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"To be an enemy of the US is dangerous, but to be a friend is fatal."

-- Henry Kissinger

News and Opinion

NATO recklessly escalates war against Russia

The rapid escalation of the conflict in Ukraine has shattered the claim that NATO is not a party to the war against Russia.

Not a week goes by without a major new expansion of NATO involvement:

On December 10, a US official told the Times of London that the US had officially endorsed Ukrainian attacks deep inside Russia, declaring, “We’re not saying to Kyiv, ‘Don’t strike the Russians [in Russia or Crimea].’”

On December 21, the Biden administration announced that it would send a battery of Patriot missiles to Ukraine, the most advanced weapons system sent to date.

On December 29, Biden signed into law the appropriation of another $50 billion for the war, doubling with the stroke of a pen the level of US involvement in the conflict.

On January 4 and 5, France, Germany and the United States announced they would send tanks and armored fighting vehicles to Ukraine.

These are the very actions that Biden and other NATO leaders previously asserted would lead to a direct war between the US and Russia. In March, Biden said, “The idea that we’re going to send in offensive equipment and have planes and tanks and trains going in with American pilots and American crews... that’s called World War III.” To buttress his claim that “we do not seek a war between NATO and Russia,” Biden wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in May that stated, “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders”—a position that is now openly contradicted in press statements by US officials. ...

In internal publications, the strategists of US imperialism admit that the Ukrainian army has been effectively hired as a mercenary force by the United States, with the aim of destroying the Russian military. “In cold, geopolitical terms, this war provides a prime opportunity for the US to erode and degrade Russia’s conventional defense capability, with no boots on the ground and little risk to US lives,” wrote Timothy Ash of the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). “US spending of 5.6% of its defense budget to destroy nearly half of Russia’s conventional military capability seems like an absolutely incredible investment,” Ash added, concluding, “The US military might reasonably wish Russia to continue deploying military forces for Ukraine to destroy.” ...

With every escalation, the US and NATO are betting that they can push further than the last time without a major response. Last month, the New York Times explained this rationale by pointing to “the sense widespread in Kyiv among officials and civilians that, short of nuclear intensification, Russia cannot do much more to Ukraine that it is not already doing.” But gambling that Russia will not respond to what it perceives as an increasingly existential threat is just that—a gamble with the lives of millions of people.

Ukraine's Donbass defense system collapsing

Worth a full read. Here's a taste to get you started:

US Takeover of Greece Pushes Türkiye Closer to Russia and Increases Odds of Athens-Ankara Conflict

Greece’s recent embrace of the US is being driven by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis who has been in power since July 2019 (and might get thrown out soon), but the effects will be felt for much longer and in the wider region – especially in Türkiye. Greece’s abandonment of its ties with Russia came to a head with the recent bombshell that it was considering sending Russian-made S-300 air defense missile systems to Ukraine. When Athens received the weaponry from Russia back in 1998 it agreed to never give it to another country (let alone one that is at war with Russia). But Athens’ demonstration of its non-agreement capability is just another sign that it is now wholly in the US/NATO camp.

While the S-300 would make little difference on the Ukrainian battlefield, the escalating tensions between Greece and Türkiye are much more consequential. Many of the US moves in Greece seem designed to apply pressure on fellow NATO member Turkiye, which occupies the most important geostrategic position in the alliance and has its second-largest standing army.

But Ankara has steadfastly refused to apply sanctions on Russia and mutually beneficial ties between the two countries have grown much closer. Putin helps Erdogan boost the Turkish economy and in return gets a sanction-free link for exports and imports. But Washington refuses to accept this arrangement and has grown increasingly frustrated to the point that US war criminal John Bolton now wants to boot Turkiye out of NATO. Such an outcome no longer seems unlikely. And a conflict between Greece and Türkiye is also becoming an increasing possibility – especially if Russia decides Greece is a lost cause and no longer works to restrain Türkiye.

It’s unclear what Greece thinks it stands to gain in wholly throwing in its lot with the Americans who once supported the brutal military dictatorship in Greece in the 1960s and 70s. It appears to be more of an ideological mission by PM Mitsotakis who was educated in the US at Harvard, Stanford, and then Harvard Business School for an MBA. He went on to work for Chase Bank in London, McKinsey & Company, and in 2003 was nominated by the World Economic Forum as a global leader of tomorrow.

Israel security minister bans Palestinian flag-flying in public

Israel’s national security minister has ordered police to ban Palestinian flags from public places in the latest crackdown by the country’s new hardline government.

Itamar Ben-Gvir’s order follows a series of other punitive steps against the Palestinians since taking office late last month.

“Today I directed the Israel police to enforce the prohibition of flying any PLO flag that shows identification with a terrorist organization from the public sphere and to stop any incitement against the State of Israel,” Ben-Gvir announced on Twitter.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s new government has moved quickly against the Palestinians in retaliation for a Palestinian push for the UN’s highest judicial body to give its opinion on Israel’s 55-year military occupation of the West Bank.

France to raise retirement age to 64 by 2030 in controversial pension reform

Ilhan Omar PRAISES Republican Plan To Investigate Deep State

US supreme court lets WhatsApp pursue Pegasus spyware lawsuit

The US supreme court has let Meta Platforms Inc’s WhatsApp pursue a lawsuit accusing Israel’s NSO Group of exploiting a bug in its WhatsApp messaging app to install spy software allowing the surveillance of 1,400 people, including journalists, human rights activists and dissidents.

The justices turned away NSO’s appeal over a lower court’s decision that the lawsuit could move forward. NSO has argued that it is immune to being sued because it was acting as an agent for unidentified foreign governments when it installed the Pegasus spyware.

Joe Biden’s administration had urged the justices to reject NSO’s appeal, noting that the US state department had never before recognised a private entity acting as an agent of a foreign state as being entitled to immunity.

Meta, the parent company of both WhatsApp and Facebook, in a statement welcomed the court’s move to turn away NSO’s “baseless” appeal.

“NSO’s spyware has enabled cyber-attacks targeting human rights activists, journalists and government officials,” Meta said. “We firmly believe that their operations violate US law and they must be held to account for their unlawful operations.”

At Summit in Mexico, AMLO Urges Biden to End U.S. “Disdain” for Latin America

1,500 Bolsonaro Backers Detained After Far-Right Coup Attempt in Brazill

Brazilian Justice Minister Flávio Dino said Monday that "about 1,500" people have been arrested since supporters of Brazil's far-right former President Jair Bolsonaro attacked government buildings in Brasília the previous day.

Dino said that at least 209 people were arrested Sunday and "about 1,200" were detained Monday, as authorities dismantled a protest camp set up near military headquarters in the federal capital, according toCNN.

As Bloomberg reported Monday:

Lula held a meeting with the heads of the Supreme Court, Congress, and several of his Cabinet members at a presidential palace left in shambles.

"We're united to ensure that institutional measures are taken in accordance with the law," they wrote in a joint statement after the meeting. "We call on society to remain calm, defending peace and democracy in our country."

...

Although Bolsonaro is reportedly hospitalized with abdominal pain potentially related to an old stab wound, Biden is under mounting pressure—including from U.S. lawmakers—to expel him from the United States. The peace group CodePink has joined that call and highlighted that "Anderson Torres, Bolsonaro's justice minister who was appointed minister of public security for the capital city Brasília, is also in the United States."

"Bolsonaro and Torres should be sent back to Brazil to face justice for their crimes," the group said. "While Brazil's elected government and its people are anxious to rebuild a country that was seriously damaged by the unbridled neoliberal policies of the Bolsonaro government, the anti-democratic and violent mobs ignored the sovereign will of the Brazilian people who elected President Luis Inácio Lula da Silva to a new constitutional mandate. CodePink vehemently rejects these threats to the social and political peace of the Brazilian people, and stands firmly with the elected government of President Lula."

The Brazilian justice minister explained during a news conference Monday that at this time, there are no legal grounds to investigate Bolsonaro in connection with Sunday's violence. However, he still placed blame on the far-right leader.

"Words have power and those words turned into hate, which turned into destruction," Dino said. "It is a political responsibility because there are political leaders who are responsible for the hate speech and the destruction that we saw yesterday at the buildings of the three branches of powers, aiming at a coup d'état." ...

Lula tweeted Monday evening that "it is not possible for a movement to last as long as it did" in front of the military headquarters "if there are no people financing it" and pledged that "we're going to investigate and we're going to find out who financed it."

FBI & CIA To Be INVESTIGATED By Republican Congress!

McCarthy Brought TO HIS KNEES As GOP Holdouts Win Major Concessions!

House adopts new rules Democrats decry as a ‘ransom note to America’

The Republican-led US House of Representatives on Monday adopted a package of internal rules that give rightwing hardliners more leverage over the chamber’s newly elected Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy. Lawmakers voted 220-213 for the legislation, with only one Republican voting against. All 212 Democrats voted against the rules package, saying it was full of concessions to the right wing of the Republican party.

The rules package, which will govern House operations over the next two years, represented an early test of McCarthy’s ability to keep his caucus together, after he suffered the humiliation of 14 failed ballots last week at the hands of 20 hardliners before finally being elected speaker on Saturday.

The legislation includes key concessions that hardliners sought and McCarthy agreed to in his quest for the speaker’s gavel. The changes include allowing a single lawmaker to call for his removal at any time. Other changes would place new restrictions on federal spending, potentially limiting McCarthy’s ability to negotiate government funding packages with President Joe Biden, whose fellow Democrats control the Senate.

Democrats denounced the legislation as a rules package for “Maga extremists” that would favor wealthy corporations over workers, undermine congressional ethics standards and lead to further restrictions on abortion services. “These rules are not a serious attempt at governing. They’re essentially a ransom note to America from the extreme right,” Representative Jim McGovern said.

TWITTER FILES Go To Washington? GOP To Open Probe Based On Taibbi's Reporting

7 YEARS LATER: Media Admits Russiagate Was Fake

Earth’s ozone layer on course to be healed within decades, UN report finds

The hole in the Earth’s ozone layer, once the most feared environmental peril facing humanity, is set to be completely healed over most of the world within two decades following decisive action by governments to phase out ozone-depleting substances, a new UN assessment has found.

The loss of the ozone layer, which risked exposing people to harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun, is on track to be completely recovered by 2040 across the world, aside from the polar regions, according to the report. The poles will take a little longer – the ozone layer will fully bounce back by 2045 over the Arctic and by 2066 over the Antarctic.

Following alarm over the loss of ozone in the 1980s, the ozone layer has been steadily improving in the wake of the 1989 Montreal protocol, an international agreement that has helped eliminate 99% of ozone-depleting chemicals, such as chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) that were used as solvents and refrigerants.

The UN said the action taken on the ozone layer had also bolstered the more ponderous response to the climate crisis – CFCs are also greenhouse gases and their continued uncontrolled use would have raised global temperatures by as much as 1C by the middle of the century, worsening an already dire situation where planet-heating gases are still not declining.

“Ozone action sets a precedent for climate action,” said Petteri Taalas, secretary-general of the World Meteorological Organization, which unveiled the progress report, which is conducted every four years, on Monday. “Our success in phasing out ozone-eating chemicals shows us what can and must be done as a matter of urgency to transition away from fossil fuels, reduce greenhouse gases and so limit temperature increase.”

Global pollinator losses causing 500,000 early deaths a year – study

The global loss of pollinators is already causing about 500,000 early deaths a year by reducing the supply of healthy foods, a study has estimated.

Three-quarters of crops require pollination but the populations of many insects are in sharp decline. The inadequate pollination that results has caused a 3%-5% loss of fruit, vegetable and nut production, the research found. The lower consumption of these foods means about 1% of all deaths can now be attributed to pollinator loss, the scientists said.

The researchers considered deaths from heart disease, stroke, diabetes, and some cancers, all of which can be reduced with healthier diets. The study is the first to quantify the human health toll of insufficient wild pollinators. The study was based on data from hundreds of farms across the world, information on yields and diet-related health risks and a computer model that tracks the global trade in food.

“A critical missing piece in the biodiversity discussion has been a lack of direct linkages to human health,” said Dr Samuel Myers, at Harvard University’s TH Chan School of Public Health and senior author of the study. “This research establishes that loss of pollinators is already impacting health on a scale with other global health risk factors, such as prostate cancer or substance use disorders.”

“But there is a solution out there in pollinator-friendly practices,” Myers said. These include increasing flower abundance on farms, cutting pesticide use, especially neonicotinoids, and preserving or restoring nearby natural habitats. “When these have been studied, they pay for themselves economically through increased production.” Nonetheless, the researchers said “immense challenges remain” in restoring pollinator populations globally.

Several California counties ordered to evacuate as deadly storm weathers on

A series of deadly and destructive storms continued to hammer California on Monday, as the drought-stricken state grapples with the sudden onslaught of a very wet January. Joe Biden issued an emergency declaration for California on Sunday, unlocking federal aid to support recovery as mud slides, engorged rivers and streams, and wind-strewn trees wreaked havoc on already-inundated infrastructure across the state. The California department of water resources warned that more than a dozen places were at high risk of flooding.

In southern California, the entire community of Montecito were ordered to evacuate on Monday, amid a deluge of rain that has flooded roads and swollen waterways. ... The Montecito fire chief, Kevin Taylor, said at least 8in of rain had fallen in 12 hours, with several more inches expected. The canyon communities under evacuation orders are at the foot of hillsides burned bare in recent years by wildfires. ...

Storm-weary residents are facing another bout of heavy downpours, high winds and flooding this week, with two major new storms expected to drop heavy rainfall on the coast and snow in the mountains in the coming days. ... Most of California’s 39 million residents could expect heavy rainfall of up to 5in (13cm) near the coast, more than a foot of snow to the west and wind gusts reaching 65mph across the state, the National Weather Service said. ...

The National Weather Service warned of a “relentless parade of atmospheric rivers” – storms that are long plumes of moisture stretching out into the Pacific and are capable of dropping staggering amounts of rain and snow.

Also of Interest

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

Why The American Radical Right Is Powerful And The American Left Is Meaningless

Patrick Lawrence: Dimming the Lights

Two Parties Of Capitalist Imperialists: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

50 Years After Allende at the UN: a Corporate Triumph Named Multistakeholderism

Patrick Lawrence: Europe and the Legitimization of Deception

Rosewood Massacre: Families Mark 100 Years Since White Mob Razed Black Town & Killed Black Residents

POLL: Why Republican Plan To Cut Social Security Is A DISASTER

Classified documents from Biden's vice presidency found at think tank

MSNBC Columnist SMEARS Matt Taibbi As 'AUTHORITARIAN' For Twitter Files Drops

A Little Night Music

Legendary Blues Band - Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong

Legendary Blues Band - Lottery blues

Legendary Blues Band - Woke Up With The Blues

Legendary Blues Band - Having A Hard Time

Legendary Blues Band - Do The Get Down

Legendary Blues Band - In the Rain

Legendary Blues Band - I don't wanna know

The Legendary Blues Band - Money

The Legendary Blues Band - High Heel Sneakers