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This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Luther Allison. Enjoy!

"I never wonder to see men wicked, but I often wonder to see them not ashamed."

-- Jonathan Swift

News and Opinion

Guantánamo detainee who was tortured by CIA released to Belize

The US has released Majid Khan, an al-Qaida courier turned informant who was tortured in secret CIA prisons and held in custody for nearly 20 years, marking the first time a “high-value detainee” has been freed from Guantánamo Bay. Khan, a 42-year-old Pakistani born in Saudi Arabia, completed his jail term last March and landed in Belize on Thursday, where he is to be permanently resettled.

“Today, I feel like I am reborn. I have re-entered the world. I am a free man,” Khan said in a written statement. “I am beginning a new life in a new country and a new culture. I’m in a little bit of shock because I have been waiting so long to be free, and I can hardly believe it has finally happened.” He added that he expected to be reunited with his wife after 20 years apart, and to meet his daughter for the first time. ...

Khan’s release is the first time the US has released a “high-value detainee”, an official term used to refer to Guantánamo inmates who have been subjected to torture at CIA “black sites”.

Over three years in CIA custody, he was suspended naked from a ceiling beam for long periods and doused repeatedly with ice water to keep him awake, subjected to waterboarding (water poured over a cloth placed over the mouth and nose to give the sensation of drowning), forced “rectal feeding” when he went on hunger strike, beatings and sexual assault. ...

After they heard his confession and his torture at the hands of the CIA, several jurors at his military trial in 2021 urged leniency, saying his treatment was “a stain on the moral fibre of America”.

Suspected Chinese spy balloon in US airspace: "Possible show of strength”

Pentagon says it is monitoring Chinese spy balloon spotted flying over US

The Pentagon has said it is tracking a Chinese spy balloon flying over the United States but had decided against shooting it down for safety reasons.

Defence officials said the balloon has been watched for a couple days since it entered US airspace, flying at high altitude. It has been monitored by several methods including manned aircraft, and has most recently been tracked crossing over Montana, where the US has some of its silo-based nuclear missiles. As a precaution, flights out of Billings Logan airport were suspended on Wednesday.

“The balloon is currently traveling at an altitude well above commercial air traffic and does not present a military or physical threat to people on the ground,” the Pentagon said in a statement. “Instances of this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years. Once the balloon was detected, the US government acted immediately to protect against the collection of sensitive information.”

The incident comes just ahead of a visit to China by Antony Blinken, expected this weekend, when it is believed the US secretary of state will meet Xi Jinping. The trip has not been formally announced, but both Beijing and Washington have been talking about his imminent arrival.

Pentagon officials said there was “high confidence” that it was Chinese, and that Joe Biden was briefed on the situation. The president asked for military options, but it was decided that there was too great a danger of debris harming people on the ground were it to be shot down.

US seals crucial military deal with the Philippines close to China flashpoints

The Philippines has granted the US expanded access to its military bases, greatly enhancing Washington’s presence in the region at a time of growing concern about Chinese aggression.

Washington would be given access to four additional military bases in “strategic areas of the country”, the Philippines’ Department of National Defense said on Thursday, without specifying the locations.

The expanded access will fill a crucial gap in US positioning in the region, say analysts, and enable it to better monitor Chinese activity in the South China Sea and near Taiwan.

The deal has been made under an Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) that allows the US access to Philippine bases for joint training, storing equipment and supplies, and building of facilities, though not to establish a permanent presence. The US already has access to five sites.

The arrangement will strengthen the US presence in the Indo-Pacific, where it has military treaties with countries stretching from Japan and Korea in the north, to Thailand and the Philippines and, in the south, Australia. US officials have previously commented that the positioning of US military equipment in Asia was too strongly oriented towards north-east Asia.

As Ukraine crumbles, EU holds circus act summit in Kiev

EU pledges to double military aid programme for Ukraine

The EU has pledged to double a military aid programme for Ukraine by training an extra 15,000 soldiers as part of a blizzard of announcements aimed at showing that it will “stand by Ukraine for the long-haul”.

Speaking at the start of a two-day trip to Kyiv, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, reiterated that the EU aimed to have a tenth package of sanctions against Russia in place by 24 February, the first anniversary of the invasion ordered by Vladimir Putin.

“We are making Putin pay for his atrocious war,” she told reporters, on a visit accompanied by 15 EU commissioners, the first time so many EU officials have visited a war zone. “Today Russia is paying a heavy price as our sanctions are eroding its economy, throwing it back by a generation.”

Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said there was a joint task to curb the circumvention of sanctions, adding: “The more we do it, the closer we will be to defeat of Russian aggression.”

With a promise to “keep on turning up the pressure”, Von der Leyen also reiterated that the EU would cap the price of Russian petroleum products, as part of a broader G7 plan to restrict oil revenues available to the Kremlin’s war machine. The G7 and the EU have already agreed a price cap on crude oil that came into force last December and according to Von der Leyen, costs Russia €160m (£142m) a day.

Ray McGovern - UKRAINE: How We Got Here & What Now?

F-16 fighters: The next stage in the relentless US military escalation against Russia

The announcement last month that the Biden administration would send M1 Abrams main battle tanks to Ukraine has set the stage for further demands for escalation through the provision of the F-16 fourth-generation fighter aircraft. A familiar script is playing out. Months in advance of any public announcement, the Pentagon confirms it is working out plans to send a weapons system to the front. At the appropriate time, demands are placed simultaneously in the US press and Ukrainian officials for the system in question.

The Biden administration declares it has no plans to send the weapon. Its “reluctance” is denounced in the press and by Republican and Democratic Party officials. Within a matter of weeks or months, the White House announces precisely the measure that it has previously ruled out, without any explanation of the reversal. This exercise in kabuki theater, repeated over and over, makes clear the extent to which the US civilian political leadership has become merely a means to package decisions made by the Pentagon to the broader public. This cycle has become a parody of itself, to the point where any statements of America’s civilian government about the limitations of military action is largely treated as meaningless.

As Yuriy Sak, an adviser for Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksiy Reznikov, told Reuters, “They didn’t want to give us heavy artillery, then they did. They didn’t want to give us Himars systems, then they did. They didn’t want to give us tanks, now they’re giving us tanks. Apart from nuclear weapons, there is nothing left that we will not get.”

Commenting on this pattern, the New York Times wrote in an article published Wednesday, “If the usual script plays out, the Biden administration’s reluctance to provide the planes could be temporary.” The newspaper continued, “For Ukraine, the United States and its NATO allies, the playbook has now become standardized. First, Kyiv asks for an advanced weapons system. The Biden administration says no… after months of hemming and hawing, the Biden administration says yes, and the gates to more weapons open.” ...

Plans to send advanced Western fighters have been underway for months, according to earlier statements by US officials. In July, Gen. Charles Q. Brown Jr., chief of staff of the US Air Force, told the Washington Post that “discussions are ongoing” about sending fighter jets to Ukraine. The Financial Times reported that Lockheed Martin has already increased production of F-16 fighters to compensate for countries planning to transfer them to Ukraine. The company is “going to be ramping up production on F-16s in Greenville [South Carolina] to get to the place where we will be able to backfill pretty capably,” said Frank St. John, chief operating officer of Lockheed Martin.

'Are you suggesting putting boots on the ground in Ukraine?' - #KayBurley

Former Defence Minister Sir Gerald Howarth: "I think that is something we now have to consider, certainly if you were to put a NATO force in there."

Latest: https://t.co/X3flQUBL0r

Sky 501 and YouTube pic.twitter.com/OtqLdIqLfj

— Sky News (@SkyNews) January 31, 2023

Clare Daly joins Sabby Sabs

U.S. Company Offers Advanced Drones to Ukraine for One Dollar, With Some Costs

A U.S. weapons maker is offering to sell the Ukraine government two Reaper MQ-9 drones for a dollar in an effort to help the country defend itself as it prepares for an expected Russian offensive.

The deal also would require Kyiv to spend about $10 million to prepare and ship the aircraft to Ukraine, and about $8 million each year for maintenance and sustainment of the older model drones, which currently are not being used in Ukraine.

The proposal would include a ground control station to operate the drones almost anywhere, according to a letter reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. The proposal was made by Linden Blue, the chief executive officer of General Atomics, which makes the Reapers, to Ukraine’s defense attache in Washington last week.

The White House, which would have to approve the sale, declined to comment. The Ukrainian government also declined to comment.

A spokesman for General Atomics said the company could not comment on specific deals, but that “we do believe Ukraine needs a capability like the Reaper, and soon.”

UK theater buckles to pro-war pressure on #No2NATO rally

Netanyahu told he must not involve himself in judiciary overhaul

Israel’s attorney general has told Benjamin Netanyahu that he must not be involved in an overhaul to the country’s judicial system proposed by his government because it would amount to a conflict of interest over the prime minister’s corruption trial, according to a letter made public Thursday.

Netanyahu’s new far-right government has made changing the legal system a centrepiece of its legislative agenda and despite mounting public criticism, has charged ahead with steps to weaken the supreme court and grant politicians less judicial oversight in their policymaking.

The office of attorney general, Gali Baharav-Miara, also released her legal opinion concerning the proposed changes, and said they would deal “a serious blow to the system of checks and balances” in Israel’s government, and would give the executive and legislature “broad and effectively unlimited authority”.

Netanyahu is on trial for fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in a series of scandals involving influential media moguls and wealthy associates. He denies wrongdoing.

“You must avoid as part of your role as prime minister involvement in initiatives related to the legal system,” Baharav-Miara wrote to Netanyahu in the letter, which was sent Wednesday. She said that meant Netanyahu could also not direct others to advance the plan.

Brazil's Lula accuses Bolsonaro of preparing Jan 8 'coup'

Bolsonaro attended meeting about plot to keep him in power, senator says

A close ally of Jair Bolsonaro has turned against Brazil’s former president, claiming that an aide to the far-right leader tried to “coerce” him into joining a conspiracy to annul the October elections and keep Bolsonaro in power. Senator Marcos do Val claimed at a news conference on Thursday that he was invited to a meeting on 9 December with the then president by a fellow member of congress, Daniel Silveira, to discuss a plan to “save Brazil” .

At the meeting, Silveira allegedly asked Do Val to try to induce the country’s top electoral authority, the supreme court justice Alexandre de Moraes, into making compromising comments in a taped telephone conversation. The recording would then be used to have De Moraes arrested, and prevent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva from taking over as president on 1 January, Do Val claimed.

Bolsonaro “sat in silence” while Silveira laid out the plot, said Do Val, who claimed that he had refused to join the conspiracy.

The explosive allegations came as Silveira was arrested in the state of Rio de Janeiro on Thursday morning on De Moraes’s orders, having lost his parliamentary immunity with the end of his term a day earlier.

A Wall Street Time Bomb>

As public officials across America prepare to funnel even more of government workers’ savings to private equity moguls, an alarm just sounded for anyone bothering to listen. It is a warning that Wall Street executives, busy skimming fees off retirement nest eggs, want you to ignore. The longer the warning goes unheeded, however, the bigger the financial time bomb may be for workers, retirees and the governments that pay them. Earlier this month, PitchBook – the go-to news outlet of the private equity industry – declared that “private equity returns are a major threat to pension plans’ ability to pay retirees in 2023”.

With more than one in 10 public pension dollars invested in private equity assets – and with states continuing to keep their private equity contracts secret – PitchBook cited a new study finding that losses from the investments may be on the horizon for retirement systems that support millions of teachers, firefighters, first responders and other government employees.

“Private equity returns get reported on a lag of up to six months, and with each update in 2022 values were coming down – which means 2022 numbers were including overstated private equity asset valuations and 2023 numbers are going to incorporate those losses,” noted the study from the Equable Institute. ... If write-downs now happen, it could mean that when it’s time to sell the assets to pay promised retiree benefits, pension funds would have far less money available than private equity firms led them to believe. At that point, there are three painful choices: cut retirement benefits, slash social programs to fund the benefits, or raise taxes to recoup the losses.

Signs of a doomsday scenario are already evident: some of the world’s largest private equity firms have been reporting big declines in earnings, and federal regulators are reportedly intensifying their scrutiny of the industry’s write-downs of asset valuations. Meanwhile, one investment bank reported that in its 2021 transactions, private equity assets sold for just 86% of their stated value last year.

But while pensioners may be imperiled, Wall Street executives are protected thanks to their heads-we-win-tails-you-lose business model. While reporting asset losses for investors, some of the firms managing pensioners’ money are raking in even more fees from investors and continuing to raise executives’ pay.

Canada: five RCMP officers charged over Indigenous man’s 2017 death in custody

Five officers with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) have been charged over the death of an Indigenous man, nearly six years after he died while in police custody.

Dale Culver, 35, was arrested by police in the British Columbia city of Prince George in 2017 following reports that a man had been seen “casing” vehicles on a downtown street. Police say there was a struggle between the officers and Culver, a member of the Wet’suwet’en and Gitxsan First Nations, who attempted to flee on a bicycle. ...

According to the independent investigations office of BC (IIO), the province’s police watchdog, pepper spray was used against Culver during the arrest. After he was put in the back of a police vehicle, Culver complained of difficulty breathing. Paramedics arrived and Culver collapsed when he was taken out of the police car. The father of three was pronounced dead in hospital shortly after midnight.

The BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA) cited reports from eyewitnesses that Culver had been “taken forcibly to the ground” by police and said there were “troubling allegations” that RCMP members told bystanders to delete cellphone video of the arrest. “This would provide a strong basis on which to question the accuracy of certain RCMP members’ statements to investigators and notes, as well as RCMP public statements,” the BCCLA wrote in a 2018 letter.

The fractured relationship between Indigenous communities and the RCMP has been characterized by mistrust, especially in north-western British Columbia. In recent years, activists have clashed with police over a controversial pipeline project amid reports police were prepared to use lethal force on Indigenous land defenders.

US man cleaning out late grandmother’s apartment shot dead by police

An Ohio man was fatally shot by police while cleaning out his dead grandmother’s apartment, family members say. Joe Frasure Jr, 28, was shot on Monday. He died on Tuesday. The shooting, the latest in a string of controversial police killings across the US, took place in Wyoming, Ohio, a town of about 9,000 just north of Cincinnati. ...

Police say officers suspected Frasure was a burglar. Frasure’s family say he was simply cleaning out the apartment after his grandmother’s death. Police officials have said video of the encounter will be released on Friday. The officers involved have not been identified.

According to a press release, police say officers responded to a 911 call about a possible break-in involving two to three people, NBC News reported.

A neighbor placed the call, saying the apartment should have been empty. The call was placed to a non-emergency line but rerouted to general dispatch, the Enquirer said. When officers arrived, police say, they encountered Frasure and his father at the back of the building.

Police say Frasure did not follow commands, running from officers and attempting to leave the area in a minivan. Shots were fired into the van when it “almost struck an officer”, police say. Disputing the police account, his family have demanded release of video of the encounter. “I don’t care what they say: that [vehicle] was not pointed at them,” Joe Frasure Sr, Frasure’s father, told WLWT5.

You Don’t Stop Police Killings by Calling them ‘Fatal Encounters’

It’s hard to find words after yet another brutal police killing of a Black person, this time of 29-year-old Tyre Nichols in Memphis, Tennessee, captured in horrifying detail on video footage released last week. But the words we use—and in that “we,” the journalists who frame these stories figure critically—if we actually want to not just be sad about, but end state-sanctioned racist murders, those words must not downplay or soften the hard reality with euphemism and vaguery.

Yet that’s exactly what the New York Times did in recent coverage. In its January 28 front-page story, reporter Rick Rojas led with an unflinching description of the brutal footage, noting that Nichols “showed no signs of fighting back” under his violent arrest for supposed erratic driving.

Yet just a few paragraphs later, Rojas wrote: “The video reverberated beyond the city, as the case has tapped into an enduring frustration over Black men having fatal encounters with police officers.”

People get frustrated when their bus is late. People get frustrated when their cell phone’s autocorrect misbehaves. If people were merely “frustrated” when police officers violently beat yet another Black person to death, city governments wouldn’t be worried, in the way the Times article describes, about widespread protests and “destructive unrest.”

By describing protest as “destructive,” while describing state-sanctioned law enforcement’s repeated murder of Black people as “Black men having fatal encounters with police officers,” the Times works to soften a blow that should not be softened, to try to deflect some of the blame and outrage that rightfully should be aimed full blast at our country’s racist policing system.

That linguistic soft-pedaling and back-stepping language was peppered throughout the piece, describing how police brigades like the “Scorpion” unit these Memphis police were part of are “designed to patrol areas of the city struggling with persistent crime and violence”—just trying to protect Black folks from ourselves, you see—yet they mysteriously “end up oppressing young people and people of color.” Well, that’s a subject for documented reporting, not conjecture.

When a local activist described himself as “not shocked as much as I am disgusted” by what happened to Tyre Nichols, the Times added, “Still, he acknowledged the gravity of the case”—as if anti-racist activists’ combined anger, sorrow and exhaustion might be a sign that they can’t really follow what’s happening or respond appropriately.

Folks on Twitter (1/28/23) and elsewhere called out the New York Times for this embarrassing “Black people encounter police and somehow end up dead” business, but the paper is apparently happy with it. So much so that the paper came back a few days later with an update (2/1/23), with the headline: “What We Know About Tyre Nichols’ Lethal Encounter With Memphis Police.”

In it, Rojas and co-author Neelam Bohra wrote in their lead, “The stop escalated into a violent confrontation that ended with Mr. Nichols hospitalized in critical condition. Three days later, he died.”

Journalism school tells you that fewer, more direct words are better. So when a paper tells you that a traffic stop “escalated into a violent confrontation that ended up with” a dead Black person, understand that they are trying to gently lead you away from a painful reality—not trying to help you understand it, and far less helping you act to change it.

Worth a peek:

Atlanta shooting part of alarming US crackdown on environmental defenders

The shooting of Manuel Esteban Paez Terán, believed to be the first environmental defender killed in the US, is the culmination of a dangerous escalation in the criminalization and repression of those who seek to protect natural resources in America, campaigners have warned. The death of the 26-year-old, who was also known as “Tortuguita” or “Little Turtle,” in a forest on the fringes of Atlanta was the sort of deadly act “people who have been paying attention to this issue assumed would happen soon, with no sense of joy”, according to Marla Marcum, founder of the Climate Disobedience Center, which supports climate protesters.

“The police and the state have a callousness towards the lives of those on the frontline of environmental causes and I hope this is a wake-up call to those who didn’t know that,” she said. “I hope people take the time to notice what’s going on, because if this trajectory of criminalization continues, no one is going to be safe.”

Terán was shot and killed by police as officers from an assortment of forces swept through the small camp of a loose-knit activist group defending the urban forest on 18 January. Police say Terán shot and injured a Georgia state trooper with a handgun first, but the Georgia bureau of investigation has said the shooting was not recorded on body cameras, prompting calls for an independent investigation.

State and local authorities have reacted aggressively to protesters trying to stop 85 acres of the forest being torn down to build a sprawling, state-of-the-art, $90m police training complex – dubbed “Cop City” by opponents as it will feature a mock city for “tactical” exercises. Nineteen forest defenders have been charged with felonies under Georgia’s domestic terrorism laws since December. Authorities have detailed the alleged acts of so-called terror by nine of those facing charges, which include trespassing, constructing a campsite and sitting in the trees of the woodland, a 300-acre wedge of land that once contained a prison farm but is now one of the largest urban forests in the US.

Georgia’s response to the protests follows an alarming pattern of environmental and land rights defenders across the US being threatened, arrested and charged with increasingly drastic crimes, including terrorism, for opposing oil and gas pipelines or the destruction of forests or waterways, advocates claim. “This was meant as a chilling deterrent, to show that the state can kill and jail environmental defenders with impunity. It reflects a trend towards escalation and violence to distract from the real issue of advancing corporate interests over lands,” said Nick Estes, author of Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance.

Some interesting info in this article:

Brown gold: the great American manure rush begins

On an early August afternoon at Pinnacle Dairy, a farm located near the middle of California’s long Central Valley, 1,300 Jersey cows idle in the shade of open-air barns. Above them whir fans the size of satellites, circulating a breeze as the temperature pushes 100F (38C). Underfoot, a wet layer of feces emits a thick stench that hangs in the air. Just a tad unpleasant, the smell represents a potential goldmine.

The energy industry is transforming mounds of manure into a lucrative “carbon negative fuel” capable of powering everything from municipal buses to cargo trucks. To do so, it’s turning to dairy farms, which offer a reliable, long-term supply of the material. Pinnacle is just one of hundreds across the state that have recently sold the rights to their manure to energy producers.

Communities around the world have long generated electricity from waste, but the past few years have seen a surge in public and private investment into poop-to-energy infrastructure in the US. Though so far concentrated in states with dominant dairy sectors, like California, Wisconsin and New York, Biden’s landmark climate law passed last summer stands to unleash additional billions to support further development nationwide. The sector’s boosters describe it as an elegant way to cut emissions from both livestock and transport; but critics worry that the nascent industry could raise more issues than it resolves by entrenching environmentally harmful practices.

Animal agriculture is the nation’s single biggest source of methane, a greenhouse gas that climate scientists call a “super pollutant” due to its high short-term warming potential. The gas is released from animals when they burp, and through the decomposition of manure when collected in open-air ponds, a common livestock industry practice. But those emissions are also a potential moneymaker. Methane from animal waste can be purified into a product virtually indistinguishable from fossil fuel-based natural gas. Marketed as renewable natural gas (RNG), it has a unique profit-making edge: in addition to revenue from the sale of the gas itself, energy companies can now also earn handsome environmental subsidies for their role in keeping methane out of the atmosphere.

Over the past few years, energy giants like Shell, BP and Chevron have all announced similar dairy industry partnerships. In California, the country’s top dairy-producing state, officials estimated that over a hundred publicly supported manure digesters were slated to go online by the end of last year. Less than a decade earlier, in comparison, just six such projects were in the works. Nationally, the number of planned and operational RNG production facilities at livestock and agricultural operations jumped by over 36% in 2021 compared to the year prior.

‘Hypocritical’: environmental groups blocking union efforts, US workers say

Workers at some of the top environmental organizations in the US are calling out their managers as “incredibly hypocritical” as they argue the progressive non-profits are fighting workers’ efforts to unionize.

A wave of unionization efforts has swept the non-profit sector as part of a renewed national enthusiasm for unionization. Shortly into the Covid-19 pandemic, workers at 350.org, Sunrise Movement, the National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife, Greenpeace USA, the Public Interest Network and the Center for Biological Diversity unionized.

But workers at many of these organizations say they have experienced aggressive opposition and alleged retaliation in the lead-up to unionizing and through bargaining efforts for a first union contract.

Defenders of Wildlife has fought unionization since the campaign went public, according to workers, and has continued to do so through bargaining. The organization, which works to protect all native animals and plants throughout North America, rejected a request to voluntarily recognize the union, but workers successfully won a union election in September 2021 with a vote of 70 to five to join the Office and Professional Employees Union Local 2.

[Much more info at link. - js]

Also of Interest

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

On The Media Of 'Russiagate' And Related Fake Stories

Suspicions of state security set-up in Germany’s far-right ‘coup’

Anti-Strike Bill: Step Toward Forced Labor in Britain?

Police Terror in America

Is the Unstoppable Force of Mexico’s GMO Ban About to Meet the Unmovable Object of US Big Ag Lobbies?

Climate Movement 'Ready to Kill' Dirty Deal Again as Manchin Signals Revival

The Fight over Black History: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Khalil Gibran Muhammad & E. Patrick Johnson

How Taylor Swift Fans EXPOSED Ticketmaster

A Little Night Music

Luther Allison - It's Been a Long Time

Luther Allison - Little Red Rooster

Luther Allison - Give Me Back My Wig

Luther Allison - Blues With A Feeling

Luther Allison - Feelin' So Good

Luther Allison - Freedom

Luther Allison - She Was Born That Way

Luther Allison - My Luck Don't Ever Change

Luther Allison - Key To The Highway

Luther Allison – Luther's Blues (album playlist)