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This evening's music features Texas blues guitarist Roy Gaines. Enjoy!

“There are no heroes...in life, the monsters win.”

-- George R. R. Martin

News and Opinion

Ukraine is de facto Nato member - defence minister

Ukraine has become a de facto member of the Nato military alliance, the Ukrainian defence minister says, amid a change in the "thinking approach" of Western countries once concerned that military assistance could be seen as an escalation by Russia.

In an interview with the BBC, Oleksii Reznikov said he was sure Ukraine would receive long-sought weapons, including tanks and fighter jets, as both Ukraine and Russia seemed to be preparing for new offensives in the spring.

"This concern about the next level of escalation, for me, is some kind of protocol," Mr Reznikov said. "Ukraine as a country, and the armed forces of Ukraine, became the member of Nato. De facto, not de jure [by law]. Because we have weaponry, and the understanding of how to use it."

Russian President Vladimir Putin has framed his invasion of Ukraine as an existential battle against Western countries that want to weaken Russia. Russian figures have argued they are fighting Nato in Ukraine, as the West has supplied the country with weapons in what they see as a war of aggression.

Ukraine, for years, has sought to join Nato, something President Putin has described as a security threat for Russia. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has pushed for fast-track accession, but it is unclear whether full membership is something the alliance members will seriously consider even after the war is over, despite pledges of support.

Ukraine Bakhmut Crisis Deepens, Zelensky Fires Key Adviser, Bloomberg Confirms Russian Oil Surge

Russian Strikes Sap Ukraine Mobile Network of Vital Power

Russia’s attacks on Ukraine’s electrical grid are straining the war-torn country’s mobile-telephone network, leading to a global hunt for batteries and other equipment critical for keeping the communications system working.

Ukraine’s power outages aren’t just putting out the lights. The electricity shortages also affect water supplies, heating systems, manufacturing and the cellular-telephone and internet network, a vital communications link in a nation where fixed-line telephones are uncommon.

Consumers can charge their cellphones at cafes or gas stations with generators, but the phones have to communicate with base stations whose antennas and switching equipment need large amounts of power. With rolling blackouts now a regular feature of life in Ukraine, the internet providers are relying on batteries to keep the network going.

The stakes are high, since Ukrainian officials are using positive news of the war, speeches by President Volodymyr Zelensky and videos distributed by cellphone to maintain popular support for fighting Russia. First responders and evacuees rely on the mobile network, and a long-term loss of communications in major cities would compound the existing problems of electrical, heating and water outages, the companies say.

Demented Biden Thinks He’s In Charge Of Russia

NATO Leader ADMITS We’re Sacrificing Ukraine To Bleed Russia!

German militarists on the make:

German defence minister resigns as government prepares to triple special fund for the military

On Monday, Germany’s Defence Minister Christine Lambrecht officially resigned. Chancellor Olaf Scholz (both SPD) reportedly will announce a successor today. The reason for Lambrecht’s resignation is not the trifles she has been publicly accused of for weeks—a botched New Year’s Eve video, taking her son on a government service flight, etc. The real reason is that despite her best intentions, the Social Democrat politician has been insufficiently assertive in advancing Germany’s militarization quickly enough and ensuring the generals get everything they want.

In its Saturday edition, Der Spiegel published a long cover story that could be described as a “manifesto of the generals.” Partly anonymous, partly naming names, it lists one demand after another that amount to a massive rearmament and enhancement of the military. Chancellor Scholz’s “turn of the times” announced in the spring is modest in comparison.

The most important goals raised in Der Spiegel are:

• Tripling the special fund for modernizing the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces) from €100 to €300 billion
• Increasing the annual arms budget from the targeted 2 to 3 percent of GDP, which would correspond to an increase from the current level of €50 to €120 billion
• Introducing a general staff and eliminating civilian control over the Bundeswehr
• Increasing troop strength and reactivating conscription
• Strengthening the arms industry, which is to supply weapons directly to the Bundeswehr without tendering, ministerial control and approval by the Bundestag.

The Spiegel article is part of a broad campaign. Over the weekend, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) published an interview with Eva Högl (Social Democrat, SPD), the parliamentary defence commissioner, who is being talked about as a possible successor to Lambrecht and is making similar demands to Spiegel. Högl, too, is calling for a tripling of the special fund for rearming the Bundeswehr: “You would need €300 billion to make significant changes in the Bundeswehr.”

Iran to get Russian Su-35 fighters soon: lawmaker

Iran will take delivery of a number of Su-35 fighter jets from Russia in the early days of the next Iranian year, which will start on March 21, an Iranian lawmaker told semi-official Tasnim news agency.

In an exclusive interview published on Sunday, Shahriar Heydari, a member of the Iranian Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Committee, revealed that Iran had previously ordered the fighter jets.

He noted that Iran has also ordered a number of defense and missile systems as well as helicopters, most of which will be soon delivered by Russia.

Biden Administration Faces Resistance to Plan to Sell F-16s to Turkey

The Biden administration has informed Congress that it wants to discuss proposed major arms sales for Turkey and Greece, according to two U.S. officials, but it already faces resistance on Capitol Hill to Ankara’s request for new and upgraded F-16 fighter jets. The $20 billion arms package for Turkey would include 40 new F-16 fighter jets and 79 upgrade kits to refurbish the country’s existing fleet of aging F-16s. Greece is asking to buy at least 30 F-35 fighter jets, the most modern planes in the U.S. arsenal.

The Greek request is uncontroversial and very likely to be approved. But while Turkey is a NATO ally of more than 70 years, that package faces skepticism from members of Congress who are exasperated with the country’s autocratic president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, including over his violation of civil liberties and his refusal so far to approve NATO membership for Sweden and Finland. The two long-neutral Nordic countries applied to join the military alliance after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

After the move toward congressional approval was reported by The Wall Street Journal on Friday, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Bob Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey and a longtime critic of Mr. Erdogan, issued a stinging statement. While saying he welcomed selling the next-generation F-35s to Greece, Mr. Menendez — whose position gives him the power to block such sales in his committee — said he “strongly” opposed selling “new F-16 aircraft to Turkey.”

Congress must approve all significant U.S. arms sales to foreign allies, and rejection or inaction would kill President Biden’s proposal.

“President Erdogan continues to undermine international law, disregard human rights and democratic norms, and engage in alarming and destabilizing behavior in Turkey and against neighboring NATO allies,” Mr. Menendez said. “Until Erdogan ceases his threats, improves his human rights record at home — including by releasing journalists and political opposition — and begins to act like a trusted ally should, I will not approve this sale.”

Iraqi Prime Minister Supports Open-Ended US Troop Presence

Iraq’s new prime minister told The Wall Street Journal in an interview published on Sunday that he supports a continued US troop presence in Iraq, breaking the silence on the issue since he came into office in October 2022.

“We think that we need the foreign forces,” Prime Minister Mohammed al-Sudani said. The US currently has about 2,500 troops in Iraq, but the presence is a divisive issue in Iraqi politics as al-Sudani’s supporters and Iraqi Shia groups have pressed him to reconsider the stationing of US forces in the country.

American troops are in the country to train government forces against ISIS, but in recent years, the US has been at odds with Iraqi Shia militias that it once allied with to fight ISIS. Tensions came to a head in January 2020 when the US killed Iranian Gen. Qasem Soleimani and Iraqi militia leader Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis in a drone strike in Baghdad.

Netanyahu defiant despite protests against Israel judicial reform

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says his government plans to charge ahead with a proposal to change the country’s judicial system, despite fierce criticism from top legal officials. Netanyahu, who is on trial for corruption, has made the legal changes the centrepiece of his new government’s agenda and the surging opposition to them is presenting an early challenge for the Israeli leader.

Netanyahu’s comments on Sunday came after opponents of the plan held nationwide protests on Saturday. They say it would cripple judicial independence, foster corruption, set back minority rights and deprive Israel’s courts of credibility that helps fend off war crimes charges abroad.

The proposed changes have sparked an outcry from the Supreme Court’s top justice, who in rare public criticism called the proposed changes an “unbridled attack on the justice system”. The country’s attorney general has also spoken out against the plan, as have many of her predecessors.

Despite the opposition, Netanyahu told a meeting of his Cabinet that voters cast their ballots in the November elections in support of his campaign promise to modify the justice system.

Deadly clashes in Peru amid 'demands for fresh elections'

Almost two in five CEOs ‘fear their global firms will be unviable within 10 years’

Almost two in five of the bosses of global companies fear their businesses will be unviable within a decade because of the struggle to find talented workers and the need to adapt to technological change.

As the World Economic Forum got under way in Davos on Monday evening, a survey of chief executives by the consultancy firm PwC was released, showing a downbeat mood about the immediate global outlook and longer-term survival prospects.

Of the UK CEOs questioned, 21% said they could not see their businesses lasting a decade on their current trajectories, rising to 39% for global CEOs. Almost three-quarters of CEOs (73%) from around the world said global growth would decline over the coming year – the most pessimistic finding since the question was first asked 12 years ago. ...

More than half expect inflation to be high in Europe this year, while there was unanimity that European growth will be weak in 2023. More than 90% of chief economists predicted economic growth in the US would be weak.

“With two-thirds of chief economists expecting a worldwide recession in 2023, the global economy is in a precarious position,” said Saadia Zahidi, a managing director at the World Economic Forum. “The current high inflation, low growth, high debt and high fragmentation environment reduces incentives for the investments needed to get back to growth and raise living standards for the world’s most vulnerable.”

Glenn Greenwald Tells Brie What He REALLY THINKS About The Twitter Files

Justifying Attack on Social Security, House Republican Claims People 'Want to Work Longer'

Republican Rep. Rick Allen of Georgia suggested last week that he would support raising the Social Security retirement age—a policy change that would slash benefits across the board—because people have approached him and said they "actually want to work longer."

Confronted by an advocate in the Capitol Building and asked how the GOP plans to cut Social Security, the congressman responded, "We're not going to cut Social Security."

But seconds later, Allen contradicted himself by expressing support for raising the retirement age, saying the move would "solve every one of these problems"—not specifying what the "problems" are from his perspective.

Republican Congressman Rick Allen wants to cut Social Security by raising the retirement age because people "want to work more".

Do you think Rick Allen has ever talked to a person with a real job in his life? pic.twitter.com/zo3jlJdKMt

— Social Security Works (@SSWorks) January 13, 2023

Allen is a member of the Republican Study Committee, a House GOP panel that released a policy agenda last year calling for gradually raising the "full retirement age" from 67 to 70, partially privatizing the New Deal program, and mean-testing benefits.

As Matt Bruenig of the People's Policy Project, a left-wing think tank, has explained, raising the Social Security retirement age is "just a straightforward benefit reduction being expressed in an opaque way."

"Social Security does not have one retirement age. It has 96 retirement ages, one for each month between age 62 and 70," Bruenig wrote in October. "What people call the 'full retirement age' (FRA) is just a placeholder in a formula that determines the benefit level at all 96 retirement ages."

"When someone proposes increasing the retirement age to 68," he continued, "all they are really proposing is to cut monthly Social Security benefits by around 7% at all 96 retirement ages. A proposal to raise the retirement age to 70 is just a proposal to cut monthly benefits by around 23% at all 96 retirement ages."

Baltimore man tried four times for same killing sees all charges dropped

A Baltimore man who stood trial four times for the same killing had all charges against him dropped on Friday. In a statement, the Baltimore state attorney, Ivan J Bates, said his office had dismissed all charges against Keith Davis, 31, who was accused of the 2015 killing of Kevin Jones, a security guard at Pimlico Race Course, after police alleged Davis’s gun matched casings found at the scene of the shooting. ...

Jones was shot and killed on 7 June 2015, at the Pimlico track in north-east Baltimore. A few hours later, a taxi driver told police officers an individual had attempted to rob him at gunpoint. Police chased Davis, firing 33 rounds as he ran to a garage. Three shots hit him, including in his face. ... Upon surrendering, Davis told authorities he did not have a gun and had been misidentified as the suspect sought by police. Authorities said they found a gun on top of a refrigerator behind which Davis sought cover. Davis maintained fingerprints on the gun did not belong to him and that he ran away from police because he saw them running towards him and was afraid.

Davis went to trial in 2016, on armed robbery charges. He and his attorneys argued that police planted the gun to cover their tracks after allegedly shooting an unarmed person by mistake. Later testimony by the taxi driver revealed that Davis did not look like the individual the driver said attempted to rob him.

Davis was found not guilty of all charges except illegal gun possession, which he denied. He was handed a five-year jail sentence. Approximately a week later, Davis was charged with murder, after prosecutors claimed the weapon found on Davis was connected to the Pimlico shooting. Davis underwent four trials, all of which resulted in mistrial or overturned convictions of second-degree murder. A fifth trial was scheduled for May, before the charges were dropped on Friday.

Dems LINE UP Behind Anti-Abortion, Anti-Union Judge!

Eric Adams says New York City doesn’t have ‘room’ to host more migrants

In an unprecedented visit by a New York City mayor to the Mexico border, Eric Adams said his city doesn’t have enough “room” to host more migrants in its strained care system.

He made his remarks on Sunday at a news conference during his trip to El Paso, Texas, the first visit of its kind by a New York mayor, after an ongoing crisis sparked by the controversial decision of some Republican governors in the south to send migrants to mostly Democratic-administered municipalities around the US.

“No city deserves what is happening. This is a beautiful city,” he said of El Paso, “and what happened over the last few months undermines this city”. He echoed the same thoughts for Chicago, Los Angeles, Houston and Washington. “We don’t deserve this, migrants don’t deserve this, and the people who live in this city don’t deserve this,” he added.

Since September, thousands of migrants – about 3,100 according to Adams’s estimate – have been bused to New York City from Texas by the Republican governor, Greg Abbott, without New York’s agreement. Many of the migrants have been sent involuntarily and often with no direction on where to go after arriving.

The city has housed them in homeless shelters, which were already overcrowded, not to mention often avoided by homeless people themselves due to the shelter system’s record of abuse and violence.

Warning of unprecedented heatwaves as El Niño set to return in 2023

The return of the El Niño climate phenomenon later this year will cause global temperatures to rise “off the chart” and deliver unprecedented heatwaves, scientists have warned.

Early forecasts suggest El Niño will return later in 2023, exacerbating extreme weather around the globe and making it “very likely” the world will exceed 1.5C of warming. The hottest year in recorded history, 2016, was driven by a major El Niño.

It is part of a natural oscillation driven by ocean temperatures and winds in the Pacific, which switches between El Niño, its cooler counterpart La Niña, and neutral conditions. The last three years have seen an unusual run of consecutive La Niña events.

This year is already forecast to be hotter than 2022, which global datasets rank as the fifth or sixth hottest year on record. But El Niño occurs during the northern hemisphere winter and its heating effect takes months to be felt, meaning 2024 is much more likely to set a new global temperature record.

The greenhouse gases emitted by human activities have driven up average global temperature by about 1.2C to date. This has already led to catastrophic impacts around the world, from searing heatwaves in the US and Europe to devastating floods in Pakistan and Nigeria, harming millions of people. “It’s very likely that the next big El Niño could take us over 1.5C,” said Prof Adam Scaife, the head of long-range prediction at the UK Met Office. “The probability of having the first year at 1.5C in the next five-year period is now about 50:50.”

Outrage After Kerry Backs UAE Oil Exec as President of UN Climate Summit

Progressives on Monday reacted with outrage and disbelief after U.S. climate envoy John Kerry backed the appointment of Sultan al-Jaber to lead the the United Nations' annual conference on the climate emergency, saying the CEO of the United Arab Emirates' state-run oil company was not only qualified to preside over the summit, but that his background strengthened the case for his presidency.

As Common Dreams reported last week, the UAE named al-Jaber as president of the 28th United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP28), scheduled to begin in November—a decision that was met with scorn from campaigners as al-Jaber is heads the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) and a renewable energy firm in which ADNOC holds a 24% stake.

"I think that Dr. Sultan al-Jaber is a terrific choice because he is the head of the company. That company knows it needs to transition," Kerry told the Associated Press Sunday, despite the fact that scientists and advocates across the globe have also known for decades that policymakers must lead a rapid transition away from oil and gas-generated energy. "He knows—and the leadership of the UAE is committed to transitioning."

Advocates have warned that the UAE has not made clear how it plans to reach its stated goal of being carbon neutral by 2050, especially as it plans to increase production of crude oil by a million barrels per day.

The UAE is expected to become "the third largest expander of oil and gas production" between 2023 and 2025 as ADNOC embarks on the second-largest expansion of oil production of any company in the world, locking in more than 2.7 gigatonnes of CO2 emissions.

But when asked by Sky News Arabia about whether al-Jaber would have a conflict of interest at the conference, where leaders are expected to be pushed to take significant emissions-reduction steps, Kerry dismissed the concern.

Also of Interest

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

US Imperial Dominance Disguised as Democratic Deterrence

Chris Hedges: Russell Banks, John Brown and the American Soul

Recalling CNN’s Fraudulent “Interview” With A Seven Year-Old Syrian Girl

Corporations Are Pushing The Supreme Court To Crush Unions

Adopted by their parents’ enemies: tracing the stolen children of Argentina’s ‘dirty war’

Dog Photography awards – in pictures

Rep. Ro Khanna on CA Flooding, Big Oil's Climate Denial, Debt Ceiling, Assange & Possible Senate Bid

Germany: 'Citizens of the Reich' refuse to recognise post-war federal state

MLK Statue MOCKED, Compared To Sex Act As Cousin Slams 'INSULTING' Design

A Little Night Music

Roy Gaines - Too many miles between us

Roy Gaines - Alabama Sue

Roy Gaines - Skippy Is A Sissy

Roy Gaines - De Dat De Dum Dum

Roy Gaines - A Hell Of A Night Tonight

Roy Gaines - Worried ´Bout You Baby

Roy Gaines - It's Midnight Baby

Roy Gaines - Rag Blues

Roy Gaines - Heavy Load

Roy Gaines - Black Gal

Roy Gaines - Right Now Baby