Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta bluesman Big Joe Williams. Enjoy!

“There's never been a true war that wasn't fought between two sets of people who were certain they were in the right. The really dangerous people believe they are doing whatever they are doing solely and only because it is without question the right thing to do. And that is what makes them dangerous.”

-- Neil Gaiman

News and Opinion

Russia downs British-supplied long-range missile as Zelensky and Sunak declare “jets coalition”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky travelled to the UK Monday for a war summit with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, and to press for more weapons ahead of an expected spring offensive by Kiev’s NATO-armed troops. Central to NATO’s plans to defeat Russia and force regime change in Moscow is aerial supremacy over the Ukrainian battlefield.

Before announcing his arrival in Britain, Zelensky tweeted, “Today—London. The UK is a leader when it comes to expanding our capabilities on the ground and in the air.” Speaking to reporters after the talks, he said, “Today we spoke about the jets” and “We want to create this jet coalition.” This was a “very important topic for us because we can’t control the sky”. Overcoming this was critical to Kiev’s planned counter offensive, with Zelensky telling reporters, “We really need some more time—not too much. We’ll be ready in some time.”

Zelensky met Sunak and Foreign Secretary James Cleverly for talks at the prime minister’s Chequers country residence after his tour of other European capitals—Rome, Berlin and Paris—to secure further pledges of military aid. That the entire European continent is now a tinderbox was made clear by Russia’s announcement—while Sunak was meeting Zelensky—that it had shot down a UK-supplied Storm Shadow cruise missile. Russia’s Defence Ministry said it had also downed shorter-range, US-built HIMARS and HARM missiles.

The Sunak-Zelensky talks took place just 48 hours after Russia’s confirmation that Storm Shadow missiles supplied by Britain struck two industrial sites in the Russian-held city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine. Britain, in close co-ordination with the Biden administration, became the first country to supply Ukraine with long-range missiles capable of hitting Russian-held Crimea, where Moscow bases its geo-politically critical Black Sea fleet. Moscow declared that it would respond militarily to London’s “hostile” action. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told Sky News Monday that Russia took an “extremely negative view”.

Russia destroys collective west weapons, as Zelensky tours Europe

Bad Day for Ukraine: Bakhmut Days from Fall, Missiles Pummel Kiev; Patriot Destroyed; RU Oil Exports

Zelensky Privately Plotted Bold Attacks on Russian Territory

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has privately plotted major attacks inside Russia while pledging publicly that his forces won’t use Western-provided arms to target Russian territory, The Washington Post reported on Saturday.

The report cited leaked Pentagon documents that are part of the Discord leaks and said Zelensky has previously suggested attempting to occupy Russian villages, bomb a Russian pipeline to Hungary, and had expressed concern over the lack of long-range weapons that can strike Russian territory.

According to one document, Zelensky suggested during a meeting in January that Ukrainian forces could “conduct strikes in Russia” and move forces into Russian territory to “occupy unspecified Russian border cities.” The idea of the assault would be “to give Kyiv leverage in talks with Moscow.” ...

Zelensky’s most provocative suggestion came during a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister Yuliya Svrydenko in February, where he proposed “blowing up” the Druzhba pipeline, which provides oil to Hungary, a NATO member. The document says that Zelensky “highlighted that … Ukraine should just blow up the pipeline and destroy likely Hungarian [Prime Minister] Viktor Orban’s industry, which is based heavily on Russian oil.”

China presents itself as a mediator between West, Russia by sending top envoy to Ukraine

China to send special envoy to seek ‘political settlement’ to Ukraine war

China will send a special envoy to Ukraine, Russia and other countries to discuss a “political settlement to the Ukraine crisis”, the Chinese foreign ministry said on Friday.

Li Hui, a former Chinese ambassador to Moscow, will visit Ukraine, Poland, France, Germany and Russia from Monday, spokesperson Wang Wenbin announced at a press conference. ...

Yu Jie, a senior research fellow on China at Chatham House, said Li’s visit “aims to send a signal that China is keen to play a mediation role rather than putting any substantive proposals on the table”.

Yu said China’s audience was not the west but the “large parts of developing countries who do not see this war eye to eye as the collective west does”.

Massive Ukrainian Ammunition Depot Explodes – Is It Radioactive?

Mystery tremors on Danish Baltic island puzzle scientists

A series of minor tremors recorded on the Danish Baltic island of Bornholm has puzzled scientists, who now say they were caused by “acoustic pressure waves from an unknown source”. At first the tremors on Saturday were thought to have been caused by earthquakes. Then, seismologists theorised they originated from controlled explosions in Poland, more than 90 miles (140km) to the south.

On Monday, the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland (Geus), an official body that monitors the underground, said the tremors were “not caused by earthquakes, but by pressure waves from an event in the atmosphere”. However, they came from “an unknown source”.

“The seismologists can report that it is unlikely that the tremors originate from a controlled explosion in Poland, which was carried out shortly before the first reports of tremors on Bornholm,” Geus said.

On Saturday, Geus said it had received “more than 60” tips from people on Bornholm that “earthquake-like tremors” – described as a deep rumbling, shaking and rattling, changing pressure in the ear – had been reported in the afternoon on Bornholm.

Inflation drives US household debt to record $17 trillion

US household debt has hit $17 trillion, the most in history, according to a report issued Monday by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. The figure reveals the enormous financial stress on working class families. Rapidly rising prices for gasoline, food, rent and other basic necessities have devastated household budgets, forcing working people to borrow on their credit cards or take equity out of refinancing their homes to pay their bills.

The report puts the lie to the claims of the Biden administration, echoed by the corporate media, that the US economy is sound, inflation is coming down, and the recent bank failures in California are only a blip on the screen, not an indication of deeper problems. The reality is that tens of millions are living on the edge, one unexpected expense away from disaster.

The figures laid out in the New York Fed report are stark. Total household debt rose by $148 billion in the first three months of 2023, an increase of 0.9 percent compared to the previous quarter. Nearly all major categories of consumer debt rose in the first quarter to record levels. Mortgages topped $12 trillion, student loan balances were $1.6 trillion, and auto loans were $1.56 trillion.

Credit card debt remained the same, at a record $986 billion, but this was also a sign of increased financial pressure. It was the first time in 20 years that this debt has not fallen in the first quarter. Credit card debt usually hits a peak with the Christmas shopping season, then falls in the first quarter as people spend less and use income tax refunds to pay down credit card balances. This seasonal effect did not take place.

Overall consumer debt has shot up by nearly $3 trillion since the end of 2019. This represents a marked reversal from the first two years of the pandemic, when most households were forced to cut their spending as they stayed home because of the danger of coronavirus. Consumer debt actually fell during those years, and household savings jumped by $2.1 trillion as many used government stimulus checks to pay off debt. According to a report last week by the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, this “excess” saving has been nearly exhausted. Only $500 billion remains, which will be gone by the end of this year, removing that cushion against the twin evils of inflation and recession.

US supreme court pursuing rightwing agenda via ‘shadow docket’, book says

Conservative justices on the US supreme court consciously broke with decades-old congressional rules and norms to shift laws governing religious freedom sharply to the right through a series of shadowy unsigned and unexplained emergency orders, a new book reveals. Five of the six conservatives who now command the majority on the US’s most powerful court have rammed through some of their most contentious and extreme partisan decisions using the so-called “shadow docket” – unsigned orders issued frequently late at night, in literal and metaphorical darkness. The orders do not reveal who voted for them or why, often providing one-line explanations of the legal thinking behind them.

The switch from openly argued cases, aired in public, to the unaccountability of the shadow docket was made purposefully during the pandemic in cases dealing with religious liberty, concludes Stephen Vladeck, an authority on the federal courts at the University of Texas law school. He warns that the trend is merging with the current ethics scandals surrounding the conservative justice Clarence Thomas to damage the legitimacy of the court and threaten a full-blown constitutional crisis.

Vladeck exposes the largely unnoticed shift towards furtive justice in his new book, The Shadow Docket: How the Supreme Court Uses Stealth Rulings to Amass Power and Undermine the Republic. He shows how rightwing justices have abused the court’s emergency powers to run roughshod over the longstanding norm that shadow docket orders should be used sparingly and with extreme caution. Rightwing justices are now deploying such orders dozens of times each term. Over three terms alone, from 2019 to 2022, the court granted emergency relief in more than 60 cases: effectively overturning the considered decisions of lower courts through rushed, unexplained rulings.

Among those orders were decisions that have had profound and nationwide impact over some of the most hotly disputed areas of public life, from abortion to immigration, voting rights, the death penalty and religious practices. Many appear to align more closely with Republican political priorities than with legal principles.

SCOTUS LEGALIZES CORRUPTION For Public Officials

‘America is broken’: FBI criticized for mass-shooting survival video

A newly resurfaced FBI video purportedly training Americans to give themselves their best chance of surviving a deadly mass shooting is drawing scorn across the US and abroad. In the video, released in 2020 by the US’s top law enforcement agency, actors portraying everyday Americans explain to viewers ways in which they could at least survive – or, preferably, even stop – a mass shooting once the bullets start flying.

“If European countries want to deter brain drain to the US they should just play this FBI video to their soon-to-be graduates,” the European tech investor Michael Jackson said on his LinkedIn profile, which has more than 134,000 followers.

Jackson, who shared a link to the video, added that the well-documented gun problem in the US – where rates of mass gun violence are much higher than they are in Europe and in many other parts of the world – was hurting its standing with tourists and its companies’ prospects of hiring talented employees from overseas.

Another typical reaction to the video was on Twitter from an Oklahoma scholarship foundation leader who wrote: “America is broken. Instead of addressing the cause of the carnage, we’re talking about how to survive a massacre like it’s a damn tornado.”

OBAMA, HILLARY CAUGHT In Russia-gate Scheme By Durham Report

Durham Report SLAMS Russia Probe: ‘DEVASTATING to FBI, Does Exonerate Donald Trump’

FBI accused of failures but Durham report finds no deep-state plot against Trump

Special counsel John Durham found no evidence that the US justice department and the FBI conspired in a deep-state plot to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia in 2016, though the report released on Monday found that the FBI’s handling of key aspects of the case were deficient. The Durham report was sharply critical of how the FBI decided to open the counterintelligence investigation into Trump, known as “Crossfire Hurricane”, accusing top officials at the bureau of relying on raw and uncorroborated information to continue the inquiry.

Much of the criticism of the FBI in the roughly 300-page report was already known when the justice department inspector general issued its own report, which raised similar concerns but ultimately concluded that the FBI investigation into Trump was justified. The Durham report was more scathing, finding that the FBI moved quickly on a vague tip about potential contacts between a Trump campaign aide and Russian officials in July 2016 based on “raw, unanalyzed and uncorroborated evidence” in a “departure from how it approached” the Clinton campaign.

Also contained in the report

• Durham said the FBI was more cautious of allegations of foreign influence when it came to the Clinton campaign, and did not pursue evidence in two cases of foreign governments trying to gain influence with Clinton while providing defensive briefings, unlike with the Trump campaign;
• Durham said the FBI was overly reliant on investigative tips from Trump’s political opponents and did not rigorously analyze the information it received, which extended the investigation and led to the appointment of special counsel Robert Mueller to investigate Trump;
• Durham said the FBI decided to move ahead with Crossfire Hurricane despite a lack of information from the intelligence community that corroborated the hypothesis on which it was predicated and FBI agents ignored information that exonerated key people in the case;
• Durham suggested that Crossfire Hurricane was “triggered” by the so-called Steele dossier, when it was in fact based on a tip from an Australian diplomat in London that a Trump campaign aide appeared to have advance knowledge about Russia releasing damaging information on Clinton.

Billionaires Spent Over $1 Billion on 2022 Elections—More Than Any Year in US History

Americans for Tax Fairness on Monday released the group's latest report on "the threat posed to American democracy by billionaire political spenders," revealing that last year their collective congressional campaign contributions topped $1 billion for the first time.

"That 'Billionaires' Billion' was almost three-quarters more than the tycoons' total spending on the last midterms, in 2018, and 300 times more than what billionaires spent on congressional races as recently as a dozen years ago," states the ATF report.

"The Billionaires' Billion—contributed by fewer than 500 individuals—represented about one of every nine dollars raised from all sources in the 2022 elections," the analysis continues, noting that 15 of the nation's richest households were responsible for $658 million, or nearly two-thirds, of the contributions.

"Nearly 80% of billionaire cash—$782 million—went to outside campaign groups," the document adds, and in eight key races that decided which party controlled the Senate, "billionaire donations supported Republican candidates over Democratic ones by almost a 5-1 margin."

Democrats initially secured a slim majority in the Senate—including the two Independents who caucus with the party—after Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.)
won a runoff against GOP challenger Herschel Walker in December, but that victory was quickly tempered when Democratic Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona became an Independent just days later.

Although Republicans lost five of the eight key Senate races, the ATF report explains, not only did billionaire spending encourage candidates to focus on positions favored by their wealthy benefactors, but also, in North Carolina, Ohio, and Wisconsin—won by GOP Sens. Ted Budd, J.D. Vance, and Ron Johnson, respectively—the superrich overwhelmingly backed the party and "Republican billionaires outspent the much smaller pool of Democratic billionaires by at least 9-to-1 in each race."

Intensive farming identified as key factor behind Europe's bird decline

Punishing heatwave grips Pacific north-west as wildfires rage in western Canada

A punishing heatwave will continue to cook the Pacific north-west this week, after millions of people endured a weekend of temperatures that pushed past 90F (32C) and broke early spring records in several cities. The hot, dry weather is fuelling dozens of wildfires across western Canada, where thousands have been evacuated and more than a million acres have already burned.

Temperatures are dropping but forecasters with the National Weather Service warned on Monday that they would remain “between 20-30 degrees above average in the Pacific Northwest throughout this week”. Heat advisories remain in effect in areas of Oregon and Washington into Monday evening. ...

The heat also exacerbated conditions where firefighters across Alberta, Canada, continue to battle 88 active wildfires, 23 of which remain listed as “out of control” by officials on Monday morning.

Also of Interest

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

WaPo Deletes Portion of Zelensky Interview Where He Accuses Paper of Aiding Russia

Ukraine SitRep: Explosion in Khmelnytsky - Bakhmut Evacuation - Longer Range Missiles

Hiroshima survivors urge G7 leaders to unite against atomic weapons

Israel Using Biometric Cameras to Terrorize Palestinians

Turkiye Has Its Own Russiagate as Election Heads to Runoff

FDIC Seizure of Foreign Deposits at SVB Opens Pandora’s Box at JPMorgan Chase and Citi – Which Hold a Combined $1 Trillion in Foreign Deposits with No FDIC Insurance

Mormon church has $100bn ‘clandestine hedge fund’, says whistleblower

Chris Hedges: Sammy Goes to School

Watchdog Group Launches Counter Attack on 'Dangerous Carbon Capture Hype'

"Deplorable": Former Sen. Doug Jones Slams Tuberville for Defending White Nationalists in Military

Rep. Paul Gosar's Ties to Neo-Nazi Movement Under Scrutiny

Trump VINDICATED By Durham Report: Says America Was SCAMMED; Defund FBI?

IRS DUMPS Hunter Biden Investigation Team; Whistleblower Claims RETALIATION

Should The Pulitzer Prizes REVOKE MSM Awards For Spewing Russiagate NONSENSE?

A Little Night Music

Big Joe Williams - Crawlin' King Snake

Big Joe Williams - Baby Please Don't Go

Big Joe Williams - Sloppy Drunk Blues

"Big" Joe Williams - Stack Of Dollars

Big Joe Williams- Rollin & Tumblin

(Big) Joe Williams - P Vine Blues

Big Joe Williams - Banta Rooster Blues

Big Joe Williams - Peach Orchard Mama

Big Joe Williams - Highway 49