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"The mythology of the Reagan presidency is that he induced the collapse of the Soviet Union by luring it into unsustainable military spending and wars: should there come a point when we think about applying that lesson to ourselves?"

-- Glenn Greenwald

News and Opinion

Aren't you glad that you just paid your taxes so that Uncle Sam can piss it all away on killing machines?

Global Military Spending Tops $2 Trillion for First Time in History

Global military expenditures surpassed $2 trillion for the first time ever last year, with the United States spending more on its war-making capacity than the next nine nations combined, according to new data published Monday.

The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) reported an all-time high of $2.1 trillion in worldwide military spending for 2021, a 0.7% increase from 2020 levels and the seventh straight year of increased expenditures. 

"Even amid the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic, world military spending hit record levels," SIPRI senior researcher Diego Lopes da Silva said in a statement. "There was a slowdown in the rate of real-terms growth due to inflation. In nominal terms, however, military spending grew by 6.1%."

Tori Bateman, policy advocacy coordinator at the American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker group, said that "this year, we've seen how military spending fails to keep us safe. It's shameful that governments, especially the United States, continue to destabilize our world with more weapons, while failing to address climate change, public health, and other true global crises."

"It's time for the United States, and world leaders everywhere, to cut military spending and commit to solving our problems for real," she added.

With $801 billion—or 38% of total global military spending—the United States spent more in 2021 than the next nine nations combined: China ($293 billion), India ($76.6 billion), the United Kingdom ($68.4 billion), Russia ($65.9 billion), France ($56.6 billion), Germany ($56 billion), Saudi Arabia ($55.6 billion), Japan ($54.1 billion), and South Korea ($50.2 billion).

U.S. funding for military research and development increased by nearly a quarter between 2012 and 2021, while arms procurement expenditures fell by 6.4% over that same period, a trend that "suggests that the United States is focusing more on next-generation technologies," according to SIPRI researcher Alexandra Marksteiner.

"The U.S. government has repeatedly stressed the need to preserve the U.S. military's technological edge over strategic competitors," she added.

The latest SIPRI analysis comes weeks after U.S. President Joe Biden rejected progressive lawmakers' calls for Pentagon spending cuts and asked Congress to green-light more than $813 in new military spending for the next fiscal year—a $31 billion increase from current levels.

That amount includes nearly $146 billion for the procurement of new weaponry, including Lockheed Martin F-35 fighter jets, Northrup Grumman B-21 bombers, and Virginia-class nuclear-powered fast attack submarines manufactured by General Dynamics and Huntington Ingalls Industries.

The new SIPRI report also comes as some of the largest U.S. weapons makers are gearing up for what is expected to be a big earnings week as the West's response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine—providing Ukrainian forces with billions of dollars in weaponry—fuels arms industry profits.

Lindsay Koshgarian, director of the National Priorities Project at the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Policy Studies, recently noted that "spending 12 times as much on our military as Russia didn't prevent a war in Europe. It just deprived us of resources at home."

"Even during a pandemic, supply chain crisis, and painful inflation, we'll put more resources into the military and war than public health, education, green jobs, affordable housing, scientific and medical research, child care, and every other domestic need—combined," she wrote. "This special treatment for the Pentagon recklessly squanders precious resources that could be used to strengthen our families and communities against our compounding crises at home."

Blinken and Austin meet Zelensky. Conflict in Moldova gets green light

Biden Approves $713 Million in Weapons For Ukraine, Hopes War Will Leave Russia Weakened

On Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin became the highest-ranking US officials to visit Ukraine since Russia invaded on February 24. During meetings with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the officials promised more support for a war the White House hopes will weaken Moscow.

While in Kiev, Blinken informed Zelensky the White House authorized over $700 million in assistance to finance weapon sales and approved a sale of $165 million in “non-standard ammunition” for Ukraine.

A State Department press release explained the $700 million in arms financing includes grants for Ukraine and aid for NATO members to help backfill stockpiles donated to Kiev.

“The United States intends to obligate more than $713 million in Foreign Military Financing (FMF) for Ukraine and 15 other Allied and partner nations. More than $322 million in this obligation is for Ukraine and will provide support for the capabilities Ukraine needs as Russia’s forces train their focus on the Donbas; this assistance will also help Ukraine’s armed forces transition to more advanced weapons and air defense systems. This assistance will also help NATO Allies with backfilling capabilities they have donated to Ukraine from their own stockpiles.”

Since Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized “special military operations,” the US supported Ukraine with $3.7 billion in security assistance.

Large fires break out at Russian oil depots

Large fires broke out early on Monday at two oil depots in the Russian city of Bryansk, less than 100 miles from the border with Ukraine, in a potential act of sabotage by Kyiv. Russian state media said the first fire occurred at a civilian facility in Bryansk holding 10,000 tons of fuel, followed by a second fire at a military fuel depot holding 5,000 tons.

Bryansk, which is less than 100 miles north-east of the Ukrainian border, serves as a logistics base for Moscow’s military campaign in Ukraine.

Images posted on Russian social media showed columns of smoke rising from the facilities in the Russian city on Monday morning.

Military analyst Rob Lee said that the footage suggested the fire was “probably” caused by Ukrainian sabotage. “It sounds like something is flying through the air before the explosion. I think it was probably a Ukrainian attack, but we cannot be certain,” Lee said.

More from The Guardian's propaganda mill. The U.S. leadership is high on its own supply:

Pentagon chief’s Russia remarks show shift in US’s declared aims in Ukraine

The US defense secretary’s declaration that Washington wanted to see Russia weakened militarily and unable to recover quickly, marks a shift in Washington’s declared aims underlying its military support for Ukraine. At a press conference in Poland after a surprise visit to Kyiv, Lloyd Austin was asked if he would now define US goals differently from those set out soon after the Russian invasion. In response, he started out with the established administration line about helping Ukraine retain its sovereignty and defend its territory.

Then Austin added a second goal: “We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine.” That meant Russia should “not have the capability to very quickly reproduce” the forces and equipment that had been lost in Ukraine.

The UK defence secretary, Ben Wallace, estimated those losses on Monday as a quarter of Russia’s pre-invasion strength, with more than 2,000 armoured vehicles knocked out, including at least 530 tanks, as well as 60 aircraft. ...

The remarks suggested that even if Russian forces withdrew or were expelled from the Ukrainian territory they have occupied since 24 February, the US and its allies would seek to maintain sanctions with the aim of stopping Russia reconstituting its forces. It also indicated Washington is taking a position in an internal debate within Nato on whether to use the opportunity of Vladimir Putin’s strategic blunder in Ukraine to try to hobble his ability to threaten other countries in the future.

“The balance in Nato itself has shifted,” Rajan Menon, the director of the grand strategy programme at the Defense Priorities thinktank, said. “The argument now seems to be this is not just about Ukraine; it’s about a larger problem, that is the threat that Russia poses to Europe as a whole. And if you look at it that way, then these comments begin to make sense.”

Russia bombs five railway stations in central and western Ukraine

Five railway stations in central and western Ukraine were hit by Russian airstrikes in the space of an hour on Monday, as the war ground on relentlessly in the south and east of the country. Oleksander Kamyshin, the head of Ukrainian Railways, said five train stations came under fire, causing an unspecified number of casualties, as most of Ukraine was placed under an unusually long air raid warning for two hours on Monday morning.

Kamyshin said one of the attacks took place at about 8.30am in Krasne, near Lviv in western Ukraine, at what the governor of the region described as a “traction substation” that handled power supply to other lines. He said emergency workers were at the scene. ...

Ukraine’s military command said Russia was trying to bomb rail infrastructure to disrupt arms supplies from foreign countries. “They are trying to destroy the supply routes of military-technical assistance from partner states. To do this, they focus strikes on railway junctions,” it wrote in a Facebook post.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed six railway facilities used to supply Ukrainian forces with foreign weapons.

Sweden and Finland agree to submit Nato applications, say reports

Sweden and Finland have agreed to submit simultaneous membership applications to the US-led Nato alliance as early as the middle of next month, Nordic media have reported.

The Finnish daily Iltalehti said on Monday that Stockholm had “suggested the two countries indicate their willingness to join” on the same day, and that Helsinki had agreed “as long as the Swedish government has made its decision”.

The Swedish newspaper Expressen cited government sources as confirming the report. The two countries’ prime ministers said this month they were deliberating the question, arguing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had changed Europe’s “whole security landscape” and “dramatically shaped mindsets” in the Nordic region. ...

Expressen said the simultaneous applications could be submitted in the week of 16 May, coinciding with a state visit to Stockholm by the Finnish president Sauli Niinistö. The Guardian could not independently confirm the reports. Recent opinion polls have shown as many as 68% of Finns are in favour of joining the alliance, more than double the figure before the invasion, with only 12% against. Polling in Sweden suggests a slim majority of Swedes also back membership.

German ex-Chancellor Schroeder urged to leave Scholz party over Russia ties

Germany’s SPD calls on Gerhard Schröder to quit party over Russia links

The co-leader of Germany’s Social Democratic party (SPD) has urged the former chancellor Gerhard Schröder to hand in his party membership after he made clear in an interview that he had no intention to resign from his seats on the boards of Russian energy companies over the war in Ukraine. Schröder, who was Germany’s head of government from 1998 to 2005, presides over the board of the Russian oil company Rosneft and is chairman of the shareholder committee of pipeline company Nord Stream.

Stepping down from these posts “would have been necessary to rescue his reputation as a former and formerly successful chancellor”, Saskia Esken told the German public broadcaster Deutschlandradio on Monday morning. “Sadly he hasn’t followed that advice.” In the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine at the end of February, the SPD leadership had sent Schröder a letter asking him to relinquish his roles at the Russian state-owned companies, which has reportedly gone unanswered. ...

In an interview with the New York Times published over the weekend, the 78-year-old statesman-turned-lobbyist sounded stubbornly unrepentant over the links between German industry and Russian energy providers, which was broadly continued by his successor, Angela Merkel, but has limited the ability of Europe’s largest economy to meet Putin’s military aggression with economic sanctions.

“I don’t do mea culpa,” Schröder told the US broadsheet from his office in Hanover, in north-western Germany. “It’s not my thing.” The Social Democrat suggested he would resign from his board seats only if Russia chose to turn off gas deliveries to Germany, something he claimed “won’t happen”. While describing the war in Ukraine as “a mistake”, Schröder appeared to defend his close friendship with Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin. “The image that people have of Putin is only half the truth,” he said.

Elon Musk Buys Twitter & Liberals Freak Out!

Billionaires Only Come To The Rescue In Movies And Comic Books

Twitter has done an about-face and sold the company to the richest person in the world for $44 billion.

Rightists are having a merry old time making fun of the melodramatic reactions from high-profile liberals who fear Elon Musk’s purchase will lead to more free speech on the platform for people who don’t align with them politically, and many of the blue-checkmarked commentariat who live on Twitter and can’t go five minutes without checking their notifications are making a big show of pretending they’re about to leave.

Many critics on the left are responding to the news by ringing alarm bells about a powerful oligarch controlling an influential social media platform, as though Twitter was anything besides oligarch-controlled before today and as though billionaires buying up media is some shocking new development. Some anti-imperialists have expressed tentative hope that this new development may lead to some rollback of the jarring escalations in censorship we’ve been seeing on the platform in defense of US empire narratives, due to the plutocrat’s comments on the importance of free speech.

Yesss!!! pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022

From what I can see, though, the overwhelming majority of excitement on Twitter about Musk’s purchase is coming not from those who challenge power in any meaningful way but from those who want Donald Trump’s account restored and want to be able to say mean things to trans people. And I suspect that says a lot about what we’re looking at here.

This important distinction was summed up by journalist Michael Tracey, who tweeted, “The biggest test for Elon Musk will not be whether he rolls back the most obvious ‘woke’ content policies — that should be a given — but whether he continues to let Twitter be used as a vehicle for the US national security state to ‘counter’ official enemies like Russia and China.”

Speaking for myself I won’t be surprised if we do see some of the former, but I will be absolutely astonished if we see the latter.

You don’t get to be a billionaire, much less a billionaire with massively influential media ownership, unless you collaborate with existing power structures. Musk has certainly been collaborating with the oligarchic empire very nicely up until this point, and it’s a safe bet that his purchase would not be happening if the empire felt its narrative control machine was in any way threatened by it.

Believing Elon Musk is going to save Twitter is as naive as believing Joe Biden was going to save America. Arguing over which oligarchs should control the media is as silly and undignified as arguing over which oligarch-owned politicians should run the government.

Billionaires coming to the rescue only happens in movies and comic books. You’re as likely to be saved by Elon Musk as you are by Bruce Wayne or Tony Stark.

How many times are people going to fall for this “a billionaire is about to stick it to the man and save us all” schtick? It’s very sad that we’re at a point where speech is being throttled so severely that people are hoping an eccentric billionaire will swoop in and rescue them from oppression. Real life is like a dumber, more boring version of Gotham City, except Batman is working with the bad guys.

I’ll start paying attention to Musk’s talk about free speech if and when Twitter stops censoring Russian media and unbans people like Scott Ritter who were removed from the platform for questioning official empire narratives about what’s happening in Ukraine. Until then I’m going to assume he’s at most only interested in protecting speech that doesn’t threaten the powerful like Republican partisan bullshit and hate speech against marginalized groups.

The billionaires are not coming to save us. The idea that they might is a carefully constructed propaganda narrative that we’ve been sold for generations. The leaders of the capitalist class are not going to overturn the systems of oppression and exploitation which form the very foundation of capitalism. Superhero stories are designed to prevent us from realizing that only we the people have the power to rescue ourselves.

Prosecutions of Corporate Criminals Hit Record Low Under Biden

Despite the Biden administration's pledges to be tougher on corporate crime than its business-friendly predecessor, a new report published Monday shows that corporate prosecutions reached a record low in 2021, continuing a decline that accelerated under former President Donald Trump.

Citing data from the U.S. Sentencing Commission and the Corporate Prosecution Registry, the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen notes in its analysis that just 90 corporations either pleaded guilty or were found guilty of federal crimes last year even as the Justice Department—led by Attorney General Merrick Garland—announced policies aimed at strengthening enforcement efforts against white-collar offenses.

The previous record low was 94 corporate prosecutions in 2020, down from a peak of 296 in 2000.

"The Biden DOJ's policy changes away from Trump's soft-on-corporate-crime approach suggest enforcement against corporate lawbreakers should be ramping up, but the numbers for 2021 don't reflect those changes," Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report, said in a statement.

"Deterring corporate monopolists, polluters, fraudsters, and workplace abusers requires the DOJ to bring tough prosecutions," Claypool added. "It's the only way to show big business that the cost of crime outweighs any perceived benefit of profit-driven lawbreaking... Garland must prioritize prosecuting these cases, and President Biden and Congress need to provide the DOJ with the resources to do the job."

Public Citizen also found that the Justice Department's use of so-called corporate-leniency agreements as an alternative to bringing criminal charges against law-breaking companies remains "extraordinarily high" under Biden.

Such agreements, according to Public Citizen, made up 26% of all concluded federal cases against corporations in 2021—a decline from 32% in 2020 but a massive increase over 1996, when federal prosecutors entered leniency agreements with companies just 1% of the time.

"The rationale for the DOJ's use of these agreements with corporations is that they facilitate corporate compliance with the law," the report notes. "The empirical evidence, however, shows that corporations that receive leniency agreements instead of facing prosecution are not deterred from reoffending."

Public Citizen points out that the Biden Justice Department has taken a number of promising steps aimed at cracking down on corporate crime, an effort that is widely popular among U.S. voters.

"Two weeks after Inauguration Day, Biden's DOJ rescinded Trump-era policies to weaken enforcement against corporate polluters," Public Citizen observed. "In October of 2021, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco announced changes to the DOJ's corporate enforcement policies, including ratcheting up penalties for corporate repeat offenders, widening the scope of individuals who can be implicated in corporate investigations, and directing a squad of FBI agents tasked specifically with targeting white-collar crime."

But the administration's push to intensify enforcement has been hampered by a number of factors, including U.S. attorney vacancies and recalcitrance from Republican members of Congress.

"The top prosecutor vacancies leave offices in the hands of holdovers and career staff, who may be less likely to embrace policy shifts," Public Citizen noted. "Polluter-friendly Senate Republicans like Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Cynthia Lummis (R-Wyo.), meanwhile, are blocking the confirmation of Biden's top environmental law enforcement nominees."

"The Trump administration's soft-on-corporate-crime enforcement policies are having a holdover effect on the Biden administration's enforcement numbers," the group warned. "Allowing corporate crime to go unpursued and unpunished is not an option. Rampant corporate crime means Americans are at increased risk of being victimized by businesses putting the pursuit of profit above the law, and faith in the American justice system, which so often brings the harshest consequences down on the most powerless defendants, is undermined."

"Obstacles or no obstacles," the report added, "the DOJ must zealously pursue its new policies with the resources that it has."

Public Citizen's report comes weeks after an analysis by the Revolving Door Project (RDP) found that the Biden administration "has taken at least 24 opportunities to either prosecute corporate crime or begin writing new regulations to ban heinous corporate practices" but "has missed 48 such opportunities."

"Private equity moguls who defrauded the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) have gotten a free pass so far while prosecutors pursue small-ball schemes," RDP said. "The Environmental Protection Agency referred the fewest-ever pollution crimes to the Justice Department for prosecution."

"And while the administration has continued investigating Meta's Facebook and Alphabet's Google for antitrust violations," the watchdog group added, it hasn't "taken any action against the slew of other white-collar crimes allegedly committed by these Big Tech titans, like bid-rigging, insider trading, and lying to investors and Congress."

MOST Americans FED UP With Biden, Trump. Would Consider INDEPENDENT Candidate In 2024

Donald Trump held in contempt in New York attorney general’s investigation

A New York judge has held Donald Trump in contempt and fined him $10,000 a day, following the former president’s failure to hand over documents to prosecutors investigating his business practices.

Letitia James, the New York state attorney general, had asked for the contempt finding this month stating that Trump had not complied with a subpoena requiring him to produce documents and information.

James’ ​​civil investigation has focused on whether the Trump Organization misstated the values of its real estate properties to obtain favorable loans and tax deductions. Earlier in April James said investigators had found “significant evidence” of wrongdoing. In a court filing then, the New York attorney general said Trump failed to abide by his earlier agreement to comply “in full” with her subpoena for documents and information by 31 March.

On Monday, Judge Arthur Engoron, a New York state supreme court judge, agreed with James that Trump was in contempt of court.

Krystal Ball: INSIDE Bernie's Possible 3rd Presidential Run

Bernie Advisor: How Media RIGGED Race For Kamala, Biden

Steven Donziger Walks Free After 993 Days of 'Completely Unjust' Detention

Human rights lawyer Steven Donziger walked free Monday after 993 days of detention stemming from his decades-long legal fight with Chevron, which deployed its vast resources in a campaign to destroy Donziger after he won a $9.5 billion settlement against the fossil fuel giant over its pollution of the Amazon rainforest.

"It's over. Just left with release papers in hand," Donziger wrote on Twitter. "Completely unjust that I spent even one day in this Kafkaesque situation. Not looking back. Onward."

Donziger's case has attracted global attention and outrage, with the United Nations high commissioner on human rights calling his prolonged detention a violation of international law. Lawmakers in the United States have also decried Donziger's prosecution as an "unprecedented and unjust legal assault."

Donziger FREED After Corp Show Trial

US gas prices are over $4 a gallon. These oil CEOs took home over $20m

While gas prices soar for consumers, one group of people isn’t faring so badly.

Chief executives from the largest oil and gas companies received nearly $45m more in combined total compensation in 2021 as compared to 2020 amid the steep rise in gasoline prices across the US over the last year, a new report states.

Twenty-eight major oil and gas companies, such as Shell, Exxon, BP and Marathon Petroleum, gave out $394m in total to their chief executives in 2021, according to an exclusive analysis provided to the Guardian.

Among the highest earners were Michael Hennigan of Marathon Petroleum, who received over $21m – $5m more than 2020 – and Darren Woods of Exxon, who received over $23m – $7m more than 2020.

These figures reflect the companies’ massive earnings, brought about largely by the boost in gas prices in the last year. Gas prices experienced a 50% rise in 2021, reaching the highest they have been since 2014. Fuel prices have only continued to climb, hitting an average of $4.12 a gallon in the past few months.

Also of Interest

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

Ukraine - Railway Hits, U.S. War Aims, Ops Report

Ukraine Is a Pawn on the Grand Chessboard

Hedges: Alice Walker and the Price of Conscience

Macron's Centrist Win Over Le Pen Also Shows Why Neoliberalism Strengthens the Right

US Imposes Flawed Food System on the World

Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal, reunited after 56 years

CNN's Brian Stelter MELTS DOWN Over Musk Twitter Takeover

MSM Smears Rising Host As Conspiracy Theorist, Misses Entire Point Of Show: Kim Iversen, Robby Soave

A Little Night Music

Yank Rachell - Biscuit baking woman

Yank Rachell - Katy Lee Blues

Yank Rachell & Shirley Griffith - Mandolin Stomp

Yank Rachell - When You Feel Down And Out

Yank Rachell - Peach Tree Blues

Yank Rachell - Up North Blues

Yank Rachell - My Baby's Gone

Yank Rachell - Roll Me Over Baby

Yank Rachell - Going To St. Louis

Yank Rachell - Diving Duck