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This evening's music features Texas blues multi-instrumentalist Clarence Gatemouth Brown. Enjoy!

"If civilization is in danger today... it will do so with the enthusiastic assistance of credulous people. They seem to me more dangerous than the most brazen leaders, because everything is done with their cooperation."

-- Anatoly Kuznetsov

News and Opinion

All eyes on Biden, but can they see how close we are to war?

Since the start of U.S. involvement in the Russo-Ukrainian War, the Biden administration established a series of clear red lines intended to limit the war's escalation and avoid direct confrontation with Russia. However, at every juncture, President Biden has buckled in the face of outside pressure and crossed each of these lines. The last frontier he has yet to reach is putting U.S. service members on the ground in Ukraine, but unfortunately, we seem to be halfway there. ...

[See article link for intermediate red-line crossings. -js]

More recently, and even more alarming, the president's reversals have expanded to include significant policy red lines beyond weaponry. First, he permitted Ukraine to use U.S. weapons to strike targets in Russia’s interior. This decision was a shocking escalatory move, which the president originally prohibited because it would get the U.S. more directly involved in the fight. Second, administration officials said the president is considering lifting the ban on U.S. military contractors in Ukraine. The importance of this decision should not be understated. Historically, this action is the opening move towards the eventual deployment of U.S. soldiers to a foreign conflict. ...

Is there any reason to believe that if he opts to put contractors inside Ukraine, President Biden won't at some point succumb to the pressure and barrel through the final red line by deploying U.S. service members to Ukraine? It would be a miscalculation to assume that Russia doesn’t see this, and every other red-line crossing, as direct U.S. participation in the war.

There is no more significant burden to bear in the White House than that of Commander-in-Chief. Yet, ours seems poised to blunder (perhaps willfully) into World War III.

Israeli weapons packed with shrapnel causing devastating injuries to children in Gaza, doctors say

Israeli-made weapons designed to spray high levels of shrapnel are causing horrific injuries to civilians in Gaza and disproportionately harming children, foreign surgeons who worked in the territory in recent months have told the Guardian.

The doctors say many of the deaths, amputations and life changing wounds to children they have treated came from the firing of missiles and shells – in areas crowded with civilians – packed with additional metal designed to fragment into tiny pieces of shrapnel.

Volunteer doctors at two Gaza hospitals said that a majority of their operations were on children hit by small pieces of shrapnel that leave barely discernible entry wounds but create extensive destruction inside the body. Amnesty International has said that the weapons appear designed to maximise casualties.

Feroze Sidhwa, a trauma surgeon from California, worked at the European hospital in southern Gaza in April. “About half of the injuries I took care of were in young kids. We saw a lot of so-called splinter injuries that were very, very small to the point that you easily missed them while examining a patient. Much, much smaller than anything I’ve seen before but they caused tremendous damage on the inside,” he said.

Weapons experts said the shrapnel and wounds are consistent with Israeli-made weapons designed to create large numbers of casualties unlike more conventional weapons used to destroy buildings. The experts question why they are being fired into areas packed with civilians.

“I’m Bored, So I Shoot”: How Israeli Troops Are Authorized to Shoot Palestinians Virtually at Will

People in Gaza City trapped in houses and bodies left on streets

People in Gaza City are trapped in houses and bodies lie uncollected in the streets, Palestinian officials and emergency responders have said, a day after the Israeli army told residents to use two “safe routes” to leave the city and head south. According to a Reuters report, the Gaza health ministry said it had heard about people trapped and others killed inside their houses in the Tel Al Hawa and Sabra districts of Gaza City. Rescuers could not reach them, the ministry said.

The civil emergency service said it estimated that at least 30 people had been killed in the Tel Al-Hawa and Rimal areas and it could not recover bodies from the streets there. ...

The UN said the latest evacuations “will only fuel mass suffering for Palestinian families, many of whom have been displaced many times”, and who face “critical levels of need”.

Many civilians told the Guardian they have concluded that there was no refuge in war-stricken Gaza and that they lacked confidence in the safe corridors set by Israel. Residents said they also feared that if they left they would not be able to take belongings or return.

“We will die but not leave to the south. We have tolerated starvation and bombs for nine months and we are ready to die as martyrs here,” Mohammad Ali, 30, told Reuters in a text message.

We’d rather kill our own people than let them be taken hostage

Israel’s Leading Paper Says Its Own Army Deliberately Killed Israelis on October 7. But US Media: Silence

Three days ago, Israel’s leading newspaper, Haaretz, published the results of its thorough, comprehensive investigation into what actually happened when Hamas attacked on October 7. So far, the U.S. mainstream media has not said a word about the shocking results of that investigation. Critics sometimes use the expression “media malpractice” to describe the American mainstream’s failure to report accurately about Israel/Palestine. This time, though, what’s happening is even worse; it has to be deliberate self-censorship, designed to hide the truth from the U.S. audience.

Haaretz’s long report found that Israel’s army had employed the “Hannibal Directive” on October 7. The Directive is an Israeli policy that instructs the military to open fire on its own soldiers to prevent them from being taken captive. ...

Some — possibly many — of the Israeli deaths that day, including civilians, were deliberately caused by Israel’s own military. How this is not news is incomprehensible. But, three days later, in the New York Times: not a word. The Washington Post: nothing. CNN: nothing. National Public Radio: nada. Instead, if you plug “Hannibal” into the search engines at these media sites, the results only mention “Hannibal Lecter,” the fictional serial killer who was the subject of a book and popular film.

Max Blumenthal: Israelis Killing Their Own - #HannibalDirective

Coalition Urges Senators to Stop 'Illegal, Ineffective' US Airstrikes in Yemen

An anti-war coalition of over 50 groups this week wrote to four U.S. senators who have raised alarm about American airstrikes in Yemen and the Red Sea to call for legislation that would stop "illegal, ineffective, and deadly unauthorized" bombings.

The coalition on Wednesday wrote to Sens. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), Mike Lee (R-Utah), Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), and Todd Young, (R-Ind.), who in January sent a joint letter to President Joe Biden stressing that "there is no current congressional authorization for offensive U.S. military action against the Houthis" and demanding answers about recent strikes against the group.

"We are grateful for your long-standing efforts in support of both ending U.S. participation in the war in Yemen, as well as your defense of Congress' war powers, including your joint letter," the coalition wrote to the senators. "We write today to urge you to take necessary actions to defend the role of Congress in authorizing war and military action, as the framers of our Constitution intended, and to introduce a Yemen War Powers Resolution to this end."

The coalition includes Action Corps, CodePink, Democracy for the Arab World Now, Demand Progress, Democratic Socialists of America International Committee, Just Foreign Policy, National Iranian American Council, Peace Action, RootsAction.org, Veterans for Peace, and dozens of other groups across the ideological spectrum.

"Unfortunately, about six months after the strikes began, there is scant evidence that the strikes have been either strategically smart or successful, as you correctly predicted when you wrote that the unauthorized strikes 'will not deter the Houthi attacks,'" the coalition continued, citing the January letter.

As the groups detailed:

Far from being deterred, the Houthis have actually expanded the range of their attacks, with an attack in late April targeting an Israeli-linked ship sailing 375 miles off the coast of Yemen. More recently, Houthi attacks have shown a 'significant increase in effectiveness,' according to security firm Ambrey, including through the use of drone boats and double-tap strikes. Houthi military officials have announced plans for further escalation of their attacks if no cease-fire is reached in Gaza. All of this was foreseen by experts, who widely predicted that the U.S. strikes would only strengthen the Houthis' narrative, contributing to greater popularity both at home and across the Muslim world, and helping them enlist tens of thousands of new fighters.

"To our knowledge, the administration has not even made a good-faith attempt to engage with the valid constitutional concerns and substantive policy critiques you have raised alongside dozens of House members, experts, and advocates," the coalition noted. "This leads us to believe that the administration has effectively conceded that it does not have valid legal and constitutional authority to engage in these strikes."

"The strikes have nonetheless continued unabated for months, with hundreds of missiles launched in Yemen, including an attack on May 30th that killed at least 16 people and injured about 42 people," the groups added. "This threatens to deny the American people critical congressional debate and oversight regarding this dangerous and strategically dubious military action, and could be cited by the executive branch to attempt to justify similar or even more expansive unauthorized military actions in other contexts in the future."

The coalition is calling on the bipartisan group of senators to "to move swiftly to rein in these unauthorized and unconstitutional strikes by introducing a War Powers Resolution to remove U.S. participation from hostilities in Yemen, until or unless Congress authorizes such action."

Multiple coalition members echoed the letter's demands on social media Thursday. Peace Action declared that "Congress needs to flex its constitutional duty to rein in unauthorized U.S. missile strikes."

Action Corps emphasized that Biden—who is seeking reelection in November against former Republican President Donald Trump—"has no authority to continue dropping bombs on Yemen."

"With each illegal bombing, peace is delayed, and more children are starved to death. It's time for bipartisan action to ensure only Congress can declare war, regardless of which party is in office," the group added. "Instead of bombing Yemen, the U.S. should be securing a cease-fire in Gaza and restoring humanitarian aid for people across the Middle East."

US steps up sanctions against Israeli settlers and ‘outposts’ in occupied West Bank

The US has stepped up efforts to target violent Israeli settlers, adding new individuals and organisations to a growing sanctions list and warning banks to check transactions linked to all Israeli “outposts” in the occupied West Bank.

The new sanctions cover the far-right group Lehava, already listed by the UK, and two founding members of Tsav9, a campaign group that blocked aid from reaching Gaza. The new measures also target outposts, suggesting the Biden administration is prepared to take at least some steps to confront Israel’s creeping land grab on the West Bank.

One of the outposts targeted was set up by a regional council, implying that branches of the Israeli state are potentially no longer off limits, when it comes to sanctions.

“It appears that they’ve not just targeted extremist settlers but have introduced a linkage to territoriality by citing illegal outposts,” Aaron David Miller, a former state department Middle East negotiator now a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “It doesn’t take much imagination to conclude that the next target would be [Israeli] government financing for illegal outposts. And that would be a new departure to be sure.”

The G7 foreign ministers joined the UN and EU on Thursday in condemning the Israeli government’s decision last month to legalize five outposts in the West Bank, labelling the plan “inconsistent with international law”. The G7 statement comes at a time of rising concern that Israel’s rightist government is steadily moving towards annexation of the West Bank.

Prof. John Mearsheimer: Ukraine Collapsing

US-German missile plans at NATO summit threaten cities deep inside Russia

The NATO powers pledged this week $40 billion more in military spending for the Ukrainian regime and that they would eventually let Ukraine into the 75-year-old military alliance. Most provocatively, Washington and Berlin agreed to station long-range guided missiles aimed at Russia in Germany. A joint declaration by the US and German governments states:

The United States will begin episodic deployments of the long-range fires capabilities of its Multi-Domain Task Force in Germany in 2026, as part of planning for enduring stationing of these capabilities in the future. When fully developed, these conventional long-range fires units will include SM-6, Tomahawk, and developmental hypersonic weapons, which have significantly longer range than current land-based fires in Europe.

The NATO countries, having overseen missile strikes from Ukraine on Russian civilians in Belgorod and Sevastopol, are now creating conditions to launch missile strikes on almost all of Russia’s major population centers. Tomahawk cruise missiles, with a range of over 2000 kilometers, can strike deep into Russia. The shortest distance between Berlin and Moscow is just under 1,600 kilometers.

The Long-Range Hypersonic Weapon (LRHW) has a range of 1,725 miles (2,776 kilometers) and can evade missile defense systems. According to the US Army, “this land-based, truck-launched system is armed with hypersonic missiles capable of traveling well over 3,800 miles per hour. They can reach the upper edge of the Earth’s atmosphere and remain just beyond the range of air and missile defense systems until they are operational, at which point it is too late to respond.”

LRHWs deployed in Germany could not only hit Russia’s largest cities, Moscow and Saint Petersburg. They could also reach Russian cities deep inside Eurasia such as Nizhni-Novgorod, Perm, Ufa, Saratov, and large parts of western Kazakhstan.

The major European Union (EU) powers are also planning to develop long-range strike capabilities to target Russian cities. Yesterday in Washington, the defense ministers of Germany, France, Italy and Poland signed a declaration of intent to develop their own long-range precision weapons.

Moscow angered by US plan to site long-range missiles in Germany

A US announcement of a plan to station long-range missiles in Germany for the first time since the cold war has set off a diplomatic furore between Washington and Moscow and elicited comparisons to the European missile crises of the 1980s. Russian and US officials both accused each other of provoking the escalation on Thursday, as arms control experts warned that the deployments of missiles on the European continent, after the collapse of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty, could fuel a new arms race.

The decision to station non-nuclear Tomahawk cruise, SM-6 and hypersonic missiles in Germany from 2026 was welcomed by Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, who said it “fitted exactly” into his government’s security strategy, even as the move attracted fierce criticism amid fears it would make Germany more vulnerable to attack. ...

Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabkov, issued a stark warning to Berlin, insisting Moscow would respond militarily to the decision, which he said aimed to impair Russian security and could not go unanswered. He said that Nato was now “fully involved in the conflict” and called the move “just another link in the chain of a course of escalation”. Dmitry Peskov, the spokesperson for the Russian government, called the planned move “a very serious threat” to Russia, which would be closely analysed by Moscow, which would “take thoughtful, coordinated and effective measures to contain Nato”.

The German opposition politician Sahra Wagenknecht, of the newly founded far-left party BSW, said that the stationing of attack missiles on German soil would not increase the country’s security but rather “increase the risk that Germany itself will become a theatre of war, with terrible consequences for everyone living here”. Dietmar Bartsch, defence spokesperson for the leftwing Die Linke party, warned of a new armaments war. “I find this decision highly problematic, because the spiral in military buildup is being turned further under the headline ‘deterrence’,” he said.

The far-right populist AfD leader, Tino Chrupalla, said the shift in policy could turn Germany into a target for Russia, criticising Scholz for “letting Germany’s relationship with Russia be permanently damaged”.

Chinese warships spotted off Alaska coast, US Coast Guard says

Multiple Chinese military warships were spotted off the coast of Alaska over the weekend, the US Coast Guard announced.

In a statement released on Wednesday, the US Coast Guard said that it detected three vessels approximately 124 miles (200km) north of the Amchitka Pass in the Aleutian Islands, as well as another vessel approximately 84 miles (135km) north of the Amukta Pass, a strait between the Bering Sea and the north Pacific Ocean.

All four Chinese vessels were “transiting in international waters but still inside the US exclusive economic zone, which extends 200 nautical miles from the US shoreline”, according to the US Coast Guard.

“The Chinese naval presence operated in accordance with international rules and norms,” R Adm Megan Dean of the US Coast Guard said, adding: “We met presence with presence to ensure there were no disruptions to US interests in the maritime environment around Alaska.”

Responding to US Coast Guard radio communication, the Chinese vessels said their purpose was “freedom of navigation operations”.

US consumer prices unexpectedly fell in June, drawing Fed closer to cutting interest rates

Prices unexpectedly fell in the US last month, lifting hopes that the Federal Reserve is on the verge of cutting interest rates.

As inflation fell 0.1% on a monthly basis in June, having been unchanged in May, the consumer price index’s annual increase was also the smallest in a year.

It was the second straight month of tame CPI readings, and could help to bolster confidence among officials at the Fed that inflation is cooling.

Joe Biden, fighting to retain the White House as many Americans grapple with the heightened cost of living, welcomed “significant progress” in the fight against inflation.

“Prices are falling for cars, appliances, and airfares, and grocery prices have fallen since the beginning of the year,” Biden said in a statement, adding that wages were rising faster than prices “thanks to my economic plan”.

Obama made Biden, Obama breaks Biden

Trump lawyers press judge to overturn hush-money conviction after supreme court immunity ruling

Donald Trump’s lawyers are imploring a New York judge to overturn his hush-money conviction and dismiss the case, arguing his historic trial was “tainted” by evidence that shouldn’t have been allowed because of the US supreme court’s recent presidential immunity ruling.

In a court filing dated 10 July but made public on Thursday, defense lawyers said the guilty verdict in the first-ever criminal trial of a US president should be set aside. “The use of official-acts evidence was a structural error under the federal Constitution,” wrote defense lawyers Todd Blanche and Emil Bove. “The jury’s verdicts must be vacated.”

The supreme court released its immunity decision on 1 July, giving broad protections to presidents and insulating them from prosecution for official acts. It also said evidence of a president’s official acts cannot be used in a prosecution on private matters. The supreme court did not define what constitutes an official act, leaving that to lower courts.

Trump’s defense lawyers said that meant the Manhattan jury’s verdict could not stand. Hours after the supreme court ruling, Trump’s team wrote a letter to the trial judge, Juan Merchan, asking him to set aside the verdict and to delay Trump’s sentencing, due to take place in July. Merchan agreed to delay Trump’s sentencing by two months.

A spokesperson for Manhattan district attorney Alvin Bragg’s office declined to comment on Thursday. Prosecutors have until 24 July to respond. They have previously called Trump’s arguments meritless but agreed to push back the sentencing.

Biden Admin Blames Russia for Biden Age Concerns; Corporate Media Parrots Unsupported Claims

Will Biden Go? Roundtable Discussion with David Dayen, Medea Benjamin & Bill Fletcher Jr.

China building two-thirds of world’s wind and solar projects

The amount of wind and solar power under construction in China is now nearly twice as much as the rest of the world combined, a report has found. Research published on Thursday by Global Energy Monitor (GEM), an NGO, found that China has 180 gigawatts (GW) of utility-scale solar power under construction and 15GW of wind power. That brings the total of wind and solar power under construction to 339GW, well ahead of the 40GW under construction in the US.

The researchers only looked at solar farms with a capacity of 20MW or more, which feed directly into the grid. That means that the total volume of solar power in China could be much higher, as small scale solar farms account for about 40% of China’s solar capacity. The findings underscore China’s leading position in global renewable energy production at a time when the US is increasingly worried about Chinese overcapacity and dumping, particularly in the solar industry.

China has experienced a boom in renewables in recent years, encouraged by strong government support. Xi Jinping, China’s president, has stressed the need for “new quality productive forces”, a slogan which signifies a desire to pivot China’s economy towards technology and innovation. Xi has said that “new quality productive forces” includes strengthening green manufacturing.

Between March 2023 and March 2024, China installed more solar than it had in the previous three years combined, and more than the rest of the world combined for 2023, the GEM analysts found. China is on track to reach 1,200GW of installed wind and solar capacity by the end of 2024, six years ahead of the government’s target.

“The unabated wave of construction guarantees that China will continue leading in wind and solar installation in the near future, far ahead of the rest of the world,” the report said.

‘Frog saunas’ could save species from deadly fungal disease

A “sauna” treatment for frogs has been used by researchers in Australia to successfully fight a deadly fungal disease that has devastated amphibians around the world, according to a new study.

Scientists created refuges for the animals using painted masonry bricks inside greenhouses that they called “frog saunas”. They found that endangered Australian green and golden bell frogs were able to clear infections from the deadly Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis fungus, in the warmer conditions of the greenhouses, when they would otherwise have died. Many of the frogs that recovered in the refuges were then resistant to infection.

While the technique had previously been unsuccessful for other frog species, researchers found that the green and golden bell frog – once common in south-eastern Australia – responded well to the treatment, a discovery that offered hope for their future survival. Researchers said the rare amphibians were chosen after careful testing, which found they favoured the bricks as a habitat. ...

In glacial ponds and alpine lakes, rainforests and wetlands, the deadly fungus has been killing off the word’s amphibian populations. At least 90 species are known to have gone extinct and many more are expected to disappear in the coming years. Scientists say it is the greatest recorded loss of biodiversity attributable to a single disease. ...

The fungus, which is often known as Bd, causes a disease called chytridiomycosis in amphibians. It was formally identified by researchers in 1998 after widespread frog deaths around the world. The infection attacks the amphibians’ skin, causing heart attacks and death. The most deadly strain of the disease appears to be about 100 years old and researchers think it was probably spread by humans.

California wildfires have burned five times the average area this year

California’s wildfire season is off to a ferocious start, with the state’s top wildfire official saying that fires have already burned through five times the average amount of land for this time of year.

Speaking at a news conference on Wednesday, Joe Tyler, the director of the California department of forestry and fire protection (Cal Fire), said the state has responded to more than 3,500 wildfires so far this year. Together, those fires have scorched nearly 220,000 acres – more than five times above what is typical for mid-July, which is considered fairly early in the state’s wildfire season.

“We are not just in a fire season, we are in a fire year,” Tyler said at the news conference. “Our winds and the recent heatwave have exacerbated the issue, consuming thousands of acres. So we need to be extra cautious.”

Authorities across the US west have warned of the rising risk of wildfires amid a protracted heatwave that has dried out the landscape and smashed temperatures records from California to Oregon to Nevada.

An abundantly wet winter has left landscapes across California coated in grasses that quickly dried as the weather warmed, creating abundant fuel for fast-burning brush fires.

Also of Interest

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

NATO Summit: Collectively Losing Their Minds

Israeli society will emerge from this war more violent, nationalist, and militaristic than ever

Project 2025 Continues the Historic Racist, Fascist Project

The Dollar Is Impregnable & The West Will Always Control International Banking (Honest)

US, Canada and Finland form ‘Ice Pact’ to project influence into Arctic region

Biden Twists in the Wind as Big Donors Close Wallets, Party Criticism Persists Despite Clampdown, and Pelosi Questions His Decision to Continue

The Self-Destructive Malice of the UK Labour Right

Argentina’s future lies in the balance as vast oilfields poised for extraction

Neolithic population collapse may have been caused by plague, researchers say

F-16 Jets Are Headed To Ukraine! – Secretary Of State Blinken

A Little Night Music

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Mary Is Fine

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Midnight Hour

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Boogie Rambler

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Boogie Uproar

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Up Jumped The Devil

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Caldonia

Roy Clark and Gatemouth Brown - Under the Double Eagle

Clarence Gatemouth Brown - Okie Dokie Stomp

Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown - Frosty

Canned Heat & Clarence “Gatemouth” Brown - Live At Montreux -1973