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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Ervin Rucker

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer Ervin Rucker. Enjoy!

^{Ervin Rucker - Done Done The Slop}

"Lack of outlets, excess capacity, complete deadlock, in the end regular recurrence of national bankruptcies and other disasters-perhaps world wars from sheer capitalist despair-may confidently be anticipated. History is as simple as that."

-- Joseph A. Schumpeter

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News and Opinion

US economy teeters on brink amid Biden-McCarthy debt ceiling deadlock

President Joe Biden and top lawmakers agreed on Tuesday to further talks aimed at breaking a deadlock over raising the $31.4tn US debt limit, with just three weeks before the country could be forced into an unprecedented default.

After about an hour of talks in the Oval Office, Biden, a Democrat, and House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy, a Republican, deputized their aides to hold daily discussions about areas of possible agreement as a default looms as soon as 1 June.

Biden, McCarthy and three other top congressional leaders were set to meet again on Friday. Biden called the talks “productive” and appeared to offer Republicans some possible compromises, including taking a “hard look” for the first time at clawing back unspent coronavirus relief funds to reduce government spending.

But he repeated that Republicans must take the threat of default off the table. And he did not rule out eventually invoking the 14th amendment to the US constitution, an untested approach that would seek to declare the debt limit unconstitutional. Doing so would require litigation, he said, but is an option he may study in the future. ...

McCarthy emphasized a lack of progress after the meeting. “I didn’t see any new movement,” McCarthy told reporters, complaining that Biden didn’t agree to talks until time was running out. “That’s not a way to govern,” he said. But he did say Biden indicated that he was open to discussing reforms to the permitting process for new energy projects as part of the talks.

NO MOVEMENT On Debt Ceiling Talks As Biden, McCarthy Play BLAME GAME

Not even the threat of default can stop the warmongers from spending money on unneccessary crap.

US, Taiwan in Talks on US Providing $500 Million in ‘Free’ Weapons

Taiwanese Defense Minister Chiu Kuo-cheng said Monday that Taiwan is in talks with the Pentagon on the US providing a $500 million weapons package that would come at no cost to Taipei.

“These extra weapons will be given to us for free and will not be deducted from the purchase list, which has been delayed by the US,” Chiu told Taiwan’s legislature, according to The South China Morning Post. He said the talks have been ongoing for about four months.

When asked what kind of weapons Taiwan will receive, Chiu said, “They will include missiles and some logistic services to help train our soldiers so that they will be familiar with the weapons’ operations as soon as they arrive.”

Imran Khan arrested. MIC Europe Day payday. Big battle for Middle-earth. Russia has 1 tank left.

US Announces $1.2 Billion in Long-Term Military Aid for Ukraine

The Biden administration on Tuesday announced a new $1.2 billion weapons package for Ukraine that includes additional 155mm artillery ammunition and air defense systems.

The massive package is being provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative (USAI), which allows the Pentagon to purchase military equipment for Kyiv, meaning the arms could take months or years to deliver. The bulk of US military aid to Ukraine has been provided through the Presidential Drawdown Authority, which allows President Biden to send weapons directly from Pentagon stockpiles.

The Pentagon said the announcement “represents the beginning of a contracting process to provide additional priority capabilities to Ukraine” and that the weapons package represents the US commitment to supporting Kyiv for the long-term.

No, Putin ISN’T Kidnapping Ukrainian Kids!

Zaporozhye NPP suspends reactors in effort to avert Ukrainian provocations

Officials in the Zaporozhye Region have suspended the reactors at the Zaporozhye Nuclear Power Plant in an effort to prevent provocations by Ukrainian forces, the region’s interim governor Yevgeny Balitsky said on Krym-24 television on Monday.

He said Ukrainian forces had started to dump water from the reservoirs.

Ukraine’s ‘Press Freedom’ Score Increases Despite Martial Law, Banned Media

France-based press watchdog Reporters Without Borders (Reporters Sans Frontières, or RSF) recently released its scores and rankings for international press freedom. In 2022, RSF gave Ukraine a score of 55.76 out of 100, placing it 106th out of 180 countries surveyed. In the most recent report, issued after over a year of war, Ukraine shot to 79th out of 180, with a new score of 61.19. This despite wartime measures that banned opposition parties, consolidated media under state control, and saw journalists’ speech chilled by unprecedented intimidation.

Wartime measures in any country often result in a loss of press freedom. To say that such restrictions are typical, however, does not mean that they are therefore not really happening. For RSF to change the standards it applies to Ukraine, as it apparently has, because the country has been invaded is to endorse the idea that freedom of the press ought to be limited in times of danger—an odd position, to say the least, for a group dedicated to protecting the rights of journalists to take.

By ordinary standards, the position of the press in Ukraine has not improved in the past year, but dramatically worsened. In an exhaustive article, Branko Marcetic (Jacobin, 2/25/23) thoroughly outlined how democratic institutions have deteriorated in Ukraine as a result of the war. Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian political scientist at the University of Ottawa, told Marcetic:

[President Volodymyr] Zelenskyy used the Russian invasion and the war as a pretext to eliminate most of the political opposition and potential rivals for power, and to consolidate his largely undemocratic rule.

This continues a trend since before the war. In 2021, Zelenskyy had banned the most popular news website in the country, then  banned media outlets affiliated with one of the most popular parties in the country. In a case that elicited international condemnation, Vasyl Muravitsky was forced to flee to Finland after being accused of “treason” and allegedly disseminating “anti-Ukrainian” materials. His prosecution began before the war, but has continued in absentia during the invasion.

The trial is happening against a backdrop of wider political repression. Among other wartime measures, Zelenskyy suspended, then banned, 11 opposition parties due to their alleged links with Russia. One of these parties had even held 10% of the seats in the Ukrainian parliament before the move. Journalists and anyone else with a political opinion are well aware of the consequences of speaking out, and the pressures have only intensified.

One Ukrainian scholar told Marcetic:

All Ukrainian journalists and bloggers who did not want to promote Zelenskyy’s version of “truth” had to either shut up (voluntarily or under duress) or, if possible, emigrate.

In July, Zelenskyy consolidated television organizations into a single, government-controlled channel. In a widely criticized move, Zelenskyy signed a law that expanded the ability of the state regulator, controlled by Zelenskyy and his party, to issue fines, revoke licenses and prevent publication for media organizations.

The top Ukrainian journalists’ unions opposed the law. The head of one union warned that

government officials will declare those who disagree with their vision to be enemies of the country or foreign agents. This perspective of state and political regulation of the media is in total contradiction with the desire of Ukrainian civil society for European integration.

The International Federation of Journalists called on the European Commission and Council of Europe to review the measure. The Committee to Protect Journalists repeatedly called on the Ukrainian government to drop the bill, warning that it “imperils press freedom in the country by tightening government control over information.”

Unlike other international journalism-centered NGOs, Reporters Without Borders offered praise for the bill. In a blog post titled “RSF Hails Ukraine’s Adoption of New Media Law, Despite War with Russia” (1/11/23), it wrote that the law was “generally welcomed by Ukrainian journalists.” This praise was based on minor provisions that were required for Ukrainian admission to the European Union, as it “harmonize[d] Ukrainian legislation with European law.”

This was acknowledged  as a positive move by the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine (NUJU), one of the unions opposed to the bill. But as NUJU made clear, journalists objected to the enormous control given to the state media regulators, not these less important provisions.

RSF acknowledged these measures, but euphemistically described them as “co-regulatory mechanisms that facilitate a dialogue between the media regulator and the media”; it wrote that the provisions “expand[ed] the media regulator’s powers,” but offered only muted criticism, suggesting that “to guarantee the regulator’s full independence…the process for its appointing members needs to be changed.” While it noted that this could be done by “amend[ing] the constitution,” it tellingly acknowledged that these changes were “impossible as long as martial law…is still in effect.”

RSF’s obfuscation and whitewashing of the law carried into its 2023 Press Freedom Index report for Ukraine, which merely says of the law, “A new media law that was adopted in late 2022 after years of preparation is designed to bring Ukraine in line with European media legislation.”

In the report, RSF acknowledged some repression:

Media regarded as pro-Kremlin were banned by presidential decree, and access to Russian social media was restricted. This has intensified since the start of Russia’s invasion. Media carrying Russian propaganda have been blocked.

RSF even acknowledged that “the application of martial law sometimes results in reporting restrictions for journalists.” To RSF, however, this increase in censorship does not overshadow the improvements in Ukraine’s media environment, as embodied by the EU-compliant regulations, so it gave the country a higher score than last year.

Looking at previous years of RSF index reports, the language hasn’t changed much since the 2021 index, which reads:

Ukraine has a diversified media landscape…. Much more is needed to loosen the oligarchs’ tight grip on the media, encourage editorial independence and combat impunity for crimes of violence against journalists.

In the 2022 report, this changed to “Ukraine’s media landscape is diverse, but remains largely in the grip of oligarchs who own all of the national TV channels.” The report criticized the Russian invasion for replacing the media in occupied areas with Kremlin propaganda. There was no criticism of the government’s consolidation of control, or the deteriorating political situation.

The latest RSF report downgraded Russia’s already low standing, from 155th to 164th place (38.82 to 34.77). Its report on Russia began, appropriately, by noting what the Russian government had done to the press:

Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, almost all independent media have been banned, blocked and/or declared “foreign agents” or “undesirable organizations.”

The report on Ukraine, by contrast, began by talking about Russia:

The war launched by Russia on 24 February 2022 threatens the survival of the Ukrainian media. In this “information war,” Ukraine stands at the front line of resistance against the expansion of the Kremlin’s propaganda system.

This framing allows RSF to present the banning of “media regarded as pro-Kremlin” as an act of “resistance” rather than repression.

Political scientist Gerald Sussman called Ukraine’s rising score “a joke,” especially when the “US ranking dropped to No. 45 (from 42).” (RSF cited states’ efforts to restrict reporters’ access to public spaces, among other issues.) Sussman has extensively studied the role of seemingly independent international NGOs in pushing US-centric, market-oriented values around the world. He connected RSF’s Press Freedom score to other “Freedom” indexes, like Freedom House’s “democracy score,” which often judges “democracy” according to market standards. “Groups with the name ‘freedom’ in their title are almost always conservative,” Sussman stated in a statement to FAIR.

Freedom House has yet to release its 2023 democracy scores, though its 2022 report criticized Ukraine for pre-war repression, citing “imposition of sanctions on several domestic journalists and outlets on national security grounds, leading to three TV channels being taken off the air.” As we noted, RSF had no such critique.

Reporters Without Borders is a prestigious international institution, respected by many in the world of media and human rights. Unfortunately, like many in the media, it appears to have taken on the role of cheerleader for Ukraine in the proxy war,  abandoning the pretense of being an objective monitor.

In Ukraine, the past year has been devastating for a country already struggling with media repression. RSF’s denial of reality does nothing to actually help Ukraine, but downplaying these problems will only further imperil press freedoms.

Mexico Embraces Assange

John and Gabriel Shipton have been on and off the road on three continents for three years appealing to ordinary citizens and the powerful about the plight of their son and brother, Julian Assange, imprisoned for possessing and publishing U.S. “defense information” that revealed prima facie evidence of state crimes. The Shiptons are spreading their message through the documentary film Ithaka, produced by Assange’s brother, which chronicles the odyssey of their father in Britain, Europe and the United States in pursuit of his son’s freedom.

The Shiptons brought their film to Toronto and 55 cities across the U.S., meeting in cinemas and universities from New York to Tulsa to Decatur, GA. Their campaign completed the 7-week North American tour at the end of April in Mexico, whey they were embraced not only by Mexicans in the street but by the country’s highest office holder and members of Parliament. The Shiptons received a firm endorsement from the president and a letter from national legislators to Joe Biden demanding he let Assange go.

The Shiptons met President Andrés Manuel López Obrador for an hour on April 20 at the historic Palacio Nacional, built in 1522 on the site of the Aztec ruler Moctezuma II’s palace. ... Obrador has twice offered political aslyum to Assange, whom he’s called “the best journalist of our time.” John Shipton told Consortium News after his meeting with Obrador that he admired the president’s guts. Gabriel Shipton said Obraror had “reconfirmed his unconditional support for Julian’s freedom.” ...

Shipton told Consortium News at the news briefing that in his meeting with the Mexican president “there was some indication” that Biden and Obrador have had a conversation about Assange, “but the details of that conversation I don’t know.” Obrador has joined other Latin American leaders to form a pro-Assange bloc publicly advocating for his release. Shipton said the political movement to free his son “encompasses the entirety” of Latin America: including the presidents of Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Columbia, Venezuela and Mexico.

Pakistan internet cut as violence erupts after arrest of ex-PM Imran Khan

Internet services have been suspended across Pakistan after violence erupted when the former prime minister, Imran Khan, was arrested at a court appearance in Islamabad and dragged into an armoured vehicle by scores of security forces in riot gear.

The arrest of Khan – who was ousted from power last year and has evaded arrest several times since – came hours after he released a video message reiterating his allegations that Pakistan’s powerful military establishment had tried to assassinate him twice.

Khan’s arrest is the latest twist in a political and economic crisis that pits the popular former prime minister against the military and the government, led by his successor, Shehbaz Sharif, whom Khan alleges conspired to remove him from power and make threats on his life, charges they deny.

Hours after his arrest, protests began to erupt across Pakistan, with the army accused of orchestrating his detention. More than 40 people were arrested and officials said one protester had been killed after they were shot by an officer near a military checkpoint in the city of Quetta. In Karachi, a police vehicle was set on fire and in Lahore, supporters broke into the house of the military corps commander, smashing windows and setting furniture on fire, while shouting: “We warned you not to touch Imran Khan.”

Mobile internet services were cut across the country, according to the Pakistan telecommunication authority, and access to Facebook, YouTube and Twitter, where videos of the protests were being widely shared, was restricted.

Dianne Feinstein to resume Senate duties after long absence due to illness

US Senator Dianne Feinstein, 89, will return to Washington on Tuesday after a months-long absence due to illness, her spokesperson said, restoring Democrats’ 51-49 majority to full strength.

The 89-year-old California Democrat announced in early March that she had been hospitalized in San Francisco and was being treated for a case of shingles. But an expected return later that month never happened. She last voted in the Senate in February and her absence has spurred calls for her to resign.

Few details emerged on Feinstein’s condition and some Democrats openly complained that her lengthy absence was compromising the Democratic agenda in the Senate, including slowing the push to confirm Joe Biden’s judicial nominees. Some in the House urged her to step down.

Earlier this month, Feinstein said in a statement that “there has been no slowdown”. ...

Feinstein’s office said she was traveling and expected to be in Washington on Tuesday evening. It wasn’t immediately clear when she would appear in the Senate for evening votes.

‘They were little’: photos show children illegally working in US slaughterhouse

Harrowing photos released by the US labor department taken at a slaughterhouse plant in Nebraska show the conditions more than 100 children faced while illegally working for Packers Sanitation Services Incorporated (PSSI) before the department cracked down on the company for violating child labor laws.

The pictures show employees covered in protective gear, using chemicals to spray down and sanitize equipment. In some of the pictures, made public on Sunday by the television news show 60 Minutes, some of the employees appear to be young children, wearing protective face glasses and holding buckets.

In February, the labor department fined PSSI $1.5m for employing at least 102 children ages 13 to 17 across 13 meat-packing plants in eight states. The fine amounts to $15,138 for each child, the maximum penalty under federal law. The Wisconsin-based company is one of the largest food sanitation companies in the US and is contracted by meat plants to sanitize facilities. The company says it works with more than 725 partner plants.

The department started its investigation into PSSI in August 2022 after a middle school in Grand Island, Nebraska, notified police that a 14-year-old student came to school with acid burns on her hands and knees. The girl told staff that she was working night shifts at a local slaughterhouse plant. Teachers also noticed that other students were falling asleep in class after reportedly working at the plant at night.

Clarence Thomas Reversed Position After Gifts And Family Payments

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas changed his position on one of America’s most significant regulatory doctrines after his wife reportedly accepted secret payments from a shadowy conservative network pushing for the change. Thomas’ shift also came while he was receiving lavish gifts from a billionaire linked to other groups criticizing the same doctrine — which is now headed back to the high court.

The so-called “Chevron deference” doctrine stipulates that the executive branch — not the federal courts — has the power to interpret laws passed by Congress in certain circumstances. Conservatives for years have fought to overturn the doctrine, a move that would empower legal challenges to federal agency regulations on everything from climate policy to workplace safety to overtime pay.

Thomas wrote a landmark Supreme Court opinion upholding the doctrine in 2005, but began questioning it a decade later, before eventually renouncing his past opinion in 2020 and claiming that the doctrine itself might be unconstitutional. Now, Thomas could help overturn the doctrine in a new case the high court just agreed to hear next term.

Groups within the conservative legal movement funded by Leonard Leo’s dark money network and affiliated with Thomas’ billionaire benefactor Harlan Crow have organized a concerted effort in recent years to overturn Chevron. That campaign unfolded as they delivered gifts and cash to Thomas and his family in the lead-up to his shift on the doctrine.

David Miranda's Courageous Life And Legacy

David Miranda, campaigner and former Brazilian congressman, dies aged 37

Brazilian politicians, celebrities and social activists have paid tribute to the vivacious, loving and combative former congressman and campaigner David Miranda who has died in Rio de Janeiro aged 37. President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva celebrated the “extraordinary trajectory” of the favela-born politician who served in the country’s congress between 2019 and 2022 and was a powerful voice of resistance during the far-right administration of Jair Bolsonaro.

The death of Miranda, who was also a columnist for Guardian US, was announced on Tuesday by his husband, the American journalist and lawyer Glenn Greenwald, with whom he raised two adopted sons, João and Jonathan. “He would have turned 38 tomorrow,” Greenwald tweeted. “He died in full peace, surrounded by our children and family and friends.”

Miranda was admitted to hospital last August with a severe gastrointestinal infection and died early on Tuesday after nine months in intensive care. ...

Greenwald, 56, remembered how his husband had been born in Jacarezinho, one of Rio’s most deprived favelas, and been orphaned at the age of five after the death of his mother.

Despite those humble origins, Miranda rose to become the first gay man elected to Rio’s city council and played an important role in 2013’s Edward Snowden leaks, which Greenwald spearheaded. That year, Miranda was controversially detained for nine – hours at London’s Heathrow airport as he travelled back to Rio with memory sticks containing documents relating to that project.

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Trump GUILTY And NOT Guilty In Trial

Rep. George Santos INDICTED For Fraud, When Are THE REST OF CONGRESS Getting Charged?

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Italian oil firm Eni faces lawsuit alleging early knowledge of climate crisis

The Italian oil major Eni is facing the country’s first climate lawsuit, with environmental groups alleging the company used “lobbying and greenwashing” to push for more fossil fuels despite having known about the risks its product posed since 1970. Greenpeace Italy and the Italian advocacy group ReCommon aim to build on a similar case targeting the Anglo-Dutch oil major Royal Dutch Shell in the Netherlands to force Eni to slash its carbon emissions by 45% by 2030. ...

The allegations rest in part on a study Eni commissioned between 1969 and 1970 from its Isvet research centre, which has been shared with the Guardian by the nonprofit climate news service DeSmog. The report made clear that left unchecked, rising fossil fuel use could lead to a climate crisis within just a few decades. “[C]arbon dioxide in the atmosphere, according to a recent report by the UN secretary, given the increased use of [fossil fuels], has increased over the last century by an average of 10% worldwide; around the year 2000 this increase could reach 25%, with ‘catastrophic’ consequences on climate,” the report said.

Greenpeace Italy and ReCommon have also unearthed a 1978 report produced by Eni’s Tecneco company, which included a projection of how much atmospheric CO2 levels would rise by the turn of the century. “It is assumed that with the increasing consumption of fossil fuels, which began with the Industrial Revolution, the CO2 concentration will reach 375-400 [parts per million or ppm] in the year 2000,” stated the report. “This increase is considered by some scientists as a possible long-term problem, especially since it could change the thermal balance of the atmosphere leading to climate changes with serious consequences for the biosphere.”

This prediction would prove to be broadly accurate. Between 1970 and 2000, Earth’s atmospheric CO2 concentration rose from 325ppm to 371ppm. It is now about 420ppm. Further research by DeSmog has shown that Eni’s company magazine Ecos made repeated references to climate change during the late 1980s and 1990s – while running advertising campaigns promoting planet-warming natural gas as a “clean” fuel.

Shell shareholders should oust chair, says influential adviser

An influential investment adviser has added its weight to a move to oust the Shell chair, Sir Andrew Mackenzie, at next week’s annual shareholder meeting as a row over the energy company’s climate goals intensifies.

Pirc, which advises shareholders on how to vote at annual meetings, has recommended that investors vote against Mackenzie’s re-election and oppose its annual report to “hold board members to account”.

The Church of England has also said it plans to vote to oust Mackenzie, as well as recently appointed chief executive Wael Sawan, at the event at the ExCeL centre in London on 23 May.

Shell has faced repeated criticism from green campaigners who claim its climate goals are not ambitious enough and are not aligned with the target of limiting global heating to 1.5C over industrial levels.

In a report to investors, Pirc said that “while Shell has short and medium-term targets, there is specific concern that these targets are not aligned to a 1.5 degree pathway which is not heavily reliant on carbon offsetting”.

‘Mind-boggling’ methane emissions from Turkmenistan revealed

Methane leaks alone from Turkmenistan’s two main fossil fuel fields caused more global heating in 2022 than the entire carbon emissions of the UK, satellite data has revealed. Emissions of the potent greenhouse gas from the oil- and gas-rich country are “mind-boggling”, and an “infuriating” problem that should be easy to fix, experts have told the Guardian.

The data produced by Kayrros for the Guardian found that the western fossil fuel field in Turkmenistan, on the Caspian coast, leaked 2.6m tonnes of methane in 2022. The eastern field emitted 1.8m tonnes. Together, the two fields released emissions equivalent to 366m tonnes of CO2, more than the UK’s annual emissions, which are the 17th-biggest in the world.

Methane emissions have surged alarmingly since 2007 and this acceleration may be the biggest threat to keeping below 1.5C of global heating, according to scientists. It also seriously risks triggering catastrophic climate tipping points, researchers say.

The Guardian recently revealed that Turkmenistan was the worst in the world for methane “super emitting” leaks. Separate research suggests a switch from the flaring of methane to venting may be behind some of these vast outpourings.

Flaring is used to burn unwanted gas, putting CO2 into the atmosphere, but is easy to detect and has been increasingly frowned upon in recent years. Venting simply releases the invisible methane into the air unburned, which, until recent developments in satellite technology, had been hard to detect. Methane traps 80 times more heat than CO2 over 20 years, making venting far worse for the climate.

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Also of Interest

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

Denial Of Reality

The Guardian’s ‘Anti-Semitism’ Incident

Neo-Nazi terror threat grows as Ukraine fighters jailed in France

The Nord Stream Explosions: New Revelations About Motive, Means and Opportunity

Troubled Pakistan Arrests Former PM Imran Khan

Academic Study Finds that One of the Four Largest U.S. Banks Could Be at Risk of a Bank Run

Peter Pan Bonds to the Debt Ceiling Rescue?

US ethics watchdog calls on Clarence Thomas to resign over undisclosed gifts

Some of the first humans in the Americas came from China, study finds

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A Little Night Music

Ervin Rucker - Baby You Were Meant For Me

Ervin Rucker - Hideout

Ervin Rucker - So Good

Ervin Rucker & Mattie Jackson - I Want to Do It

Ervin Rucker - Searching For Love

Ervin Rucker and His Blues Nighthawks - Two People In Love

Ervin Rucker and The Blues Blenders - If You Have It

Probably not the same Ervin Rucker, but what the heck...

Ervin Rucker - She's Alright

Big Daddy Rucker - Jealous Man

Big Daddy Rucker - You Got Me Movin'

Big Daddy Rucker - Just Do Your Thing

Ervin (Big Boy) Groves - You Can't Beat the Horses

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