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"Right now I've got just two rules to live by. Rule one: don't taunt elephants. Rule two: don't stand next to anybody who taunts elephants."

-- Howard Tayler

News and Opinion

Chinese officials raise “military” response to planned visit by US House speaker

In yet another move by the United States to end the one-China policy that has governed its relations with China for decades, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel to Taiwan next month, the Financial Times reported. As part of the one-China policy, the US has had no formal diplomatic ties to Taiwan, and high-level US officials have not traveled to the territory. ... Pelosi, however, is second in the presidential line of succession, and would be far and away the highest-profile US official to visit Taiwan in over two decades. ...

China’s Global Times newspaper, speaking for significant factions within the Chinese state and military, responded to the planned visit by declaring that the response from China would be “military but also strategic.” The newspaper quoted Hu Xijin, its former editor-in-chief, as proposing that China “should send military aircraft to accompany Pelosi’s plane to enter the island of Taiwan and fly over the airport where Pelosi lands, and fly back to the mainland from the island.”

He added, 'When sending PLA aircraft to fly across the island, we [China] must be fully prepared for an all-out military confrontation.' He continued: “If the Taiwan military dares to open fire against PLA aircraft, then Taiwan military aircraft would be shot down and Taiwan military bases will be destroyed. So if the US and Taiwan authorities want all-out war, then the time for Taiwan liberation will come.” ...

But Pelosi’s planned visit is only the most provocative in a series of moves meant to massively escalate the US conflict with China. On Friday, the Pentagon said the State Department had approved over $100 million in US arms sales to Taiwan, and China has demanded that the US cancel the sale. On Monday, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer USS Benfold carried out a freedom of navigation exercise through the Taiwan Strait, triggering condemnation from Beijing.

Major US and global corporations have already begun pricing in the odds of a full-scale war between the two nuclear-armed powers. In an article in the Financial Times headlined, “Corporate jitters over Taiwan and China on the rise,” the newspaper cites corporate risk analysis that put the odds of war in the near term at one in five.

We’ll sink Russia’s Black Sea fleet, pledges Ukraine

Ukraine is preparing to destroy the Russian navy’s Black Sea fleet with western weapons and take back Crimea, Kyiv’s deputy defence minister has said.

Volodymyr Havrylov claimed that the Ukrainian military was building up its own anti-ship missile capabilities and was waiting to receive longer-range weapons from other nations before launching an assault. ...

In an interview with The Times, Havrylov said: “We have a permanent threat from the Russian Black Sea fleet. Given the new technologies and capabilities we receive, we have to address this threat. We started with the operation on Snake Island. We are receiving anti-ship capabilities and sooner or later we will target the fleet. It is inevitable because we have to guarantee security to our people.

“We are ready to target them all over the Black Sea if we have that capability.”

He said they also planned to take back Crimea and were in discussions with the West about whether they could use western weapons to target Russian forces there. Crimea was annexed by Russia in 2014 but is still widely recognised as part of Ukraine.

Knives out, panic sets it, Zelensky's government purge

North Korean labour could be sent to rebuild Donbas, Russian ambassador says

North Korea could send workers to two Russian-controlled territories in eastern Ukraine, according to Russia’s ambassador in Pyongyang – a move that would pose a challenge to international sanctions against the North’s nuclear weapons programme.

According to NK News, a Seoul-based website, ambassador Alexander Matsegora said North Korean workers could help rebuild the war-shattered infrastructure in the self-proclaimed people’s republics in Donetsk and Luhansk. Matsegora said there were potentially “a lot of opportunities” for economic cooperation between the North and the self-proclaimed republics in Ukraine’s Donbas region, despite UN sanctions.

He told the Russian newspaper Izvestia in an interview, according to NK News, that “highly qualified and hard-working Korean builders, who are capable of working in the most difficult conditions, could help us restore our social, infrastructure and industrial facilities”.

His comments come days after North Korea became one of only a few countries to recognise the two territories, accusing the Ukrainian government of being part of Washington’s “hostile” stance towards Pyongyang.

In response, a furious Ukraine cut off diplomatic ties with North Korea and accused it of undermining Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.

EU tells members to cut gas usage amid new Putin warning

Russian gas shutoff would send some EU countries into recession, IMF warns

A total shutdown of Russian gas supply would reduce GDP in the most vulnerable EU countries by as much as 6% and send them plunging into recession, the International Monetary Fund has warned.

Amid speculation that the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, will keep the Nord Stream 1 pipeline closed when routine annual maintenance ends later this week, the IMF said Europe lacked a comprehensive plan to cope with shortages, further increases in energy prices and the impact on growth.

The Washington-based fund identified Hungary, Slovakia and the Czech Republic as the three EU countries likely to suffer most, but said Italy, Germany and Austria would also suffer significant effects.

“The prospect of an unprecedented total shutoff is fuelling concern about gas shortages, still higher prices, and economic impacts. While policymakers are moving swiftly, they lack a blueprint to manage and minimise impact,” IMF officials said in a blogpost.

“Our work shows that in some of the most-affected countries in central and eastern Europe, there is a risk of shortages of as much as 40% of gas consumption and of gross domestic product shrinking by up to 6%.

The West's Energy Policy FAILURES Could Create A Crisis

The DOMINO EFFECTS Of Sri Lanka Collapse

'Lies Against Our Democracy': Lula Rips Bolsonaro's Speech to Diplomats

Brazilian presidential frontrunner Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva on Tuesday accused President Jair Bolsonaro of lying 20 times during a meeting with international diplomats in which the far-right incumbent repeated his baseless attacks on the integrity of the nation's election system.

While offering no credible evidence to support his claim, Bolsonaro told dozens of diplomats from countries including the United States and members of the European Union that the Brazilian electoral system is "completely vulnerable" to fraud in the run-up to this October's presidential election.

According to Folha de São Paulo, two of the diplomats present for Bolsonaro's 50-minute presentation at the Palácio da Alvorada, the executive residence, accused the president of using "Trumpist tactics," a reference to former U.S. President Donald Trump's failed efforts to delegitimize and ultimately overturn the 2020 election.

Bolsonaro and his running mate, former Defense Minister Walter Braga Netto, have repeatedly warned that they may not accept the outcome of the October 2 election if they lose under the current electronic voting system, which has been used since 1996 without evidence of irregularities. In 2000, Brazil became the first country to have a completely electronic voting system.

"It's a shame that Brazil doesn't have a president who calls 50 ambassadors to talk about something that interests the country. Employment, development, or the fight against hunger, for example," da Silva, the leftist Workers' Party (PT) nominee for this October's presidential election, tweeted. "Instead, he tells lies against our democracy."

"Bolsonaro wants to create a mess like Trump did in the U.S.," da Silva said in a separate tweet. "He wants to create suspicion where there is none. He's trying to deceive the people to justify some nonsense. He is not afraid of the electronic voting machine, he is afraid of the Brazilian people."

On Tuesday, da Silva tweeted a link to a PT-affiliated website highlighting "the 20 lies Bolsonaro told the ambassadors." These include claims that hackers have access to all Superior Electoral Court data and the ability to delete candidates' names and switch votes, that international observers won't be able to analyze the integrity of the country's election system, and that there was fraud in the 2018 presidential election—which Bolsonaro won.

"Monday was another difficult day for the truth in Brazil," the site noted. "While hunger increases and 61.3 million Brazilians do not know if they will have lunch today, Bolsonaro committed yet another crime of responsibility by convening an event for ambassadors... to parade lies about the security of the Brazilian electoral process... to diplomats who were dumbfounded."

WashPo Defends Leader Who Chopped Up Their Colleague

Intel Begs For A Bailout

Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger tried to strong-arm Congress last week, telling CNBC that the semiconductor industry needs $52 billion in subsidies to remain competitive, or else major microchip companies won’t invest resources in the United States. But at the same time, Gelsinger’s company and its well-connected lobbyists are pushing Congress to allow it to potentially use the subsidies to put more money into its factories outside of the country.

Plus, there is nothing in the massive subsidy bill, which also includes a major tax break for chip manufacturers and could face a Senate vote as soon as Tuesday, that would require companies like Intel to actually use the money on domestic research and development. That means the companies could instead give the money to shareholders via dividends and stock buybacks. Just last week, Intel announced a quarterly stock dividend for its investors.

There is a good case to be made for federal support for more domestic semiconductor research and manufacturing — especially as most advanced chip manufacturing is centered overseas, thanks to offshoring by firms like Intel and foreign government support for the industry. Plus, global chip shortages have contributed to high inflation. But what is left of this particular legislation, known as the CHIPS Act, amounts to billions of dollars in giveaways to major corporations like Intel — with little guarantee that the subsidies will deliver the promised semiconductor manufacturing boom here in the U.S.

'CEOs, Not Working People, Are Causing Inflation': Report Shows Soaring Executive Pay

The AFL-CIO's latest annual analysis of top executive pay was published Monday with the following conclusion: "CEOs, not working people, are causing inflation."

In recent months, corporate bosses and top Federal Reserve officials have pointed to workers' wages as a factor in surging prices, which have pushed overall inflation in the United States to a four-decade high.

But the AFL-CIO's new report attempts to reframe the national inflation discussion, emphasizing that while wage increases won by ordinary workers are drawing outsized attention from policymakers and executives, CEO pay hikes significantly outpaced the wage increases of rank-and-file employees last year.

Titled "Greedflation," the report shows that "in 2021, CEOs of S&P 500 companies received, on average, $18.3 million in total compensation."

"CEO pay rose 18.2%, faster than the U.S. inflation rate of 7.1%," the analysis finds. "In contrast, U.S. workers' wages fell behind inflation, with worker wages rising only 4.7% in 2021. The average S&P 500 company's CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 324-to-1."

The highest-paid executive among S&P 500 companies last year was Expedia's Peter Kern, who brought in an eye-popping $296 million in total compensation.

Other executives at the top of the 2021 list were Amazon CEO Andy Jassy ($213 million), Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger ($179 million), Apple CEO Tim Cook ($99 million), and JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon ($84 million).

"Runaway CEO pay is a symptom of greedflation—when companies increase prices to boost corporate profits and create windfall payouts for corporate CEOs," the new analysis states.

During a conference call outlining the report's findings, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Fred Redmond said that "when you look at those numbers and at CEOs trying to blame workers for inflation, it just doesn't add up."

Mississippi’s only abortion clinic drops challenge to state’s ban after sale

The Mississippi abortion clinic at the heart of the US supreme court’s decision to overturn its landmark 1973 Roe v Wade decision has dropped its effort to have the state’s high court halt a near-total ban on the procedure after its building was sold.

Jackson Women’s Health Organization had asked the Mississippi state supreme court to allow it to resume some abortion services after a lower-court judge rejected its appeal to prevent a near-total ban on abortions from taking effect on 7 July.

But after the state high court declined to expedite its appeal, Diane Derzis, the clinic’s owner, sold its building this week given “the dim prospects for a speedy and meaningful ruling”, said Rob McDuff, the clinic’s lawyer at the Mississippi center for justice.

“If the clinic is not in a position to reopen in Mississippi, it no longer has a basis to pursue this case in the courts,” he said in a statement.

POLITICAL STUNT? AOC, Omar, ARRESTED At SCOTUS Rally. Internet Loses It

California police fatally shot 23-year-old Black man as he ran away, video shows

Police in San Bernardino, California, fatally shot a 23-year-old man on Saturday as he was fleeing, according to surveillance footage that shows an officer firing just seconds after arriving in an unmarked vehicle. Security camera footage from a parking lot in San Bernardino, a city an hour east of Los Angeles, shows two officers driving up in an unmarked car about 8pm as Robert Adams stood in the lot. As soon as two officers exited the car, Adams turned away from them and ran. It appeared that roughly five seconds after they had stepped out of the car, one of the officers fired at Adams from a distance, seeming to hit him and causing him to collapse to the ground.

The video of the killing went viral on Monday and sparked national outrage, with civil rights lawyer Ben Crump calling it a “horrific execution” and Adams’s family urging authorities to file murder charges against the officer, who has not been identified. The killing comes weeks after police in Akron, Ohio, fired more than 60 rounds at Jayland Walker, a 25-year-old Black man who was also fleeing, sparking widespread protests.

The San Bernardino police department said in a statement that the two officers were with a “specialized investigations unit” and were “conducting surveillance in an unmarked vehicle” after “receiving information that a black male armed with a gun was in the parking lot”. The surveillance footage does not have audio, but the department claimed that the officers gave verbal commands after they exited the car and that Adams had a gun in his hand as he fled. ...

Audwin King, Adams’s stepfather, told the Guardian: “We want full justice for our son. We want cops like that off of the force. Police are supposed to protect and serve, not hunt and kill, and we can see that is what that man did. My stepson didn’t have a chance to defend himself, and the officer jumped out with the intention to gun him down like a dog in the streets.”

Jennifer Kohrell, a spokesperson for the police department, said Adams did not fire at the officers. The video also does not show him pointing a weapon at the officers and only shows him running in the opposite direction. She said Adams, who is Black, “fit the description” of a tip police were investigating, but she declined to say whether police confirmed he was the person they were looking for. She said the two officers were not on leave.

Pro-Israel hardliners spend millions to transform Democratic primaries

Pro-Israel lobby groups have poured millions of dollars into a Democratic primary for a Maryland congressional seat on Tuesday, in the latest attempt to block an establishment candidate who expressed support for the Palestinians. A surge in political spending by organisations funded by hardline supporters of Israel, led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), has reshaped Democratic primaries over recent months even though debate about the country rarely figures as a major issue in the elections.

Critics accuse Aipac and its allies of distorting Democratic politics in part because much of the money used to influence primary races comes from billionaire Republicans.

Aipac has spent $6m on Tuesday’s contest in Maryland, more than any other organisation, to oppose Donna Edwards, who served eight years as the first Black woman elected to Congress from Maryland before losing a bid for the Senate in 2016.

But she angered some pro-Israel groups during her stint as a representative by failing to back resolutions in support of Israel over its 2011 war in Gaza and other positions. She also backed the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with Iran when it was strongly opposed by the Israeli government and therefore Aipac.

Aipac launched a super political action committee, or super Pac, the United Democracy Project (UDP), in December as a legal mechanism to spend unlimited amounts to directly influence elections and counter growing criticism within the Democratic party of Israel’s continued domination of the Palestinians.

‘It goes up like tinder’: unprecedented blazes envelop Alaska

Alaska has seen more than 500 forest fires since the beginning of April, which have forced the evacuation of mining camps, villages and remote cabins.

By 15 June, more than 1m acres (405,000 hectares) in the state had already gone up in flames, about the amount of acres that would normally burn in an entire fire season. By mid-July, more than 3m acres of land had been torched, putting the state at risk of breaking its 2004 record of 6.5m acres (2.6m hectares) burned.

Today 264 individual fires are burning across the state. The East Fork complex, which ignited in western Alaska on 31 May, and the Lime complex fire above Bristol Bay, have already destroyed more than 1m acres. Satellite photos show rust-red scars trailing wisps of smoke in the west and south-west parts of the state, where fires continue to smolder. May and June set records in Alaska for dryness.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Rick Thoman, a climate specialist at the International Arctic Research Center in Fairbanks, of this year’s fires. Experts like Thoman attribute the burn to two factors: an unusual amount of lightning strikes causing ignitions, and a landscape primed to burn. “Drought, early melt of snowfall, winds and lightning strikes have all combined to make for a tough start to the season,” Thoman said. The high number of lightning strikes is a result of increased vapor in the relatively warmer air across the state, which in turn has increased the number of thunderstorms, Thoman explained.

Over 100m Americans under heat warnings as wildfires rage in 12 states

More than 100 million Americans are under either a heat warning about dangerous conditions or heat advisories amid record temperatures, as 85 major wildfires burn in 13 US states, scorching more than 3m acres. Officials said on Tuesday that 14 new large fires were reported: seven in Texas, two in Alaska and two in Washington, as well as one each in Arizona, California and Idaho.

More than 6,800 wild-land firefighters, and other support staff, were deployed to fires across the US. The sprawling blazes spread as record-high temperatures are poised to continue this week, leaving more than 100 million US residents under “excessive [heat] warnings or heat advisories”, the National Weather Service said Tuesday morning.

The areas affected by these advisories include much of the Plains and Mississippi Valley, with daytime temperatures expected to reach 100F across much of this region. In some areas, the mercury could hit 110F in what meteorological officials are describing as “well above-average to record-breaking heat”, which is expected to continue through mid-week.

The north-east is also expected to reel from excessive temperatures. On Wednesday, between Philadelphia and Boston, heat index values are forecast to reach nearly 100F.

'We Are Sleepwalking Towards the Edge,' Says Greta as UK Sees Hottest Day on Record

As the United Kingdom endures its hottest day on record amid Europe's unprecedented and ongoing heatwave, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg warned Tuesday that the worst is yet to come—unless people around the world work together to dislodge the profit-maximizing economic system that is endangering life on Earth.

"This is not 'the new normal,'" Thunberg wrote on social media. "The climate crisis will continue to escalate and get worse as long as we stick our heads in the sand and prioritize profit and greed over people and planet. We are still sleepwalking towards the edge."

Thunberg's comments came as temperatures in Britain exceeded 40ºC (104ºF) for the first time in recorded history and continued to rise.

Thunberg's stark warning about the world's current trajectory toward an even hotter future echoed Monday's unequivocal message from United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres.

"We have a choice," said Guterres. "Collective action or collective suicide. It's in our hands."

"We need a concrete global response that addresses the needs of the world's most vulnerable people, communities, and nations," he added. "This has to be the decade of decisive climate action."

Also of Interest

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

Inside Australia’s Assange Game Plan

Grayzone challenges Guardian reporter on US state-funded Syria smears

Novichok Investigation Collapses in London Court — Adam Chapman, Lawyer Appointed to Represent Sergei & Yulia Skripal, Doesn’t

In The Multipolar World Iran Will No Longer Fear U.S. Sanctions

'Shocking Document' Spotlights Dire State of Australia's Environment

We’re going to need a bigger boat: the rise of the megashark

Ilhan Omar BOOED For 10 MInutes In Her Own District

Collective west social collapse w/Ania from Through the eyes of (Live)

A Little Night Music

John Little John - 29 Ways

John Little John - Johnny's Jive

John Little John - I Can't Stay Here

John Little John - Guitar King

John Littlejohn & Carey Bell - Shake your moneymaker

Johnny Little John - I Need Lovin

Johnny Little John - The Sun Is Shining

John Littlejohn - Treat Me Wrong

John Littlejohn - Can't Be Still

Johnny Littlejohn - Keep on running