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“All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible.”

-- Frank Herbert

News and Opinion

War Industry 'Celebrating Christmas Early' as House Passes $858 Billion NDAA

Peace advocates on Thursday slammed the House of Representatives' passage of a mammoth $858 billion military spending bill as an early holiday gift for the Pentagon and the weapons corporations who benefit from the United States' ongoing—but largely forgotten—War on Terror.

House lawmakers voted 350-80 in favor of the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), with 45 Democrats and 35 Republicans voting "no."

The new NDAA authorizes an $80 billion military spending increase over the 2022 bill, and $118 billion more than when President Joe Biden took office in 2021. The 2023 allocation is more than the combined military budgets of China, India, the United Kingdom, Russia, France, Germany, Saudi Arabia, Japan, and South Korea, according to the National Priorities Project at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). It's also more than the annual gross domestic product of countries including Saudi Arabia, Sweden, Switzerland, and Turkey, based on United Nations figures. 

The $858 billion figure does not include additional spending on the U.S. nuclear arsenal, contributions to Ukraine's defense, or veterans' benefits.

Warmongers CONFRONTED By Journalist At National Press Club Event

The Season Finale Of The Hit Show ‘Proxy War’

Everyone’s talking about the hit series Proxy War, an astronomically high-budget production based on an actual military conflict whose season finale is set to air this month.

Promotional materials for the episode hint at a heartwarming season wrap-up that’s sure to make wholesome viewing for the whole family, with series star Volodymyr Zelensky being awarded 2022 Person of the Year by Time Magazine.

This will cap off a wild first season which has seen our hero appear on the cover of Vogue, deliver speeches for the World Economic Forum, the New York Stock Exchange, the Grammy Awards and numerous film festivals, as well as having high-profile meetings with celebrity actors and rock stars.

Proxy War has been a much-needed win for Hollywood, which for years has been largely stuck in a creative rut of meaningless remakes and sequels. A massive PR campaign for a military operation geared toward preserving US imperial hegemony is the biggest thing to hit show business since Spielberg, which is why Zelensky was presented with an Academy Award by actor Sean Penn for his stunning and transcendent performance in the series.

It was unclear in the beginning if audiences would warm to Proxy War, with some taken aback by the unprecedented media coverage being given to a war that their own government was officially not even involved in. Critics initially panned the practice of ascribing Hollywood action hero-sounding quotes like “I need ammo, not a ride” to Zelensky when he never actually said them, as well as the use of blatant atrocity propaganda full of ham-fisted plotlines like Russians raping babies, and the hackneyed plagiarization of the Libya propaganda narrative that the evil leader of the day is giving his troops Viagra to help them commit mass rape.

But the numbers are in and it turns out the world is head-over-heels in love with Proxy War’s unique combination of reality TV, inspirational storytelling, mind-crushing internet censorship, and high-octane war propaganda. Naysayers may complain that they are tired of having their intelligence insulted, but as far as John and Jane Q Public are concerned, it can’t get insulted enough.

Yes sir, western culture may be a stagnant cesspool of plastic performers, empire smut and corporate rimjobs, but boy howdy we can still spin a good yarn when we need to. Stay tuned for Season Two! Will Zelensky finally get a guest spot on Saturday Night Live? Will leading lady Olena Zelenska release that new fashion line? Will rumors prove true of a Muppet movie in Kyiv? Stay tuned and find out soon, right after this short commercial break.

Ukraine Daily Losing Battalion in Bakhmut, Ex US Officials Ukraine Cannot Win, Putin Russian Buildup

Snow warnings as UK cold snap prompts fears of winter energy crisis

Snow and ice warnings cover much of Scotland and northern and south-west England, as well as parts of Wales and Northern Ireland, as a cold snap prompts fears of a winter energy crisis.

Ministers said on Thursday they were taking advice on how to protect vulnerable people from the cold after research suggested millions of households could not afford to heat their homes.

Schools in Scotland were closed or delayed opening their doors as the first snow of the winter fell. Forecasters issued yellow warnings that stretched into the weekend, after the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) issued a level 3 cold weather alert covering England from Wednesday evening through to Monday. ...

Earlier on Thursday, research from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation suggested many households would struggle to pay for warm clothing, heating and food, while more than 700,000 were unable to afford essentials and were already in arrears.

Peru’s ousted president appears in court to face rebellion and conspiracy charges

Peru’s ousted president Pedro Castillo has appeared in court to face charges of rebellion and conspiracy as his successor, Dina Boluarte, the country’s first female leader, pledged to set Peru on a new course and called a truce after months of political turmoil.

Castillo looked sombre during Thursday’s hearing, giving simple yes or no answers, while his lawyer argued that he had been arbitrarily detained and forced from Peru’s presidency on trumped-up charges.

The court is expected to decide if Castillo will be held in preliminary detention as he faces charges for “breaching constitutional order” after his failed attempt on Wednesday to close congress and rule by decree until new elections.

Castillo’s precipitous fall from power came just hours later as lawmakers accused him of staging a coup and voted overwhelmingly to remove him in a scheduled impeachment vote, thwarting his last-ditch attempt to hold on to power.

The reversal of fortunes is the latest episode in Peru’s rolling political crisis. The Andean nation is now on its sixth president in six years. Two previous presidents have been forced out by congress since 2018. Castillo, 53, who won a narrow election victory in June 2021 by just 44,000 votes, is the latest casualty.

House passes landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriage

The House gave final passage on Thursday to landmark legislation protecting same-sex marriage, in a bipartisan vote that reflects a remarkable shift in public opinion just over a quarter-century after Congress defined marriage as a union between a man and a woman.

The final vote was 258 to 169, with 39 Republican members joining every House Democrat in supporting the bill. One Republican, Burgess Owens of Utah, voted present.

The vote was one of the final acts of this lame-duck Congress before the balance of power shifts and Republicans take control of the House in January. The bill, which provides a degree of relief for hundreds of thousands of same-sex married couples in the US, next goes to Joe Biden, who has said he will sign the legislation “promptly and proudly”.

Sinema FLIPS to Independent

Qatar’s gas output increase could cause catastrophic global heating, report says

Qatar’s longest-lasting legacy following the World Cup won’t be football or even its human rights record – it will be the climate crisis, according to a new report warning that its huge expansion of gas extraction could push the planet into catastrophic global heating. Should Qatar exploit all of its oil and gas reserves it will eventually add an enormous 50bn metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere once burned, which is more than the entire annual emissions of the whole world, the new research, shared with the Guardian, has found.

This vast output of emissions will in itself push the world beyond the internationally agreed limit of 1.5C of global heating beyond industrial times, beyond which scientists warn there will be increasingly disastrous impacts from heatwaves, droughts, floods and biodiversity die-offs.

QatarEnergy, the state-owned petroleum operation that is overseeing a huge escalation in the country’s oil and gas output, is a sponsor of the World Cup currently under way in Qatar. ... Qatar’s vast oil and gas resources have greatly enriched the small Middle Eastern country, which this year became the world’s largest exporter of liquified natural gas (or LNG), superseding the US and Australia.

It is now looking to further cement its position by ramping up production from a vast offshore gas deposit called the north field, which will account for 70% of the emissions growth according to the new report by BankTrack, an NGO that used data from BP to ascertain the extent of Qatar’s “carbon bomb” projects. ...

QatarEnergy has signed recent partnership deals with western oil giants including Shell, Total, ConocoPhilips, Exxon and Eni in order to boost output of the north field by 60% over the next five years. Separate deals have been struck in the past month with Germany and China to provide the countries with gas amid concerns over supplies disrupted by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

People in US Trying to Flee Extreme Weather Can't Escape Climate Catastrophe: Study

Americans over the past decade have increasingly tried to elude the effects of the climate crisis by moving away from hurricane zones and areas where summers have grown hotter—only to end up in states where they are at greater risk for facing devastating wildfires.

Researchers at the University of Vermont (UVM) published a new study in Frontiers in Human Dynamics on Thursday following the largest-ever nationwide investigation of how the climate crisis and related factors are influencing U.S. migration patterns.

Titled "Flocking to Fire," the study shows that between 2010 and 2020, people most often moved away from areas across the Midwest and Great Plains, including counties that have been hit by frequent heatwaves and hurricanes.

The top destinations for people moving within the U.S. included the Pacific Northwest, the Southwest, and parts of the Southeast.

Much of the migration has transported people "into harm's way," lead author Mahalia Clark said in a statement, as they move "into regions with wildfires and rising temperatures, which are expected to become more extreme due to climate change."

Keystone Pipeline Shut Down After Oil Leaks Into Kansas Creek

Climate campaigners on Thursday were outraged but unsurprised as TC Energy in Canada—the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline proposal defeated last year—announced the 22nd spill from its original pipeline.

The company said it had shut down the Keystone pipeline, which carries 622,000 barrels per day of crude oil, at about 8:00 pm after oil spilled into a creek near Washington, Kansas, a town of about 1,000 people.

The spill took place about 20 miles south of a junction where the pipeline splits, with one segment carrying crude oil from tar sands in Canada to Illinois and another carrying it to the Gulf Coast.

Previous Keystone spills have sent more than 383,000 gallons of crude oil into rural wetlands in North Dakota and more than 200,000 gallons into a pasture in South Dakota.

It was not yet known, as of this writing, how large the leak was or what damage had been done by the time the company shut down the pipeline.

Also of Interest

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

Dutch farmers battle technocratic forces driving them into oblivion

Green-washing The Trade War With China

The Russian Oil Price Cap Isn’t as Simple as It Seems

British MP: Minister ‘Misled’ Parliament on Secret Assange Operation

How Ben-Gvir Blows Apart the ‘Security’ Story of Israel’s Occupation

Media’s Crime Hype and Scapegoating Led to Crackdown on Unhoused People

‘Huge flip of circumstances’: end of US child tax credit pushing kids into poverty

Oral Arguments Boost Fears of SCOTUS Buying Theory That Would 'Sow Elections Chaos'

What You Need to Know—But Probably Don't—About the Railway Labor Strike That Wasn't

After anti-strike law against railroaders breezes through Congress, partisan gridlock on budget threatens government shutdown

Sarah Leah Whitson on Growing Saudi-China Ties & Holding MBS Responsible for Jamal Khashoggi Murder

Twitter Files EXPOSE Official Shadow Banning Before Elon

Democrat Leader Offers To Help Republican Become Speaker Of The House

A Little Night Music

Lonnie Mack - Wham!

Lonnie Mack - Satisfy Susie

Lonnie Mack - Why?

Lonnie Mack - If You Have To Know

Lonnie Mack - Chicken Pickin'

Lonnie Mack - Cocaine Blues

Lonnie Mack - Riding The Blinds

Lonnie Mack - Plain Jane (In A Mustang)

Lonnie Mack @ The Roxy - Wash DC 3-10-89

Albert Collins Roy Buchanan Lonnie Mack Carnegie Hall 12 5 85