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This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Jimmy Johnson. Enjoy!

"The genius of America's endless war machine is that, learning from the unpleasantness of the Vietnam war protests, it has rendered the costs of war largely invisible."

-- Glenn Greenwald

News and Opinion

Ukraine Declares War on Russian Shipping in the Black Sea

A Ukrainian official told POLITICO on Tuesday that all Russian ports and ships, including commercial vessels, are considered legitimate military targets as the war in Ukraine is escalating in the Black Sea.

“Everything the Russians are moving back and forth on the Black Sea are our valid military targets,” said Oleg Ustenko, an economic advisor to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The comments came after Ukraine attacked a Russian commercial port and a Russian tanker. According to Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) sources speaking to the media, the tanker, the Sig, was hit by a sea drone packed with 992 pounds of TNT. The attack blasted a hole in the vessel’s engine room.

West Despairs Ukr No Breakthrough; Rus China Fleet Aleutians, Nigeria Cools Niger Intervention

Report: Biden Expected to Ask Congress for More Ukraine Funding This Week

The White House is expected to formally ask Congress to authorize additional funding for the Ukraine war as soon as this week, Punchbowl News reported on Tuesday, citing sources familiar with the matter.

The funding would be in the form of an “emergency” supplemental bill that would also include money for domestic disaster relief and potentially military aid for Taiwan.

One source said the request is expected to be “north of $10 billion,” but the Biden administration is still working on setting the final number. So far, Congress has authorized $113 billion to spend on the war in Ukraine.

Worth a click and a full read:

US/France Threaten Intervention in Resource-Rich Niger: Fears of War in West Africa

The US and France have threatened foreign intervention to re-install a pro-Western regime in Niger. ... West Africa is rich in natural resources. It is also very strategic for the United States and France. Almost all of West Africa was colonized by France, which committed brutal atrocities in the region. Still today, France maintains neocolonial policies, effectively controlling West African economies by forcing them to use the CFA franc as their national currency. ...

Senegalese development economist Ndongo Samba Sylla described the CFA franc as “a colonial currency, born of France’s need to foster economic integration among the colonies under its administration, and thus control their resources, economic structures and political systems”.Paris dictates the monetary policies and even holds much of the foreign exchange reserves of numerous West African nations, including Niger, Burkina Faso, and Mali. ...

Washington uses its drone bases in Niger, in the heart of the Sahel, to project military dominance in North and West Africa, in coordination with the forces that US Africa Command, or AFRICOM, has deployed across the continent. If Washington loses its ally in Niger, the new nationalist military government may try to close the foreign military bases and kick out the roughly 1000 US soldiers in the country.

Niger’s historically subordinate relationship with the Western powers has not brought the Nigerien people any prosperity. The country is a major producer of gold, but more than 40% of Nigeriens live in extreme poverty. ...

A former State Department official complained to the market intelligence firm that, following coups led by nationalist military officers in Mali and Burkina Faso, “the governments abruptly nationalized the gold mines, pushing industrial giants out”. Soon after the coup in Niger, there were similar reports that the nationalist military government decided to block exports of uranium and gold to the West.

The prospect of a foreign military intervention in Niger and potentially other West African nations is truly on the table. It is by no means an empty threat. ... To give supposed “multilateral” cover to their plans for intervention, the US and France have been working closely with the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). ... Many African activists highlighted the overwhelming hypocrisy of this response and of Western rhetoric about promoting “democracy”. In the past century, the US and European powers have legitimized, supported, and even organized dozens of coups across the Global South, in order to advance their economic and geopolitical interests.

Warmonger Nuland REFUSED Meeting With Deposed Niger Leader After Anti-Western COUP: Analysis

Mali Warns of ‘Catastrophe’ if ECOWAS Intervenes in Niger

A military intervention in Niger by the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) to restore the ousted president could be a “catastrophe,” Mali’s head of diplomacy warned on Monday. ... Neighboring Mali and Burkina Faso, both run by juntas, have expressed their opposition to any use of force against the coup leaders.

“The military force that has been used in other… countries, we see the results — it’s a disaster,” said Malian Foreign Minister Abdoulaye Diop. ... Diop invoked Iraq and Libya as examples of countries that had been invaded in the name of democracy with unsuccessful outcomes.

Nuland, 'frank and difficult' meeting in Niger

China-Philippines dispute could escalate into superpower conflict, say analysts

A territorial dispute between China and the US-aligned Philippines is at increasingly high risk of escalating into a conflict involving the two superpowers, analysts have said, after Chinese coastguards used a water cannon on a Philippine boat. ...

On Saturday, China’s coastguard directed water cannon at a Philippine coastguard resupply vessels en route to the Second Thomas Shoal in the Spratly Islands, which Beijing also claims. Philippine military personnel are living onboard a grounded former warship, the Sierra Madre, deliberately scuttled at the Shoal in 1999 to reinforce Manila’s claims. China’s coastguard also used water cannon against a Philippine supply crew in November 2021.

The Philippine coastguard has accused the Chinese crew of illegal conduct and dangerous manoeuvres, and its government has summoned the Chinese ambassador to lodge a diplomatic protest. Its foreign ministry said it was unable to reach Beijing counterparts during the incident.

The US, EU, France, Japan and Australia were among nations to voice support for the Philippines and concern over China’s actions. Washington also reaffirmed its commitment to obligations under a mutual defence treaty, to defend the Philippines if its public vessels and forces come under armed attack.

Blake Herzinger, a research fellow at the University of Sydney’s United States Studies Centre, said there was “significant escalatory potential” in the Philippine holdings of the South China Sea.

Secret Pakistan Cable Documents US Pressure To REMOVE Imran Khan

Files reveal Nixon role in plot to block Allende from Chilean presidency

Days before Salvador Allende’s confirmation as Chile’s president in 1970, US President Richard Nixon met with a rightwing Chilean media mogul to discuss blocking the socialist leader’s path to the presidency, newly declassified documents have revealed. The documents, published in a new Spanish edition of the Pinochet files by archivist and writer Peter Kornbluh, include Nixon’s agenda for 15 September 1970, which shows a meeting in the Oval Office with Agustín Edwards, the owner of the conservative El Mercurio media group.

A day earlier, Edwards had met CIA director Richard Helms. Notes from that conversation detail the media baron’s observations on various members of the military, prompting Nixon to request a “gameplan” for a coup that would prevent Allende’s inauguration.

Allende had won a slender victory over rival Jorge Alessandri in presidential elections, but with no clear majority, the electoral system at the time required congress to ratify the candidate who would form a government. In secret, and with the support of President Nixon’s White House, a plan was hatched for the military to seize power, dissolve congress and block Allende’s inauguration.

Alongside munitions and payments, Edwards conveyed the military’s demands for “clear and specific guarantees” as well as “assurances they would not be abandoned and ostracized”, according to a memorandum entitled “Conversation with Agustín Edwards, Owner of El Mercurio Chilean Newspaper Chain, 18 September 1970”, which had previously been heavily redacted.

“It is incredible that, 50 years later, we’re still learning key details of how the US were trying to block, thwart, undermine and destabilise the first elected socialist president in Chile,” said Kornbluh. “Chile is one of the most infamous CIA covert operations, and one where you have an explicit link to the president of the United States ordering that you overthrow a democratically elected government. These documents remind us of the malevolence of US foreign policy in Chile.”

Gas Prices SKYROCKET As Biden Humiliated

Starbucks loses court challenge against order to rehire union supporters

A US appeals court on Tuesday rejected Starbucks Corp’s challenge to a ruling requiring the coffee chain to rehire seven employees at a Memphis, Tennessee, store who were allegedly fired for supporting a union.

The decision by the Ohio-based sixth US circuit court of appeals is the first from an appeals court involving a nationwide campaign that has seen workers at more than 300 Starbucks locations vote to unionize.

A three-judge panel said that by firing the workers last year, Starbucks likely discouraged other employees from exercising their rights under US labor law.

“Fear of retaliation will exist unless the Memphis Seven, apparently terminated for their union support, are reinstated,” circuit judge Danny Boggs wrote for the court.

The decision could embolden the National Labor Relations Board, which enforces US labor law, to use the courts to aggressively police Starbucks’ labor practices as they also come under scrutiny from shareholders and the US Congress.

Heh!

Republican senator will ‘burn the military down’ over abortion policy, says Democrat

The Alabama Republican senator Tommy Tuberville is “prepared to burn the military down” with his block on promotions in protest of Pentagon policy on abortion, the Connecticut Democratic senator Chris Murphy said. ...

Last year, the conservative-dominated US supreme court removed the federal right to abortion. Since February, Tuberville has been protesting Pentagon policy that allows service members to travel for abortion care if their state does not provide it.

His method is to place a hold on all promotions to senior ranks that are subject to Senate confirmation, usually a pro forma process carried out with unanimous consent.

Senior military leadership is increasingly severely affected, the US Marine Corps and US army without permanent leaders and the joint chiefs of staff facing a similar predicament when the current chair, Gen Mark Milley, steps down next month. ...

Murphy also said Tuberville, a former football coach and now a prominent Trump supporter, “is not going to back down” because “he thinks he’s become a celebrity folk hero in the fringe right.

“He’s having the time of his life. If you want the military to function, you’re going to have to find a creative way to get around this guy.”

Nina Turner: Ohio Voters Have Rejected GOP Power Grab In Victory for Democracy & Abortion Access

Win for reproductive rights as Ohio voters reject effort to make it harder to amend state constitution

Ohio voters on Tuesday rejected a proposal that would have made it considerably harder to amend the state constitution in a major win for reproductive rights and democracy advocates in the state.

The result means that Ohio will keep its current process for amending the state constitution in place. The procedure first requires voters to collect a certain number of signatures from at least 44 of the state’s 88 counties to send an amendment proposal to the ballot and then a simple majority to pass it.

Issue 1, the proposal under consideration, would have made both of those steps harder. It would have required voters to collect signatures in all 88 counties and then required a supermajority of 60% to pass it. ...

It was the first time since 1926 that Ohio voters cast ballots on a proposed constitutional amendment in August. Republicans, who control the state legislature, rushed the measure to the ballot in an effort to make it harder to pass a referendum to protect abortion rights that’s set for this fall. ...

The rejection also comes as activists are drafting a constitutional amendment that would strip lawmakers of their power to draw district lines and turn it over to a citizen-led commission instead. Last year, Ohio Republicans ignored repeated orders from the supreme court to draw maps that were not severely distorted to their advantage.

"Horrendous": Black Men Tortured By White Mississippi Police “Goon Squad” React to Guilty Pleas

Fulton county prosecutors to seek new 2020 election charges next week

The Fulton county district attorney investigating Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results in the state of Georgia is expected to present evidence to a grand jury and ask it to return indictments as early as next Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the matter.

The prosecutors in the office of district attorney Fani Willis completed its internal reviews for criminal charges in the Trump case weeks ago, the people said. The review process, to identify any weakness with the case, is typically seen as the final step before charges are filed.

Willis has also privately indicated to her senior staff that the prosecutors on the Trump case were sufficiently prepared that they could go to trial tomorrow, the people said.

In the Trump investigation, prosecutors have developed evidence to pursue a sprawling racketeering case that is predicated on a statute about influencing witnesses and computer trespass by Trump operatives in Coffee county, the Guardian has previously reported.

The extent of Trump’s legal jeopardy remains unclear. But the racketeering statute in Georgia is especially expansive and attempts to solicit or coerce certain activity – for instance, Trump’s call to the secretary of state, Brad Raffensperger – could be included in the indictment.

Feinstein Hospitalized AGAIN After Suffering Fall

IMPEACHMENT UPDATE: Biden Accused of OBSTRUCTING Inquiry, Hunter Biden Probe By McCarthy

Fears over Antarctic sea ice as yearly ozone layer hole forms ‘very early’

The hole in the ozone layer has begun to form early this year, prompting warnings that a larger-than-average hole may further warm the Southern Ocean while the level of Antarctic sea ice is at a record low. Satellite data from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts suggests the hole has already begun to form over Antarctica.

Dr Martin Jucker, a lecturer at the Climate Change Research Centre at the University of New South Wales, said the hole usually began forming at the end of September, peaking in October before closing in November or December. ...

The Antarctic ozone hole is an annual thinning of the stratosphere’s ozone layer, which has a high concentration of ozone molecules that absorb ultraviolet radiation from the sun. ... The ozone hole is usually smaller during El Niño years, but modelling by Jucker and collaborators, including Chris Lucas of the Australian Bureau of Meteorology, has suggested it will be larger than usual in 2023, due to long-lasting atmospheric changes after the undersea Tonga volcano explosion in January last year. The modelling has not yet been peer-reviewed. ...

The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano injected “an unprecedented amount” of water vapour into the stratosphere, Jucker said – about 150 megatonnes. ... Ice clouds form in the stratosphere when there is more water vapour than usual, allowing ozone-destroying molecules to gather on ice particles. Jucker said he was concerned about the impact of the hole on Antarctic sea ice, which has hit record lows over the past two years.

“The more UV radiation that reaches Antarctica [and] the Southern Ocean means that there is more energy available to melt ice,” Jucker said. “Now that we have so little sea ice, instead of [reflective] white ice there is very dark blue ocean.

“There is a risk that the Southern Ocean would then heat up even more and then indirectly melt more ice because the water next to the ice is warmer.”

Report Details How Big Ag Overexploitation Is 'Draining the Colorado River Dry'

As the dwindling Colorado River faces a potential "catastrophic collapse" due to the climate-driven loss of trillions of gallons of water, a report published Tuesday shines a spotlight on the dangerous overexploitation of the precious resource by specific sectors of industrial agriculture—and the federal government's failure to address Big Ag's abuses.

The Food & Water Watch report—entitledBig Ag Is Draining the Colorado River Dry—focuses on how "alfalfa farms and the aggressive proliferation of megadairies" are "sucking the Colorado dry," and on "prolonged governmental refusal to rein in the most egregious offenders."

According to the report, "livestock feed crops remain the largest consumers of water in the Colorado River Basin, accounting for 55% of all water used." Among these, alfalfa "consumed 2.2 trillion gallons of water across the seven basin states in 2022 alone."

"This is enough water to meet the indoor household needs of all the nearly 40 million people who rely on the Colorado River system for water for three-and-a-half years," the publication states.

The paper notes that the Almarai Company, a Saudi multinational, "owns 10,000 acres of Arizona farmland, cultivating alfalfa to support dairies in Saudi Arabia; the country banned alfalfa cultivation in 2018 in order to conserve water."

"We cannot save the Colorado River without combating corporate power," the report asserts. "The Colorado River is deeply in crisis, and the solutions are already known."

The Food & Water Watch publication continues:

The arid U.S. West cannot sustain the factory farm system as water shortages continue. States must immediately de-prioritize wasteful industries such as large-scale alfalfa, nut trees, and megadairies. Each of these only contributes to worsening drought and climate change along the river, and continuing along this path only leads to harming communities and ecosystems that are struggling to survive in a hotter climate.

The report recommends:

Passing the Farm System Reform Act (FSRA), which would put a moratorium on new and expanding factory farms and help transition dairy farmers away from factory farms;

Restricting federal conservation dollars from being used to prop up factory farms and alfalfa acreage;

Limiting alfalfa exports;

Banning new megadairies and the expansion of existing ones;

Stopping new and expanding large-scale tree nut and alfalfa acreage;

Helping transition small and medium-sized growers to more geographically appropriate and resilient crops; and

Improving water management practices by defining all water as a public trust resource, not a commodity subject to resource extraction at the expense of the public.

"Without drastic changes, the Colorado River Basin will become increasingly unlivable for tens of millions of people across seven states," Food & Water Watch research director Amanda Starbuck said in a statement. "Ultimately, water is a public resource, not a commodity, and should be treated as such."

Food & Water Watch's report comes ahead of an August 15 deadline for public comment on the Biden administration's proposal to cut water allotments to basin states—a plan the group said fails to tackle Big Ag's resource abuse.

40 million people depend on the Colorado River for water. But the West’s most important river is predicted to shrink up to 30% while Utah lawmakers push to quadruple oil and gas production in the region.

And they’re getting a lot of help from Biden. https://t.co/g3eZnDeVnO

— Mother Jones (@MotherJones) August 6, 2023

The Colorado River historically ran about 1,450 miles from its headwaters high in the Rocky Mountains of northern Colorado through Utah, the Grand Canyon in Arizona, and along Nevada and California's southeastern borders before flowing into the northernmost tip of the Gulf of California in Mexico.

The river—which long sustained Indigenous peoples both before and after the genocidal colonization of the Southwest—provides water to around 40 million people in seven Western states and about 30 Native American tribes.

Western states started allocating the river's water between them in the early 20th century, while massive dams and channels diverted water hundreds of miles away to thirsty desert farms and sprawling cities like Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Diego, and Las Vegas.

The Colorado River Compact established annual water allocations that member states must use in full or face usage-based cuts the following year. This "use it or lose it" system has created what critics call "perverse" incentives for farmers to grow nonessential, water-intensive crops like alfalfa and grass for cattle grazing in the middle of the desert.

Around 75% of the Colorado River's flow is currently diverted to irrigate more than 5 million acres of farmland, according to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. Hydroelectric plants along the river also generate more than 12 billion kilowatt hours of annual electricity.

Despite heavier-than-average snow and rainfall last winter, the Colorado River has been running perilously low in recent years as worsening droughts driven by the climate emergency have gripped the Southwest and as the population of the nation's driest region explodes. The river no longer reaches the sea, and models predict that its flow may be further halved by 2100.

Climate-heating methane released from dozens of Australian fossil fuel sites, environmental group claims

Climate-heating methane gas is leaking or being vented from more than 100 places across 35 fossil fuel sites in Queensland and New South Wales, according to an investigation by environmental organisations. The Australian Conservation Foundation commissioned the US-based Clean Air Task Force, a global nonprofit, to use new technology to monitor if methane was leaking from coalmines and gas facilities owned by energy giants Santos and Origin and pipeline company Jemena.

The two groups released infrared videos on Tuesday that they said showed gas escaping from a range of infrastructure and mines. The organisations said the videos were recorded over a four-week period in which they visited 80 sites to take a snapshot of Australia’s fossil fuel infrastructure.

They said they found:

At least 25 visible leaks or venting places along major Jemena pipelines in the Darling Downs and in New South Wales between Newcastle and Wollongong.

At least 10 leaks or venting places at coal seam gas wells owned by Origin.

Methane being released from at least four of Santos’ seven coal seam gas wells in NSW’s Pilliga/Bibblewindi forest.

The claims were immediately rejected by two of the companies named. Origin and Santos said they had checked their gas wells after the claims were raised this week and found no leaks. Santos said a routine leak detection inspection last month by the NSW Environment Protection Authority also found no leaks.

The researchers did not suggest the companies were acting illegally, or that they were hiding emissions deliberately. They said they were concerned there was a systemic problem that was not properly regulated. They said the videos lent further weight to previous studies that found the amount of methane released into the atmosphere was higher than reported. Data released by the International Energy Agency has suggested methane from Australian coalmines and gas production could be more than 60% higher than federal government estimates. Methane has been estimated to have caused nearly a third of the 1.2C increase in average global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.

Also of Interest

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

The Illusory Truth Effect And The “Unprovoked” Invasion Of Ukraine

The UN’s Vague ‘New Agenda for Peace’

Patrick Lawrence: The Dialectic of the Draft

‘We Will Send Lebanon Back to Stone Age’: Israel Threatens Hezbollah

“Big Four” Banks in Both UK and Australia Escalate Their War of Attrition Against Cash

Angus Deaton on How Neoliberal Ideology Produced Abject US Falling Life Expectancy for Less Educated

Moody’s Cuts Credit Ratings on 10 Banks; Places 4 of the 15 Largest Banks in U.S. on Review for Possible Downgrade

A Donor Based Election System Can Not Be Fair

Recovery of Great Barrier Reef stalls as scientists point to bleaching, disease and starfish attacks

Texas woman mowing lawn attacked by snake and hawk – at the same time

Florida schools plan to use only excerpts from Shakespeare to avoid ‘raunchiness’

A Little Night Music

Jimmy Johnson - You Don't Know What Love Is

Jimmy Johnson - I Have The Same Old Blues

Jimmy Johnson - The Sky Is Crying

Jimmy Dawkins & Jimmy Johnson ~ 'I Want To Know

Jimmy Johnson - My Baby By My Side

Jimmy Johnson - The Twelve Bar Blues

Jimmy Johnson - People Get Ready

Jimmy Johnson & Luther Johnson Jr.w/ Jimmy Dawkins - My own fault

Jimmy Johnson - I Need Some Easy Money