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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Big Joe Turner

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues shouter Big Joe Turner. Enjoy!

^{Big Joe Turner - Boogie Woogie Country Girl}

“Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.”

-- Albert Einstein

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News and Opinion

Biden on “60 Minutes”: American capitalism is at war with the world, at war with reality

On Sunday evening, CBS aired an episode of “60 Minutes,” featuring an extended interview by Scott Pelley with US President Joe Biden. In the space of 25 minutes, Biden made a series of extraordinary statements. He declared that the COVID-19 pandemic was “over”; announced his “ironclad commitment” to backing war against Russia, while acknowledging this contained the possibility of nuclear war; and pledged US forces to a possible war with China.

It has been over 200 days since Biden last sat down for an interview with a television journalist. Much has changed. The US and NATO provoked war with Russia in Ukraine and have escalated the conflict with massive tranches of military aid and direct involvement, overseeing and planning the movement of troops and the targeting of missiles. The eastern and southern portions of Ukraine invaded by Russia have become the concentrated site of an expanding third world war.

Mass inflation has gripped the globe. The prices of basic necessities have soared beyond the reach of the working class. Workers in Europe face the prospect of a freezing winter, unable to afford heat; workers in the United States struggle to pay rent. The stock market is turbulent, and its future looks grim. Most significantly, the struggles of the working class against capitalism are coming into the open, are growing rapidly and are taking an increasingly political form.

American capitalism is at war with reality, and nowhere is this more openly embodied than in its President Joe Biden. He acknowledged the gravity of the situation declaring, “This is a really difficult time. We’re at an inflection point in the history of this country.” At the same time, and without any justification, Biden announced, “I’m more optimistic than I’ve been in a long time.” ...

The American ruling class is inured to mass death. They have learned, with alarming speed, that widespread preventable death is something with which they are prepared to live. This sharpens the teeth of their militarist threats and brinkmanship. Biden’s paramount concern in the interview was to make clear his unwavering determination to wage war. He announced Washington’s “ironclad commitment” to take the war against Russia “as far as it takes.” The goal, which he termed “winning in Ukraine,” was “to get Russia out of Ukraine completely.” ...

The policies and strategies of Washington are insane—in the most real meaning of the word—but it is an intelligible madness, an insanity with objective causes. Capitalism has nothing to offer humanity but war and poverty and death. It has no solution to the pandemic but to deny its existence, no solution to war but escalation.

Here's the useful part of a Guardian propaganda piece. The rest of the article is pure crap.

Four occupied Ukraine regions plan imminent ‘votes’ on joining Russia

Four Russian-occupied regions in Ukraine have said they are planning to hold “referendums” on joining the Russian Federation in a series of coordinated announcements that could indicate the Kremlin has made a decision to formally annex the territories.

Mobilisation, annexation: Putin declares expansion of Russia's war effort in Ukraine

Referendums. Special Military Operation coming to an end?

More from the Guardian propaganda machine:

Far-right German politicians accused of pro-Putin ‘propaganda trip’

Politicians from a far-right party in Germany who are on a visit to Russia, and plan to travel to Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine, have been accused of supporting Vladimir Putin’s war and of undertaking a “propaganda trip”.

The five Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) politicians said their aim was to “see for ourselves in situ the humanitarian situation”, but were asked to provide details of their visit to the party leadership, which apparently knew nothing about it in advance. The deputy leader of the party, Peter Boehringer, said the trip was not taking place on behalf of the AfD.

Three of the group are members of state legislative assemblies, two from Saxony-Anhalt and one from North Rhine-Westphalia. ...

The daily TAZ newspaper called it “especially perfidious”, in light of the recent reports of mass graves discovered in Izium, that the party chose to describe its visit as a humanitarian research trip.

The US-based Robert Lansing Institute for Global Threats and Democracies Studies (IGTDS), which describes itself as a non-partisan, non-profit public policy research organisation, said the journey was taking place under the auspices of the Russian military secret service, members of whom would be accompanying the politicians to Donbas. The institute was the first to release the information.

Who's behind Zaporizhia nuclear plant attacks?

US Soldiers Provide Telemaintenance as Ukrainians MacGyver Their Weapons

Some four dozen U.S. troops [at a military base in Poland] are helping their Ukrainian counterparts across the border fix and maintain 155mm howitzers, Javelin launders, HIMARS and other weapons. But since the Americans aren’t in Ukraine, they’re providing assistance via encrypted digital chats, sending replacement parts, and consulting on parts the Ukrainians make themselves. It’s vital work at an airbase that could be among the first targets if Russia expands the war beyond Ukraine.

With the help of some Ukrainian linguists, the U.S. maintenance specialists communicate in 14 chatrooms, one for each weapon and system the Ukrainians need help with. The Ukrainians use Starlink satellite communication terminals to share video clips as needed.

“Ukrainians are going to identify a need, the experts are going to diagnose…what's needed and either walk them through it or put parts on order. And then we use the American supply system to get that part here to transfer right down,” said one lieutenant colonel involved in the effort.

Rolling Blackouts. EU LNG lies come back to haunt Collective West

Lula Up 16 Points Over Bolsonaro as Lead Grows Ahead of Brazilian Election

With less than two weeks remaining until the first round of Brazil's presidential election, new polling figures show democratic socialist frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has slightly widened his double-digit lead over far-right incumbent President Jair Bolsonaro.

Brazilian pollster IPEC's latest survey shows da Silva leading Bolsonaro 47% to 31% in the first-round contest, which will take place on October 2. That's a one-point boost from the previous week's polling.

The IPEC poll also gives da Silva—the Workers' Party candidate who previously served as Brazil's 35th president from 2003 to 2010—a 19-point lead in a potential second-round runoff, which is scheduled for October 30 if no candidate wins over 50% of the vote in the first round.

Other pollsters also show da Silva enjoying a double-digit lead. Datafolha's most recent figures give da Silva a 45% to 33% edge over Bolsonaro in the first round, with 90% of surveyed voters having decided for whom they will vote.

Bolsonaro—an open admirer of the former U.S.-backed 1964-85 military dictatorship in whose army he served as an officer—has said he might not accept the results of the election if he loses. There are widespread fears in Brazil and beyond that a beaten Bolsonaro may attempt to foment a coup or an insurrection along the lines of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of defeated former President Donald Trump.

Da Silva has been drawing massive crowds of supporters at recent campaign events, including a Sunday rally in the southern city of Florianópolis where he said that when "every woman and every child is eating three times a day, I will have completed my life's mission."

Hunger and food insecurity—which was dramatically reduced through social programs like Fome Zero (Zero Hunger) and Bolsa Família (Family Allowance) during da Silva's first presidential term—have returned under Bolsonaro's right-wing economic and social policies.

Seven former Brazilian presidential candidates from various political parties on Monday called on voters to return da Silva to the Palácio da Alvorada.

"All Brazilian democrats must unite and avoid the tragedy that would be the re-election of the current president," said Cristovam Buarque, a former federal senator and member of the socialist party Cidadania who served as da Silva's education minister.

Also on Monday, Brazilian election authorities denounced a fake narrated video making the rounds on pro-Bolsonaro social media accounts showing the president leading da Silva 46% to 31%.

Number of global ultra high net worth individuals hits record high

The ranks of the global “ultra high net worth” (UHNW) individuals swelled by 46,000 last year to a record 218,200 as the world’s richest people benefited from “almost an explosion of wealth” during the recovery from the pandemic.

The number of UHNW people – those with assets of more than $50m (£43.7m) – jumped in 2021 as the super-rich benefited from soaring house prices and booming stock markets, according to a report by investment bank Credit Suisse. The number of people in the UHNW bracket has increased by more than 50% over the past two years.

The huge increase in wealth of the richest 0.00004% of the world’s adult population comes as billions of low- and middle-income people – many of whom saw their savings wiped out during the pandemic – struggle to cope with soaring food and energy prices.

“The strong rise in financial assets resulted in an increase in inequality in 2021,” the report by Credit Suisse, which helps manage the fortunes of many of the world’s richest people, said. “The rise in inequality is probably due to the surge in the value of financial assets during the Covid-19 pandemic.”

Biden’s Afghan Shell Game Prompts Media Shrugs and Stenography

More than a year after it froze $7 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank reserves in the wake of the Taliban’s military victory, the US has announced it will use half the money to establish a fund at a Swiss bank to help stabilize the cratering Afghan economy.

President Joe Biden’s refusal over the past year to allow the Afghan central bank access to its own reserves has caused an economic crisis that has pushed most of the population into extreme poverty and malnutrition. Moreover, in February, Biden announced that he was reserving half of Afghanistan’s money for families of 9/11 victims, sparking international outrage—and yawns from TV news outlets (FAIR.org, 2/15/22).

The establishment of the “Afghan Fund” is a half measure that, while almost certain to provide some much needed relief, continues both the unjust theft of half the funds and the hobbling of the country’s recovery by undermining the central bank. (Economist Andrés Arauz describes Biden’s plan as “starting a parallel private foundation ‘central bank’ from scratch,” and argues that it’s a “terrible idea”—CEPR, 9/15/22.)

When a government invades a country, occupies it for 20 years, and then sends it into a humanitarian crisis by appropriating most of its money, you’d expect good journalists from that country to follow the story closely and vigorously hold their government to account. In the US, instead, you get largely shrugs and government talking points.

The story of Biden’s reallocation of Afghanistan’s reserves wasn’t mentioned by a single TV news outlet, according to a search of the Nexis news database. That failure is sadly unsurprising, given their overwhelming lack of interest in the Afghan people once the US military withdrawal was complete—after incessant wailing about the fate of those people during the withdrawal itself (FAIR.org, 12/21/21).

The Los Angeles Times (9/15/22) ran an AP report on the funds on its front page. That report—which also ran in major papers like the Chicago Tribune and Baltimore Sun—obscured the US responsibility for the situation, using passive language to explain that “international funding to Afghanistan was suspended” and “billions of dollars of the county’s assets abroad, mostly in the United States, were frozen” after the US withdrawal.

That Biden had unilaterally announced that half the money would be effectively stolen from the Afghan people, who had nothing to do with 9/11, and reserved for families of 9/11 victims, was likewise reported with passive language and no hint of controversy: “The other $3.5 billion will stay in the US to finance payments from lawsuits by US victims of terrorism.”

The only quotes the AP offered were from US officials and the Swiss bank.

CNN.com (9/14/22) also quoted only US officials, and offered the rather credulous assessment: “By setting up this mechanism, the US is making it clear that they intend to get the frozen funds to the Afghan people”—which is hard to square with the earmarking of fully half the funds for US citizens, not the Afghan people.

[More at the link. -js]

French police have impunity, too.

French police officers convicted over 2015 chokehold death

Three French police officers have been found guilty of manslaughter after a black man died when he was pinned to the ground and put in a chokehold outside a Paris bar in 2015. Amadou Koumé, whose name has become a protest slogan against police violence, died as the result of a “slow mechanical asphyxia” according to a medical expert, the court heard during the trial.

Koumé, 33, had been described in the media by his partner, Jessica Lefèvre, who led a long campaign for justice, as having suffered from psychological problems. He had undergone hospital treatment, at his own request, for panic attacks, hallucinations and a feeling of being persecuted. On the day he died, the father-of-three had taken a day off to pass his highway code test but had not gone to the test. He went to a bar near Paris’s Gare du Nord at around 11:30pm, where he ordered a beer and sat down.

Staff at the bar noticed that Koumé had begun talking to himself and was incoherent and raising his voice. A barman called police saying there was a man who appeared to have psychological problems. Police arrived just after midnight and decided to arrest him. Koumé died after he was pinned to the ground by officers in the bar, put in a chokehold and subsequently left on his front, his hands cuffed behind his back, for more than six minutes. ...

The three police officers, who were not in court for the sentencing, were given 15-month suspended jail terms. Two officers were found at fault for not controlling the force used, and for leaving Koumé on his front without checking on his health. A more senior officer was found guilty of a “succession of negligence and failings”.

It's kind of funny what government finds the money for.

Advocates for migrants who were sent to Martha’s Vineyard sue Ron DeSantis

Attorneys representing the Venezuelan migrants and refugees allegedly duped into flying to the wealthy island of Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts have filed a class-action civil rights lawsuit against the Florida governor and other state officials.

Lawyers for Civil Rights (LCR), a Boston-based legal advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on Tuesday challenging what it called the “fraudulent and discriminatory” scheme to charter private planes to transport almost 50 vulnerable people, including children as young as two, from San Antonio, Texas, via Florida, to Martha’s Vineyard last week without liaising to arrange shelter and other resources.

The two charter flights cost about $615,000 – $12,300 per person – of taxpayers’ money, according to the legal filing.

The civil rights suit is against the Florida governor, Ron DeSantis; the Florida transport secretary, Jared Perdue, the state of Florida, and their unidentified accomplices – who allegedly helped find and lure the asylum seekers on to the flights.

“No human being should be used as a political pawn in the nation’s highly polarized debate over immigration,” said Ivan Espinoza-Madrigal, executive director of LCR, which is providing pro bono legal assistance and accompanied the migrants to a military base on Cape Cod for shelter.

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‘Polluters must pay’: UN chief calls for windfall tax on fossil fuel companies

Countries should impose windfall taxes on fossil fuel companies and divert the money to vulnerable nations suffering worsening losses from the climate crisis, the United Nations secretary general has urged.

António Guterres said that “polluters must pay” for the escalating damage caused by heatwaves, floods, drought and other climate impacts, and demanded that it was “high time to put fossil fuel producers, investors and enablers on notice”.

“Today, I am calling on all developed economies to tax the windfall profits of fossil fuel companies,” Guterres said in a speech to the UN general assembly on Tuesday. “Those funds should be redirected in two ways – to countries suffering loss and damage caused by the climate crisis and to people struggling with rising food and energy prices.”

Guterres’s appeal came in his most urgent, and bleakest, speech to date on the state of the planet, and the will of governments to change course.

His first words were: “Our world is in big trouble.”

“Let’s have no illusions. We are in rough seas. A winter of global discontent is on the horizon, a cost-of-living crisis is raging, trust is crumbling, inequalities are exploding and our planet is burning,” he told the assembly. “We have a duty to act and yet we are gridlocked in colossal global dysfunction. The international community is not ready or willing to tackle the big dramatic challenges of our age.”

Manchin 'Getting Desperate' as Opposition to Dirty Permitting Deal Grows Louder

Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia held a press conference and delivered a speech on the Senate floor Tuesday making the case for federal permitting reforms and defending his proposed changes from progressive criticism, an indication that he's feeling the heat as opposition to what critics have dubbed the senator's "dirty deal" continues to build.

"Manchin is getting desperate, it's the only reason he'd host a press conference like this," argued Jamie Henn, the director of Fossil Free Media. "But the more he defends his dirty deal, the clearer it is this is just a grab bag of handouts to his fossil fuel industry donors. Today's performance only strengthens our opposition."

During his press conference, the West Virginia senator announced that the full text of permitting legislation that he's hoping to attach to a must-pass government funding package will be released Wednesday ahead of a potential vote next week. The Senate Democratic leadership and President Joe Biden agreed to give Manchin a vote on the permitting changes in exchange for the oil and gas ally's support for the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act.

Manchin complained to reporters Tuesday that his permitting proposal—which aims to accelerate environmental reviews of fossil fuel projects such as the Mountain Valley fracked gas pipeline—is coming under fire from both progressive climate champions such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Republicans eager to deny Manchin and the Democratic Party any legislative wins, even if they back the specific policies.

"It's like a revenge politics," said Manchin, the top recipient of oil and gas money in Congress. "Basically revenge towards one person: Me."

On Twitter, Sanders pushed back against Manchin's comment and said that "defeating the Big Oil side deal is not about revenge."

"It's about whether we will stand with 650 environmental and civil rights organizations who understand that the future of the planet is with renewable energy and energy efficiency not approving the Mountain Valley Pipeline," Sanders wrote. "The Mountain Valley Pipeline would generate emissions equivalent to 37 coal plants or putting 27 million more cars on the road."

"It's hard for me to understand why anyone concerned about climate change would consider voting to approve such a dirty and dangerous fracked gas pipeline," he added.

Manchin insists that permitting changes would carry benefits for both fossil fuel projects and renewable energy development, but climate campaigners and a growing number of Democratic lawmakers warn the plan laid out in draft legislative language would weaken bedrock environmental laws and endanger communities in the paths of pipelines and other polluting fossil fuel infrastructure.

Sanders tweeted Tuesday that "the Big Oil side deal requires the president to prioritize 25 energy projects for expedited environmental reviews."

"Of those, 19 could be dirty fossil fuel or mining projects and ZERO are required to be renewable energy projects that would reduce emissions," the Vermont senator wrote. "That is unacceptable."

In a Monday letter to Sens. Tammy Duckworth (D-Ill.), Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Tom Carper (D-Del.)—the founding members of the Senate Environmental Justice Caucus—a coalition of nearly 80 frontline organizations and climate advocacy groups called on the trio to reject Manchin's "pernicious" permitting legislation and any amended versions.

"We firmly believe that nothing can improve a bill that would deregulate landmark environmental laws like [the National Environmental Policy Act] and [the Clean Water Act]," the letter reads.

A floor fight over the permitting reforms could come as soon as next week, when Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is expected to attach the Manchin-backed proposal to a continuing resolution that must pass by September 30 to avert a government shutdown.

Survey data released Monday by Data for Progress shows that 59% of likely U.S. voters believe that "lawmakers should consider permitting legislation as a standalone bill, and separate it from a must-pass government spending package."

Thus far, just one member of the Senate Democratic caucus—Sanders—has vowed to vote against any continuing resolution that includes fossil fuel-friendly permitting reforms.

On the House side, 77 Democrats have warned House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) not to allow the inclusion of permitting reforms in the continuing resolution—but only Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) has pledged to vote no if the "dirty deal" ultimately ends up in the package.

"If we were to pass this side deal, it would mean more plants like that harming Black and Brown communities, putting pollution in the air where kids can't be in their backyards," Khanna told The Young Turks earlier this month. "We're not just talking about some abstract policy here. We're talking about allowing refineries, fossil fuel projects, and heavy industry to destroy neighborhoods."

Puerto Ricans ANGRY Over Private Power Grid Amid Fiona, Want Corporation OUT

Hurricane Fiona batters Turks and Caicos as Puerto Rico fights flooding

Hurricane Fiona has blasted the Turks and Caicos Islands as a Category 3 storm after cutting a path of devastation through the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico – where most people remained without electricity or running water.

The storm’s eye passed close to Grand Turk, the small British territory’s capital island, on Tuesday morning after the government imposed a curfew and urged people to flee flood-prone areas. Hurricane-force winds extended up to 30 miles (45km) from the center.

“Storms are unpredictable,” the territory’s premier, Washington Misick, said in a statement from London, where he was attending the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II. “You must therefore take every precaution to ensure your safety.”

Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 115mph (185km/h) and was moving north-north-west at 9mph (15km/h), according to the Hurricane Center, which said the storm is likely to strengthen further into a Category 4 hurricane as it approaches Bermuda on Friday.

It was forecast to weaken before running into easternmost Canada over the weekend.

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Also of Interest

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

Did Ukraine's counter-offensive change the game?

State Department Stops Publishing Military Expenditures, Arms Transfer Report

Secret Documents Have Exposed the CIA’s Julian Assange Obsession

On The Upcoming Putin Speech And Announcements

Machiavelli On Putin

US librarians face unprecedented attacks amid rightwing book bans

Adnan Syed murder conviction had ‘systemic problems’, Serial host Sarah Koenig says

This nine-year-old was enslaved in the US. Her story could help stop a chemical plant

UN Women & BlackRock

Russian economy strengthens. EU economies in tatters

Adnan Syed Freed After 23 Years in Prison. Same Flaws in His Murder Case Plague Thousands of Others

Briahna Joy Gray: Did Bill Maher Just Defend SLAVERY?

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A Little Night Music

Big Joe Turner - Low Down Dog

Big Joe Turner - Teenage Letter

Big Joe Turner - Rock the Joint Boogie

Big Joe Turner - T V Mama

Big Joe Turner - I Need A Girl

Big Joe Turner - Juke Joint Blues

Big Joe Turner - Jump For Joy

Big Joe Turner In The Evening (When The Sun Goes Down)

Big Joe Turner - Oke She Moke She Pop

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