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This evening's music features blues and african diaspora musician Henry "Taj Mahal" Fredericks. Enjoy!

"There's not going to be a World War III, because there is no one to have World War III with."

-- Colin Powell

News and Opinion

Genocide In The Foreground, World War Looming In The Background

If I were to describe our present geopolitical situation in ten words or less it would be “Genocide in the foreground, world war looming in the background.”

While attention is justifiably focused on the present horrors in Gaza and the imminent possibility that it could spark another war in the middle east, the world’s power structures are once again dividing themselves up into two increasingly intimate alliance groups with an increasingly hostile and militaristic posture toward each other.

As Ukraine loses more and more territory and soldiers to Russia, both Washington and Kyiv are demonstrating an openness to ramping up attacks on a nuclear superpower in ways that would have been unthinkable a few years ago. Meanwhile, Russia and China are growing more and more intimate in preparation for future aggressions from the US power alliance.

Antiwar’s Dave Decamp has a few articles out right now which highlight this disturbing trend simmering in the background amid the waking nightmare in the foreground, on top of all the other dangerous escalations we’ve been discussing in this space.

In “Blinken Signals US Will Allow Long-Range Strikes in Russia With NATO Missiles,” DeCamp writes the following:

“On Wednesday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken strongly hinted that the US was preparing to lift restrictions on Ukraine’s use of US and NATO missiles to support long-range strikes inside Russian territory, which would mark a significant escalation of the proxy war.

“Speaking at a press conference in Kyiv alongside UK Foreign Secretary David Lammy, Blinken said he discussed the issue of ‘long-range fires’ with Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky and said he would bring the discussion back to Washington. He said President Biden and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer will discuss the issue when they meet this Friday.

“Signaling the US is ready to support long-range strikes in Ukraine, Blinken said, ‘Speaking for the United States, from day one, as you’ve heard me say, we have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed, and I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that.’”

DeCamp highlights new reports in the mainstream press that “there’s already been a decision made in private to allow Ukraine to use British-provided missiles inside Ukraine” and that “the White House is finalizing plans to expand the area where Ukraine can hit inside Russia using US and British-provided missiles,” as well as recent statements from House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul that the Biden administration appears poised to allow long-range strikes deep into Russian territory.

Russia, needless to say, has not responded kindly to these comments. In “Putin: Supporting Long-Range Strikes on Russian Territory Would Put NATO ‘at War With Russia’,” DeCamp writes the following:

“Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday strongly warned the US against allowing Ukraine to use NATO missiles in long-range strikes inside Russian territory, saying the move would put the Western military alliance ‘at war with Russia.’

“Putin’s comments came after POLITICO reported that the White House was finalizing plans to expand the areas inside Russia where Ukraine can use US and British-provided missiles.

“‘This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,’ Putin told a TV reporter, according to AFP. ‘It would mean that NATO countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia. If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face.’

“He added that supporting long-range Ukrainian strikes inside Russian territory is ‘a decision on whether NATO countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not.’”

And it is here worth noting another article DeCamp published earlier this month on comments made by Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, who said that Russia is preparing to change its nuclear doctrine in response to western aggressions relating to the war in Ukraine.

Finally, in “Russia Says It Could ‘Combine’ With China If Both Face Threat From the US,” DeCamp provides more information on this horrifying direction we appear to be headed:

“Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that Russia’s partnership with China is not aimed at any third country, but the two countries could ‘combine’ to respond to threats from the US.

“‘I would like to remind you that Moscow and Beijing will respond to double containment by the United States with double counteraction,’ Zakharova said when asked about US plans to deploy a Typhon missile system to Japan for several months, according to Reuters.

…

“‘It is clear that both Russia and China will react to the emergence of additional and very significant missile threats, and their reaction will be far from being political, which has also been repeatedly confirmed by the two countries,’ Zakharova said.

“Zakharova’s comments come amid large-scale Russian naval drills that the Russian military said involve over 90,000 personnel, 400 warships and submarines, and 120 aircraft. China is participating in the Pacific portion of the drill with three Chinese ships and 15 planes.

“Russia and China have increased their military cooperation in recent years directly in response to the similar pressure the two countries have been facing from the US and its allies. Zakharova insisted the relationship is defensive in nature.”

As we’ve discussed many times here, the US has been militarily encircling China in ways it would never tolerate from a foreign threat anywhere near its own borders, in much the same way the US and its allies knowingly provoked the war in Ukraine by amassing military threats on Russia’s border.

There’s so much going on in the world right now, and the US-centralized empire is doing so many terrible things, but every once in a while I think it’s important to highlight the fact that all these individually awful things are just the mundane daily manifestations of a power structure that has us on a trajectory toward a final global confrontation that would make them all look like a picnic in the park.

Status quo politics are quite literally driving us to armageddon. Freeing ourselves from these murderous tyrants is swiftly moving beyond the morally correct thing to do for the sake of the empire’s victims around the world, to an existentially urgent action we must take for our own self-preservation.

50+ US Lawmakers Hold Military Stocks

At least 50 U.S. lawmakers or members of their households are financially invested in companies that make military weapons and equipment—even as these firms "receive hundreds of billions of dollars annually from congressionally-crafted Pentagon appropriations legislation," a report published Thursday revealed.

Sludge's David Moore analyzed 2023 financial disclosures and stock trades disclosed in other reports and found that "the total value of the federal lawmakers' defense contractors stock holdings could be as much as $10.9 million."

Over 50 members of Congress, who vote to approve the military budget and approve the sale of weapons, own up to $10.9M in military contractor stocks.

Military contractors have also donated $29M this year to election campaigns.

That isn't national defense.
That's corruption.
pic.twitter.com/E9cXgD3W8E

— Melanie D'Arrigo (@DarrigoMelanie) September 12, 2024

According to the report:

The spouse of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), the ranking member of the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, holds between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of shares in each of Boeing and RTX, as well as holdings in two other defense manufacturers. Sen. Jerry Moran (R-Kansas), another Defense Appropriations subcommittee member, holds up to $50,000 in the stock of Boeing, which received nearly $33 billion in defense contracts last year. On the Democratic side of the aisle, Sen. John Hickenlooper (Colo.) holds up to a quarter of a million dollars' worth of stock in RTX...

The most widely held defense contractor stock among senators and representatives is Honeywell, an American company that makes sensors and guiding devices that are being used by the Israeli military in its airstrikes in Gaza. The second most commonly held defense stock by Congress is RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, the company that makes missiles for Israel's Iron Dome, among other weapons systems.

All 13 senators whose households disclosed military stock holdings voted for the most recent National Defense Authorization Act, which, as Common Dreams reported, allocated a record $886.3 billion for the U.S. military while many lawmakers' constituents struggled to meet their basic needs.

"It is an obvious conflict of interest when a member of Congress owns significant stock investments in a company and then votes to award the same company lucrative federal contracts," Craig Holman, government affairs lobbyist at the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen, told Sludge.

"Whether or not the official action is taken for actual self-enrichment purposes is beside the point. There is at least an appearance of self-enrichment and that appearance is just as damaging to the integrity of Congress," Holman added. "This type of conflict of interest is already banned for executive branch officials and so should be for Congress as well. The ETHICS Act would justly avoid that conflict of interest by prohibiting members of Congress and their spouses from owning stock investments altogether."

Holman was referring to the Ending Trading and Holdings In Congressional Stocks (ETHICS) Act, introduced earlier this year by Sens. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), Gary Peters (D-Mich.), and Josh Hawley (R-Mo.).

In the House of Representatives—where the 2024 NDAA passed 310-118, with the approval of over two dozen members who own shares in military companies—House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul's (R-Texas) household owns up to $2.6 million in General Electric, Oshkosh Corporation, and Woodward shares. Rep. Dave Joyce (R-Ohio), who sits on the Defense Appropriations subcommittee, owns as much as $100,000 worth of Boeing and General Electric stock.

Other House lawmakers with potential conflicts of interest include Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, who owns Leidos shares worth as much as $248,000; Rep. Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), who owns up to $100,000 worth of RTX stock; and Rep. Patrick Fallon (R-Texas), a member of the Armed Services Committee who holds Boeing stock worth between $100,000 and $250,000.

"Every American should take a long, hard look at these holdings to conceptualize the scope of Congress' entanglement with defense contractors," Public Citizen People Over Pentagon advocate Savannah Wooten told Sludge. "It's abjectly terrifying that the personal benefit of any member of Congress is factored into decisions about how to wield and fund the largest military in the world."

"Requiring elected officials to divest from the military-industrial complex before stepping into public service would create a safer and more secure world from the outset," she added.

'Carry on killing': West gives Netanyahu a license to kill

Oh looky, the Israelis lied so egregiously that even WaPo felt obliged to challenge their narrative.

Israeli forces mischaracterised events leading to fatal shooting of US activist, says Washington Post

Israeli security forces mischaracterised the events that led up to the fatal shooting of a Turkish-American protester in the West Bank, according to an investigation by the Washington Post. The Israel Defense Forces claimed that their soldiers were targeting the leader of a violent protest when they shot Ayşenur Ezgi Eygi, a 26-year-old member of the International Solidarity Movement who had come from her native Washington state to Israel to protest against settlements in the West Bank.

In a statement, Joe Biden cited evidence provided in the IDF’s initial inquiry, saying the “preliminary investigation has indicated that it was the result of a tragic error resulting from an unnecessary escalation”. The US president also told reporters that Eygi was killed probably as the result of a bullet ricochet, and “apparently it was an accident”.

But a Washington Post report said that protests had subsided before Israeli forces opened fire, indicating that there was no immediate threat to the soldiers and little justification to target Eygi or any other protesters with live fire. According to the investigation, Eygi was “shot more than a half-hour after the height of confrontations in Beita, and some 20 minutes after protesters had moved down the main road – more than 200 yards (183 metres) away from Israeli forces”.

The potential target, a Palestinian teenager who was wounded by Israeli fire, was standing about 18 metres away from Eygi, witnesses told the Post. The investigation was based on accounts from 13 witnesses and more than 50 videos and photos provided by the International Solidarity Movement, as well as Faz3a, another Palestinian advocacy group.

Aid not reaching Gaza, say relief groups as ‘more than a million go without food’

Relief groups have said more than 1 million people in Gaza will not have enough food this month, while trucks loaded with fresh vegetables or meat spoil waiting to cross Israeli checkpoints, and thousands of aid packages of food, medical supplies and even toothbrushes and shampoo remain stuck in a backlog of lorries unable to enter from Egypt.

“We estimate that over a million Gazans will go without food in September,” said Sam Rose, a senior deputy director of UN’s relief agency for Palestinians (Unrwa), in Gaza. “Over half the medicines in our health centres are running low, as is chlorine for water purification and other basic supplies.” He added that Unrwa had resorted to trying to import single items such as soap, because kits containing a range of items such as washing powder alongside it have been blocked from entering.

“We believe we’re better served by bringing in bars of soap than trying for anything more complicated,” he said. “This shows how desperate the situation has become – we’re reduced to aiming for the absolute bare minimum to improve hygiene conditions, which is an atrocious state of affairs in a situation where there is a growing risk of infectious disease.”

“So little aid is getting in that we can’t meet basic needs,” he said.

Amed Khan, the founder of the Elpida relief organisation, said his group had unsuccessfully attempted to bring medical supplies into the territory for several months. The amount of aid entering, he said, “is the absolute minimum needed to ensure that people don’t die immediately from starvation. They could die three years from now from extended malnutrition, but this is the minimum amount of trucks needed to ensure people don’t die immediately, and avoid international outrage.”

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern

Israeli Strikes Kill 64 Palestinians Across the Gaza Strip

Israel’s relentless assault on the Gaza Strip continued on Wednesday, and Gaza’s Health Ministry reported that at least 64 Palestinians were killed in the previous 24-hour period.

The latest violence brings the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza since October 7 to 41,084, according to the Health Ministry’s figures, which don’t account for the 10,000 people estimated to be missing and presumed dead under the rubble. The ministry said the number of wounded has reached 95,029.

Strikes in Gaza on Wednesday included the bombing of a UN school turned shelter for displaced Palestinians in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza. The strike killed at least 14 people, including two children and a woman, and wounded 18 others. The UN’s Palestinian relief agency, UNRWA, said six of its employees were killed in the bombing.

First Amendment CRACKDOWN On College Campuses After CHAOTIC Spring PROTESTS

UK missiles ready to strike Russia. Putin warns US/UK

Putin: lifting Ukraine missile restrictions would put Nato ‘at war’ with Russia

Vladimir Putin has said that a western move to let Kyiv use longer-range weapons against targets inside Russia would mean Nato would be “at war” with Moscow.

Putin spoke as US and UK top diplomats discussed easing rules on firing western weapons into Russia, which Kyiv has been pressing for, more than two and a half years into Moscow’s offensive.

“This would in a significant way change the very nature of the conflict,” Putin told a state television reporter.

“It would mean that Nato countries, the US, European countries, are at war with Russia,” he added. “If that’s the case, then taking into account the change of nature of the conflict, we will take the appropriate decisions based on the threats that we will face.”

Clearing Kyiv to strike deep into Russia “is a decision on whether Nato countries are directly involved in the military conflict or not”.

Uhuru 3 Found Guilty of Conspiracy, Acquitted of Foreign Agents Charge in Landmark Trial

Judge strikes down North Dakota’s ban on abortion

A state judge struck down North Dakota’s ban on abortion on Thursday, saying that the state constitution created a fundamental right to access abortion before a fetus is viable. In his ruling, state district judge Bruce Romanick also said that the law violated the state constitution because it was too vague.

Romanick was ruling on a request from the state to dismiss a lawsuit filed against the ban in 2022 by what at the time was the sole abortion clinic in North Dakota. The clinic, Red River Women’s Clinic, has since moved across the border to Minnesota, and the state argued that a trial would not make a difference.

Romanick had canceled a trial set for August and the judge cited how North Dakota’s constitution guarantees “inalienable rights”, including “life and liberty”.

The abortion statutes at issue in the case infringed “on a woman’s fundamental right to procreative autonomy, and are not narrowly tailored to promote women’s health or to protect unborn human life”, Romanick wrote in his 24-page order on the case. He added: “The law as currently drafted takes away a woman’s liberty and her right to pursue and obtain safety and happiness.”

In 2023, North Dakota’s Republican-controlled legislature revised the state’s abortion laws, making abortion legal in pregnancies caused by rape or incest, but only in the first six weeks of pregnancy. Under the revised law, abortion was allowed later in pregnancy only in specific medical emergencies.

Imprisoned for 50 Years: Amnesty Calls for Leonard Peltier's Freedom as He Turns 80 Behind Bars

Entire Earth vibrated for nine days after climate-triggered mega-tsunami

A landslide and mega-tsunami in Greenland in September 2023, triggered by the climate crisis, caused the entire Earth to vibrate for nine days, a scientific investigation has found.

The seismic event was detected by earthquake sensors around the world but was so completely unprecedented that the researchers initially had no idea what had caused it. Having now solved the mystery, the scientists said it showed how global heating was already having planetary-scale impacts and that major landslides were possible in places previously believed to be stable as temperatures rapidly rose.

The collapse of a 1,200-metre-high mountain peak into the remote Dickson fjord happened on 16 September 2023 after the melting glacier below was no longer able to hold up the rock face. It triggered an initial wave 200 metres high and the subsequent sloshing of water back and forth in the twisty fjord sent seismic waves through the planet for more than a week. ...

Dr Kristian Svennevig from the Geological Survey of Denmark and Greenland, the lead author of the report, said: “When we set out on this scientific adventure, everybody was puzzled and no one had the faintest idea what caused this signal. It was far longer and simpler than earthquake signals, which usually last minutes or hours, and was labelled as a USO – an unidentified seismic object.

“It was also an extraordinary event because it is the first giant landslide and tsunami we have recorded in east Greenland at all. It definitely shows east Greenland is coming online when it comes to landslides. The waves destroyed an uninhabited Inuit site at sea level that was at least 200 years old, indicating nothing like this had happened for at least two centuries. A large number of huts were destroyed at a research station on Ella Island, 70km (45 miles) from the landslide. The site was founded by fur hunters and explorers two centuries ago and is used by scientists and the Danish military, but was empty at the time of the tsunami.

US lawmakers push to exclude lucrative chemicals from official PFAS definition

US lawmakers and the military are pushing for a new definition of toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” that would exclude a subclass of toxic compounds increasingly used across the economy and considered to be potent greenhouse gases.

Language included in the defense bill by the Senate armed services committee asks the military to detail how it uses fluorinated gases, or F-gases, stating that the committee is “interested in learning more about how the [department of defense] may or may not be impacted by the definition” of PFAS.

The report is probably a first step in excluding F-gases, and is part of a broader fight to exempt PFAS from potential regulation by changing the definition. Exemption would help shield F-gases, which are among the most lucrative PFAS for industry, from regulatory scrutiny and potential oversight despite them being the most widely used PFAS subclass.

The defense bill language also comes after the Environmental Protection Agency last year began considering which chemicals are PFAS on a case-by-case basis, an approach that differs from almost every other regulatory agency in the US and worldwide, and is viewed by public health advocates as an industry-friendly move.

The attempts to redefine the chemicals are “cynical”, said Erik Olson, senior adviser to the NRDC Action Fund, which is lobbying on the defense bill. “It’s completely unscientific – they’re just hoping to exclude whole chunks of the PFAS class from even being considered PFAS and consideration of [regulation],” Olson added.

Rapid intensification of Hurricane Francine is a sign of a hotter world

Hurricane Francine may now be weakening after pummeling Louisiana but the storm’s rapid and surprise intensification into a category 2 storm is one that scientists say is only getting more common due to global heating.

Francine crunched into Terrebonne parish, in southern Louisiana, on Wednesday, bringing sustained winds of about 100mph (160km/h) as it came ashore from the Gulf of Mexico, causing flash flooding and power outages for hundreds of thousands of people. New Orleans got a month’s worth of rain within just a day.

This was quite a leap from the tropical storm Francine was just shortly before strengthening to what many forecasters thought would be a category 1 event. Instead, it quickly leapt to a category 2 storm, a process known as rapid intensification, just before hitting the coastline.

“Francine went up 35mph in 24 hours, the exact threshold for rapid intensification,” posted Heather Zons, senior meteorologist at the Weather Channel. “All of this 1 hour before it made landfall.”

The fast acceleration of such storms is not new but it is becoming more common due to the climate crisis, scientists have found. The average intensification rate of hurricanes today is nearly 30% greater than it was before the 1990s due to the buildup of planet-heating gases from burning fossil fuels, according to a study published last year.

Also of Interest

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

USS Liberty Vet TELLS ALL: “It Was A Cover-Up From Day 1”

Belated Reporting on Oct 7 Helps Justify Genocide

Palestine makes history by taking seat at 79th UN General Assembly session

Putin Calls for Sanctions Revenge, Threatens to Cap Uranium Exports

Bypassing Sanctions: Russia, Trade Routes and Outfoxing the West

House passes $1.6 billion to deliver anti-China propaganda overseas

Harris and Trump Debate Maintenance of the Status Quo

Free Speech & the Department of Political Justice

Ig Nobel prize goes to team who found mammals can breathe through anuses

NYPD Chief RESIGNS! Will MAYOR Eric Adams Be Next?

Democracy Now! Hosts CNN’s Backpack-Sniffing Pro-War Shill Reporter!

A Little Night Music

Taj Mahal – Linin' Track

Taj Mahal – The Cuckoo

Taj Mahal – Give Your Woman What She Wants

Taj Mahal – Built For Comfort

Taj Mahal – Leaving Trunk

Taj Mahal – I Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Steal My Jellyroll

Taj Mahal – Diving Duck Blues

Taj Mahal – Buck Dancer's Choice

Taj Mahal – You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond

Taj Mahal – A Free Song (Rise Up Children Shake The Devil Out Of Your Soul)

Taj Mahal – Candy Man