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“Our country is now geared to an arms economy bred in an artificially induced psychosis of war hysteria and an incessant propaganda of fear.”

-- General Douglas MacArthur

News and Opinion

The winners are...

America’s top 5 weapons contractors made $196B in 2022

American weapons makers continue to dominate the global arms industry, with four U.S.-based companies in the world’s top five military contractors, according to a new Defense News ranking of the top 100 defense firms.

In 2022, America’s top five weapons contractors made $196 billion in military-related revenue, according to Defense News. Lockheed Martin dominated all other defense-focused companies, with total military revenue of roughly $63 billion last year. RTX, formerly known as Raytheon Technologies, was a distant second, earning roughly $40 billion in revenue in 2022.

The same five American “prime” contractors have long dominated lists of the world’s biggest arms manufacturers. Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, Boeing and General Dynamics have remained in the top seven of the Defense News ranking since it began in 2000. ...

The new dataset highlights the extent to which American military contractors rely on government contracts to stay afloat. In 2022, U.S.-based primes got 71 percent of their total revenue from public contracts. Lockheed Martin is by far the most reliant on taxpayer dollars, earning 96 percent of its total revenue from military contracts.

NBC Cites Balloon ‘Threat’ in Fawning Coverage of NORAD

The “Chinese Spy Balloon” has been an important story for fueling New Cold War animus against China, but it is based on a dubious premise. While the phrase “Chinese Spy Balloon” has been repeated ad nauseam in the US press (FAIR.org, 2/10/23),  no publicly available information exists to support that claim (Caitlin’s Newsletter, 2/14/23). While some officials still claim without proof that “we know for sure it was a spy vehicle,” the level of fearmongering from the press was certainly unwarranted. US intelligence agencies had actually tracked the balloon since its launch at Hainan Island (Washington Post, 2/14/23), and after intercepting the balloon with fighter jets, according to the head of NORAD, they quickly “determined it wasn’t a hostile threat” (NBC News, 7/20/23).

Even if the balloon was spying, the Pentagon quickly asserted that there would not be “significant value added over and above what the PRC is likely able to collect through things like satellites in Low Earth Orbit.” Or as the Pentagon spokesperson put it: “Does it pose a significantly enhanced threat on the intelligence side? Our best assessment right now is that it does not.” Another Pentagon official later acknowledged that the balloon “did not collect [intelligence] while it was transiting the United States or flying over the United States.”

Based on weather models, the Washington Post (2/14/23) noted that the most likely cause of the balloon’s unusual course was unexpected wind patterns, raising “the possibility that China didn’t intend to penetrate the American heartland with its airborne surveillance device.”

Despite the lack of any clear threat, the Biden administration blew it out of the sky, along with several other balloons. According to Biden himself (2/16/23), these latter balloons were all “most likely balloons tied to private companies, recreation or research institutions studying weather or conducting other scientific research.” This was almost certainly true in at least one case (Guardian, 2/17/23).

This hysterical reaction by the US not only had consequences on the global stage, but also had the effect of riling up the US public in anti-China fury. As a complement to that, it was also used to fuel concern about our ostensibly inferior military systems, giving advocates an opportunity to demand more resources for the war machine. NBC’s recent segment, “Inside NORAD’s Mission to Defend US Airspace” (7/24/23), is a prime example about how to leverage balloon hysteria into boosting the military/industrial complex.

The factual content of the segment, presented by NBC fixture Lester Holt, is as follows: NBC recounted the Chinese balloon episode, and toured an Alaskan NORAD base. Base personnel’s routine missions include flying air tankers to refuel F22s, so they can intercept other harmless balloons. The technology they have is more than capable of tracking balloons, but NORAD is seeking new technology anyway.

As plain facts, the story hardly comes across as a “story.” However, the stage-managed presentation served a dramatically different purpose. NBC’s framing is structured so that the new technology NORAD is seeking is portrayed as an important part of America’s defense.

For the NBC report, the first Chinese balloon wasn’t a non-event blown out of proportion, but something that “shined a light” on the “strategic importance” of Alaskan military bases “as adversaries like Russia and China demonstrate new capabilities.” NBC didn’t bother including the Pentagon’s admissions that the balloon was not an intelligence threat, or the likelihood that it drifted into US airspace by accident. Instead, it allowed the earlier pervasive assumption that the balloon represented some kind of crisis to justify the rest of the coverage.

The entire segment also fails to cite any “new capabilities” demonstrated by Russia or China. In fact, if anything, NBC described an even lower intensity than normal: Holt reported that there have actually been fewer Russian planes getting anywhere near US airspace since the Russo-Ukrainian war started. Despite this, Holt asked F16 instructor pilot Maj. Brent Rist, “Is the threat level increasing?” More remarkably, the pilot responded, “I think the threat level is increasing.” If there are fewer Russian planes, then what would the threat be? Nothing was said to support this or follow up, but the key line was delivered unchallenged.

NBC announced that the routine interceptions of other harmless balloons were “critical” missions, citing another balloon interception “just weeks after that infamous Chinese balloon crossed the US.” Here, too, NBC decided not to address the actual threat that this balloon posed, so the audience was left to accept on faith that this and similar missions are in fact “critical.”

At one point, Holt asked a radar operations commander whether or not NORAD’s technology was capable of detecting those kinds of balloons. The answer was a resounding yes; the commander explained that the warning systems were set to alert for objects traveling at higher velocity, but operators have since adjusted their warnings to look for other objects.

The segment immediately cut from there to reporting about how NORAD was looking for new technology that could “see over the horizon.” Instead of questioning why NORAD needed new technology, despite the demonstrated lack of threat and the adequate capability of current systems, NBC used the common neutral news segue “this comes as”—a phrase that implies a relationship without having to explain what exactly it is. That slippery language hid the obvious contradiction between the lack of threat and the desire to increase costs.

NBC’s report went to great lengths to avoid questioning the most expensive institution in the federal government. Instead, the segment was tailor-made to appeal to the common American reverence for the military. Images of men in uniform looking serious, complex machinery whirring away, suited-up pilots and action shots of soaring jets that could have been from Top Gun, and Lester Holt on a military plane, with distorted audio as he addressed the audience through his radio headset. All of this heightened the idea that the military is exciting, thrilling and important. The fact that their “critical” job consists of attacking harmless balloons didn’t get in the way of promoting the militaristic American mythos. The message of NBC’s reporting was clear: Russia and China are coming, and we need a robust military to defend ourselves from these threats. The balloon was just a practice run for more threats from Russia and China. The images on screen did the job of reinforcing this message, despite the fact that there was no logical argument about any danger presented to the audience.

But propaganda isn’t about creating a coherent position, but rather about eliciting an emotional response from the audience. This segment can best be compared to an advertisement: Instead of selling shoes, soap or cars, they’re selling a rapidly expanding budget for the machinery of global empire. Much like the over-reliance on think tanks funded by military contractors (FAIR.org, 6/30/23), this sort of coverage contributes to the overall hawkish character of US corporate media.

All of this relies on the internal assumptions of the New Cold War paradigm, in which the US is facing off against Russia and China in a quest for global dominance. As in the old Cold War, much of the escalation comes from US strategy, but American audiences are kept in the dark about that.

Rus Broad Kharkov Advance, Ukr Short on Weapons; Wang Yi Lavrov Call, Nuland Ultimatum to Niger

Tensions rise as Belarus begins military drills near Poland and Lithuania

Belarus has begun military exercises near its border with Poland and Lithuania, as tensions heighten with the two Nato members over Russia-linked Wagner mercenaries who moved to Belarus after their short-lived mutiny in Russia. ...

Leaders of the two Nato nations have said they are braced for provocations from Moscow and Minsk in a sensitive area where both countries border Belarus as well as the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. The comments were made early in August after two Belarusian helicopters flew briefly at low altitude into Polish airspace. Belarusian authorities denied their helicopters entered Poland.

The Belarusian defence ministry said the drills that began on Monday are based on experiences from “the special military operation” – the term Russia uses for its war in Ukraine. It said that includes the “use of drones as well as the close interaction of tank and motorised rifle units with units of other branches of the armed forces”.

The war games were taking place in the Grodno region of Belarus, near the so-called Suwalki Gap – a sparsely populated stretch of land running 96km (60 miles) along the Polish-Lithuanian border. It links the three Baltic states of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia with the rest of the Nato alliance and separates Belarus from Kaliningrad, a heavily militarised Russian exclave on the Baltic Sea that has no land connection to Russia.

No other nation on earth comes anywhere close to these numbers in the 21st century. The US is indisputably the most murderous and depraved government on this planet. https://t.co/GR9ZT0seOM

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) July 28, 2023

Zelensky Aide Vows There Will Be ‘No Compromise’ With Moscow

An aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed Monday that there will be “no compromise” with Moscow to end the fighting in Ukraine and rejected the idea of a ceasefire.

Mykhailo Podolyak said the only “foundation for negotiations” could be Zelensky’s “peace formula,” which calls for a full Russian withdrawal before peace talks can happen. ...

The comments came after a report from The Wall Street Journal suggested Kyiv might be softening its stance on peace talks. The report recapped talks on the war held in Saudi Arabia over the weekend that were attended by officials from 42 countries, including the US, Ukraine, and China.

War with Iran? U.S. Deploys Marines to Guard Commercial Ships in the Persian Gulf

With Marines on Persian Gulf Vessels, Biden Is Risking War With Iran

The Washington Post reports that Biden is embarking on a “remarkable escalation” in the Persian Gulf that could lead to a U.S.-Iran war. He is reportedly preparing to authorize U.S. Marines and sailors to be stationed on interested commercial vessels in an effort to thwart Iran from seizing oil tankers in the region.

Biden is primarily responsible for having created this situation due to two policy paths he has chosen.

First, he chose to negotiate America’s return to the JCPOA rather than reentering it via executive order while also disregarding many of the key factors that made Obama’s diplomacy with Iran successful.

Iran has undoubtedly created its fair share of problems in the talks. But by choosing a negotiated return, Biden also chose to keep Trump’s sanctions in place — even though key Biden officials are on record blasting Trump’s max pressure strategy as a dismal failure.

But today, Trump’s maximum pressure strategy is Biden’s. One element of it has been to confiscate Iranian oil on the high seas — in contradiction to international law — as a way to enforce US sanctions on Iran. Predictably, Iran responded by targeting oil shipments of countries that collaborated with Biden on this matter. This has then prompted Biden to beef up U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf to prevent Iranian actions that only began as a result of Biden’s own policies.

Abu Ghraib Torture Lawsuit Heads to Trial, 15 Years in the Making

Vanuatu PM faces no-confidence vote as rivals cite ‘foreign engagement’ concerns

Vanuatu’s opposition has moved to oust prime minister Ishmael Kalsakau, citing “foreign engagement” and the signing of a bilateral security agreement with Australia among its list of grievances. A group led by former prime minister and opposition leader Bob Loughman, who himself drew criticism for signing agreements with China while in office, urged for the immediate election of a new prime minister in a motion of no confidence submitted to parliament last week.

Loughman claims in the document that the “independence and impartiality” of the Pacific nation is being “compromised” because of Kalsakau’s “foreign engagement” which includes a security deal he signed with Australia last December. “Prime Minister Maau’koro [Kalsakau] without the authorisation from the Council of Ministers did proceed to execute the Security Pact with a development partner.”

The motion doesn’t name Australia but the deal struck between the two countries last year is the only security pact Kalsakau has signed during his term.

“The Hon Prime Minister and his Government must conduct its relations impartially and not allow our independent and sovereign nation to be sucked into a game it does not want and to be used inappropriately by competing nations to exert dominance in our region,” the motion stated.

Junta leaders in Niger refuse to let top US official meet ousted president

Junta leaders in Niger have refused to let a senior US official meet the West African country’s ousted president and rejected her calls to restore democracy after last month’s coup. Victoria Nuland, the US acting deputy secretary of state, described “frank and difficult” talks during a two-hour meeting in the Nigerien capital, Niamey, on Monday, as the rebellious commanders again refused to give in to international pressure to stand down.

Nuland told reporters that she met with officers including Brig Gen Moussa Salaou Barmou, who has been named the new military chief of staff. But the junta did not respond to her requests to meet Niger’s self-proclaimed new leader, Gen Abdourahamane Tiani – or the detained elected president, Mohamed Bazoum, who is under house arrest and claims he is being held hostage. “These conversations were extremely frank and at times quite difficult,” Nuland told reporters by telephone as she prepared to fly out of Niamey.

Her comments came as the West African bloc, Ecowas, prepares to meet on Thursday after the coup leaders ignored a deadline to reinstate Bazoum – a move the bloc had earlier warned could lead it to authorise a military intervention.

Nuland described the mutinous officers as unreceptive to the US urging them to return the country to civilian rule.

“This was a first conversation in which the United States was offering its good offices if there is a desire on the part of the people who are responsible for this to return to the constitutional order,” she said. “I would not say that we were in any way taken up on that offer.” She said she also warned there would be consequences for Niger’s relations with the US if the junta does not restore Bazoum or follows the path of neighbouring Mali in calling in Russia’s Wagner mercenaries.

Facebook Files: CENSORSHIP Actually Made People MORE Vax Skeptical, Govt IGNORED

Ex-officer sentenced to nearly five years for role in George Floyd’s murder

A former Minneapolis police officer convicted in state court for his role in the killing of George Floyd was sentenced on Monday to four years and nine months in state prison even as he continued to deny any role in Floyd’s death.

Tou Thao, who had held crowds back as other officers restrained Floyd, was found guilty of aiding and abetting second-degree manslaughter by a jury in May. He had claimed that he merely served as a “human traffic cone” during the deadly encounter.

At the hearing, Thao said that he was “distressed” by Floyd’s death but denied any role in it. “I did not commit these crimes,” he said. “My conscience is clear. I will not be a Judas nor join a mob in self-preservation or betray my God.”

Presiding Hennepin county judge Peter Cahill responded that after thee years of reflection, he was “hoping for a little more remorse” from Thao and a little less “preaching”.

In a 177-page ruling, Cahill said Thao’s actions separated Chauvin and two other former officers, Alexander Kueng and Thomas Lane, from the crowd. “There is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Thao’s actions were objectively unreasonable from the perspective of a reasonable police officer, when viewed under the totality of the circumstances,” Cahill wrote.

Prosecutors seek to prevent Trump from sharing January 6 case evidence

Federal prosecutors asked a federal judge to reject Donald Trump’s request for fewer restrictions over how he can publicly share evidence in the case involving his efforts to subvert the 2020 election, arguing the former president was seeking to abuse the discovery process. “The defendant seeks to use the discovery material to litigate this case in the media,” prosecutors wrote in an eight-page brief on Monday. “But that is contrary to the purpose of criminal discovery, which is to afford defendants the ability to prepare for and mount a defense in court.”

The court filings, submitted to US district court judge Tanya Chutkan, who is overseeing the case, highlighted comments made over the weekend by Trump lawyer John Lauro about former vice-president Mike Pence being a potential witness to stress the importance of strict restrictions. ...

Trump has characterized the indictment, charging him with four felonies over his attempt to obstruct the congressional certification of Joe Biden’s election win on 6 January 2021 and overturn the results of the 2020 election, as a political witch-hunt and infringing on his first amendment rights. To that end, his lawyers filed a brief earlier on Monday asking the judge to issue a less restrictive protective order, a routine step in criminal cases to ensure evidence turned over to defendants in discovery is used to help construct a defense and not to chill witnesses.

The 29-page document asked for various accommodations, such as giving Trump the ability to make public any transcripts of witness interviews that are not protected by grand jury secrecy rules, and to expand the circle of people who could gain access to the discovery material.

Biden IMPEACHMENT This FALL: Report. GOP’s Anna Paulina Luna Says She’s SEEN ENOUGH, Time to GO

Prosecutors may not need to show that Trump knew he had lost the election

Included in the indictment last week against Donald Trump for his efforts to subvert the 2020 presidential election was a count of obstructing an official proceeding – the attempt to stop the vote certification in Congress on the day his supporters mounted the January 6 Capitol attack. The count is notable, because – based on a review of previous judicial rulings in other cases where the charge has been brought – it may be one where prosecutors will not need to prove Trump knew he lost the election, as the former president’s legal team has repeatedly claimed.

The obstruction of an official proceeding statute has four parts, but in Trump’s case what is at issue is the final element: whether the defendant acted corruptly.

The definition of “corruptly” is currently under review by the US court of appeals for the DC circuit in the case titled United States v Robertson. Yet previous rulings by district court judges and a different three-judge panel in the DC circuit in an earlier case suggest how it will apply to Trump.

In short: even with the most conservative interpretation, prosecutors at trial may not need to show that Trump knew his lies about 2020 election fraud to be false, or that the ex-president knew he had lost to Joe Biden.

“There’s no need to prove that Trump knew he lost the election to establish corrupt intent,” said Norman Eisen, special counsel to the House judiciary committee in the first Trump impeachment. “The benefit under the statute is the presidency itself – and Trump clearly knew that without his unlawful actions, Congress was going to certify Biden as the winner of the election. That’s all the corrupt intent you need,” Eisen said.

Dem Congressman THREATENS Biden Primary Challenge

Air pollution linked to rise in antibiotic resistance that imperils human health

Air pollution is helping to drive a rise in antibiotic resistance that poses a significant threat to human health worldwide, a global study suggests. The analysis, using data from more than 100 countries spanning nearly two decades, indicates that increased air pollution is linked with rising antibiotic resistance across every country and continent. It also suggests the link between the two has strengthened over time, with increases in air pollution levels coinciding with larger rises in antibiotic resistance.

“Our analysis presents strong evidence that increasing levels of air pollution are associated with increased risk of antibiotic resistance,” researchers from China and the UK wrote. “This analysis is the first to show how air pollution affects antibiotic resistance globally.” Their findings are published in the Lancet Planetary Health journal.

Antibiotic resistance is one of the fastest-growing threats to global health. It can affect people of any age in any country and is already killing 1.3 million people a year, according to estimates.

The study did not look at the science of why the two might be linked. Evidence suggests that particulate matter PM2.5 can contain antibiotic-resistant bacteria and resistance genes, which may be transferred between environments and inhaled directly by humans, the authors said.

US utilities oppose Biden efforts to make gas power plants cleaner

The main lobbying group for US electric utilities plans to oppose a Biden administration proposal to curb greenhouse gas emissions from existing gas power plants, raising questions about the industry’s commitment to reducing planet-heating pollution. ...

The power plant rules, first proposed in May, would force power providers to clean up certain large coal- and gas-fired plants, either by installing new greener technologies or shutting the projects down. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is asking states and utilities to submit plans on how they choose to limit those emissions within 24 months of the rules’ final approval. Public comments must be submitted by 8 August.

EEI is circulating a draft comment on the rule to its member groups which were described by first-hand sources to Craig Segall, vice-president of policy at Evergreen Action. The draft says EPA’s proposed transition timelines are too strict and that the technology it would require is difficult to install, Segall said. EEI has previously asked the EPA to exclude these power plants from its emission-reduction rule in a series of white papers submitted to the agency. ...

EEI’s resistance to the new standards clashes voters’ beliefs, new polling from Evergreen and Data for Progress suggests. A majority of all likely voters support EPA proposed pollution standards and also want utility companies to prioritize renewable energy like wind and solar over fossil fuels, according to the data.

A bipartisan majority also opposed utility companies using money from energy bills to fund political activities such as lobbying and issuing public comments, according to the poll, which was based on an online survey of 1,216 diverse likely US voters conducted in late July.

Climate change: July was world's hottest on record, EU scientists say

More than half of Earth’s species live in the soil, study finds

More than half of all species live in the soil, according to a study that has found it is the single most species-rich habitat on Earth. Soil was known to hold a wealth of life, but this new figure doubles what scientists estimated in 2006, when they suggested 25% of life was soil-based.

The paper, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, found it is home to 90% of fungi, 85% of plants and more than 50% of bacteria. At 3%, mammals are the group least associated with soils. “Here, we show that soil is likely home to 59% of life including everything from microbes to mammals, making it the singular most biodiverse habitat on Earth,” researchers write in the paper, which is a review of existing literature. The actual figure could be even higher as soils are so understudied, they say.

Before this study, scientists did not know what the most species-rich habitat was, says the lead researcher, Dr Mark Anthony, an ecologist at the Swiss Federal Research Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research. “In my research circle, many suspected it should be soil but there was no evidence.”

He added: “Organisms in soil play an outweighed impact on the balance of our planet. Their biodiversity matters because soil life affects climate change feedbacks, global food security, and even human health.”

Also of Interest

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

Democrats Don’t Care About Trump’s Real Crimes: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

A Look at the Amount of US Spending Powering Ukraine's Defense

Ukraine Has Lost & A Negotiated Peace Is The Only Sane & Humane Solution

Quod Licet Iovi

The Road That Could Ignite a War in the Caucasus

Patrick Lawrence: The Mess Democrats Have Made

Despite Promises of Reform, Private Prison Companies Still Thriving Under Biden: ACLU

‘The trauma is ongoing’: Canadian First Nation flees wildfire for second time in two years

Jimmy Dore’s Wikipedia Page Edited By CIA!

A Little Night Music

Alvin Robinson - Something You Got

Alvin Robinson - Soulful Woman

Alvin Robinson - Whatever You Had You Ain't Got No More

Alvin Robinson - Let The Good Times Roll

Alvin Robinson - I'm Gonna Put Some Hurt On You

Alvin Robinson - The Blues

Alvin Robinson - Cry, Cry, Cry

Alvin Robinson - Sho' bout to drive me wild

Alvin Robinson - Bottom of My Soul

Alvin Robinson - Searchin'

Alvin Robinson - Baby Don't You Do It