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This evening's music features "Queen of the Boogie" Hadda Brooks. Enjoy!

"Diplomats are just as essential to starting a war as soldiers are for finishing it... You take diplomacy out of war, and the thing would fall flat in a week."

-- Will Rogers

News and Opinion

Biden Says Iran Deal Is 'DEAD' In Newly Unearthed Video: 'We Are Not Gonna Announce It. Long Story.'

Video Shows Biden Saying Iran Nuclear Deal 'Is Dead, But We're Not Gonna Announce It'

U.S. President Joe Biden said in a November exchange caught on camera and now circulating on social media that the Iran nuclear deal "is dead."

Damon Maghsoudi, who published the video on Twitter, told The Hill that it was filmed by Sudi Farokhnia, acting president of Iranian-American Democrats of California, on the sidelines of a November 4 campaign event in the state.

Referring to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) negotiated in 2015 under then-President Barack Obama and then ditched three years later by former President Donald Trump, Farokhnia asked Biden—who campaigned on reviving the deal and whose administration has engaged in talks to do so—if he would announce that it is dead.

Biden responded no, and when the Orange County activist asked why not, he said: "A lot of reasons. It is dead, but we're not gonna announce it."

After Farokhnia explained that "we just don't want any deals with the mullahs... they don't represent us," the president said that "I know they don't represent you, but they'll have a nuclear weapon that they'll represent."

Addressing questions about the video on Tuesday, John Kirby, Biden's National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications, did not use the president's previous language but confirmed that the JCPOA is not currently a priority, citing Iranian authorities' brutal crackdown on mass protests since September and the government sending unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), or drones, to Russia as it wages war on Ukraine.

"The Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action is just not our focus right now. And it's not on our agenda. We simply don't see a deal coming together anytime soon while Iran continues to kill its own citizens and selling UAVs to Russia," Kirby told reporters Tuesday. "There is no progress happening with respect to the Iran deal now. We don't anticipate any progress anytime in the near future. That's just not our focus."

Ryan Costello of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC) noted in a series of tweets Tuesday that Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft "predicted a year ago that the deal was headed toward a coma option—too risky to declare dead, too costly to revive. And that is where the agreement has been since at least the summer."

Zelensky To DC To Ask For MORE WEAPONS

Zelenskiy to meet congressional leaders in Washington on Wednesday

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will travel to Washington on Wednesday where he is expected to visit the White House and the US Capitol, according several US media reports.

Zelenskiy is expected to meet congressional leadership and national security committee chiefs from the Republican and Democratic parties, and might address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday night, news outlets reported..

The trip, which would be Zelenskiy’s first known foreign visit since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February, could still be called off at the last minute due to security concerns. But if it goes ahead, the visit is set to include an address to Congress on Capitol Hill and a meeting with President Joe Biden. It comes as lawmakers are due to vote on a year-end spending package that includes about $45bn in emergency assistance to Ukraine and the US prepares to send Patriot surface-to-air missiles to the country to help stave off Russia’s invasion.

The latest tranche of US funding would be the biggest American infusion of assistance yet to Ukraine, above even President Joe Biden’s $37bn emergency request, and ensure that funding flows to the war effort for months to come.

Biden 'to announce Patriot missiles, $2bn in military aid for Ukraine'

Congress Includes $45 Billion in New Ukraine Aid to $1.7 Trillion Funding Bill

Congress unveiled on Tuesday a massive $1.7 trillion omnibus funding bill that includes $45 billion in new Ukraine aid, which will bring total US spending on the war to about $112 billion.

The $45 billion is over $7 billion more than the $37.7 billion in Ukraine aid that the White House asked Congress to authorize before the next congressional session begins in January.

According to a summary of the new Ukraine aid, the $45 billion includes $9 billion for the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which allows the US to purchase arms for Kyiv and funds other types of support, including training and intelligence sharing.

Russia advance on Kupiansk, Ukraine Power Shortages, Zelensky to US, Medvedev Meets Xi Jinping

Washington's dangerous policies put US and Russia on brink of direct clash — diplomat

Washington's dangerous and short-sighted policies put the United States and Russia on the verge of a direct clash, Russian Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Monday.

In her commentry distributed on Monday in connection with a statement by US State Department Spokesman Ned Price about Russia's "blame" for the deterioration of US-Russia relations, the diplomat stressed that "the very effort of the United States to maintain American hegemony, by all means, ignoring new geopolitical realities, as well as its arrogant unwillingness to engage in serious dialogue on security guarantees, has led to the predictable result". "After the high-profile fiasco in Afghanistan, America is increasingly drawn into a new conflict, not only supporting the neo-Nazi regime in Kiev financially and with weapons, but also increasing its military presence on the ground," she said.

"This is a dangerous and short-sighted policy that puts the US and Russia on the verge of a direct clash," Zakharova pointed out, "For its part, Moscow urges the Joe Biden administration to soberly assess the situation and not to unleash a spiral of dangerous escalation. We hope that they will hear us in Washington, though there is no reason for optimism so far."

US-made missiles destroyed over western Russia – Moscow

Four US-made AGM-88 HARM aircraft-fired anti-radar missiles have been shot down over Russia’s Belgorod Region, which shares a border with Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Monday.

It added that Russian air defenses in the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics and the Zaporozhye Region also intercepted six rockets fired by US-made HIMARS launchers and Soviet-designed Uragan systems.

The news came after Ukrainian troops shelled the city of Belgorod and other areas in the eponymous region on Sunday, killing one person and injuring ten others, according to Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.

You’re Not Actually Helping When You “Support” Protesters In Empire-Targeted Nations

Truthout has a recent article titled “The Left Can Support Protesters in China Without Shilling for US Imperialism” with a subtitle asserting that “Chinese workers and Uyghurs need solidarity from leftists worldwide,” and it at no point attempts to defend either one of those titular claims.

The article features comments from New York University’s Rebecca E Karl and is replete with leftist-sounding phraseology like “heteronormative patriarchy” and “the hegemonic hold of white power,” but what it does not contain is any attempt to substantiate the claim that the left can support protesters in China without shilling for US imperialism or the claim that they need solidarity from leftists worldwide.

This is because those claims are entirely baseless. I run into such claims all the time and often challenge them when I encounter them, and nobody has ever once been able to logically and coherently explain to me what is gained by leftists in the English-speaking world displaying “support” or “solidarity” with protesters in nations like China and Iran that are targeted for regime change by the US-centralized empire. Nobody has ever once been able to provide me with a good explanation of how leftists can throw their weight behind narratives that are being exploited for propaganda against empire-targeted governments without assisting those propaganda campaigns.

This is because no good explanation exists.

And I don’t mean to single out Truthout for this; pushing leftists to help decry empire-targeted governments is something that’s done all the time by western leftist and leftish media. Jacobin ran an article last month insisting that “the international left must formulate a way to effectively express solidarity” with protesters in Iran, and Shock Doctrine author Naomi Klein was recently making the same case regarding Chinese protesters as well. Any time there are protests in an empire-targeted country, we are presented with Official Leftists admonishing us that we must add our voices to the mainstream fray in cheering them on.

And it’s always for unclear, inarticulately argued reasons. It’s generally framed as something that leftists should just assume is inherently true because it’s presented with leftist-sounding jargon like “solidarity”, but nobody ever clarifies what actual, concrete benefits are delivered to protesters in empire-targeted governments by expressions of solidarity from the west, or how those benefits outweigh the negative drawbacks of helping to amplify condemnations of a government that the empire is trying to manufacture consent for aggressions against.

They generally don’t even explain what they mean by “solidarity”. Presumably they don’t mean flying to those countries and providing them with hands-on assistance or they would have said that, so what do they mean? Tweeting your support with the relevant hashtags? Feeling feelings of solidarity in your feely bits? Is the claim that if people voice expressions of “solidarity” with their voices and on the internet and feel feelings of solidarity in their feely bits, something good will happen? What is the good thing that will happen? What specifically is the material benefit being delivered? They never say.

I could see the argument being made if we were talking about an issue that’s not receiving adequate attention. Palestinian rights, for example, is an issue that has for generations been both ignored and actively propagandized against, and grassroots efforts to drag that issue into the spotlight have made it much harder for Israeli apartheid to continue with the kind of support it’s going to need going forward.

But when you’re talking about protests in an empire-targeted government like Iran or China, you’re talking about an issue that’s already receiving maximum coverage from all the most powerful media and government institutions in the anglophone world. This is because western media give wildly disproportionate coverage to protests in nations the US doesn’t like compared to protests in nations it favors.

NYT and CNN have done 737 stories on Hong Kong protests (where 0 protesters have been killed by police) and a total of 76 stories on Chile, Ecuador and Haiti (where police have killed dozens of protesters). https://t.co/Em32acYgB4 via @AlanRMacLeod pic.twitter.com/AKQzaOuNqB

— Dan Cohen (@dancohen3000) December 6, 2019

You can’t just conduct yourself as though these propaganda campaigns aren’t a thing. If you live in one of the member nations of the US-centralized power alliance, you can’t just pretend your expressions of support and solidarity mean the same thing as if they were coming from someone in Latin America, Asia, or Africa. You’re not the same. You’re speaking from within the most powerful empire that has ever existed, and you are always necessarily in some kind of relationship with that empire’s campaign of global conquest and the propaganda operations which grease its wheels.

And you need to be responsible with that relationship. If you live in the US or any of its imperial member states like the UK, the EU, Australia or Canada, it simply is not possible for you to lend your voice to the cause of protesters in empire-targeted nations without facilitating the empire’s propaganda campaigns about those protests. It cannot be done. You either have a responsible relationship with this reality or an irresponsible one.

Western leftists who go out of their way to amplify protests that are part of an ongoing imperial propaganda operation have an irresponsible relationship with that reality. They’re not doing anything that actually helps the people in those countries, but they are absolutely doing something that could end up hurting them. And if they’re really honest with themselves they know this. But they do it anyway because it looks good in front of their propaganda-addled leftish friends and followers.

Before they drop bombs, they drop narratives. Before they launch missiles, they launch propaganda campaigns. Before they roll out sanctions, they roll out perception management. If you choose to help them do this by participating in their propaganda campaigns, then you are just as complicit in their consequences as the military personnel who carry them out. Regardless of whatever leftist-sounding justifications you might spin for yourself about why you did it.

This isn’t a fucking game. The world isn’t a catwalk for you to strut your fashionable lefty expressions of “solidarity” on to win likes and retweets. If you live inside of the empire, then you need to be responsible with your relationship with its propaganda. Otherwise you’re just a garden variety imperialist with a cutesy story about yourself.

A westerner “supporting” an uprising in an empire-targeted nation is like someone covered in raw sewage coming into your house to help you clean. Stop helping and go clean the shit off yourself, mate.

“The Left Can Support Protesters in China Without Shilling for US Imperialism.” No they can’t. Knock it off.

What the Pentagon Doesn't Want You to Know About China

To encourage Congress to authorize the largest defense budget ever, the Pentagon just released its annual report on China, which dangerously misrepresents the country’s defense strategy. Such deliberate lies about China to drum up justification for more US war spending need to be urgently addressed.

Let’s debunk these lies:

On Nuclear Weapons: The Pentagon reports that China possesses around 400 nuclear warheads with no clear plan on how to use them. If this estimation of China’s arsenal is correct, it’s still trivial compared to the US’s almost 6,000 warheads. China is the only nuclear power with an unconditional “no first use” policy, and has been clear that it only intends to use its nuclear power for assurance and defense. Meanwhile, the United States is the only country to have used nuclear weapons in war and has also flirted with escalating tensions into a nuclear war with Russia this year. Who is preparing for war?

On Global Military Presence: The Pentagon reports that since China established its first overseas military base in Djibouti, it has ambitions to expand its military presence globally. At the same time, the United State has more than 750 military bases in around 80 countries. This includes more than 250 bases in the Asia-Pacific encircling China with 375,000 personnel in the Indo-Pacific Command, while China has no military presence in the Western Hemisphere. Who is preparing for war?

On International Order: The Pentagon reports that China may challenge the US in the international arena. It is true that China is taking the lead internationally in economic development, in technological innovation, and in fighting climate change. Other countries around the world are happy for its support in growing their capacities to be independent of United States hegemony in their regions. China builds relationships through economic cooperation and good diplomacy. In contrast, the United States asserts its global dominance through direct or proxy war, occupation, crippling sanctions, and regime-changing coups. The international order that the United States seeks to maintain is rooted in violence and destruction.

Pentagon Psy-Op EXPOSED In Twitter Files

Deep State BLUE CHECKS? Twitter Files 8 Reveals Conspiracy To Bolster Pentagon PROPAGANDA

Low-Income World in Multi-Trillion Debt Squeeze

The external debt of the world’s low- and middle-income countries at the end of 2021 totaled $9 trillion, more than double the amount a decade ago. Such debt is expected to increase by an additional $1.1 trillion in 2023.

Moreover, the debt-service payments, projected to top $62 billion in 2022, put the biggest squeeze on poor countries since 2000, according to the World Bank.

(As defined by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, or OECD, debt service refers to payments in respect of both principal and interest and any late payment fees. Scheduled debt service is the set of payments required through the life of the debt.)

According to the World Bank’s International Debt Report, the poorest countries eligible to borrow from the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA) now spend over a 10th of their export revenues to service their long-term public and publicly guaranteed external debt — the highest proportion since 2000.

In addition, rising interest rates and slowing global growth risk tipping a large number of countries into debt crises. “About 60% of the poorest countries are already at high risk of debt distress or already in distress.”

Wells Fargo agrees to pay $3.7bn over illegal fees and interest

Consumer banking giant Wells Fargo agreed to pay $3.7bn to settle a laundry list of charges that it harmed consumers by charging illegal fees and interest on auto loans and mortgages, as well as incorrectly applied overdraft fees against savings and checking accounts.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) on Tuesday ordered Wells to repay $2bn to consumers and enacted a $1.7bn penalty against the bank. It’s the largest fine to date against any bank by the CFPB and the largest fine against Wells, which has spent years trying to rehabilitate itself after a series of scandals tied to its sales practices.

The bureau says the bad behavior by the bank affected more than 16 million customers. In addition to improperly charging its auto loan customers with fees and interest, in some cases the bank wrongfully repossessed borrowers’ vehicles. The bank also improperly denied thousands of mortgage loan modifications to homeowners.

“Wells Fargo’s rinse-repeat cycle of violating the law has harmed millions of American families,” said Rohit Chopra, director of the CFPB, in a statement.

Wells Fargo has been repeatedly sanctioned by US regulators for violations of consumer protection law going back to 2016, when Wells employees were found to have opened millions of accounts illegally in order to meet unrealistic sales goals. Since then, Wells executives have repeatedly said the bank is cleaning up its act, only to have the bank be found in violation of other parts of consumer protection law, including in its auto and mortgage lending businesses.

This fella likes to pretend that the Democrat party wishes to do something about dark money in politics. Pfffftttt!

Congress Still Protecting Dark Money Donors

As part of its year-end omnibus spending bill, Congress will once again help “dark money” donors hide their identities from the public and ensure the government cannot crack down on dark money nonprofits that spend the bulk of their revenue on politics.

With Republicans set to take over the House in January, Democratic lawmakers are throwing in the towel on efforts to end the political dark money era. Provisions in the $1.7 trillion spending bill, which is often used as a vehicle to enact controversial measures because it funds critical government operations, will prohibit the Biden administration officials from doing much, if anything, to regulate dark money groups on their own for the rest of his first term.

Democrats’ surrender on dark money comes after several failed legislative efforts to compel politically active nonprofits to disclose their donors — and as dark money becomes increasingly enmeshed within our political system. Ever since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision allowed anonymous donations to flow into elections, both parties have become increasingly reliant on dark pools of cash to fund TV ad wars over presidential elections, congressional races, and even judicial confirmation campaigns. The situation allows ultra-wealthy, mystery donors to exert unprecedented influence in Washington.

Big oil is behind conspiracy to deceive public, first climate racketeering lawsuit says

In an ambitious move, an attempt will be made to hold the fossil fuel industry accountable for “decades of deception” in a lawsuit being brought by communities in Puerto Rico that were devastated by Hurricane Maria in 2017. ... The 1970 Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (Rico) Act was originally intended to combat criminal enterprises like the mafia, but has since been used in civil courts to litigate harms caused by opioids, vehicle emissions and even e-cigarettes as organised crime cases.

Now, the first-ever climate change Rico case alleges that international oil and coal companies, their trade associations, and a network of paid thinktanks, scientists and other operatives conspired to deceive the public – specifically residents of Puerto Rico – about the direct link between their greenhouse gas-emitting products and climate change. This fossil fuel enterprise, which remains operational according to the lawsuit, resulted in multitude of damages caused by climate disasters that were foreseen – but hidden – by the defendants in order to maximise profits.

The plaintiffs are 16 municipalities in Puerto Rico – towns and cities that were hit hard by two powerful hurricanes in September 2017, Irma and Maria – which led to thousands of deaths, food shortages, widespread infrastructure damage and the longest blackout in US history. Melissa Sims, the senior counsel, said: “What’s different about this [Rico] case is that we have their enterprise in writing – the decision by rival companies, their front groups, scientists and associations to act together to change public opinion regarding the use of their consumer products by telling people something that they knew was not true.”

According to the lawsuit – filed in the US federal district court of Puerto Rico – evidence of the conspiracy dates back to 1989 when the defendants, which include ExxonMobil, Shell, BP and Rio Tinto, individually and through trade association formed the Global Climate Coalition (GCC) as a “not-for-profit corporation to influence, advertise, and promote the interests of the fossil fuel industry by giving false information to their consumers and the public at large”.

It argues that so-called rival companies conspired for a common purpose – to deceive consumers and sow confusion in order to keep fossil fuel sales high and profitable – and that the GCC was a propaganda machine specifically set up to oppose the Kyoto protocol, the first major international effort to combat climate change. To do this, a written action plan was devised in 1998 to mislead consumers by convincing them that “global warming” was not occurring, and if it did happen, there was no scientific consensus on whether fossil fuels were to blame.

3M sets 2025 deadline to stop making ‘forever chemicals’

US industrial conglomerate 3M on Tuesday set a deadline of 2025 to stop making PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals”, that are used in everything from cellphones to semiconductors and have been linked to illnesses ranging from cancer, heart problems to low birth weights. ...

The move comes amid rising legal pressures over damage caused by the chemicals. Last month, 3M and DuPont de Nemours Inc were among several companies to be sued by California’s attorney general to recover cleanup costs.

Pressure on companies to stop producing the chemicals has increased in recent years, with investors managing $8tn in assets earlier this year writing to 54 companies urging them to phase out their use.

Global temperatures in 2023 set to be among hottest on record

Next year is forecast to be one of the hottest on record with global average temperatures forecast to be about 1.2C above what they were before humans started to drive climate change, the UK Met Office predicts.

If correct, it would be the 10th year in a row to see global average temperatures reach at least 1C above what they were in pre-industrial times, measured as the period 1850-1900.

The current hottest year in records dating back to 1850 is 2016, a year that saw an ‘El Niño’ climate pattern in the Pacific which pushes up global temperatures on top of global warming trends. ...

The Met Office is forecasting a global average temperature of between 1.08C and 1.32C above what it was in the second half of the 19th century.

Last year, the Met Office predicted 2022’s global temperature would be between 0.97C and 1.21C above pre-industrial levels, with a central estimate of 1.09C. Data for the year to October suggests the temperature is about 1.16C above the pre-industrial era.

Also of Interest

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

Death Of Nuclear Deal With Iran Adds To Biden's Failures In U.S. Foreign Policy

Kyiv slams Kissinger over call to negotiate with Russia for peace

Is This Winning? Western leaders can no longer hide the truth about Ukraine.

Warren, Jacobs Accuse Pentagon of Vastly Undercounting Civilians Killed by US Military

Consequences Of The End of Zero Covid In China

Bloomberg Describes Europe’s Severe and Sustained Energy Crisis Due to Loss of Russian Gas

Qatargate & the Decline of the European Left

Mr. Gensler, the U.S. Stock Market Structure Is an Institutionalized Wealth Transfer System

Calls for US Facial Recognition Ban Grow After Mom Booted From Theater Over Her Job

Groups Say US Spending Bill 'Heartlessly' Dooms Right Whales to Extinction

Scientists claim first discovery of mammal eaten by dinosaur

Human Rights Stain, Public Health Farce: Title 42 Tied to 13K Murders, Rapes, Kidnappings in Mexico

Government SHUTDOWN Over Pork-Filled Omnibus?

Rail Worker EXPOSES Warren Buffett's Brutal Crackdown

Why Peruvians are in the streets for Castillo

Briahna Joy Gray: Is Tucker RIGHT That CIA Killed JFK? Twitter Files EXPOSE Deep State-Twitter Link

Elon Musk: I Will STEP DOWN From Twitter Once I Find Someone 'FOOLISH ENOUGH' To Be CEO

Sunak's plan to save UK revealed, send more money to Ukraine

A Little Night Music

Hadda Brooks - Jump Back, Honey

Hadda Brooks w/ Count Basie Orch. - I Feel So Good

Hadda Brooks - That's My Desire

Hadda Brooks - Juke Box Boogie

Hadda Brooks - Don't You Think I Ought To Know

Hadda Brooks - Society Boogie

Hadda Brooks - Romance in the Dark

Hadda Brooks - Boogie At The Bandbox

Hadda Brooks - Blues In B-Flat

Hadda Brooks - Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere

Hadda Brooks - Stompin' the Boogie