Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features The Poet Laureate of the Blues, Percy Mayfield. Enjoy!

“The hawk plays with the pigeon and the pigeon is happy, but not knowing that it is playing with death.”

-- Amos Tutuola

News and Opinion

A Prison Where The Prisoners Don’t Know They’re In Prison: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

On economic policy Democrats are indistinguishable from Reagan-era Republicans. On foreign policy they’re indistinguishable from Bush-era neocons. But they’re still able to sell the idea that they’re progressive, even moving far to the left, by copious lip service to social justice.

Democrats will bomb you, starve you with sanctions, evict you, let you freeze to death, let you die because you can’t afford medicine, let you work your fingers to the bone for pennies, but they will never, ever misgender you.

And rightists are all too happy to take that last bit as evidence that Democrats have in fact moved “too far to the left” and argue that US politics needs to move much farther to the right to counteract all the leftist extremism.

Navy Secretary Says Arming Both the US and Ukraine May Become ‘Challenging’

Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro said Wednesday that it might become “challenging” for the US military to continue arming itself as it continues to pour weapons into Ukraine unless the arms industry can significantly boost production.

The majority of the weapons being sent to Ukraine are used on land and come from US Army stockpiles, although the Pentagon did just announce it’s sending Ship-based Sea Sparrow missiles. But Del Toro said the Navy was still concerned about if the arms industry could meet its demands.

Manipulating the proxy

German tank manufacturer’s warning puts pressure on Ukraine’s allies

Battle tanks from German industrial reserves wanted by Ukraine will not be ready to be delivered until 2024, the arms manufacturer Rheinmetall has warned, increasing pressure on Nato allies to support Ukraine with armoured vehicles in active service instead, ahead of a key meeting this week.

“Even if the decision to send our Leopard tanks to Kyiv came tomorrow, the delivery would take until the start of next year,” Rheinmetall’s chief executive, Armin Papperger, told the Bild am Sonntag newspaper.

Rheinmetall, which manufactures the battle vehicle’s gun, has 22 Leopard 2 and 88 older Leopard 1 tanks in its stocks. Getting the Leopard tanks ready for battle, however, would take several months and cost hundreds of millions of euros the company could not put up until the order was confirmed, Papperger said.

“The vehicles must be completely dismantled and rebuilt,” he added.

While Rheinmetall’s admission limits the options of Ukraine’s western allies, it does not entirely quash Kyiv’s hopes that the UK’s promise to deliver Challenger 2 tanks would encourage other European nations to swiftly follow suit.

German Vice Chancellor Says Poland Can Send Leopard Tanks to Ukraine

Germany’s vice chancellor said Thursday that Berlin won’t stand in the way of Poland sending German-made Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, a move that would significantly escalate Western military aid for Kyiv and risk provoking Moscow.

“There is a difference between making a decision for oneself and preventing the decision of others,” Vice Chancellor Robert Habeck said. “And accordingly, Germany should not stand in the way when other countries make decisions to support Ukraine, regardless of what decision Germany makes.”

Habeck’s comments come after Polish President Andrzej Duda said his government decided to send about 14 Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine, a move that needs Berlin’s approval. It’s still not clear if Warsaw has formally made the request of Germany. Poland could be waiting for other countries to send tanks as Duda said he wants to transfer them as part of an “international coalition.”

European Leaders ADMIT Ukraine Peace Deal Was A Sham

Russia Suggests Sweden Has 'Something to Hide' in Nord Stream Blast Probe

Russia questioned on Thursday whether Sweden had "something to hide" over explosions that damaged the Nord Stream gas pipelines last year, as it slammed Stockholm for not sharing information in the ongoing investigations into the blasts. ...

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Sweden's refusal to engage with Russian prosecutors was "confusing" and said Moscow had a right to know the details of the probe into the explosions, which occurred last September. ...

"Maybe Russian investigators, conducting an objective investigation, could come to an inconvenient conclusion... about who conducted this act of sabotage, terrorism. About who thought it up, and who carried it out," she told reporters.

Zakharova said Sweden was "concealing" facts about what it had discovered in the investigation, suggesting that "the Swedish authorities have something to hide".

Economists Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson explain multipolarity, decline of US hegemony

Splitting the atomic scientists: how the Ukraine war ruined physics

In normal times, the four large physics experiments using proton collisions at Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in Switzerland publish numerous scientific articles a year. But in March 2022, the number of new research papers by the LHC experiments fell to zero. The reason: a lack of agreement on how to list Russian and Belarusian scientists and institutes, if at all. The temporary compromise, in place up to now, is not to publish.

Publications are the hard currency of research, used for exchange of information and evidence of individuals’ and funding agencies’ contributions. The four largest LHC experiments comprise collaborations of thousands of scientists and engineers, with articles typically credited to all members of the project.

According to sources at Cern, after the invasion of Ukraine some members objected to co-authorship with Russian institutes and even with individuals working for them (making up about 7% of the collaborators). Fedor Ratnikov, a Russian physicist, explains that no publication policy has satisfied the required two-thirds majority of the participating institutes in each collaboration. “We have Ukrainian collaborators for whom this question is naturally extremely painful. [But] most of my Ukrainian colleagues do not extend responsibility for the invasion to their colleagues from Russian institutes. I would say that some of my EU colleagues are much more radical.” ...

Since March, the four LHC experiments have kept preparing new articles, sending them to journals for peer review and freezing their publication. The unpublished pipeline now includes more than 70 pieces. ...

Scientists from European countries and the US say that so far there has been little impact on funding or awarding PhDs. However, a senior scientist at the LHC from outside Europe says: “Keep this political approach for some time and it can create problems for students, postdocs and for ourselves.” Brajesh Choudhary, professor at the University of Delhi and member of Cern’s CMS detector experiment, says: “If you don’t publish for the next few months the PhD students, postdocs and young faculty will face many problems.” Choudhary points out that articles without names and institutions may be acceptable within the experiments, but not by outside scientists and faculty, and that institutions care about mentions as these provide their ranking. As for the funding agencies, if they are not acknowledged, “I can tell you… that they will not react very positively.”

UK-armed airstrikes part of a ‘pattern of violence against civilians’ in Yemen

More than four armed attacks on civilians were carried out daily during 14 months of the war in Yemen, according to an Oxfam report published today.

The new analysis counted more than 1,700 attacks on civilians who were killed, injured or forced to flee their homes and found that air raids by the Saudi-led coalition, using weapons solely supplied by the UK and US, accounted for a quarter of all attacks. ...

While all parties to the conflict have repeatedly harmed civilians during the eight years of war, the research found that between January 2021 to the end of February 2022, in addition to widespread destruction of infrastructure that is vital to the civilian population, Saudi-led coalition air strikes were responsible for at least:

87 civilian deaths and 136 injuries
19 attacks on hospitals, clinics and ambulances
293 attacks that forced people to flee their homes – 39 per cent of all attacks causing displacement

Martin Butcher, Oxfam’s Policy Advisor on Arms and Conflict and author of the report, said:

“The sheer number of attacks on civilians is stark testament to the terrible tragedy the people of Yemen have suffered. Our analysis shows there is a pattern of violence against civilians, and all sides in this conflict have not done enough to protect civilian life, which they are obligated to do under International Humanitarian Law.

“The intensity of these attacks would not have been possible without a ready supply of arms. That is why it’s vital the UK government and others must immediately stop the arms sales that are fuelling war in Yemen.”

Demockery on full display in Peru.

Peru declares state of emergency in Lima after weeks of protests

Peru’s government has declared a state of emergency in the capital of Lima and three other regions following weeks of protests against President Dina Boluarte that have claimed at least 42 lives.

The measure, in force for 30 days, authorises the army to intervene to maintain order and suspends several constitutional rights such as freedom of movement and assembly, according to a decree published in the official gazette on Saturday.

In addition to the capital, the state of emergency covers the regions of Cusco and Puno and the port of Callao, adjacent to Lima. More than 100 roadblocks, setup by protesters to disrupt traffic, were in place across Peru on Saturday, mainly in the south, which has been the epicentre of the protests, and also around Lima. Authorities have, however, reopened Cusco international airport, which is vital to Peru’s tourism sector.

On Friday Boluarte insisted she would not step down in a late-night address on state TV.

On Friday, opposition legislator Susel Paredes told local radio that time was running out for Boluarte and that the resignation of the labor minister, Eduardo Garcia, on Thursday was “the beginning of the end” for the president. Two other ministers resigned Friday: the heads of the interior ministry and the ministry of women.

After the rampage: Brazil’s new leaders to fight hard in wake of ‘insane’ coup attempt

In the days since the insurrection – which came just a week after the leftist veteran Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva took office as president – the scale of the alleged plot to overthrow Brazil’s democracy has become clear. Lula’s administration has accused hardcore supporters of his far-right predecessor, Jair Bolsonaro, of attempting to stage a coup by storming the presidency, congress and supreme court. They believe that was aimed at encouraging security forces to rise up, allowing Bolsonaro to return from the US – where he has been since the eve of Lula’s 1 January inauguration – to retake power.

On Thursday, federal police reportedly found a document in the wardrobe of Bolsonaro’s former justice minister, Anderson Torres, which allegedly outlined a plan for the former president to seize control of the supreme electoral court to overturn October’s election, in which Lula won by more than 2m votes. ...

On Friday night, the supreme court announced Bolsonaro would be investigated as part of the inquiry into the alleged attempt to topple the country’s new government. Bolsonaro’s lawyer denied wrongdoing, calling the former president a “defender of democracy”.

Torres, who was security chief in Brasília at the time of the attacks, was arrested on Saturday morning after flying back to Brazil from the US – where he was purportedly on holiday when the rebellion took place. The former justice minister, whose arrest was ordered for alleged acts of omission, has denied involvement, claiming he planned to shred a document that had been taken “out of context”. ...

Many fear Brazil’s moment of danger is far from over given the support for Bolsonaro within the security apparatus, notably the armed forces and military police. Many believe such support partly explains the security failure that allowed extremists to run riot through Brazil’s capital.

‘We need to unite’: how Yolanda Díaz is galvanising the left in Spain

As Spain enters an election year that will include municipal, regional and national votes, the woman who is, according to polls, its most popular politician is touring the country to build support for leftwing candidates. Yolanda Díaz, the deputy prime minister and a lifelong member of the Communist party, is heading Sumar (Unite), a platform to the left of the prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, that plans to put up candidates at the general election due on 10 December.

On Saturday, 2,000 people filled the Auditori in Barcelona to hear Díaz speak, while a further 1,000 were turned away. She made her entrance to pounding, Rocky-style music and a standing ovation alongside Ada Colau, the Barcelona mayor and a leading supporter of the Sumar project. Colau introduced Díaz, saying she represented “hope and the prospect of utopia”. She said: “Yolanda gives us the right to dream and to hope. We hope she will be the first woman prime minister of Spain.”

Díaz lost no time in reassuring her Catalan audience that she recognised that 40% of people in the region would like to secede from Spain. In an apparent sideswipe at Sánchez, who has declared the independence process dead, she said: “I hear big words that appear to say that you’ve closed a chapter of your history. I don’t know about that but, in any case, it will be time and the people who decide the history of our country.”

That said, Díaz is not pro-independence and her project is for “a diverse and plural country”. She says repeatedly that only through unity and the inclusion and respect for its various national identities can Spain avoid the barbarism of the far right. “We’re living through an epochal change and we need to unite to formulate the radical policies to make this happen,” she said. “If we don’t unite, we will lose all the rights we have fought so hard to gain.” ...

Díaz’s candidacy has galvanised those on the left who are disenchanted with both the socialists and Podemos and whom the independence movement has marginalised in Catalonia. “Our project for the country isn’t an electoral campaign, it’s bigger than that,” she said. “We have the chance to improve people’s lives. I think as a people we are up to the task of making a better country.”

Republicans accuse Biden of hypocrisy over classified documents discoveries

Republicans pounced on the discovery on Saturday of more classified documents at Joe Biden’s residence, accusing the president of hypocrisy and questioning why the records were not brought to light earlier.

Biden lawyers have discovered at least 20 classified documents at his residence outside Wilmington, Delaware, and at an office in Washington used after he left the Obama administration, in which he was vice-president.

It is not yet clear what exactly the documents are, but Biden lawyers have said they immediately turned over the documents to the National Archives. This week, the attorney general, Merrick Garland, appointed a special counsel, former US attorney Robert Hur, to look into the matter.

The materials are already a political headache for Biden. When the FBI raided Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort to obtain classified material the former president kept, Biden said: “How could that possibly happen? How anyone could be that irresponsible?”

On Sunday, Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, told ABC’s This Week: “It just just reminds me of that old adage, ‘If you live in a glass house don’t throw stones.’ And I think President Biden was caught throwing stones.”

US To Hit Debt Ceiling THIS WEEK As Showdown Erupts

'Disgracing Himself': Hakeem Jeffries Stumps for Anti-Abortion Judge

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries joined New York Gov. Kathy Hochul and other state Democrats at a Bronx rally Saturday, just days ahead of what is sure to be a contentious confirmation hearing in which progressive lawmakers opposed to LaSalle’s appointment to lead the state Court of Appeals could be decided.

Progressives charge that Hector D. LaSalle is too conservative, anti-abortion, anti-labor and anti-due process and his appointment would tilt the state’s top court further to the right.

Jeffries, however, voiced his support for the judge, saying LaSalle is “highly qualified to serve as the chief judge.”

“Period, full stop,” Jeffries said.

Jeffries urged an “up-or-down” vote by the full state Senate. “It’s important for the entire New York state Senate to treat this nomination with the same dignity, decency and respect that every other nomination has received,” he said.

In December, the Democratic governor announced that she'd chosen the conservative judge as the next chief judge of the state Court of Appeals. Judge LaSalle is currently the presiding justice of the Appellate Division in Brooklyn.

The nomination was described as "mystifying" and "horrible news" by legal experts, including public defender Eliza Orlins, who pointed to LaSalle's record on abortion and labor rights as reasons that he was "potentially the worst of the seven nominees" the governor chose between.

The state Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a confirmation hearing on Wednesday. Progressive lawmakers are working to let the nomination die in committee without advancing it to a full Senate vote. At least 14 Democratic senators have indicated they oppose his selection.

Serial liar George Santos is the politician Americans deserve

It’s hard to keep track of what, exactly, the newly elected Republican congressman George Santos has said about his own life. His story changes and contradicts itself; his lies seem indiscriminate, and largely ad hoc. He says he worked at Citigroup and Goldman Sachs, which he didn’t. He said he graduated from Baruch College – he didn’t do that, either. Some of his fabrications are so trivial and specific that it’s impossible to ascribe a nefarious motive to them. ...

Santos, in this telling, had an uncanny, Forrest Gump-like biographical connection to these momentous historical moments, his own life changing at just the same moments that challenged the identity of the nation. It’s not hard to see why this fiction appealed to Santos, and why it appealed to his voters. It made him into an avatar of America itself.

Maybe he is. Because with his boldness and deception, his shamelessness and alleged comfort with financial malfeasance, Santos, with all his lies, seems to reveal an uncomfortable truth about American politics, emphasizing what the politics writer John Ganz called “the reign of crime”. Politicians, after all, lie all the time, and the Republican party in particular seems to have rapidly mainstreamed the use of fabulism, fraud and cheap scams that manipulate and extort the government, the public and the ruling elite. Are Santos’s lies, after all, any more far-fetched than Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him via a vast, undetected conspiracy? Are his lies about where he worked and went to school any more nefarious than the claim that Covid vaccines kill people, or that drag queens are scheming to molest children at public libraries? Perhaps Santos’s real sin is not in lying, but in telling the wrong lies. He didn’t regurgitate the same fabrications as the rest of his fellow Republicans – the ones about marginalized others. Instead, he merely lied about himself. And crucially, he lied about the one thing that seems to really matter to Republican leadership: he claimed to be a member of the monied elite, when he wasn’t.

Santos’s fellow New York Republicans are trying to distance themselves from the congressman, calling on him to resign in the hopes that it will help their own re-election chances. “He needs help,” said Jennifer DeSena, a local Republican official from Long Island. “This is not a normal person.” And indeed it’s hard not to suspect that there might be something wrong with the man, aside from the moral turpitude – a delusional tendency or break with reality that precipitated all these fictions. But it would be a mistake to think that George Santos’s pathologies are his alone. His lies are the product of a political system that incentivizes dishonesty, punishes sincerity and is rife with opportunities for petty crooks. In that sense, Santos is the politician that we deserve.

Marjorie Taylor Greene Renounces QAnon While Dems Cling To #Russiagate

Trump’s political fate may have been decided – by a Georgia grand jury

Even as Donald Trump prepares to dial up his campaign to take back the White House, the former US president’s political and personal fate may already have been decided by the secret workings of a grand jury in Georgia.

The 23-member panel, convened to consider whether Trump and others committed crimes in trying to overturn his defeat in Georgia when it appeared the state might decide the outcome of the entire 2020 presidential election, was dissolved on Monday after submitting its conclusions and asking that they be made public.

If the grand jury’s report recommends prosecution, a county district attorney in Atlanta, Fani Willis, will face the most consequential decision of her career – whether, for the first time in American history, to charge a former president with a criminal offence. That could result in Trump sitting behind bars in Georgia when he expects to be out on the campaign trail. Provided he is not already serving time as the result of a federal investigation into his attempts to pressure election officials in several other states to rig the vote and his part in the 6 January 2021 storming of the Capitol.

A judge has scheduled a hearing later this month to consider arguments over whether the grand jury’s report should be made public while Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, scrutinises its findings.

In November, the day before Trump announced he was again running for the White House, the Brookings Institution in Washington published a report that concluded he is “at substantial risk of prosecution” in Georgia including for improperly influencing government officials, forgery and criminal solicitation. The report said Trump may even be vulnerable to charges under anti-racketeering laws written to combat the mafia.

California storms: Biden declares major disaster as more flooding forecast

Joe Biden has declared a major disaster in California following devastating winter storms leading to flooding and mudslides and the deaths of at least 19 people.

On Saturday, Biden ordered federal aid to supplement state, tribal and local recovery efforts in areas affected by storms since late December.

“The president’s action makes federal funding available to affected individuals in the counties of Merced, Sacramento and Santa Cruz,” the White House said in a statement.

“Federal funding also is available to state, tribal and eligible local governments and certain private nonprofit organizations on a cost-sharing basis for emergency work in the counties of Merced, Sacramento, and Santa Cruz.”

Storms and flooding were expected to continue into Monday, the National Weather Service warned on Sunday. Starting on Tuesday, dry days were expected.

Also of Interest

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

Top 20 Most Cringeworthy Zelensky PR Moments

House Republican Introduces Resolution to Place Bust of Zelensky in the Capitol

Pentagon Balks at Sending Ukraine Long-Range Bombs

How the US Paved the Way to Moscow’s Invasion of Ukraine

Emmanuel Todd On The Third World War

Why the CIA attempted a ‘Maidan uprising’ in Brazil

Spain drops sedition charge against ex-Catalan leader

Why Didn't Biden Just Burn Those Classified Documents?

The Vote for House Speaker Obscured Democratic Treachery

Economists Radhika Desai & Michael Hudson Explain Multipolarity, Decline of US Hegemony

Over a Hundred Thousand Israelis Protest Netanyahu Government

NYT Worries Big Brother Is Not Watching You

Here is the Truth: Medicare Advantage Is Neither Medicare Nor an Advantage

Insurers Are Fighting To Protect Their Medicare Fraud

Thousands Rally in the Rain to Protest Destruction of German Village for Coal Mine

The week in wildlife – in pictures

Charlie Watts, Jazz Drummer and “Pocket King”

Banks HOARD Cash As Recession Fears Mount

World Economic Forum CONSPIRACY Hiding in Plain Sight

Ilhan Omar’s STUNNING FLIP-FLOP On Investigating FBI

Pundits WON’T ADMIT They Were All Wrong About Trump’s Tax Returns

Code Pink Bravely CONFRONTS Warmongering Congressman

A Little Night Music

Percy Mayfield - Stranger In My Own Home Town

Percy Mayfield - Please Send Me Someone To Love

Percy Mayfield & Phillip Walker ~ Two Years Of Torture & My Jug And I

Percy Mayfield - Strange things happening

Percy Mayfield - The Highway Is Like A Woman

Percy Mayfield - Nothing Stays the Same Forever

Percy Mayfield - Ha Ha in the Daytime

Percy Mayfield - Never Say Naw

Percy Mayfield - Louisiana

Percy Mayfield - The Hunt Is On

Percy Mayfield - Walking On A Tightrope

Percy Mayfield - Hit The Road Jack