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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Smokin' Joe Kubek

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Texas blues-rock guitarist Smokin' Joe Kubek. Enjoy!

^{Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - Cornbread}

"Power does not corrupt men; fools, however, if they get into a position of power, corrupt power."

-- George Bernard Shaw

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News and Opinion

ASSANGE APPEAL: The US-UK Deception

Here's a portion of the transcript, the rest is here.

Cathy Vogan

So that’s 52 seconds long. And of course, the strikes through it, how you mark the prison days and the five candles represent the five birthdays that Julian has spent in Belmarsh. But the quote is from the Assange appeal. And I’ve just finished reading the whole 150 pages of the appeal, and I’m pulling out the most important, a lot of them new points for me.

I know, and you know the case very well. We’ve been following it for, what, 13 years? Something like that. So there were things that leapt out at me, things I knew about already, but more detail, some transcripts, very important points. And well, one of the things was that we thought that there was a political exception in the extradition treaty, but not in the act.

But the defense argues that there is a political exception in the ACT, Section 81 where you can’t extradite somebody for their political opinions, and that is grouped together with other forms, alongside other forms of discrimination like race and nationality. But then they go on to point out that Julian’s opinion against torture is universal. It’s what they call a jus cogens prohibition.

It means that every court in the world is not only against torture, not only regards it as a crime, but it is the responsibility of that court to listen to reports of torture and do whatever they can to prevent it from happening again. So it’s very powerful, Section 81. They should have recognized it. It says there, that exposing crime, including state crime, is a protected political act.

And so I thought that was one of the most powerful points that they made in the appeal. It kind of represents, I don’t know, maybe about the first 30 pages, and they argue it out. But one of the most important parts of that is about the International Criminal Court, and that not only WikiLeaks, but Julian Assange, his very presence is essential in the International Criminal Court to prosecute C.I.A. torture.

And they argue that this ratcheting up of the charges and the cumulative years – some countries serve sentences for different crimes concurrently, but the U.S. just adds them up. So in his case, it comes to well beyond his natural life. It means that he can never get to the International Criminal Court to testify and thus impunity for the C.I.A. is protected.

And they point out that that is part of the nefarious motivation behind this prosecution. It’s just one of the things that is in the 150 page appeal. Kristinn Hrafnsson has his doubts as to whether Justice Swift actually read it, because there’s a lot of other things, terrible mistakes that the district judge (Vanessa Baraitser) made in the face of the evidence that was presented to her.

She misinterpreted it. Maybe some of it went above her head. The forensics went above her head. One of the things I learned that was totally new to me was all that the evidence that the forensic examiner Patrick Eller gave, as a result of that, the U.S. retracted the allegation that the whole purpose of cracking this hash password was to hide Chelsea Manning’s identity.

So the U.S. retracted that because it had been shown that it was nonsense. Just before the ruling came out. But somehow the prosecution managed to persuade her that, oh, it could still be of some relevance to a jury. And there was absolutely no evidence for that. But more widely, I became familiar with the Zakrzewsky abuse. That comes from a 2013 case in Poland, where it was articulated that the evidence, or the facts of a case, when it is given in accompaniment to an extradition request must be fair, proper and accurate. Right?

And in fact, they go on to point out that a lot of the information that was given to the courts and this is this point about “the U.S. misled U.K. courts and the core facts of the case”. I was only aware of the forensics because I’m a technical person, but there were three areas, the most wanted list, the forensics and all the forensics was stuff that they knew since Chelsea Manning’s court martial.

They distorted their own evidence and finally they led the court to believe that only WikiLeaks had published the unredacted cables, and they omitted all of the information about Cryptome, the Pirate Bay and hundreds of other websites that this information was published on first. And this points to — now this is crucial, this is absolutely crucial, because it points to a difference between the Official Secrets Act and the Espionage Act.

So it’s a strict liability in the latter case, but in the Official Secrets Act, if information has been made public already and is available worldwide, as it was on hundreds of websites, it is not an offense to republish it. And this comes from that famous Spycatcher case, right? Which one of our prime ministers, Malcolm Turnbull, he was the barrister who defended that.

It was regarded as being an unwinnable case. And our prime minister pointed out this difference between the Espionage Act and the Official Secrets Act. So that was absolutely crucial evidence, because in fact, withheld, it did not reveal that there was dual criminality. So there you go. That’s been filling my head for the last several days, and I’m writing about that now.

Worth a full read:

NATO’s Scorched Earth in Ukraine

Hope of a policy breakthrough in Vilnius, Lithuania towards peace in Ukraine, spearheaded by the war-weary East Europeans, seems to have drained away. There is general acceptance in NATO that the Ukrainian summer offensives in Zaporizhie and again now in Bakhmut have failed to dent Russian defences, with horrific mortality in Ukrainian manpower and enormous destruction of Western-supplied equipment. The West seems content to let Zelensky go on wasting Ukraine’s increasingly scarce military-age men in a process described by writer Raúl Ilargi Meijer as NATO’s assisted suicide of the Ukrainian nation.

The NATO unspoken strategy seems to be: we know Russia is inevitably winning in Ukraine, but we will make sure we and our Kiev proxies destroy as much as possible of Ukraine’s manpower and national wealth before Russia takes control of the country. The Kakhovka dam is gone, and what is left of Zaporizhie Nuclear Power Plant seems increasingly at risk of West-assisted Ukrainian sabotage. These two huge assets were the pivots of Ukraine’s industrial and agricultural potential and wealth.

When Russia wins political control over the ruined land of Ukraine, and after it repudiates Western carpetbagging claims to asset ownership there, it will face a huge rebuilding job, comparable to the situation the Soviet Union faced in Ukraine after the 1944-45 vengeful scorched-earth actions by the retreating Nazi divisions.

NEOCONS Held SECRET Talks With Russia About Ukraine: Report

Biden didn’t authorise secret US-Russia talks over Ukraine war, White House says

President Joe Biden’s administration did not sanction or support secret meetings that former top US national security officials held with the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and other Russians on potential talks to end the Ukraine war, the White House and state department have said. NBC News reported that the former US officials met Lavrov in New York in April, joined by Richard Haass, a former US diplomat and outgoing president of the council on foreign relations, and two former White House aides.

It was not clear how frequently the group, which included former Pentagon officials, held discussions with other prominent Russians thought to be close to the Kremlin, NBC News reported. At least one unidentified group member travelled to Russia, it said. ...

The White House national security spokesperson, John Kirby, also told CBS News the White House was aware of the unofficial discussions. “But I want to make it clear that these discussions were not encouraged or engendered by us and we were not supporting them in any active way,” he continued. “As the president has said, nothing about Ukraine without Ukraine.”

US to provide controversial cluster munitions to Ukraine as part of new military aid package

US expected to provide cluster bombs to Ukraine

Human Rights Watch has called on Russia and Ukraine to stop using cluster bombs, and urged the US not to supply the munitions to Kyiv, amid reports the Biden administration is poised to include the controversial weapons in a new military aid package.

Russian and Ukraine forces have used cluster bombs, which break apart in the air and release large numbers of smaller bomblets across a wide area.

The bomblets are designed to detonate on hitting the ground, but do not always explode, posing a risk to civilians for years afterwards. The weapons, first used in the second world war, were banned by more than 120 nations under the Convention on Cluster Munitions in 2008. Russia, Ukraine and the US have all declined to sign the treaty.

Kyiv has urged members of the US Congress to press the White House to approve sending over cluster bombs. US officials say cluster bombs would be effective for Ukraine against Russian forces in strong defensive positions.

Neocons warn Biden White House, Don’t Let Ukraine Join NATO

Ukraine Defense Minister Says His Country Is Great ‘Testing Ground’ for Western Arms

Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov told Financial Times in an interview published Wednesday that his country serves as an ideal “testing ground” for Western weaponry.

Reznikov said that Ukraine’s Western backers can see how their weapons work in a war against Russia to see if they’re efficient or need upgrades. “For the military industry of the world, you can’t invent a better testing ground,” he said. ...

Reznikov said Russia has countered some of the Western weaponry, including the HIMARS rocket systems, which fire GPS-guided munitions. He said the HIMARS were “highly accurate” when first delivered but that Russia has found ways to jam the system.

“The Russians come up with a countermeasure, we inform our partners and they make a new countermeasure against this countermeasure,” Reznikov said.

Chinese defense spokesperson slams US arms sales to Taiwan

"China is firmly opposed to US arms sales to Taiwan and has lodged stern representations with the US," said Senior Colonel Tan Kefei, spokesperson for China's Ministry of National Defense, when answering a media query on Wednesday.

It is reported that on June 29 local time the US State Department approved a sale of ammunition and logistics supply support to Taiwan valued at up to $440 million.

Senior Colonel Tan pointed out the US has disregarded China's core concerns, grossly interfered in China's internal affairs and deliberately escalated tensions across the Taiwan Strait, which is tantamount to turning Taiwan into a "powder keg" and pushing the people of Taiwan into an abyss of disaster.

"Directly Complicit": Shadi Hamid on How Obama Greenlighted 2013 Egypt Coup, Killing the Arab Spring

Toothless:

UN condemns Israel’s use of excessive force in attack on Palestine

In a rare condemnation of Israel, the UN has denounced the country’s excessive use of force in its largest military operation in two decades targeting a refugee camp in the West Bank.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, clearly angered by the impact of the Israeli attack on the Jenin refugee camp, said it had left more than 100 civilians injured, forced thousands to flee, damaged schools and hospitals and disrupted water and electricity networks.

He also criticised Israel for preventing injured people from receiving medical care and humanitarian workers from reaching those in need.

“I strongly condemn all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror,” Guterres said on Thursday. Asked whether this condemnation applied to Israel, he replied: “It applies to all use of excessive force, and obviously in this situation, there was an excessive force used by Israeli forces.”

The UN chief called on Israel “to abide by its obligations under international law”, exercise restraint and use only proportional force.

France police shooting: Judge extends detention of police officer who killed Nahel

50+ Economists Rebuke Top Dem Senator for Denying Harmful Impacts of US Sanctions

More than 50 leading political economy researchers on Wednesday published a letter exhorting U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez to "stop spreading the false narrative that there is no association between economic sanctions and the economic and humanitarian crises in countries targeted by those sanctions."

The scholars' intervention comes in response to a recent exchange between Menendez (D-N.J.), chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and nearly two dozen House Democrats.

In a May 10 letter, U.S. Reps. Veronica Escobar (D-Texas), Raúl Grijalva (D-Ariz.), and 19 of their colleagues—a combination of lawmakers whose jurisdictions lie near the southern border and progressives from around the country—urged President Joe Biden to reverse Trump-era sanctions against Cuba and Venezuela in order to ease economic crises that have contributed substantially to increased emigration from the two countries.

The following day, Menendez condemned the call. In a letter to Escobar and Grijalva, Menendez denied that U.S. sanctions have played a key role in pushing tens of thousands of Cubans and Venezuelans to leave their homes and asserted that blame for the ongoing exodus lies entirely with the nations' respective presidents, Miguel Díaz-Canel and Nicolás Maduro.

Wednesday's letter—signed by economists Ha-Joon Chang and Jayati Ghosh, historian Greg Grandin, and sociologist Saskia Sassen, among others—debunks the senator's claims. As the academic and policy experts told Menendez:

Unlike Rep. Escobar's letter, your letter fails to cite any research or evidence supporting your central claim that U.S. economic sanctions have not been a significant driver of migration from Cuba and Venezuela. This is hardly surprising, as there is in fact no serious research supporting this claim. In contrast, as a recent report on the human consequences of sanctions has highlighted, dozens of peer-reviewed academic studies document the substantive negative—and often lethal—effects of economic sanctions on people's living conditions in target countries.

In August 2017, former U.S. President Donald Trump, who sought to topple Maduro's elected government, began to unilaterally impose sanctions on Venezuela in violation of international law as well as the charter of the Organization of American States and other international treaties the U.S. has signed. While Trump's bid to provoke regime change in the South American country was unsuccessful, U.S. sanctions "killed tens of thousands of Venezuelans in just their first year (2017-18), and almost certainly tens of thousands more since then," according to the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a progressive think tank where four signatories of Wednesday's letter work.

In the wake of Venezuelan opposition figure Juan Guaido's failed U.S.-backed coup in August 2019, Trump moved to further strangle the Venezuelan economy—and ultimately, its population—by enacting a full economic embargo. Trump's executive order froze all Venezuelan government assets and outlawed transactions with them, including the state's central bank and oil company.

U.S. Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.) has long drawn attention to the deadly consequences of U.S. sanctions and in June 2021 implored the Biden administration to end "all secondary and sectoral sanctions imposed on Venezuela by the Trump administration." Biden, however, continues to uphold his predecessor's devastating blockade.

Much more at the link:

US ruling class sets the stage for a massive attack on Social Security and Medicare

A major editorial published Wednesday by the New York Times under the headline “America Is Living on Borrowed Money” gives the signal from the leading corporate media organ aligned with the Democratic Party for a full-scale onslaught on social benefits for working people, particularly Social Security and Medicare, the two largest social programs. The editorial is thoroughly dishonest, purporting to be concerned about the rise in interest payments to investors, declaring, “Rather than collecting taxes from the wealthy, the government is paying the wealthy to borrow their money.” It then bemoans the refusal of the Republicans to raise taxes on the wealthy.

But after the populist pretenses, the real point is slipped in at the end:

Democrats must recognize that changes to Social Security and Medicare, the major drivers of federal spending growth going forward, should be on the table. Anything less will prove fiscally unsustainable. That will require painful choices.

There is no doubt that the sole purpose of the editorial is to raise the necessity for what is euphemistically called “entitlement reform” in the think tanks that study the policy options for the US ruling elite. In plain language, this means gutting the two main programs on which tens of millions of elderly and retired people depend for income support and health insurance.

The reference to Social Security and Medicare as “the major drivers of federal spending growth going forward” is particularly cynical. It amounts to a backhanded admission that these programs are not the cause of the massive ballooning of the federal debt over the past 25 years, while claiming that they will play that role in the future. The editorial never mentions the multiple bailouts of Wall Street and the banking system or the massive expenditures on the wars of the past three decades. It does not refer, in its warning of future deficit growth, to President Biden’s pledge to fund the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine “for as long as it takes.”

Dems Unleash Police To CRUSH 'Cop City' Protesters

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'Bidenomics' FAIL? POTUS Brags About Job Numbers Despite Americans' Inflation NIGHTMARE

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‘Revolutionary’ solar power cell innovations break key energy threshold

Solar power cells have raced past the key milestone of 30% energy efficiency, after innovations by multiple research groups around the world. The feat makes this a “revolutionary” year, according to one expert, and could accelerate the rollout of solar power.

Today’s solar panels use silicon-based cells but are rapidly approaching their maximum conversion of sunlight to electricity of 29%. At the same time, the installation rate of solar power needs to increase tenfold in order to tackle the climate crisis, according to scientists.

The breakthrough is adding a layer of perovskite, another semiconductor, on top of the silicon layer. This captures blue light from the visible spectrum, while the silicon captures red light, boosting the total light captured overall. With more energy absorbed per cell, the cost of solar electricity is even cheaper, and deployment can proceed faster to help keep global heating under control.

The perovskite-silicon “tandem” cells have been under research for about a decade, but recent technical improvements have now pushed them past the 30% milestone. Experts said that if the scaling-up of production of the tandem cells proceeds smoothly, they could be commercially available within five years, about the same time silicon-only cells reach their maximum efficiency.

Two groups published the details of their efficiency breakthroughs in the journal Science on Thursday, and at least two others are known to have pushed well beyond 30%.

Brazil: Amazon deforestation drops 34% in first six months under Lula

After four years of rising destruction in Brazil’s Amazon, deforestation dropped by 33.6% during the first six months of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva’s term, according to new government satellite data.

From January to June the rainforest had alerts covering 2,650 sq km (1,023 sq miles), down from 4,000 sq km during the same period last year under former president Jair Bolsonaro. This year’s data includes a 41% plunge in alerts for June, which marks the start of the dry season when deforestation tends to jump.

“The effort of reversing the curve of growth has been reached. That is a fact: we reversed the curve; deforestation isn’t increasing,” João Paulo Capobianco, the environment ministry’s executive secretary, said during a presentation in Brasilia.

Capobianco noted that full-year results will depend on a few challenging months ahead. Still, the data is an encouraging sign for Lula, who campaigned last year with pledges to rein in illegal logging and undo the environmental devastation during Bolsonaro’s term.

The far-right leader weakened environmental authorities while his insistence on development of the Amazon region resonated with landgrabbers and farmers who had long felt maligned by environmental laws. They were emboldened, and Amazon deforestation surged to a 15-year high.

"Double Agents": Lobbyists for Big Tech, Universities & Eco Groups Also Work for Big Oil

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Also of Interest

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

The Death of Journalism

The impending pro-war Democratic Party takeover of Pacifica Radio

Patrick Lawrence: We Need to Talk About Nahel

NYT Reluctant to Fault Israel for West Bank Aggression

Why French Streets Are on Fire Again

The US banned a brain harming pesticide on food. Why has it slowed a global ban?

Guatemalan Elite Tries to Overturn Democracy, But Anti-Corruption Candidate to Stay in Runoff

Bolsonaro BANNED From Running For Office Until 2030

Kamala Harris' Culture WORD-SALAD, Keep Her Away In The WEST WING: Rising

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A Little Night Music

Smokin' Joe Kubek & B'Nois King - Better Be Getting It On

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - She's Too Busy

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - Texas Cadillac

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Ronnie Earl - Mean Old World

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - Healthy Mama

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - Chain Smokin'

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - Smokin' Joe's Cafe

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - Have Blues, Will Travel

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - My Dog's Still Walkin

Smokin' Joe Kubek & Bnois King - One More Song

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