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This evening's music features Chicago blues saxophone player A.C. Reed. Enjoy!

“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.”

-- Friedrich Nietzsche

News and Opinion

Pffffffftttttt!!!!

Biden to give primetime address on the ‘battle for the soul of the nation’

Joe Biden will deliver a primetime address on Thursday about “the continued battle for the soul of the nation”, the White House has said. Calling the speech a major address, the White House said Biden would discuss how America’s standing in the world and its own democracy are at stake.

The speech will take place in Philadelphia and comes two months before midterm elections in which Democrats will attempt to hold Congress. ...

The White House said Biden would “talk about the progress we have made as a nation to protect our democracy, but how our rights and freedoms are still under attack. And he will make clear who is fighting for those rights, fighting for those freedoms, and fighting for our democracy.”

The speech was announced on Monday as Republicans complained about Biden’s recent characterisation of Trump and his supporters as “semi-fascists”, in their refusal to accept the 2020 election result.

On Sunday, Chris Sununu, governor of New Hampshire and a relative moderate, told CNN: “The fact that the president would go out and just insult half of America [and] effectively call half of America semi-fascist, he’s trying to stir up controversy. He’s trying to stir up this anti-Republican sentiment right before the election. It’s horribly inappropriate.”

Jeffrey Sachs: U.S. Policy & "West's False Narrative" Stoking Tensions with Russia, China

Worth a full read:

Chris Hedges: Ukraine and the Politics of Permanent War

No one, including the most bullish supporters of Ukraine, expect the nation’s war with Russia to end soon. The fighting has been reduced to artillery duels across hundreds of miles of front lines and creeping advances and retreats. Ukraine, like Afghanistan, will bleed for a very long time. This is by design.

On August 24, the Biden administration announced yet another massive military aid package to Ukraine worth nearly $3 billion. It will take months, and in some cases years, for this military equipment to reach Ukraine. In another sign that Washington assumes the conflict will be a long war of attrition it will give a name to the U.S. military assistance mission in Ukraine and make it a separate command overseen by a two- or three-star general. Since August 2021, Biden has approved more than $8 billion in weapons transfers from existing stockpiles, known as drawdowns, to be shipped to Ukraine, which do not require Congressional approval.

Including humanitarian assistance, replenishing depleting U.S. weapons stocks and expanding U.S. troop presence in Europe, Congress has approved over $53.6 billion ($13.6 billion in March and a further $40.1 billion in May) since Russia’s February 24 invasion. War takes precedence over the most serious existential threats we face. The proposed budget for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in fiscal year 2023 is $10.675 billion while the proposed budget for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is $11.881 billion. Our approved assistance to Ukraine is more than twice these amounts. ...

War is the primary business of the U.S. empire and the bedrock of the U.S. economy. The two ruling political parties slavishly perpetuate permanent war, as they do austerity programs, trade deals, the virtual tax boycott for corporations and the rich, wholesale government surveillance, the militarization of the police and the maintenance of the largest prison system in the world. They bow before the dictates of the militarists, who have created a state within a state. This militarism, as Seymour Melman writes in The Permanent War Economy: American Capitalism in Decline, “is fundamentally contradictory to the formation of a new political economy based upon democracy, instead of hierarchy, in the workplace and the rest of society.”

If permanent war is to be halted, as Melman writes, the ideological control of the war industry must be shattered. The war industry’s funding of politicians, research centers and think tanks, as well as its domination of the media monopolies, must end. The public must be made aware, Melman writes, of how the federal government “sustains itself as the directorate of the largest industrial corporate empire in the world; how the war economy is organized and operated in parallel with centralized political power — often contradicting the laws of Congress and the Constitution itself; how the directorate of the war economy converts pro-peace sentiment in the population into pro-militarist majorities in the Congress; how ideology and fears of job losses are manipulated to marshal support in Congress and the general public for war economy; how the directorate of the war economy uses its power to prevent planning for orderly conversion to an economy of peace.”

Zelensky's Kherson Counteroffensive. Boris happy, Zaluzhny not happy

Africa rebukes Blinken and Biden's meddling

No let-up in shelling as UN team heads for Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant

A team of inspectors from the UN nuclear watchdog is due to arrive in Kyiv on Monday night en route to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power in southern Ukraine, where renewed shelling has cast a shadow over their planned visit.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Rafael Grossi, said on Monday morning that a team led by him had set off to visit the power station on the Dnieper River. “We must protect the safety and security of Ukraine’s and Europe’s biggest nuclear facility,” Grossi tweeted.

A spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry, Oleg Nikolenko, said the delegation would arrive in Kyiv on Monday night. They are due to visit the plant from Wednesday to Saturday, but missiles and shells are frequently hitting areas around the power station and nearby towns, and it may be too dangerous for the mission to proceed.

Russian Profits BOOM As Sanctions Backfire On West

US Hints to Israel’s Gantz It’s Preparing Military Option Against Iran

An Israeli official said that the US hinted it was preparing a military option against Iran during a meeting between Israeli Defense Minister Benny Gantz and US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Friday, The Times of Israel reported.

The Israeli official said that Gantz told Sullivan that Israel “needs” the US to have a credible military option against Iran. The meeting came as Washington and Tehran are engaged in negotiations to revive the nuclear deal.

The official said that Gantz received “good hints” that the US was preparing a military option. The official didn’t offer details but said the idea of the military option that Israel wants would be to get Iran to make more concessions in negotiations. If not, the US could potentially take military action against the Islamic Republic alongside Israel.

US Judge Says Billions in Seized Central Bank Funds Belong to Afghan People

A leading U.S.-based rights group on Monday welcomed a federal judge's conclusion that 9/11 families should not be allowed to claim billions of dollars from Afghanistan's central bank to pay off legal judgments against the Taliban.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn's Friday afternoon report "is a victory for Afghan civil society groups," said the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), which filed an amicus brief for the organizations arguing that the blocked funds should be used to alleviate Afghanistan's humanitarian crisis.

Netburn's report followed months of mounting criticism of U.S. President Joe Biden's handling of the Da Afghanistan Bank (DAB) assets. After the Taliban retook control of the country last year amid the U.S. withdrawal, Biden refused to release about $7 billion in funds at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

In February, Biden took executive action to earmark half the funds for future Afghan aid that would sidestep the Taliban government, but it was never made clear how or when such relief would be given. The other half of the money was to be made available to victims who have won legal judgments against the Taliban related to 9/11 and other terrorist attacks.

Netburn said she recommended against the $3.5 billion being used to pay such claims for three reasons.

"First, DAB is immune to this court's jurisdiction. It is the central bank of a foreign state. This means it is entitled to immunity from jurisdiction and its property is entitled to immunity from execution," she wrote. The Terrorism Risk Insurance Act (TRIA) "may overcome DAB's execution immunity, but not its jurisdictional immunity."

"Second, even if there was jurisdiction, the court is constitutionally restrained from making the finding that TRIA requires to authorize the turnover," Netburn continued. "Only the president may recognize the government of a foreign sovereign nation. Courts may not do so directly or by implication. Authorizing the parties to satisfy the Taliban's judgments with Afghanistan's central bank funds unavoidably acknowledges the Taliban as the Afghan government."

"Third, even if that were not the case, TRIA § 201(a) requires an agency relationship in order to execute on an entity's assets," the judge added. "This relationship requires a manifestation of consent that is not present where the Taliban has seized DAB by force."

The New York Times reported Saturday that "a federal district court judge for the Southern District of New York, George B. Daniels, is supervising the litigation and has the authority to issue a ruling that disagrees with Judge Netburn's legal analysis. And if he instead rules in accordance with her recommendation, the victims' families could file an appeal."

While Fiona Havlish, the named plaintiff in a group of 9/11 families trying to seize the funds, said she disagrees with Netburn's perspective, Leila Murphy, a steering committee member for September 11th Families for Peaceful Tomorrows, praised the judge's report.

"As the daughter of a 9/11 victim, it makes me sick to think that Afghan victims of atrocity are being deprived of necessary resources during a time of great need," Murphy said in a statement. "I am relieved that the judge has taken a step toward the only legally and morally correct approach—making the entire $7 billion available to Afghans to deal with the economic crisis we helped to cause."

CRR senior staff attorney Katherine Gallagher on Monday similarly praised Netburn's report.

"One year after the Taliban takeover, the people of Afghanistan continue to endure a profound humanitarian and human rights crisis," she said. "Judge Netburn's thorough report forestalls the further injustice of allowing the Taliban to evade liability by raiding the peoples' coffer, and provides some hope that the people of Afghanistan will have access to the resources they so desperately need."

Gallagher added that "the 9/11 families should be able to enforce their judgments and secure some justice—against the Taliban, with the Taliban's funds."

Sadaf Doost, co-founder of Global Advocates for Afghanistan—one of the groups represented by CCR—highlighted that the Afghan people "have endured decades of catastrophic suffering at the hands of foreign actors and occupiers," and echoed one of the judge's primary conclusions.

"Allowing the $3.5 billion held in the central bank of Afghanistan to satisfy judgments against the Taliban," Doost warned, "would reward the Taliban for their illegitimate ruling of Afghanistan by implicitly recognizing the central bank as an official Taliban agency or instrumentality—such a decision would not only drive the Afghan people into further suffering, but result in a grave, unconstitutional error."

Days After Approving Another $3 Billion for Ukraine War, US Says No More Money for Free Covid Tests

Public health advocates on Monday warned that the imminent suspension of the Biden administration's free at-home Covid-19 test program could lead to the autumn and winter surge in infections that officials have feared for months, and denounced the obstruction of Republicans who have refused to pass continued Covid-19 relief this year—even as they've approved hundreds of billions of dollars in military spending.

"Well this is quite exactly the wrong thing to do going into fall/winter," Dr. Taison Bell, an infectious disease physician at University of Virginia, tweeted as the White House announced on its test-ordering website that a lack of congressional funding has forced the government to end shipments of free tests for the time being.

The federal portal notes that shipments "will be suspended on Friday, September 2 because Congress hasn't provided additional funding to replenish the nation's stockpile of tests."

The White House earlier this year requested $22 billion in coronavirus funding, including $5 billion in global aid to help people across the Global South and prevent new variants from spreading, but Republicans and Democrats were only able to agree on a $10 billion deal excluding global spending. That bill has so far failed to pass.

The government has sent out more than 600 million tests so far, allowing households to place up to three orders since the program began in January under pressure from public health advocates. The Department of Defense said in February that the federal government spent roughly $2 billion on the first shipments of tests.

While Republicans have refused to fund continued Covid spending this year, lawmakers from both parties have agreed to prioritize military spending, including nearly $3 billion in long-term aid for Ukrainian forces that was approved last week, a $40 billion Ukraine package that passed in May, and $782 billion in U.S. military funding that was approved in March—days after the Covid relief was pulled from omnibus legislation.

FTC sues company for selling data that could be used to track consumers

The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) on Monday sued Idaho-based data broker Kochava for selling geolocation data from hundreds of millions of mobile devices that could be used to track consumers. The FTC said consumer data could be used to trace people’s movements to and from sensitive locations including “reproductive health clinics, places of worship, homeless and domestic violence shelters, and addiction recovery facilities”.

The problem gained interest after a supreme court ruling in June overturned the Roe v Wade decision that guaranteed a constitutional right to an abortion. Since then, privacy advocates and the public have called for more limits to the data tech companies collect over concerns that police or other entities could access customers’ search history, geolocation and other information revealing pregnancy plans.

But the lawsuit, which seeks to halt Kochava’s sale of sensitive geolocation data and require the company to delete the sensitive geolocation information it has collected, addresses issues beyond tracking those pursuing abortion care. In the suit, FTC alleges the company allows people to customize their data feed to filter for mobile devices at specific times and locations. This would make it easy to track a user over time or try to, for instance, find out where they live. ...

Until recently, the company also made its data available for purchase by the public and “allowed anyone with little effort to obtain a large sample of sensitive data and use it without restriction”, the FTC alleges. For instance, a sample of Kochava’s data – which included 327,480,000 rows and 11 columns of data, corresponding to more than 61,803,400 unique mobile devices – was available on a trial basis on the Amazon Web Services Marketplace as of June 2022 for anyone to access. ...

Congressional committees have also reached a compromise on the American Data Privacy and Protection Act, which would limit the data broker industry by putting protections around sensitive data like geolocation and by enabling people to demand companies delete data collected on them. However, as Politico reported, the data broker industry has ramped up its lobbying in response to the bill in an effort to soften some of the data-sharing restrictions.

GOP Candidates CAUGHT Deleting Pro-Life Website Sections

Graham predicts ‘riots in streets’ if Trump is prosecuted over classified records

Amid growing fears about political violence in the US, a senior Republican senator predicted “riots in the streets” if Donald Trump is prosecuted for mishandling classified information.

Lindsey Graham, of South Carolina, made his remarks about the ex-president while speaking to Fox News’s Sunday Night in America, hosted by Trey Gowdy, a former Republican congressman from the same state.

Graham said: “Most Republicans, including me, believe when it comes to Trump, there is no law. It’s all about getting him. There’s a double standard when it comes to Trump.”

Alleging a failure by the FBI to investigate Hunter Biden, Joe Biden’s son, Graham added: “I’ll say this, if there’s a prosecution of Donald Trump for mishandling classified information, after the Clinton debacle … there’ll be riots in the streets.”

FBI Agent Accused Of Protecting HUNTER BIDEN Resigns After 25 YEARS With Bureau

Major sea-level rise caused by melting of Greenland ice cap is ‘now inevitable’

Major sea-level rise from the melting of the Greenland ice cap is now inevitable, scientists have found, even if the fossil fuel burning that is driving the climate crisis were to end overnight.

The research shows the global heating to date will cause an absolute minimum sea-level rise of 27cm (10.6in) from Greenland alone as 110tn tonnes of ice melt. With continued carbon emissions, the melting of other ice caps and thermal expansion of the ocean, a multi-metre sea-level rise appears likely.

Billions of people live in coastal regions, making flooding due to rising sea levels one of the greatest long-term impacts of the climate crisis. If Greenland’s record melt year of 2012 becomes a routine occurrence later this century, as is possible, then the ice cap will deliver a “staggering” 78cm of sea-level rise, the scientists said. ...

[T]he study published in the journal Nature Climate Change used satellite measurements of ice losses from Greenland and the shape of the ice cap from 2000-19. This data enabled the scientists to calculate how far global heating to date has pushed the ice sheet from an equilibrium where snowfall matches the ice lost. This allowed the calculation of how much more ice must be lost in order to regain stability.

“It is a very conservative rock-bottom minimum,” said Prof Jason Box from the National Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Geus), who led the research. “Realistically, we will see this figure more than double within this century.”

BREAKING: Pipeline company @Enbridge spent almost $10m to buy off Minnesota police forces who arrested hundreds of Indigenous peoples at Line 3. Who gave the fossil fuel industry the right to buy public cops?

Shocking and revolting. @ResistLine3https://t.co/Qcx5gvZfLe pic.twitter.com/JYf4MnaunO

— Steven Donziger (@SDonziger) August 29, 2022

Scientists call on colleagues to protest climate crisis with civil disobedience

Scientists should commit acts of civil disobedience to show the public how seriously they regard the threat posed by the climate crisis, a group of leading scientists has argued.

“Civil disobedience by scientists has the potential to cut through the myriad complexities and confusion surrounding the climate crisis,” the researchers wrote in an article, published in the scientific journal Nature Climate Change on Monday.

“When those with expertise and knowledge are willing to convey their concerns in a more uncompromising manner … this affords them particular effectiveness as a communicative act. This is the insight of Greta Thunberg when she calls on us to ‘act as you would in a crisis’.”

In recent months, scientists have shown themselves increasingly willing to take part in direct actions to bring attention to the climate crisis. A “scientists rebellion” mobilised more than 1,000 scientists in 25 countries in April, while in the UK a number of scientists were arrested for gluing scientific papers – and their hands – on to the glass facade of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy.

“The government’s insane, and I don’t know what to do, other than to do this, to try and get the attention that we need to wake the public up.”

Ecologist Dr Aaron Thierry (@ThierryAaron), who has his hand superglued to the window at @beisgovuk with @ScientistsX pic.twitter.com/Hx8oAvZZgC

— Damien Gayle (@damiengayle) April 13, 2022

Irish farmers say they will be forced to cull cows to meet climate targets

Ireland has 7.3 million cattle, substantially outnumbering humans, and a long history with the animal stretching into myth, including the Cattle Raid of Cooley, an epic tale considered the Irish Iliad. Agriculture dominated the economy well into the 20th century and moulded a vision of Ireland that still enchants visitors. Cows, however, now symbolise something else: a climate crisis quandary.

Instead of cutting emissions, Ireland has continued increasing them and the biggest contributor is agriculture. Ireland’s 135,000 farms produce 37.5% of national emissions, the highest proportion in the European Union, and most of that comes from methane associated with belching by ruminant animals. Under a new government plan, agriculture must reduce emissions by 25% by 2030. Other sectors face even higher targets – transport must reduce emissions by 50%, commercial and public buildings by 40% – but the loudest protests have come from farmers.

Cutting emissions by a quarter will drive many farms into bankruptcy and could force the culling of hundreds of thousands of cows, they say. “The mood is hugely frustrated,” said Pat McCormack, head of the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association. “It’s very hard to quantify but there will be increased costs and reduced output.” Farmers and their allies have accused the coalition government, which includes the Green party, of scapegoating rural Ireland and leaving farmers little option but to cull herds. So far there have been no Dutch-style protests.

Until recently, the government had encouraged dairy farmers to expand to exploit the end of EU milk quotas. Farmers invested in new equipment and the dairy herd grew by almost half in the past decade. Irish butter, cheese and other produce – 90% is exported – filled supermarket shelves around the world. “All the talk was of what dairy could deliver for the economy and society and we did that in spades. Now it’s the bad boy,” said McCormack.

Also of Interest

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

Media Bias Enables Israel’s War on Palestine

Mossad chief to visit D.C. as Israel ramps up pressure on U.S. over Iran deal

Whose war is the US fighting in Syria, and why?

Iraq In CHAOS As Violent Riots Erupt

Will Europe Go Down to Defeat Before Ukraine?

Europe's Economic And Social Suicide - Provoked by The U.S. And Helped Along By Europe's Leaders

Julian Assange Files His Perfected Grounds Of Appeal

Destruction of the Humanities & Social Sciences and Societal Mis-allocation of Resources

‘It took everything’: the disease that can be contracted by breathing California’s air

The Salish Sea Is Under Grave Risk From the Trans Mountain Pipeline

'Genocide of His People Is Complete': Last Member of Isolated Brazilian Tribe Found Dead

Double Standard: Afghans Seeking to Enter U.S. as Biden Admin Opens Door to 68,000+ Ukrainians

How the FBI intervenes in US politics

Ending HOMELESSNESS: Panel Debates Solutions Including Free Housing, Expanded Shelters

DANK Brandon? Fetterman Dares Biden To Legalize MARIJUANA

A Little Night Music

A. C. Reed - Party With Y'all

AC Reed & The Sparkplugs - Hard Times

A.C. Reed - I Got Money To Burn

A.C. Reed - I Can't Go This Way

A.C. Reed - 2 Women In A Pick Up

A. C. Reed - Talkin 'bout My Friends

A C Reed - Boogaloo Tramp

A. C. Reed - Lotta Loving

A. C. Reed - I'm In The Wrong Business

AC Reed & The Sparkplugs - She's Fine