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This evening's music features early blues banjo player Papa Charlie Jackson. Enjoy!

"The US won WW2 and then immediately plunged into the Cold War. The US won the Cold War and then immediately set to work destroying the Middle East. The US destroyed the Middle East and then immediately started another cold war in preparation for another world war. The US is war.

A normal country wages war with the goal of getting back to peacetime. The US wages war with the goal of getting to the next war."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Zelenskiy fails in effort to secure invitation to join Nato at Vilnius summit

Volodymyr Zelenskiy has failed in a last-ditch effort to secure an invitation for Ukraine to join Nato after leaders of the 31 countries signed off on a declaration that did not give a firm timetable or clear conditions for its eventual membership. The frustrated Ukrainian president had accused Joe Biden and other leaders present at a summit in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius, of showing disrespect and complained that there was “no readiness” to invite his country to join.

But the dramatic lunchtime intervention on Tuesday had no impact on the final summit communique, issued a few hours later. It said that while “Ukraine’s future is in Nato”, the alliance would only “extend an invitation to Ukraine” when Kyiv had completed certain “democratic and security sector reforms”.

Zelenskiy said, in a statement issued after the communique: “Today I embarked on a trip here with faith in decisions, with faith in partners, with faith in a strong Nato. In a Nato that does not hesitate, does not waste time and does not look back at any aggressor … And I would like this faith to become confidence.”

The communique’s language reflects opposition from Germany and the US that too firm a commitment could prompt an escalation from Russia and, if Ukraine was allowed to join the alliance while the conflict continued, it could ultimately bring Nato into a war against Moscow.

Ukraine Bad Day: Attack Fails, Heavy Losses, Leopard 2s, Ru Captures Bradley; NATO Turns Back on Ukr

White House Says Ukraine Joining NATO Means War With Russia

The White House said Tuesday that NATO membership for Ukraine isn’t going to happen anytime soon since it would mean war with Russia. “Of course, they are at war right now. So, NATO membership in the immediate future isn’t likely because that would put NATO at war with Russia,” White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby told CNN.

President Biden made similar comments in a recent interview. A direct war between NATO and Russia could quickly escalate into a nuclear conflict, but despite that reality, some ultra-hawks in Washington are pushing for Ukraine to join the alliance.

“I will be working with Republicans and Democrats in the Senate to pass a resolution urging the admission of Ukraine into NATO,” Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) wrote on Twitter on July 7.

Graham claimed an “overwhelming majority of Senators supporting this proposition,” but his idea faced backlash from some Republicans, and there’s no sign that his proposal is moving forward.

NATO Summit: Will Ukraine’s Demand to Join Military Alliance Help Prolong the War?

The Undisclosed Arms Industry Ties of Those Pushing for More Weapons to Ukraine

The NATO Summit this week is emerging as an opportunity for Ukraine to press its case for membership in the alliance and expand on the military aid it has received from alliance members. On July 5, Politico published a letter “by 46 foreign policy experts” urging Ukraine’s membership into NATO and increasing the supply of Western weapons to Kyiv.

Left undisclosed by Politico: nearly half of the signatories hold positions at organizations that receive considerable financial support from weapons companies, consultancies and lobby-shops servicing weapons industry clients, or weapons companies themselves.

The letter’s signatories, many of whom have a financial stake in a ballooning Pentagon budget and congressional approval for the export of sophisticated weapons, repeatedly cite the need for greater weapons transfers to Ukraine as a central tenet of their justification for Ukraine’s NATO membership.

“[NATO heads of state and government] should further underscore their readiness to supply Ukraine weapons — including longer-range missiles such as ATACMS, Western fighter planes and tanks — in sufficient quantities to prevail on the battlefield,” says the letter. “This will demonstrate the allies’ unequivocal commitment to Ukrainian victory and send a clear message to Moscow that its military situation in Ukraine will only grow worse the longer the conflict continues.”

Returning to weapons again at the end of the letter, the signatories said, “The allies should also approve the updated Comprehensive Assistance Package to facilitate Ukraine attaining full interoperability with NATO forces and making a comprehensive transition to NATO standards.”

“The focus should be on the transition to Western weapons systems; creation of a modern, NATO-compatible air and missile defense system; creation of a medical rehabilitation system for wounded soldiers, as well as a system for soldier reintegration into civilian life and a comprehensive demining effort,” they concluded. Indeed, support for increasing Western military aid to Ukraine is not a view exclusively held by those with direct or indirect links to the weapons industry, but signatories of the letter are noticeably embedded in the financial umbrella of institutions and businesses with direct financial ties to some of the world’s largest weapons firms.

[More detail of the usual corruption at link. - js]

France to Send Ukraine SCALP Long-Range Missiles: Macron

France will provide Ukraine with SCALP long-range cruise missiles to help Kyiv’s forces strike targets deep behind Russian lines, President Emmanuel Macron said Tuesday.

Arriving at a NATO summit focused on Kyiv’s battle against Moscow’s invasion, Macron said Paris would send the SCALP missile, already supplied by London under the name “Storm Shadow.”

Macron said the new missile delivery was designed to allow Ukraine to strike at Russian occupation forces “in depth” during its counteroffensive to liberate its territory.

Trump says Biden ‘dragging’ US ‘into World War III’ by sending Ukraine cluster bombs

Former President Trump ripped President Biden for his decision to send Ukraine cluster bombs and claimed Biden was “dragging” the United States “into World War III” by making the controversial decision.

“Joe Biden should not be dragging us further toward World War III by sending cluster munitions to Ukraine—he should be trying to END the war and stop the horrific death and destruction being caused by an incompetent administration. These unexploded cluster munitions will be killing and maiming innocent Ukrainian men, women, and children for decades to come, long after the war—we pray—has ended,” Trump said in a statement Tuesday. ...

In his statement, Trump railed on Biden for his resolve to supply Ukraine with a vast supply of weapons and said, “We should not be sending Ukraine our last stockpiles at a time when our own arsenals, according to Crooked Joe Biden, are so perilously diminished.”

Trump also called for a de-escalation of the war in Ukraine but did not specify what steps to take to do so.

“Joe Biden is needlessly and dangerously leading us into World War III, which would be a nightmare beyond imagination—obliteration! We must stop this insanity, immediately end the bloodshed in Ukraine, and return to a focus on America’s vital interests,” Trump wrote in the statement.

US aid policies undermined success of Afghanistan mission, says watchdog chief

America’s huge, badly-coordinated and politically-driven aid programme in Afghanistan engendered the corruption that undermined its entire mission and turned Afghans away from the western coalition, according to the head of a US aid watchdog. “We did not really understand Afghanistan or how it worked as a country,” John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction (Sigar), told a conference at the defence and security thinktank the Royal United Services Institute.

“We sent so much money so quickly into so poor a country with so little oversight we were actually giving more money than the gross domestic product of Afghanistan for so many years,” Sopko said. He said unrealistic timelines set by Washington and Brussels had “led to a desire to show success”.

“We do not want to be honest and as a result we learned how to do the wrong thing perfectly by checking boxes. We focused on inputs but never looked at the outcomes,” he said, giving the example of the US checking whether hospitals were built but not whether they were being used. Sopko was speaking on Monday at the conference in London, where UK and US aid watchdogs shared their perspectives on why the billions spent in Afghanistan had ended with the Taliban capturing the country so easily.

Sir Hugh Bayley, a commissioner of the UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact (Icai), said the west did not understand local traditions, culture or capacity. He said the UK parliament needed to end its “optimism bias” and demand the truth from aid workers on the ground. He revealed that UK diplomats had been advocating with the US for a different political approach from about 2015, but were unable to persuade the Americans to broaden the base of a centralised Pashtun-focused Afghan government. ...

Nigel Thornton, a lead analyst at Icai, who has interviewed hundreds of former UK diplomats and aid workers in Afghanistan, said the UK’s aid programme was intended to build a state in the service of security. He said the UK knows from decades of learning what an effective aid programme looks like, and it took until 2016 for the country to acknowledge that it would take decades for a viable state to be built, and this would require engagement with the Taliban to secure political legitimacy. “It is hard to build legitimacy with people when the government is kicking down their doors at night,” he said.

The UK prioritised the transatlantic relationship rather than challenge US priorities, he added.

Dems' Wealth Tax Bill Would Extend Social Security Solvency by 75+ Years: Analysis

Legislation recently introduced by a pair of Democratic U.S. lawmakers to save Social Security for generations to come would extend the vital social program's lifespan by at least 75 years, according to a federal analysis published Tuesday.

The Medicare and Social Security Fair Share Act—introduced in April by Senate Budget Committee Chair Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), with a companion bill put forth Tuesday by Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.) in the House—"would extend Social Security solvency indefinitely by making the nation's highest earners contribute their fair share," Boyle's office said in a statement Tuesday.

The bill would require taxpayers making more than $400,000 annually to contribute more to Medicare, while closing legal loopholes and also ensuring "that wealthy owners of pass-through businesses like hedge funds and private equity firms with more than $400,000 in annual income cannot avoid Medicare taxes."

The Democrats say that, if passed, their bill would also "extend Medicare solvency by an estimated 20 years."

According to an analysis by the Social Security Administration's Office of the Chief Actuary, if enacted, the legislation's provisions would be sufficient to "pay scheduled benefits in full and on time throughout the 75-year projection period."

Georgia grand jury selected in Trump case over attempt to overturn 2020 defeat

A grand jury selected in Georgia on Tuesday is expected to say whether Donald Trump and associates should face criminal charges over their attempt to overturn the former president’s defeat by Joe Biden in the 2020 election.

The district attorney of Fulton county, Fani Willis, has indicated she expects to obtain indictments between the end of July and the middle of August. Trump also faces possible federal charges over his election subversion, culminating in his incitement of the deadly January 6 attack on Congress.

Trump already faces trials on 71 criminal charges: 34 in New York over hush money payments to the porn star Stormy Daniels and 37 in Florida, from federal prosecutors and regarding his retention of classified documents after leaving office.

His legal jeopardy does not stop there. In a civil case in New York, Trump was fined about $5m after being found liable for sexual abuse and defamation against the writer E Jean Carroll. Another civil case, concerning Trump’s business practices, continues in the same state.

Grand jury selection for the Georgia case comes at a febrile moment in US society. Denying all wrongdoing and claiming political persecution, Trump remains the clear frontrunner for the Republican nomination to face Biden again at the polls next year.

The New Yorker smears RFK Jr.

‘Missing witness’ who accuses Biden of China corruption charged with being China agent

A US thinktank chief who accuses Joe Biden of China-linked corruption involving his son, Hunter Biden, and who has been presented by Republicans as a “missing” witness against the president, was charged with China-linked offenses including failing to register as a foreign agent, arms trafficking and violations of sanctions on Iran.

Gal Luft, 57 and a dual US-Israeli citizen, is co-director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security (IAGS), based in Maryland, near Washington.

An indictment handed down in November was unsealed on Monday with Luft described as a fugitive, having skipped bail in Cyprus in April while awaiting extradition. Announcing the charges, Damian Williams, US attorney for the southern district of New York, said Luft “engaged in multiple, serious criminal schemes.

“He subverted foreign agent registration laws in the United States to seek to promote Chinese policies by acting through a former high-ranking US government official; he acted as a broker in deals for dangerous weapons and Iranian oil; and he told multiple lies about his crimes to law enforcement.”

News of the charges seemed guaranteed to infuriate Republicans in Congress seeking to use Hunter Biden’s troubled personal life and business dealings in attacks on his father, potentially including attempts to bring about impeachment proceedings. Last Friday, James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House oversight committee, told the rightwing network Newsmax Luft was “a credible witness that the FBI flew all the way to Brussels to interview and sent several agents to interview”.

Earlier, in a video published by the New York Post, Luft denied wrongdoing. He was arrested, he claimed, to stop him testifying to Comer’s committee about alleged China-linked corruption involving the Bidens.

GOP FINALLY Getting Answers On Hunter Biden Investigation; FBI Director Wray GRILLED On Capitol Hill

Manchin Fumes as Federal Court Halts Mountain Valley Pipeline Construction

A three-judge panel from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit on Monday temporarily blocked the construction of a section of the Mountain Valley Pipeline that runs through Jefferson National Forest, pending a conservation group's petition to review the federal government's authorization of the fossil fuel infrastructure development.

"Time and time again, Mountain Valley has tried to force its dangerous pipeline through the Jefferson National Forest, devastating communities in its wake and racking up violations," Ben Tettlebaum, director and senior staff attorney at The Wilderness Society, said in a statement. "We're grateful that the court has given those communities a measure of reprieve by hitting the brakes on construction across our public lands, sparing them from further irreversible damage while this important case proceeds."

Work on unfinished portions of the 303-mile Mountain Valley Pipeline (MVP) was fast-tracked last month via the debt ceiling agreement that President Joe Biden, shunning his options for unilateral action, forged with House Republicans who took the global economy hostage.

Construction of the $6.6 billion fracked gas project—pushed hard by the GOP and Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.), a coal profiteer and Congress' top recipient of Big Oil money—has been halted by courts for years due to concerns about the harms it would unleash on people and ecosystems in Virginia, West Virginia, and beyond.

But Section 324 of the so-called Fiscal Responsibility Act of 2023 required federal authorities to approve all of MVP's outstanding permits, prohibited judicial review of those permits, and said only the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals has jurisdiction to hear challenges to the provision's constitutionality.

Citing Section 324, MVP's developers and multiple government agencies filed motions last month to dismiss lawsuits against the pipeline. On behalf of The Wilderness Society, the Southern Environmental Law Center (SELC) filed a brief opposing those motions on June 26, arguing that Section 324 is unconstitutional because it violates the separation of powers.

In response to the stay issued by the Fourth Circuit on Monday, Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC said: "This is not the court to hear that claim. Congress, in plain terms, gave the D.C. Circuit 'exclusive jurisdiction' to hear such claims... Congress' message was crystal clear: If you want to challenge Section 324, you must do so in the D.C. Circuit."

In a similar vein, Manchin asserted that the Fourth Circuit lacks jurisdiction over MVP permits, rendering its new order unlawful.

But as The Wilderness Society and SELC explained last month, their two cases against the pipeline challenge "defective approvals by the United States Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management allowing the MVP to cross the Jefferson National Forest in Virginia and West Virginia." Because both lawsuits predate the passage of Section 324 and allege violations of several environmental laws as well as the Administrative Procedure Act, the groups argued, the Fourth Circuit does have jurisdiction.

"Mountain Valley could not build their pipeline in compliance with the law, so they appealed to Congress to interfere with the courts, skirting both our legal system and Constitution," Chase Huntley, vice president of Strategy and Policy at The Wilderness Society, said two weeks ago. "The MVP rider buried in the Fiscal Responsibility Act attempts to ram through the pipeline, forcing it onto communities who have spoken out against its devastating impacts for nearly a decade."

"Because bedrock environmental laws stood in the pipeline's path, Mountain Valley convinced Congress to reach beyond its powers and decide in Mountain Valley's favor, circumventing the courts," said Huntley. "We're fighting to make sure our challenge to the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management's approvals for the pipeline to cross the Jefferson National Forest has its rightful day in court." ...

In a Tuesday morning statement, Equitrans Midstream—which holds the largest interest among MVP stakeholders and plans to manage the pipeline once operational—said it was "disappointed" with the Fourth Circuit's stay and claimed the judges exceeded their authority.

"We are evaluating all legal options, which include filing an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court," the company said. "Unless this decision is promptly reversed, it would jeopardize Mountain Valley's ability to complete construction by year-end 2023."

MVP is one of several new fossil fuel projects being built or considered in the U.S. despite mounting evidence of the worsening climate crisis—and in direct conflict with the international scientific consensus, which has long warned that increasing the extraction and combustion of coal, oil, and gas will exacerbate deadly planetary heating.

As extreme weather disasters continue to wreak havoc across the U.S. and the world, Biden is facing growing pressure to declare a national climate emergency, which advocates say would unlock additional powers his administration could use to rein in the fossil fuel industry and ramp up clean energy production. Congressional Republicans, meanwhile, are currently trying to preempt the president from making such a move.

‘Uncharted territory’: UN declares first week of July world’s hottest ever recorded

The beginning of July was the hottest week on record for the planet as a whole, according to the World Meteorological Organization. This year had already seen the hottest June on record, the UN body said, driven by climate change and the early stages of an El Niño weather pattern. It is the latest in a series of records halfway through a year that has seen a drought in Spain and fierce heatwaves in China as well as the US.

“The world just had the hottest week on record, according to preliminary data,” the WMO said in a statement, adding that temperatures were breaking records on land and in the oceans, with “potentially devastating impacts on ecosystems and the environment”.

“We are in uncharted territory and we can expect more records to fall as El Niño develops further and these impacts will extend into 2024,” said Christopher Hewitt, WMO director of climate services. “This is worrying news for the planet.”

Global sea surface temperatures were at record highs for the time of the year both in May and June, said Hewitt. “It is not only the surface temperature, but the whole ocean is becoming warmer and absorbing energy that will remain there for hundreds of years.”

“If the oceans are warming considerably, that has a knock-on effect on the atmosphere, on sea ice and ice worldwide,” said Michael Sparrow, chief of the world climate research programme at the WMO. But Sparrow said El Niño’s effects would probably be felt more acutely later in the year. “El Niño hasn’t really got going yet,” he said.

“A Climate-Changed World”: Vermont Confronts Historic Flooding Again, 12 Years After Hurricane Irene

Vermont capital cut off by floodwaters as dam threatens to overflow

A Vermont reservoir on Tuesday risked overwhelming a dam protecting the state’s capital and exacerbating “catastrophic” flooding that has already shut roadways leading out of town and trapped some residents in their homes.

The dangerous storm that has dumped up to two months’ worth of rain on Vermont in two days has cut off the capital of Montpelier from the rest of the state while the deadly deluge that saturated parts of New England and New York continues to spark flash flood warnings.

Many communities are marooned by high water, and a dam is threatening to overflow just upstream from Montpelier, where floodwater is already waist-high, while many roads on Tuesday remained closed in Vermont including several along the spine of the Green Mountains and in upstate New York.

The National Weather Service has issued flash flood warnings and advisories across Vermont from the Massachusetts line north to the Canadian border, and called the inundation catastrophic. In the south and west, states were blistering under a worsening heatwave, as the US embarked on another week of extreme weather and experts warned that the human-caused climate crisis was driving the record-breaking conditions.

Northern lights could be visible in more than a dozen US states this week

The northern lights may present themselves in more than a dozen states this week as a geomagnetic storm makes them more visible at lower latitudes than usual.

On Wednesday and Thursday, the lights – also known as aurora borealis – have the potential to be seen, weather permitting, in parts of Washington, Idaho, Vermont, Wyoming, New Hampshire, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Maryland, Ohio, Wisconsin, Michigan, New York, Maine, according to forecasters at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. ...

The storm is slated to be the strongest on Thursday and the colors will intensify, according to the forecasters at the university’s Geophysical Institute.

“Moderate” northern light activity is also expected on Friday, visible in parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan, NBC News reported. ...

Noaa also provides forecasts of the northern lights, and maps of where the display is most likely to be seen.

Also of Interest

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

NATO's Big Climb Down

The US Is War: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

NATO summit in Vilnius: War plotting at the site of a historic crime

British intelligence in the dock for CIA torture

Seymour Hersh: Gitmo’s Permanent Chains

US colleges and universities are ‘selling access’ to supreme court justices

California faces backlash as it weighs historic reparations for Black residents

Is Peru About to Descend Into Another Wave of Political Violence, This Time With US Troops on the Ground?

Permafrost Tipping Point Almost Certainly Reached

Nuclear bomb fallout chosen to define start of Anthropocene

Seafood industry joins chorus of groups calling for halt to deep-sea mining plans

A Little Night Music

Papa Charlie Jackson - You Put It In, I'll Take It Out

Papa Charlie Jackson - I'm Looking for a Woman Who Knows How to Treat Me Right

Papa Charlie Jackson - Take Me Back Blues

Papa Charlie Jackson - Papa's Lawdy Lawdy Blues

Papa Charlie Jackson - Salt Lake City Blues

Papa Charlie Jackson - Four Eleven Forty Four

Papa Charlie Jackson - Shake That Thing (Alternate Take)

Papa Charlie Jackson - I'm Alabama Bound

Papa Charlie Jackson - Jungle Man Blues

Papa Charlie Jackson - If I Got What You Want