adding that forest closures have been issued as a result.

The blaze erupted near the park’s famed Mariposa Grove, licking the beloved cluster of giant sequoias and sparking concerns for the ancient trees that have grown more vulnerable in the face of high-intensity flames in recent years. But so far, the grove has remained safe, in part due to prescribed burns and forest thinning treatments done in recent years to stave off the threats from high-intensity fire.

Democratic voters say Biden could be doing a lot more for the climate crisis

More than 80% of Democrats think the government is not doing enough to tackle the climate crisis, according to a large nationwide survey that found younger voters across both parties are most frustrated with the pace of political action on green issues.

Overall, Americans are largely split along party lines in how they view Joe Biden’s record on pressing climate and environmental challenges like clean water and air quality, according to the Pew Research Center survey of more than 10,000 adults.

Just 15% of Republicans think the president’s climate policies are taking the country in the right direction compared with 79% of Democrats.

But worryingly for Biden, whose popularity among his own party has fallen steeply according to recent polls, almost two-thirds of those broadly supportive Democrats think he could be doing a lot more to tackle the climate crisis. As it stands, the US is unlikely to meet its pledges to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, as Biden’s climate legislation has been stonewalled by fossil fuel friendly Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia and the entire Republican party.

The political stagnation is shocking given that 71% of those polled by Pew said their community had suffered an extreme weather event in the past year. This included severe floods or storms (43%), heatwaves (42%), droughts or water shortages (31%), large wildfires (21%), and shoreline erosion due to rising sea levels (16%). Overall, more than eight in ten of those affected by extreme weather believe the climate crisis contributed to the event.

Also of Interest

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

The Empire Is Showing More And More Of Its True Face

On NASA Warning China Might Claim the Moon

EU Says Lithuania Must Allow Sanctioned Goods to Travel to Kaliningrad By Rail

Ukraine SitRep - Additional Defense Lines, A Failed Counterattack, Weapon Deliveries

Patrick Lawrence: This Week in Fake News / Artless Dodgers

The Debt Trap That Helped Take Down Sri Lanka Was Not Chinese

Man charged with rape of 10-year-old who had abortion after rightwing media called story ‘not true’

Indiana Doctor Investigated Over Abortion Care for Child Rape Victim

Biden Urged to Reject 'Preemptive Giveaway' to Manchin on Destructive Oil Projects

Biden’s decided to open the door to further offshore oil exploration: we must kill the planet in order to save it.

Jon Stewart RESPONDS TO Calls For 2024 Run

A Little Night Music

Luther 'Guitar Jr.' Johnson - Somebody Have Mercy

Luther 'Guitar Jr.' Johnson - I Need Some Air

Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson - Doin' The Sugar Too

Luther 'Guitar Jr.' Johnson - Stealing Chickens

Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson - Luther's Boogie

Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson - If Blues Were Whiskey

Luther "Guitar Junior" Johnson - Got To Have Money

Luther 'Guitar Jr'' Johnson - No Worry No More

Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Baby, Meet Me With Your Black Drawers On

Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - I'm Ready

Luther 'Guitar Junior' Johnson - Wildwood Sessions - 20201101 part 2