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"Teller contended, not implausibly, that hydrogen bombs keep the peace, or at least prevent thermonuclear war, because the consequences of warfare between nuclear powers are now too dangerous. We haven't had a nuclear war yet, have we? But all such arguments assume that the nuclear-armed nations are and always will be, without exception, rational actors, and that bouts of anger and revenge and madness will never overtake their leaders (or military and secret police officers in charge of nuclear weapons). In the century of Hitler and Stalin, this seems ingenuous."

-- Carl Sagan

News and Opinion

Biden Lets Ukraine Strike Russia With US Weapons While Ukraine Attacks Russian Nuclear Defenses

Well it finally happened: Biden is now letting Ukraine strike Russian territory with US-supplied weapons. Escalations in nuclear brinkmanship which would have been unthinkable a few short years ago are becoming increasingly common as Ukraine loses more and more territory and runs out of soldiers to fight.

In a new report from Politico titled “Biden secretly gave Ukraine permission to strike inside Russia with US weapons” which cites multiple anonymous US officials, the article’s authors correctly describe the new White House authorization as a “stunning shift the administration initially said would escalate the war by more directly involving the U.S. in the fight.”

This report comes shortly after an article by The New York Times titled “From Allies and Advisers, Pressure Grows on Biden to Allow Attacks on Russian Territory,” in which David E Sanger accurately forecast that “Biden is edging toward what may prove to be one of his most consequential decisions in the war for Ukraine: whether to reverse his ban on shooting American weapons into Russian territory.”

Politico reports that the approval for these attacks is limited to “solely near the area of Kharkiv,” but, again, these escalations were once unthinkable even for this administration, and every time a new escalation is authorized the warmongers are already well on their way to pushing for a further one. We will surely see increasing calls for Biden to authorize US-backed strikes deeper into Russian territory in the coming weeks.

This new development comes just after we learned that Ukraine has been repeatedly attacking Russia’s early warning systems for incoming nuclear strikes, with Ukrainian drones targeting Russian radar sites hundreds of miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory. 

Just a few years ago if I had told you that a NATO proxy would soon be attacking Russia’s nuclear defense infrastructure, you’d probably have assumed we’d be pretty close to another Cuban Missile Crisis-level nuclear standoff, and that it would be receiving high levels of alarm and attention. But this report is barely in the news, and hardly anyone in the west even knows it’s happening.

Oh no big deal, just a NATO proxy repeatedly attacking part of Russia's nuclear defense infrastructure. What could go wrong? https://t.co/RysGjsVAF1

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) May 30, 2024

This also comes as Reuters reports that France is preparing to send “several hundred” troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian forces, which of course means we may soon be seeing the armed forces of a NATO power getting killed by the Russian military.

Any of these three new developments has the potential to lead to unpredictable events which spiral out of control into a nuclear war between NATO and the Russian Federation, which would be the single worst thing that could possibly happen on planet Earth. There is no excuse for anyone to be playing around anywhere remotely close to such a precipice, and yet here we are.

As we discussed last year, the terrifying thing about the west’s pattern of continually escalating against Russia every time it doesn’t get a nuclear ICBM in the kisser for the last escalation naturally incentivizes Russia to attack NATO directly in order to re-establish its credibility for deterrence. So far Russia has been content to respond to NATO’s escalations by just tearing into Ukraine with greater and greater ferocity, but if the western empire keeps interpreting every time Russia doesn’t attack NATO forces directly as a sign that it’s safe to keep escalating, at some point Russia’s going to have to hit NATO.

It is not sane or acceptable that any of this is happening. The empire knowingly provoked this war, and now it’s getting more and more casual about risking the life of everyone on this planet as its proxy runs out of lives to throw into its gears. 

And it’s so hard to draw attention to this, because there are so many other horrible things happening in the world which the western empire is also directly responsible for. The empire is increasingly acting like a wounded, cornered animal as China rises and the US slowly sinks into post-primacy, the only major difference being that wounded, cornered animals have teeth and claws instead of weapons of armageddon.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: How Dangerous To Threaten Nukes

US state department falsified report absolving Israel on Gaza aid – ex-official

The state department falsified a report earlier this month to absolve Israel of responsibility for blocking humanitarian aid flows into Gaza, overruling the advice of its own experts, according to a former senior US official who resigned this week. Stacy Gilbert left her post as senior civil military adviser in the state department’s bureau of population, refugees and migration, on Tuesday. She had been one of the department’s subject matter experts who drafted the report mandated under national security memorandum 20 (NSM-20) and published on 10 May.

The NSM-20 report found that it was “reasonable to assess” that Israel had used US weapons in a way that was “inconsistent” with international humanitarian law, but that there was not enough concrete evidence to link specific US-supplied weapons to violations. Even more controversially, the report said the state department did not “currently assess that the Israeli government is prohibiting or otherwise restricting the transport or delivery of US humanitarian assistance” in Gaza.

It was a high-stakes judgment because under a clause in the Foreign Assistance Act, the US would be obliged to cut arms sales and security assistance to any country found to have blocked delivery of US aid.

Gilbert, a 20-year veteran of the state department who has worked in several war zones, said that report’s conclusion went against the overwhelming view of state department experts who were consulted on the report. ... Gilbert was one of two US officials to resign this week over the Biden administration’s Gaza policy. Alexander Smith, a contractor for the US Agency for International Development (USAid), who resigned on Monday, said he was given a choice between resignation and dismissal after preparing a presentation on maternal and child mortality among Palestinians, which was cancelled at the last minute by USAid leadership last week.

Smith, a senior adviser on gender, maternal health, child health and nutrition, chose to resign on Monday after four years at USAid. In his resignation letter to the head of the agency, Samantha Power, he complained about the inconsistencies in USAid’s approach to different countries and humanitarian crises, and the general treatment of Palestinians. “I cannot do my job in an environment in which specific people cannot be acknowledged as fully human, or where gender and human rights principles apply to some, but not to others, depending on their race,” he wrote.

"I Was Shocked": Meet the State Dept. Official Who Quit After Report Denies Israel Blocking Gaza Aid

Israeli Minister Threatens to Turn Occupied West Bank Into Ruins 'Like in the Gaza Strip'

Israel's forces have killed at least 36,224 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in less than eight months, and far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Thursday threatened to similarly attack the illegally occupied West Bank.

Smotrich, leader of the Religious Zionism party, shared on social media a video he recorded in Bat Hefer, following similar posts a day earlier. The Times of Israel reported that the minister's comments came after Palestinians' gunfire from Tulkarem in the West Bank toward the Israeli settlement.

"Our message to the neighbors beyond the fence in Tulkarem, Nur Shams, Shuweika, and Qalqilya: We will turn you into ruined cities like in the Gaza Strip if the terror you are exerting on the settlements continues," Smotrich said in Hebrew, according to a translation from Al Jazeera.

NPR international correspondent Aya Batrawy pointed out that not only is Smotrich an advocate of illegal Israeli settlements—he has a home near Kedumim—but also "his role as finance minister means he oversees budgets, like police and army."

Rohan Talbot, director of advocacy and campaigns of the U.K.-based Medical Aid for Palestinians, said of Smotrich's remarks: "Take this seriously. If extremists like Smotrich get their way they will do to the West Bank exactly what they have done to Gaza. Starting with the refugee camps and Area C communities (to a certain extent it has already begun)."

Since the Hamas-led October 7 attack on Israel, Israeli forces and settlers have killed over 500 Palestinians in the West Bank.

Rather than stop weapons to Israel Biden double-downed on it

Israeli jets kill two paramedics in Rafah after ‘deliberately’ bombing ambulance

Israeli forces bombed an ambulance in Rafah, killing two Palestinian paramedics on a rescue mission, according to the Palestine Red Crescent Society (PRCS). The pair, identified as Haitham Tubasi and Suhail Hassouna, were “deliberately” targeted while in a PRCS ambulance in the Tel al-Sultan area in western Rafah, the medical group said. 

The charity added that they were killed while “they were performing their humanitarian duty”. Their bodies were retrieved on Thursday by their colleagues, who were moved to tears as they buried them in Rafah.

“The Israeli occupation forces deliberately bombed the ambulance vehicle despite it bearing the internationally protected Red Crescent emblem,” PRCS said on social media platform X.

The Palestinian health ministry condemned the “heinous crime” in a short statement, saying it was another example of Israel’s deliberate effort to “annihilate and destroy the health system in the Gaza Strip”. According to the Gaza-based government media office, Israeli forces have killed at least 69 members of the Palestinian civil defence and 496 medical professionals since 7 October 2023.

Israeli journalist describes threats over reporting on spy chief and ICC

An investigative reporter with Israel’s leading leftwing newspaper, Haaretz, has said unnamed senior security officials threatened actions against him if he reported on attempts by the former head of the Mossad to intimidate the ex-prosecutor of the international criminal court. ... In an article published on Thursday, the investigative reporter Gur Megiddo described how two years ago security officials blocked an attempt by the paper to report efforts by the then Mossad chief, Yossi Cohen, to threaten the then ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda. Details of the operation to influence Bensouda were revealed this week by the Guardian. ...

Megiddo described how he had been summoned to meet two officials and threatened with serious consequences after they became aware he had tried to telephone Bensouda to discuss Cohen’s efforts to influence her. Megiddo had been investigating what the Mossad chief had been doing during three trips he made to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, in which he reportedly enlisted the help of the Congolese president, Joseph Kabila, to assist with efforts to pressure Bensouda.

“At the beginning of 2022, I attempted to contact the former prosecutor through a third party who knew her,” Megiddo wrote. “Bensouda never responded to the approach, but days after the attempt, when I wanted to publish the story, my phone rang and on the other end of the line was the voice of a senior security official. ‘Can you come to see me tomorrow?’ he asked.

“At the entrance to the senior official’s office, I was asked to deposit my mobile phone to prevent me from recording the conversation. In the room, another senior official from a different security agency was waiting for me. The conversation began with the words, ‘We understand you know about the prosecutor.’” Megiddo said it was “explained that if I published the story I would suffer the consequences and get to know the interrogation rooms of the Israeli security authorities from the inside”.

“In the end, it was made clear to me that even sharing the information ‘with my friends abroad’, referring to foreign media outlets, would lead to the same results.”

UN Rapporteur accuses Israel of sexual violence against Palestinian women

UCLA threatens to withhold degrees from pro-Palestinian student protesters

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) has threatened to discipline and withhold degrees from at least 55 students involved in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, according to faculty members supporting the students.

Students who were arrested on 2 May when police forcefully raided the Gaza solidarity encampment received letters on Friday from administrators accusing them of violating the student code of conduct and warning them of a range of potentially serious sanctions. In the letters, copies of which have been reviewed by the Guardian, assistant deans write that the students failed to respond to police’s dispersal orders and engaged in “disorderly behavior”, “disturbing the peace” and “failure to comply”.

The students are required to attend a meeting to discuss the “allegations” against them, according to the letters, and “no degree may be conferred until any pending allegations and any assigned sanctions and conditions have been completed”.

The letters further warn that if students do not schedule their meetings by 5 June or miss their appointments, the administration will place a “hold” on their records, preventing them from registering for future classes, obtaining grades or graduating. Some students said “active holds” were already placed on their online accounts, with a “you are prevented from graduating” warning.

The letters also said the university had not made a “final decision” about their cases: “Please note that during our meeting, you will be given the opportunity to explain this situation from your perspective.” UCLA spokesperson Eddie North-Hager declined to comment, citing confidentiality policies. He pointed to the university’s disciplinary procedures, which lay out a wide range of possible sanctions for code violations, including forced apologies, housing exclusion and suspension.

ATACMS, F16s, boots on the ground; Russian warnings ignored

Biden changes stance to allow Ukraine to fire US-supplied weapons into Russia

Joe Biden has allowed Ukraine to use some US-made weapons over one part of the Russian border, to allow Kyiv’s forces to defend against an offensive aimed at the city of Kharkiv, relaxing an important constraint on Ukraine’s able to defend itself.

“The president recently directed his team to ensure that Ukraine is able to use US-supplied weapons for counter-fire purposes in the Kharkiv region so Ukraine can hit back against Russian forces that are attacking them or preparing to attack them,” a US official said.

Limits on the use of US long-range weapons such as the army tactical missile system (ATACMS) will remain, however.

“Our policy with respect to prohibiting the use of ATACMS or long-range strikes inside of Russia has not changed,” the official said.

The statement suggests that the main impact of the policy change would be to allow Ukrainian US-supplied artillery to fire back at Russian batteries over the Russian border from Kharkiv region, which have had a withering effect on Ukrainian defences around Kharkiv city.

Bob Menendez: Democratic senator charged with bribery set to run as independent

Senator Bob Menendez has reportedly procured enough signatures to run for re-election as an independent, even while the incumbent Democrat faces bribery charges over his alleged work promoting the interests of the Egyptian government.

NBC News reported on Thursday that Menendez secured the 800 signatures needed by 4 June to appear on the November ballot, although the senator’s team hopes to collect as many as 10,000 signatures before the Tuesday deadline.

Menendez’s presence on the ballot could complicate Democrats’ efforts to hold on to the Senate seat, although Joe Biden won New Jersey by 16 points in 2020. New Jersey will hold its congressional primaries on Tuesday, and Congressman Andy Kim is expected to easily win the Democratic Senate primary. If Kim is victorious, he will face off against one of the four Republican Senate candidates in November. ...

Menendez’s hopes for a victory in November appear bleak. A poll conducted by Fairleigh Dickinson University last month showed Menendez receiving just 6% or 7% of the vote in hypothetical general election match-ups. But Menendez’s candidacy will allow him to fundraise for donations that can be used to help cover his lawyers’ bills, as campaign finance filings show the senator has already spent at least $2m on legal services.

Texas Republicans open to death penalty for abortion providers

Texas Republicans are open to applying the death penalty to abortion providers, a new proposal from the state party indicates.

Over the weekend, during the Texas GOP convention, Republican delegates voted on a party platform for 2024 that proclaims “abortion is not healthcare, it is homicide” and suggests striking a state law that protects abortion providers from being charged with homicide. In Texas, capital murder is punishable by the death penalty. Killing a child under the age of 15 can qualify as capital murder, the most severe form of homicide.

Elsewhere in the platform, the Texas GOP calls for “legislation to abolish abortion by immediately securing the right to life and equal protection of the laws to all preborn children from the moment of fertilization”.

That language, as highlighted by the feminist writer Jessica Valenti, who first called attention to it earlier this week, draws from the rhetoric of “abortion abolitionists”, a fringe, hardline segment of the anti-abortion movement that has inched closer to the mainstream in recent years. While the mainstream anti-abortion movement typically supports exempting women seeking abortions from punishment, abortion abolitionists adhere to what they consider a more consistent line of logic: if a fetus is a person and abortion is murder, then abortion patients deserve to be punished like murderers.

Abortion patients are not mentioned in the provision in the proposed platform that redefines abortion as homicide, making its implications for abortion seekers unclear. Abortion bans typically target abortion providers for punishment, not patients.

Donald Trump found guilty of hush-money plot to influence 2016 election

Donald Trump has been found guilty of all 34 counts of falsifying business records in a criminal hush-money scheme to influence the outcome of the 2016 election.

The verdict came after a jury deliberated for less than 12 hours in the unprecedented first criminal trial against a US president, current or former. It marks a perilous political moment for Trump, the presumptive nominee for the Republican nomination, whose poll numbers have remained unchanged throughout the trial but could tank at any moment.

Trump was convicted by a jury of 12 New Yorkers of felony falsification of business records, which makes it a crime for a person to make or cause false entries in records with the intent to commit a second crime. He will be sentenced on 11 July at 10am ET.

“This was a rigged trial by a conflicted judge who was corrupt,” Trump said at the courthouse after the verdict was read. “This was a rigged trial, a disgrace.”

Joe Manchin DEFECTS From Dems On SAME Day Trump RAILS Against The LEFT

No need for countries to issue new oil, gas or coal licences, study finds

The world has enough fossil fuel projects planned to meet global energy demand forecasts to 2050 and governments should stop issuing new oil, gas and coal licences, according to a large study aimed at political leaders.

If governments deliver the changes promised in order to keep the world from breaching its climate targets no new fossil fuel projects will be needed, researchers at University College London and the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) said on Thursday.

The data offered what they said was “a rigorous scientific basis” for global governments to ban new fossil fuel projects and begin a managed decline of the fossil fuel industry, while encouraging investment in clean energy alternatives.

By establishing a “clear and immediate demand” political leaders would be able to set a new norm around the future of fossil fuels, against which the industry could be held “immediately accountable”, the researchers said.

Published in the journal Science, the paper analysed global energy demand forecasts for oil and gas, as well as coal- and gas-fired electricity, using a broad range of scenarios compiled for the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change that limited global heating to within 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. It found that in addition to not needing new fossil fuel extraction, no new coal- and gas-fired power generation was needed in a net zero future.

Dems Urge DOJ to Prosecute ​Big Oil Price Fixing That 'Harmed Virtually Every American'

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Thursday led over 20 Senate Democrats in calling for the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate fossil fuel companies for collusion and price fixing, arguing in a letter that the industry could have added as much as $500 in annual fuel costs for every car that an average American household has.

The senators' push follows revelations earlier this month that Scott Sheffield, founder of Pioneer Natural Resources, had allegedly colluded with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to keep oil prices high in recent years. The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) filed a complaint as part of its decision to block Sheffield from taking a place on the ExxonMobil board when his company is acquired by the oil giant.

"Pioneer's and its co-conspirators' collusion may have cost the average American household up to $500 per car in increased annual fuel costs—an unwelcome tax that is particularly burdensome for lower-income families. Meanwhile, Western oil majors collectively earned more than $300 billion in profits over the last two years," Schumer (D-N.Y.) and the other senators wrote.

The price fixing may have "materially harmed virtually every American household and business," they also wrote. ...

Matt Stoller, research director of the American Economic Liberties Project, argued that the FTC's evidence in the Sheffield complaint showed that oil price fixing cost the average American family $3,000 per year—a figure also used by More Perfect Union—and caused 27% of all inflation in 2021.

‘Termination shock’: cut in ship pollution sparked global heating spurt

The slashing of pollution from shipping in 2020 led to a big “termination shock” that is estimated have pushed the rate of global heating to double the long-term average, according to research.

Until 2020, global shipping used dirty, high-sulphur fuels that produced air pollution. The pollution particles blocked sunlight and helped form more clouds, thereby curbing global heating. But new regulations at the start of 2020 slashed the sulphur content of fuels by more than 80%.

The new analysis calculates that the subsequent drop in pollution particles has significantly increased the amount of heat being trapped at the Earth’s surface that drives the climate crisis. The researchers said the sharp ending of decades of shipping pollution was an inadvertent geoengineering experiment, revealing new information about its effectiveness and risks.

High ocean surface temperatures smashed records in 2023, alarming experts who have struggled to explain the huge rises. But scientists have mixed views on the role played by the cut in shipping pollution. Those behind the new study say it could be a “pretty substantial” factor. Others say it is only a small factor, and that the reasons for the extraordinary rises in sea and global temperatures remain an alarming mystery.

Dr Tianle Yuan, at the University of Maryland, US, who led the study, said the estimated 0.2 watts per sq metre of additional heat trapped over the oceans after the pollution cut was “a big number, and it happened in one year, so it’s a big shock to the system”.

“We will experience about double the warming rate compared to the long-term average” since 1880 as a result, he said. The heating effect of the pollution cut is expected to last about seven years.

Also of Interest

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

When Nicaragua Took Germany to Court, Media Put Nicaragua in the Dock

US military hasn’t airdropped Gaza aid since May 9

‘Unprecedented Health Emergency’ – UNRWA Warns of Critical Situation in Gaza

China’s Xi calls for peace conference to end ‘tremendous suffering’ in Gaza

The Revival Of Anti-Semitism By Israel And Its Defenders

Egypt tight-lipped over Israeli takeover of Gaza buffer zone

California comedown: how illicit cannabis farms have left a wilderness where ‘you’re lucky to see a lizard’

Scientists have discovered a 50,000-year-old herpes virus – and perhaps how modern humans came to rule the world

USAID Contractor Resigns After Presentation on Maternal & Child Mortality in Gaza Canceled

A Little Night Music

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – My Feet Can't Fail Me Now

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – Mardi Gras In New Orleans

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band - Use Your Brain

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – Do It Fluid

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – Night Train

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – I Ate Up The Apple Tree

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – Voodoo

The Dirty Dozen Brass Band – I'll Fly Away

Dr. John & The Dirty Dozen Brass Band - It's All Over Now