Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues slide guitarist Elmore James. Enjoy!

"Here comes President Kill again,
Surrounded by all of his killing men.
Telling us who, why, where and when,
President Kill wants killing again.

Hooray, ring out the bells,
King Conscience is dead.
Hooray, now back in your cells,
We've President Kill instead.

Here comes President Kill again.
Broadcasting from his killing den.
Dressed in pounds and dollars and yen,
President Kill wants killing again.

Hooray, hang out the flags,
Queen Caring is dead.
Hooray, we'll stack body bags,
For President Kill instead.

Ain't democracy wonderful?
Them Russians can't win!
Ain't democracy wonderful?
Lets us vote someone like that in.

Here comes President Kill again,
From pure White House to Number 10.
Taking lives with a smoking pen,
President Kill wants killing again.

Hooray, everything's great,
Now President Kill is dead.
Hooray, I'll bet you can't wait,
To vote for President Kill instead..."

-- Andy Partridge

News and Opinion

Russian paratroopers arrive in Kazakhstan as unrest continues

Russian paratroopers have arrived in Kazakhstan as part of a “peacekeeping” mission by a Moscow-led military alliance to help the president regain control of the country, according to Russian news agencies. Kazakhstan’s president, Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, asked for the intervention from the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) – an alliance made up of Russia, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – late on Wednesday and it was swiftly approved.

It comes as violent clashes continue between protesters and the police and army in Kazakhstan. There is little reliable information on the number of casualties, but local news agencies quoted a spokesperson for police in Almaty, the country’s largest city, saying dozens of people were killed during attacks on government buildings. Almaty city authorities said on Thursday that 353 police and security forces personnel had been injured, and 12 killed.

On Thursday morning, shots were fired as troops entered Almaty’s main square. Several armoured personnel carriers and dozens of troops moving on foot arrived on Thursday morning, with shots heard as they approached the crowd, Reuters witnesses said.

State television reported on Thursday that the National Bank of Kazakhstan had suspended all financial institutions. The internet in the country is mostly down as well as mobile phone reception. ...

It is not clear how many troops the CSTO will send or how long they will stay in the country. Russian MP Leonid Kalashnikov told Interfax the troops would stay “for as long as the president of Kazakhstan believes it necessary”. He said they would mainly be engaged in protecting “infrastructure” in the country.

Wow, the Pentagon can't figure out why anybody would want to attack their occupying forces. Pentagonium must be the most dense substance on earth.

Iraqi and Syrian bases holding US troops attacked, but no American forces were killed

Military bases in Iraq and Syria that hold American troops were attacked Wednesday, though no US forces were killed in the strikes, according to Iraqi officials and the US-led coalition.

There have been multiple attacks this week coinciding with Monday's second anniversary of the US assassination of a key Iranian general.

"It's difficult to know with great specificity and certainty ... what accounts for the frequency of these attacks," Pentagon press secretary John Kirby told reporters. "It is certainly possible that it could be related to the anniversary of the Soleimani strike. It is certainly possible that it could be related to the change in mission" in Iraq.

"The truth is, we just don't know for sure," he added. "Bottom line is we had been thinking and preparing for the possibility of stepped-up attacks at the end of December."

On Wednesday morning, US-led coalition forces fired back after they were attacked by suspected Iranian-backed militias who fired eight rounds of indirect fire at their base in eastern Syria near the Iraqi border, according to a statement from the coalition.

'The EU must have a dialogue with Russia,' says France's Macron

Blinken says no progress with Russia so long as 'gun to Ukraine's head'

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Wednesday that Russia must ease pressure on Ukraine if it wants progress, as he renewed a warning of "massive consequences" for an invasion.

Russia and the United States hold talks next week in Geneva after Moscow amassed tens of thousands of troops on the Ukrainian border and asked the West for guarantees against expanding the NATO alliance.

If the talks are "going to show real progress, that will require de-escalation," Blinken told a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock.

Pointing to Russia's hopes for progress in areas such as arms control, Blinken said, "It's very hard to make actual progress in any of these areas in an atmosphere of escalation and threat with a gun pointed to Ukraine's head."

"Russia should be in no doubt that further military aggression against Ukraine would have massive consequences and severe costs in response," Blinken said.

Americans Still Don’t Want War, Despite the Military-Industrial Complex’s Best Efforts

What with the once ambitious Build Back Better bill slashed and stalled, multiple looming foreign policy crises, and still festering social and economic ills the Joe Biden presidency appears determined to leave unaddressed, we’re starved for good news these days. So take solace in this: the US public’s appetite for war is still remarkably small, despite the best efforts of its elite.

A recent survey from YouGov and the Charles Koch Institute found that a strong plurality of Americans oppose going to war with Russia over Ukraine, with 48 percent of respondents somewhat or strongly opposed (with the latter stance taking the bigger share), and only 27 percent in favor, a mere 9 percent “strongly” so. This is a fairly stunning result, given not just the pro-war slant among politicians and the media when it comes to this particular crisis but years of attempts to stoke conflict between the two countries since 2016.

Russia and Ukraine isn’t the only area we see this in. A similar bipartisan push to demonize China and commit to a going to war if Taiwan’s sovereignty is threatened has succeeded in getting more Americans to view China as a threat, but it hasn’t made them particularly enthusiastic about the idea of war with the country. ...

These results point to the diminishing currency of foreign affairs fearmongering as a political tool. While there are periods of US history where external national security threats have been effective political rallying cries — the early years of the Cold War and the era following September 11 come to mind — we appear to currently be drifting from this style of politics, even with the avalanche of propaganda aimed at reversing this trend.

The Histrionics and Melodrama Around 1/6 Are Laughable, but They Serve Several Key Purposes

The number of people killed by pro-Trump supporters at the January 6 Capitol riot is equal to the number of pro-Trump supporters who brandished guns or knives inside the Capitol. ... That number is zero. But just as these rather crucial facts do not prevent the dominant wing of the U.S. corporate media and Democratic Party leaders from continuing to insist that Donald Trump's 2016 election victory was illegitimate due to his collusion with the Kremlin, it also does not prevent January 6 from being widely described in those same circles as an Insurrection, an attempted coup, an event as traumatizing as Pearl Harbor (2,403 dead) or the 9/11 attack (2,977 dead), and as the gravest attack on American democracy since the mid-19th Century Civil War (750,000 dead). The Huffington Post's White House reporter S.V. Date said that it was wrong to compare 1/6 to 9/11, because the former — the three-hour riot at the Capitol — was “1,000 percent worse.”

Indeed, when it comes to melodrama, histrionics, and exploitation of fear levels from the 1/6 riot, there has never been any apparent limit. And today — the one-year anniversary of that three-hour riot — there is no apparent end in sight. Too many political and media elites are far too vested in this maximalist narrative for them to relinquish it voluntarily. ...

That the January 6 riot was some sort of serious attempted insurrection or "coup” was laughable from the start, and has become even more preposterous with the passage of time and the emergence of more facts. The United States is the most armed, militarized and powerful regime in the history of humanity. The idea that a thousand or so Trump supporters, largely composed of Gen X and Boomers, who had been locked in their homes during a pandemic — three of whom were so physically infirm that they dropped dead from the stress — posed anything approaching a serious threat to “overthrow” the federal government of the United States of America is such a self-evidently ludicrous assertion that any healthy political culture would instantly expel someone suggesting it with a straight face.

Putting the events of January 6 into their proper perspective is not to dismiss the fact that it was a lamentable event — any more than opposing the exploitation of 9/11 and exaggeration of the domestic threat of Muslim extremism, which I spent a full decade doing, meant that one was denying the heinousness of that attack. The day after the 1/6 riot, I wrote in this space that “the introduction of physical force into political protest is always lamentable, usually dangerous, and, except in the rarest of circumstances that are plainly inapplicable here, unjustifiable.” I still believe that to be the case. There was nothing virtuous about the 1/6 riot. ...

Far too many centers of political and economic power benefit from an exaggerated and even false narrative about January 6 to expect it ever to end.

David Sirota: Biden’s Own Consultants Are Working On the Side to Tank His Agenda

Chicago Teachers Rebuke 'Incompetent' Mayor Lightfoot as Lockout Continues for Second Day

Classes across Chicago Public Schools were canceled for the second consecutive day Thursday as city officials refused to allow teachers to work remotely despite rising coronavirus cases and what the Chicago Teachers Union says are inadequate safety precautions in school facilities.

The union filed an unfair labor practices charge with the state labor relations board late Wednesday, saying Democratic Mayor Lori Lightfoot and school officials failed to put proper public health measures in place before students and staff returned to school on Monday following the holiday break.

With the district failing to provide a robust testing strategy and other measures as cases and hospitalizations surge in Chicago, driven by the highly transmissible Omicron variant, 73% of Chicago Teachers Union (CTU) members voted Tuesday to begin teaching remotely this week.

Instead of allowing remote education while a safety plan was put in place, Lightfoot and Chicago Public Schools (CPS) opted to cancel school completely and even shut down the district's Virtual Academy for on-line learning.

CTU leaders advised teachers to attempt to log in to the Virtual Academy Thursday and document their work as well as posting on social media "solidarity photos" of themselves "wearing red, ready to work remotely," as they pushed back against the city's false claim that the union is engaged in a work stoppage.

"They falsely claim that we're engaging in an illegal strike, when we WANT to teach but can't because they've locked us out," wrote CTU President Jess Sharkey Wednesday night in an email to members. "We have rights to safety... Please, work WITH us to set up comprehensive testing, work with us to vaccinate students, and work with us to establish basic guardrails."

Other large school districts across the country, including in Milwaukee, Atlanta, and Detroit have delayed the start of the semester or shifted to remote learning temporarily as the Omicron variant fuels the latest surge in cases.

With Chicago reporting a 23% Covid-19 positivity rate, the CTU called for all students and staff to test negative before returning to school, the district to provide high-quality masks to all, and schools to shift to remote learning if 20% of staff members or more are out due to illness or exposure. CTU members have expressed concern that when teachers are absent, their students are "corralled in auditoriums or gyms" in large numbers, according to New York Times education correspondent Dana Goldstein.

The district sent 150,000 home testing kits to families during the holiday break, but many of the tests couldn't be analyzed by January 3. Of the tests that were analyzed, 18% were positive, but a majority produced invalid results.

"We are between a rock and a hard place—the rock being the pandemic, the hard place being an intractable, incompetent mayor," Stacy Davis Gates, vice president of the CTU, told the Times Wednesday. ...

While CTU leaders urged teachers to reach out to families to help them access testing on Thursday, Lightfoot appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" where she attacked the union of trying to "politicize the pandemic" and "flex their power" in a way that is "harming our children."

Seattle police faked Proud Boys threat during race protests, says watchdog

Seattle police exchanged detailed fake radio transmissions about a nonexistent group of menacing right-wing extremists at a crucial moment during the 2020 racial justice protests, an investigation by the city’s police watchdog group shows.

The radio chatter about members of the Proud Boys marching around downtown Seattle, some possibly carrying guns and then heading to confront protesters on Capitol Hill was an improper “ruse”, or dishonest ploy, that exacerbated a volatile situation, the Seattle Times reported. That’s according to findings released Wednesday by the city’s Office of Police Accountability (OPA). ...

The ruse happened 8 June 2020, hours after the police department abandoned its East Precinct and as protesters were starting to set up the temporary zone that was later called the Capitol Hill Organized Protest or CHOP. The officers who participated described a group gathering by City Hall and delivered reports such as, “It looks like a few of them might be open carrying,” and: “Hearing from the Proud Boys group. They may be looking for somewhere else for confrontation.” Social media posts warning about the Proud Boys group by people monitoring police radio transmissions caused alarm in the protest zone.

Though some people in the zone may have brought guns regardless of the chatter, the ruse “improperly added fuel to the fire,” Andrew Myerberg, director of the Office of Police Accountability, concluded. The 8 June radio chatter was part of an approved “misinformation effort” that police leaders knew about, according to Wednesday’s closed-case summary by Myerberg, which is now under review by police department leaders for disciplinary rulings. Fabricating the group of Proud Boys violated department policies, Myerberg determined. It appears unlikely, however, that anyone will face punitive actions.

Trump Thrashed for Lie-Laden Response to Biden Jan. 6 Anniversary Address

Former U.S. President Donald Trump was raked Thursday for doubling down on his "Big Lie" that the 2020 presidential election was "stolen" in a series of spurious statements responding to President Joe Biden's address marking the one-year anniversary of the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

During his speech, Biden said that "we must be absolutely clear about what is true and what is a lie. And here's the truth: The former president of the United States of America has created and spread a web of lies about the 2020 election."

Trump responded by releasing four statements, one of them calling Biden's speech an attempt to use his name—which the president never uttered—"to try to further divide America."

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) retorted on Twitter that "attempting to overturn the election results and stop our country's sacred tradition of a peaceful transition of power is divisive. Demanding accountability is not."

NASA, Billionaires Eye Terraforming Mars And 'Space Parks' Instead Of Dealing With Climate Change

Prosecutor Sought Funding From Oil Giant Enbridge to Jail Line 3 Water Protectors: Report

With Canadian oil giant Enbridge pouring more than $4 million into a fund that was used by the law enforcement agencies which have arrested hundreds of people for protesting the company's thousand-mile-long tar sands pipeline, the prosecutor who is bringing charges against the environmental defenders believed he was also entitled to benefit from the fund, according to an independent investigation.

The Center for Protest Law and Litigation (CPLL) revealed Thursday that Jonathan Frieden, the lead prosecutor seeking to jail hundreds of opponents to the Line 3 pipeline, sought more than $12,000 last July from the so-called Line 3 Public Safety Escrow Trust, which the Minnesota Public Utilities Commission (PUC) ordered Enbridge to pay into as a condition of the pipeline's construction.

According to documents obtained by the center, Frieden wrote to Rick Hart, manager for the escrow account at the Minnesota PUC, with a bill for the hours he and his support staff worked preparing the case against Indigenous groups and other climate campaigners.

Hart later informed Frieden that "prosecution expenses are not an allowable reimbursable expense for the Line 3 Public Safety Escrow Account."

Enbridge—whose Line 3 pipeline transports tar sands across Indigenous lands and violates Anishinaabe treaty rights as well as threatening water safety in Minnesota—has acknowledged that it funneled $2.9 million into the fund which benefited sheriffs' departments and other law enforcement agencies as they cracked down on anti-pipeline protests.

The money has been used to conduct patrols along the pipeline and to reimburse law enforcement agencies for protective gear, transportation, lodging, and meals while they've made hundreds of arrests.

As Frieden pursued charges for trespassing, theft, "unlawful assembly," and other misdemeanors and felonies—which are "meant to intimidate and dissuade free speech and to dissuade further protests" rather than protect public safety, according to campaigners—he sought funding from the oil giant.

The prosecutor pushed back when he was informed the escrow account couldn't be used by him and his staff, saying their work "to charge the individuals endangering the public" should "qualify under public safety."

Frieden's "expectation of funding incentivized the wrongful charging of hundreds," said CPLL.

"Who's next to violate [the] constitutional rights of water protectors and ask Big Oil to pay for it?" asked Katie Redford, co-founder of Earth Rights International.

The state-run account to which Enbridge has contributed millions of dollars "essentially privatizes public police forces to act in service to the private pecuniary interests of this foreign corporation against its political opponents and the Indigenous community and to stop and disrupt peaceful organizing and expression that would educate the larger community and national audience about the environmental devastation and danger posed by the Line 3 pipeline," said CPLL.

Frieden's request suggests he believed that the company was also using "county attorneys as their personal security," said Jane Fleming Kleeb, chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party.

"This should never be happening," tweeted Kleeb.

England’s farmers to be paid to rewild land

Farmers in England will be given taxpayers’ cash to rewild their land, under plans for large-scale nature recovery projects announced by the government. These will lead to vast tracts of land being newly managed to conserve species, provide habitats for wildlife and restore health to rivers and streams.

Bids are being invited for 10-15 pilot projects, each covering at least 500 hectares and up to 5,000 hectares, to a total of approximately 10,000 hectares in the first two-year phase – about 10 times the size of Richmond Park in London. These pilots could involve full rewilding or other forms of management that focus on species recovery and wildlife habitats.

Rare fauna such as sand lizards, water voles and curlews will be targeted, with the aim of improving the status of about half of the most threatened species in England.

The exact funding has not been disclosed, as bids will be compared to determine value for money before a final decision on which should go ahead is made this summer. However, the total amount available for such schemes is expected to reach £700m to £800m a year by 2028. By 2042, the government aims to have up to 300,000 hectares of England covered by such “landscape recovery” projects – an area roughly the size of Lancashire.

Also of Interest

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

How The Meltdown Became An Insurrection

The U.S. Directed Rebellion in Kazakhstan May Well Strengthen Russia

Steppe on fire: Kazakhstan’s color revolution, by Pepe Escobar

Tutu Obits Underplay His Advocacy for Palestine

The Fed Sets Out to Kill the Economy to Save It

Wall Street Banks Have an Alibi for their $11.23 Trillion in Emergency Repo Loans from the Fed – It’s a Doozy

Our Ancestors Worked Less and Had Better Lives. What Are We Doing Wrong?

Treasure hunters demand answers from FBI about search for civil war-era gold

Don't Look Up Producer RESPONDS to Critical Reviews

Sudan Protests Demand End to Military Rule: “No Negotiation, No Partnership, No Legitimacy”

House Buying FRENZY? Americans Took Out $1.6T In Mortgage Loans In 2021, SHATTERING 2005 Record

A Little Night Music

Elmore James - Dust My Broom

Elmore James - Something Inside Me'

Elmore James - Every Day I Have the Blues

Elmore James - My Bleeding Heart

Elmore James - Standing At The Crossroads

Elmore James - Strange Angels

Elmore James - Rollin' and Tumblin'

Elmore James - One Way Out

Elmore James (w/Sam Myers on harp) - Look on yonder wall

Elmore James - (I) Done Somebody Wrong

Elmore James - Baby What's Wrong

Elmore James - Shake Your Moneymaker

Elmore James - Knocking At Your Door