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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Martin, Bogan & Armstrong

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features black string band Martin, Bogan & Armstrong. Enjoy!

^{Martin, Bogan & Armstrong at the 36th National Folk Festival - Tear Down the Old Pine Tree}

"What are these so-called austerity measures? What do they really bring? Oh, they bring a lot more poverty. Oh, they bring a worse GDP. Oh, they bring more unemployment."

-- Gerald Celente

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News and Opinion

Federal Reserve announces biggest interest rate hike since 1994

With soaring inflation and the shadow of recession hanging over the United States, the Federal Reserve announced a 0.75 percentage-point increase in interest rates on Wednesday – the largest hike since 1994.

Until this week the Fed had been expected to announce a smaller increase. At a press conference, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said the central bank decided that a larger hike was needed after recent economic news, including last week’s announcement that inflation had risen to a 40-year high.

He made clear that a similarly outsized rate rise should be expected at its next meeting in July unless price rises softened. “We at the Fed understand the hardship inflation is causing,” he said. “Inflation can’t go down until it flattens out. That’s what we’re looking to see.”

The hike will increase the Fed’s benchmark federal-funds rate to a range between 1.5% and 1.75% and officials said they expected rates to rise to at least 3% this year.

Powell acknowledged that the Fed’s attempt to cool spending is likely to lead to job losses. The Fed expects unemployment to rise to 4.1% from the current rate of 3.6% as it attempts to bring inflation back down to its target rate of 2%.

Krystal Ball: Biden PATHETIC Inflation Result Caused by DC Brain ROT

The Austerity Push Is A Repeat Of History

If you want to understand one of the many real dangers of Republicans winning the midterms, then just go back a dozen years to see what happened to the politics of Social Security when the Democratic White House last lost Congress to the Republicans.

Then remember that the Democratic president this time around isn’t some newbie just starting to toy with the idea of cutting benefits. The Oval Office occupant is a career politician who has spent much of his adult life pushing Social Security and Medicare cuts using the same “entitlement reform” language that Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) began floating this week during a televised debate with Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-Vt.).

Emboldened by Graham’s comments, Democrats are now using their megaphone to try to scandalize his statements, in which he first blamed the federal debt on social safety net programs, and then declared that “entitlement reform is a must.” ... President Joe Biden chimed in, tweeting: “How well are you going to sleep at night knowing that every five years Ted Cruz and other Congressional Republicans pushing ultra-MAGA policies are going to vote on whether you’ll have Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid?”

The optimist might see this instant pushback as proof that after decades of fetishizing bipartisanship and neoliberal dalliances with social safety net cuts, Democrats have learned their lesson and are finally backing off proposals to cut the two most popular programs their party ever created. A more jaded realist might see Democrats’ defense of safety net programs a bit differently: as a short-term political tactic, but one that signifies no real change in what a Democratic White House would actually do right after a midterm blowout. ...

And now with Graham’s comments, Republicans are banking on him becoming the old Joe Biden on Social Security if they win in November. It’s not an insane political bet. After all, Biden for decades proposed cuts and freezes to Social Security, and publicly boasted about it. Indeed, Biden spent most of his career depicting himself as an allegedly rare and courageous Democrat who was willing to push off his party’s base and tout austerity.

$1B More in U.S. Military Aid to Ukraine: Expert Urges Negotiation vs. “Military-First Approach"

‘Justice’ for Ukraine overshadowed by cost of living concerns, polling shows

Europe’s unity over the war in Ukraine is at risk as public attention increasingly shifts from the battlefield to cost of living concerns, polling across 10 European countries suggests, with the divide deepening between voters who want a swift end to the conflict and those who want Russia punished.

The survey in nine EU member states – Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden – plus the UK found support for Ukraine remained high, but that preoccupations have shifted to the conflict’s wider impacts.

“Europeans had surprised Putin – and themselves – by their unity so far, but the big stresses are coming now,” said Mark Leonard, a co-author of a report by the European Council on Foreign Relations (ECFR) on changing attitudes to Russia’s invasion.

Governments’ ability to retain public support for potentially harmful policies would be crucial, Leonard said, warning that the gulf between the “peace” and “justice” camps could be “as damaging as that between creditors and debtors during the euro crisis”.

The survey found that despite strong support across Europe for Ukraine’s bid to join the EU and the west’s policy of severing ties with Moscow, many voters in Europe want the war to end as soon as possible – even if that means Ukraine losing territory.

Corporate ‘Self-Sanctioning’ of Russia Has US Fearing Economic Blowback

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine galvanized the US, UK and European Union to unleash a slew of sanctions meant to punish Vladimir Putin’s government and pressure him to pull his forces back. But some Biden administration officials are now privately expressing concern that rather than dissuading the Kremlin as intended, the penalties are instead exacerbating inflation, worsening food insecurity and punishing ordinary Russians more than Putin or his allies.

Officials were initially impressed by the willingness of companies from BP Plc. to McDonald’s Corp. to abruptly “self-sanction,” sometimes selling assets at fire-sale prices. But the administration was caught off-guard by the potential knock-on effects -- from supply chain bottlenecks to uninsurable grain exports -- due to the companies’ decisions to leave, according to people familiar with internal discussions. ...

There’s no sign that administration officials feel their sanctions policy was a mistake or that they want to dial back the pressure. If anything, officials have said a key US goal is to ensure Russia can’t do to other nations what it has done in Ukraine. But the collateral damage from the sanctions has been wider than expected.

When the invasion began, the Biden administration believed that if penalties exempted food and energy, the impact on inflation at home would be minimal. Since then, energy and food have become key drivers of the highest US inflation rates in 40 years, a huge political liability for President Joe Biden and the Democratic party heading into November’s mid-term elections. ...

So while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has urged US businesses to cease operations in Russia, telling a joint session of Congress that the Russian market was “flooded with our blood,’’ the Biden administration has been encouraging some commerce, including for agriculture, medicine and telecommunications. For instance, the US government is quietly encouraging agricultural and shipping companies to buy and carry more Russian fertilizer, according to people familiar with the efforts, as sanctions fears have led to a sharp drop in supplies, pressuring food costs.

'He who fights to negotiate, loses.' Time is running out for Zelensky

Ukraine ignores Russian ultimatum to surrender Sievierodonetsk

Ukraine has ignored a Russian ultimatum to surrender the embattled eastern city of Sievierodonetsk, as fears grow over the hundreds of civilians trapped in the city’s Azot chemical factory.

Russia ordered Ukrainian forces a day earlier to stop “senseless resistance and lay down arms” from Wednesday morning, as Moscow controls 80% of Sievierodonetsk, a city that has become a focal point of Russia’s advances in the east of the country.

Moscow on Wednesday also accused Ukraine of disrupting plans to open a humanitarian corridor for civilians to leave the area. The evacuation planned to bring civilians from the Azot plant to Svatove, a city north of Sievierodonetsk controlled by pro-Russian forces, and Ukraine had not publicly commented on Moscow’s proposal.

More than 500 civilians, including 40 children, are trapped inside the Azot factory. Weeks of Russia’s relentless bombardment of Sievierodonetsk, including its industrial area, have reduced much of the city to rubble. The shelling of the Azot plant echoes the earlier bloody siege of the Azovstal steelworks in the southern port of Mariupol, where hundreds of fighters and civilians took shelter from Russian shelling.

Two US volunteers in Ukraine feared taken prisoner by Russia

Two American volunteers in Ukraine have gone missing and are feared to have been taken prisoner by Russia, officials and family members said on Wednesday. Alexander Drueke, 39, and Andy Tai Ngoc Huynh, 27, are both US military veterans who had been living in Alabama and went to Ukraine to assist with war efforts. Relatives have been in contact with Senate and House offices seeking information on the men’s whereabouts. ...

If confirmed, they would be the first Americans fighting for Ukraine known to have been captured since the war began in February. ...

The Telegraph, which first reported their disappearances, quoted an unnamed fellow fighter who said the two men were captured after running into a larger Russian force during a 9 June battle north-east of Kharkiv.

Drueke’s mother, Lois Drueke, said that her son told his family that he was teaching Ukrainian troops how to use US-made weapons.

US has not fully investigated own role in Yemen rights abuses, watchdog finds

The US government has not fully investigated its own role in perpetuating human rights abuses in Yemen, according to a congressional watchdog report that offered a damning assessment of both the Trump and Biden administrations’ commitment to tracking violations of humanitarian law.

A report by the Government Accountability Office, which examined US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen, also raised serious doubts about one of Joe Biden’s first foreign policy as president, when he announced that his administration was ending US support for Saudi offensive operations in Yemen.

At the time, in February 2021, the move was seen as an attempt to show the world that the US would no longer be an unquestioning ally to its allies in the Gulf.

But the GAO found that the Biden administration’s move to classify weapons as offensive or defensive was largely meaningless. When asked by the GAO how they had distinguished between equipment used for defensive purposes and offensive purposes, state department officials “could not provide a definition for equipment that is defensive in nature”. The GAO report added: “State officials said they consider the threats posed to Saudi Arabia’s borders and infrastructure when deciding which weapons are ‘offensive’ and which are ‘defensive’.”

The report’s examination of nearly $60bn in US weapons sales to the Saudi-led coalition – from a period spanning 2015 to 2021 – is the second time a watchdog has attempted to investigate the US’s own culpability in contributing to violation of humanitarian laws in the Yemen conflict. In August 2020, a state department inspector general found that the department was failing to take measures to reduce civilian deaths.

US Asks Israel to Dial Back Oppression of Palestinians—But Just During Biden's Visit

The United States is asking Israel to refrain from certain violations of international law in Palestine during President Joe Biden's visit to the apartheid state next month, according to a report published Wednesday.

Axios reports U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Barbara Leaf has asked the Israeli government to stop evicting Palestinians and demolishing their homes in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem—actions condemned as ethnic cleansing by human rights advocates.

Leaf also asked Israel to not make any decisions on building or expanding its exclusively Jewish settlements in the occupied territories, and to reduce military operations in the West Bank, until after Biden's visit. Like the occupation, settlements are illegal under international law and constitute a form of apartheid, according to United Nations officials and human rights groups.

"The U.S. wants the visit to take place in a good atmosphere different than the one now," said Hussein al-Sheikh, an adviser to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and the official in charge of contact with the Biden administration. "If the Israelis don't stop their unilateral action the situation deteriorates and becomes much worse."

Officials In Israel confirmed Leaf's request. Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, and National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata reportedly said they will try their best, while warning that domestic political considerations and military necessities will complicate their efforts.

"The Biden administration doesn't want us to create any crisis in the West Bank," one Israeli official told Axios' Barak Ravid. "They want quiet and calm."

In addition to Israel, Biden will visit the West Bank and Saudi Arabia on his July 13-16 trip.

Leaf's ask comes just over a month after Israel's highest court upheld orders for the destruction of eight Palestinian hamlets in the West Bank and Israeli authorities announced the advancement of nearly 4,000 new exclusively Jewish homes in 20 settlements.

The U.S. request also follows the killing of two Palestinian-Americans by Israeli forces: Al Jazeera journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot in the head while covering a military raid on the Jenin refugee camp last month, while 78-year-old Omar Assad died after being brutally detained during a vehicle check in Jiljilya in January.

During a March 2010 visit by then-Vice President Biden, Israel announced 1,600 new Jewish-only homes in East Jerusalem, a move Biden condemned as "precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now."

MBS Sullies Saudi Arabia’s Good Name With Plans To Meet US President

The White House has officially confirmed reports that President Biden will indeed be visiting Saudi Arabia in contradiction of his campaign vows to make the nation a “pariah” for its human rights violations, and everyone’s acting like visiting a murderous tyrant is somehow beneath the dignity of a US president.

“The President will then travel to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, which is the current chair of the GCC and the venue for this gathering of nine leaders from across the region, at the invitation of King Salman bin Abdulaziz al-Saud,” the White House statement reads. “The President appreciates King Salman’s leadership and his invitation.  He looks forward to this important visit to Saudi Arabia, which has been a strategic partner of the United States for nearly eight decades.”

The president will meet with the nation’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, to discuss what the White House calls “means for expanding regional economic and security cooperation, including new and promising infrastructure and climate initiatives, as well as deterring threats from Iran, advancing human rights, and ensuring global energy and food security.”

But what they will primarily be discussing is oil, as the US flounders in its economic war against Russia.

This visit has ignited a lot of controversy, even in mainstream punditry where criticism of the US empire is only thinly tolerated.

“I wonder who will die because Biden decided to show the world that MBS can kill with impunity,” tweeted Project on Government Oversight’s Walter Shaub in reference to the Saudi leader’s assassination of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

“I don’t understand why it’s necessary to go see MBS,” former presidential advisor David Gergen said on CNN. “Do you want one more big controversy? This one the left will come after him, because they think, the human rights crowd believes very strongly, and with justification, that the murder of Khashoggi rests heavily on MBS and the team around him.”

“His blood stain has not been cleansed,” Senator Tim Kaine told CNN. “And I get it that circumstances change. But what’s the fundamental issue in the world right now? It’s the authoritarians. You know, insistence ‘we’ll do it our way’ versus democratic ideals.”

“I have real worries about patching up relationships with the crown prince absent some real commitments for justice for political dissenters in Saudi Arabia and families that have already been the targets of a dizzying campaign of repression,” Senator Chris Murphy told CNN.

All this hand wringing about a US president visiting a Saudi leader overlooks the fact that the Biden administration openly acknowledges the presence of thousands of US troops in Saudi Arabia, and that the US already actively collaborates with Saudi royalty in myriad ways with immensely far-reaching consequences.

More to the point, though, the controversy over Biden’s meeting with MBS ignores the fact that the US is quantifiably a far more murderous and tyrannical regime than Saudi Arabia.

The United States is currently circling the planet with hundreds of military bases and waging wars which have killed millions and displaced tens of millions just since the turn of this century. Its sanctions and blockades have been starving people to death en masse every single day. It works to destroy any nation which disobeys its dictates by toppling their governments via CIA coups, proxy wars, partial and full-scale invasions, and the most egregious number of election interferences in the entire world.

Saudi Arabia cannot compete with those numbers. Riyadh exerts totalitarian control over its own populace and commits war crimes and funds violent extremists in its immediate surroundings. Washington does all of these things throughout the entire world. It is true that the US exports most of its tyranny and murderousness to other nations (though it certainly exerts plenty of it at home as well), but that only makes it less tyrannical and murderous if you believe non-American lives are worth less than American lives.

Saudi Arabia is not working to dominate the entire planet with an iron fist. Saudi Arabia is not threatening the life of everyone on earth by ramping up nuclear brinkmanship with both Russia and China. Mohammed Bin Salman had someone dismembered with a bone saw. Joe Biden manages a globe-spanning empire that is fueled by human blood.

It’s just so funny how everyone’s arguing about whether the single most murderous and oppressive regime on this planet should be sullying its good name by associating with a far lesser evil than itself. If anything, MBS should be embarrassed to be meeting with a US president.

In truth the US is friends with Saudi Arabia not in spite of the Saudi regime’s murderousness and depravity but exactly because of it. The US doesn’t oppose tyrannical dictatorships; it loves them. A totalitarian monarchy which operates in an immensely geostrategically crucial region with complete control and zero transparency is the most perfect friend a globe-dominating empire could possibly ask for.

An excellent article, much more detail at the link:

US Supreme Court Tacitly Approves Execution of Innocent People

In a shameful opinion that broke down along ideological lines, the right-wingers on the Supreme Court ruled 6-3 last month that people who receive ineffective assistance of counsel are not entitled to present new evidence to prove their innocence in federal court.

After the decision in Shinn v. Ramirez and Jones — which flies in the face of the court’s recent precedents protecting the Sixth Amendment right to counsel — even people who can demonstrate their innocence could be subjected to the shameful practice of capital punishment.

“The court’s decision will leave many people who were convicted in violation of the Sixth Amendment to face incarceration or even execution without any meaningful chance to vindicate their right to counsel,” Sonia Sotomayor wrote in dissent, adding that “the court hamstrings the federal courts’ authority to safeguard that right” and “reduces to rubble” many Sixth Amendment constitutional rights.

Indeed, the ramifications of the Shinn decision are frightening. “When a capital defendant is poorly represented by an appointee of the State, the State gets to defend the unfairly won conviction in federal court and bar the defendant from even showing that crucial evidence was omitted from the trial due to lawyer malfeasance,” appellate habeas defense attorney Chuck Sevilla told Truthout. “This obvious Kafkaesque scenario could, and probably will, lead to the execution of the innocent.”

State With The Lowest Homeless Rate Will Shock You

US prison workers produce $11bn worth of goods and services a year for pittance

Incarcerated workers in the US produce at least $11bn in goods and services annually but receive just pennies an hour in wages for their prison jobs, according to a new report from the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

Nearly two-thirds of all prisoners in the US, which imprisons more of its population than any other country in the world, have jobs in state and federal prisons. That figure amounts to roughly 800,000 people, researchers estimated in the report, which is based on extensive public records requests, questionnaires and interviews with incarcerated workers.

ACLU researchers say the findings outlined in Wednesday’s report raise concerns about the systemic exploitation of prisoners, who are compelled to work sometimes difficult and dangerous jobs without basic labor protections and little or no training while making close to nothing.

Most incarcerated workers are tasked with general prison maintenance that is crucial to keep the facilities running, according to the ACLU researchers, who worked with the University of Chicago Law School’s Global Human Rights Clinic.

“State governments and the prison system are extracting tremendous value from a captive and exploited workforce all while claiming they can’t afford to pay them a liveable wage,” said Jennifer Turner, the principal author of the report.

Patrick Lyoya shooting: Michigan officer who killed Black man fired from his job

The white Michigan police officer who killed Patrick Lyoya – a Black man who was shot in the back of the head while on the ground – was officially fired from his job on Wednesday, six days after being charged with murder.

Christopher Schurr’s dismissal from the Grand Rapids police department was announced in a statement provided to media outlets by the city manager, Mark Washington.

Washington’s statement said he decided to fire Schurr based on recommendations from the city’s police chief as well as its labor relations office and after the accused murderer waived his right to an administrative hearing.

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Republican commission refuses to certify New Mexico primary vote

New Mexico’s secretary of state on Tuesday asked the state supreme court to order the Republican-led commission of rural Otero county to certify primary election results after it refused to do so over distrust of Dominion vote-tallying machines.

The request by Maggie Toulouse Oliver, a Democrat, came a day after the three-member Otero county commission, in its role as a county canvassing board, voted unanimously against certifying the results of the 7 June primary without raising specific concerns about discrepancies. ...

“I have huge concerns with these voting machines,” the Otero county commissioner, Vickie Marquardt, said on Monday. “When I certify stuff that I don’t know is right, I feel like I’m being dishonest because in my heart I don’t know if it is right.” ...

County canvassing boards have until 17 June to certify election results, before state certification and preparation of general election ballots. Under state law, county canvass boards can call on a voting precinct board to address specific discrepancies, but no discrepancies were identified on Monday by the Otero commission. ...

New Mexico uses paper ballots that can be double-checked later in all elections, and also relies on tabulation machines to rapidly tally votes while minimizing human error. Election results also are audited by random samplings to verify levels of accuracy in the vote count.

Dr Oz STRUGGLING In PA Senate Polling

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New data reveals extraordinary global heating in the Arctic

New data has revealed extraordinary rates of global heating in the Arctic, up to seven times faster than the global average. The heating is occurring in the North Barents Sea, a region where fast rising temperatures are suspected to trigger increases in extreme weather in North America, Europe and Asia. The researchers said the heating in this region was an “early warning” of what could happen across the rest of the Arctic.

The new figures show annual average temperatures in the area are rising across the year by up to 2.7C a decade, with particularly high rises in the months of autumn of up to 4C a decade. This makes the North Barents Sea and its islands the fastest warming place known on Earth.

Recent years have seen temperatures far above average recorded in the Arctic, with seasoned observers describing the situation as “crazy”, “weird”, and “simply shocking”. Some climate scientists have warned the unprecedented events could signal faster and more abrupt climate breakdown.

It was already known that the climate crisis was driving heating across the Arctic three times faster than the global average, but the new research shows the situation is even more extreme in places.

Sea ice is good at reflecting sunlight but is melting away. This allows the darker ocean below to absorb more energy. Losing sea ice also means it no longer restricts the ability of warmer sea waters to heat up the Arctic air. The more ice is lost, the more heat accumulates, forming a feedback loop.

River pushed off course as floods leave Yellowstone ‘dramatically changed’

The forces of fire and ice shaped Yellowstone national park over thousands of years. It took decades longer for humans to tame it enough for tourists to visit, often from the comfort of their cars. In just days, heavy rain and rapid snowmelt caused a dramatic flood that may forever alter the human footprint on the park’s terrain and the communities that have grown around it.

The historic floodwaters that raged through Yellowstone this week, tearing out bridges and pouring into nearby homes, pushed a popular fishing river off course possibly permanently and may force roadways nearly torn away by torrents of water to be rebuilt in new places. “The landscape literally and figuratively has changed dramatically in the last 36 hours,” said Bill Berg, a commissioner in nearby Park county. “A little bit ironic that this spectacular landscape was created by violent geologic and hydrologic events, and it’s just not very handy when it happens while we’re all here settled on it.”

The unprecedented flooding drove more than 10,000 visitors out of the nation’s oldest national park and damaged hundreds of homes in nearby communities, though remarkably no was reported hurt or killed. The only visitors left in the massive park straddling three states were a dozen campers still making their way out of the backcountry.

The park could remain closed as long as a week, and northern entrances may not reopen this summer, Superintendent Cam Sholly said. “I’ve heard this is a 1,000-year event, whatever that means these days. They seem to be happening more and more frequently,” he said.

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Also of Interest

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

There Are Better Ways to Fight Inflation Than Attacking Working People With Higher Interest Rates

The Hierarchy of Tribalisms

Ukraine Says It Needs $5 Billion in Monthly External Aid To Avoid Budget Cut

Mystery of Black Death’s origins solved, say researchers

Interview w/ Julian Assange’s Brother Gabriel Shipton

Fed Adopts HIGHEST INTEREST RATE In Decades. ANOTHER Housing Crash Looming, Sorry MILLENNIALS?

GOP WINS MAJORITY Latino House Seat In South Texas

Former Kamala Spox SCOLDS Americans Mad About Gas Prices

Ukrainian Boxer Holds Nazi Flag While Accepting Medal

Facts Don't Care About Your Party Identification: Briahna Joy Gray

Russia Breaks through Donbass, Biden Criticises Oil Companies, Germany Complains Russia Reducing Gas

Biden blames everything on Putin w/iEarlGrey

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A Little Night Music

Martin, Bogan & The Armstrongs - Nobody Knows You When You're Down And Out

Martin, Bogan & Armstrong - Barnyard Dance

Howard Armstrong and Ted Bogan - Blues Before Sunrise/Sitting on Top of the World

Carl Martin - Crow Jane

Martin, Bogan & Armstrong - Carl's Blues

Louie Bluie & Ted Bogan - Ted's Stomp

Martin, Bogan & The Armstrongs - Hoodoo Blues

Ted Bogan - State Street Rag

Martin, Bogan & Armstrong - Salty Dog

Martin, Bogan & The Armstrongs - If You'se A Viper

Martin, Bogan & Armstrong - Old Man Mose

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