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“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”

-- Antonio Gramsci

News and Opinion

Defense lawyers say CIA Director Haspel tainted the 9/11 trial

Defense lawyers in the Sept. 11 trial have for years argued, mostly unsuccessfully, that a series of remarks by political leaders dating back to the Bush administration have contaminated the possibility of finding an impartial jury of U.S. military officers in the death-penalty case. This week, lawyers for the accused lead 9/11 plotter Khalid Sheik Mohammed took aim at remarks the new CIA Director Gina Haspel made in her Senate confirmation hearings — and asked the trial judge to either dismiss the charges or remove the possibility of a death penalty because of alleged unlawful influence.

“As the court is well aware, since ancient times, as long ago perhaps as Deuteronomy, there’s been a presumption of innocence for those accused in any criminal proceeding,” one of Mohammed’s attorneys, Rita Radostitz, told the judge Monday.

In one example, Haspel told senators: “I’m very proud of the fact that we captured the perpetrator of 9/11, Khalid Sheik Mohammed. I think we did extraordinary work.” Other allegedly contaminating remarks Radostitz cited involved Haspel calling Mohammed “the architect and mastermind of the 9/11 attacks,” stating that Mohammed was behind the 1993 attack at the World Trade Center, and “that he was the individual who personally killed a Wall Street Journal correspondent,” Daniel Pearl. In none did she note that Mohammed has only been accused of plotting the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks by hijackers who crashed airliners into New York’s World Trade Center, the Pentagon and in a Pennsylvania field, killed 2,976 people. ...

Mohammed’s lawyers also argued for dismissal of the case on grounds of unlawful influence due to [Haspel's] role as the Original Classification Authority of information about the CIA’s black site program, know as the Rendition, Detention and Interrogation program. An OCA is the ultimate decider on what information is classified, and at what level — secret, top secret, or others — and provides guidance for authorized reviewers deciding what elements of a document are classified. In the case of the 9/11 trial, prosecutors work with OCAs to decide what information from and about the black sites that defense lawyers with top secret clearances can and cannot see. Sometimes prosecutors in consultation with the CIA decide that defense lawyers don’t need to know certain information to properly defend the case. ... Radostitz argued that Haspel has probably had that behind-the-scenes role of OCA since she was acting director.

Assange must eventually leave London Embassy - Ecuador president

Assange's embassy stay in doubt after Ecuador president's comments

Lenin Moreno’s comments about the Australian-born WikiLeaks founder, made at an event in Madrid, follow reports that discussions were held between senior officials from Ecuador and Britain about how to remove Assange from the embassy if his asylum were revoked. ...

A source speaking on condition of anonymity told Reuters: “The situation is very serious. Things are coming to a head.” He described the state of affairs inside the embassy as “not looking good”. ...

In a statement before Moreno’s comments, Ecuador’s foreign ministry said: “The Ecuadorian state will only talk and promote understandings about Mr Assange’s asylum, within the framework of international law, with the interested party’s lawyers and with the British government. “At the moment, due to the complexity of the topic, a short or long-term solution is not in sight.”

The UK Foreign Office minister Alan Duncan told parliament last month that the government was increasingly concerned about Assange’s health.

“It is our wish that this is brought to an end, and we would like to make the assurance that if he were to step out of the embassy, he would be treated humanely and properly,” Duncan said. “The first priority would be to look after his health, which we think is deteriorating.”

Noam Chomsky on Mass Media Obsession with Russia & the Stories Not Being Covered in the Trump Era

The Sanctification of NATO

Claims that US President Donald Trump is undermining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by criticizing some of its members and having a cordial meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin have sent establishment media into a frenzy to sanctify NATO as a force for peace and democracy.

A Guardian editorial (7/10/18) asserted:

The NATO alliance has helped mold the modern world and ushered in a democratic, liberal world order characterized by open trade and open societies, which after the collapse of the Soviet Union needed only to be lightly defended. This in turn contributed greatly to American peace and prosperity.

Note that “American peace” is a phrase used to describe a state that is currently bombing one country or another every 12 minutes, while US “prosperity” takes the form of spending $716 billion on the war machine annually while 40 million Americans live in poverty, giving the country a child poverty rate of 21 percent as well as the worst child mortality rate among rich nations. ...

The New York Times (7/8/18) argued that, while the alliance’s original purpose was allegedly to respond to a hypothetical Soviet attack, NATO “found a new purpose” after the fall of the USSR, “defending Muslims in the Balkans, and after 9/11, helping the United States fight terrorists in Afghanistan, Iraq, Africa and elsewhere.” What the Times called “defending Muslims in the Balkans” was actually NATO’s invasion of Yugoslavia, an important tool in the dismantling of that country, which only under the most curious of definitions could be described as an act of “peace” or an exemplar of “the rule of law,” since the attack was illegal. Likewise, in “fight[ing] terrorists in Afghanistan,” NATO has hardly shown itself to be an agent of “peace” in a war that’s gone on for almost 17 years, during which NATO members have demonstrated their regard for “civil and human rights” by killing thousands of Afghan civilians and supporting torturers. ...

The Times’ vague reference to “fight[ing] terrorists in…Africa” notwithstanding, none of the articles discussed above or below mentioned Libya, the site of NATO’s most recent full-scale war. Yet it’s fair to say that the seemingly endless war and social collapse in Libya that have followed NATO’s attack, as well as the “hell” of beheadings, rape, and slave markets that resulted from it, aren’t features of “open societies” characterized by “peace,” “democratic” politics and “the rule of law, civil and human rights.” One struggles, in fact, to come up with a single example where such things were the goal of a NATO intervention, let alone its outcome.

Trump Ready to Bomb Iran Within One Month: Australian Govt Sources

Trump's White House is ready to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, unnamed "senior figures" within the Australian government said to ABC news. According to the new reporting from the Australian news service, the strike could happen as early as next month, and Australia and the U.K.— both part of the "Five Eyes" spying alliance — could lend a hand in identifying targets, the reporting adds.

139 House Democrats Join GOP to Approve $717 Billion in Military Spending

With the help of 139 Democrats, the House of Representatives on Thursday easily rammed through the 2019 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which—if it passes the Senate—will hand President Donald Trump $717 billion in military spending. "Of the total $717 billion, the bill would authorize $616.9 billion for the base Pentagon budget, $21.9 billion for nuclear weapons programs under the Energy Department, and another $69 billion in war spending from the special Overseas Contingency Operations account," Politico reported following the 359-54 vote. View the full roll call here.

Additionally, the NDAA passed by the House would authorize 13 new Navy warships, approve the Pentagon's request to buy 77 F-35s, and green-light "a new submarine-launched, low-yield nuclear warhead," Politico notes.

How are they going to pay for this?

Oh wait, that question only gets asked when it comes to social programs that benefit the working class https://t.co/Yz0d3TD9Qw

— Petty Is Praxis (@rtyson82) July 26, 2018

U.S. Secret Wars in Africa Rage on, Despite Talk of Downsizing

Last October, four U.S. soldiers – including two commandos – were killed in an ambush in Niger. Since then, talk of U.S. special operations in Africa has centered on missions being curtailed and troop levels cut. Press accounts have suggested that the number of special operators on the front lines has been reduced, with the head of U.S. Special Operations forces in Africa directing his troops to take fewer risks. At the same time, a “sweeping Pentagon review” of special ops missions on the continent may result in drastic cuts in the number of commandos operating there. U.S. Africa Command has apparently been asked to consider the impact on counterterrorism operations of cutting the number of Green Berets, Navy SEALs, and other commandos by 25 percent over 18 months and 50 percent over three years.

Analysts have already stepped forward to question or criticize the proposed cuts. “Anybody that knows me knows that I would disagree with any downsizing in Africa,” Donald Bolduc, a former chief of U.S. commandos on the continent, told Voice of America.

While the review was reportedly ordered this spring and troop reductions may be coming, there is no evidence yet of massive cuts, gradual reductions, or any downsizing whatsoever. In fact, the number of commandos operating on the continent has barely budged since 2017. Nearly 10 months after the debacle in Niger, the tally of special operators in Africa remains essentially unchanged. ...

Today, more U.S. commandos are deployed to Africa than to any other region of the world except the Middle East. Back in 2006, there were only 70 special operators deployed across Africa. Just four years ago, there were still just 700 elite troops on the continent. Given that an average of 8,300 commandos are deployed overseas in any given week, according to SOCOM spokesperson Ken McGraw, we can surmise that roughly 1,370 Green Berets, Navy SEALs, or other elite forces are currently operating in Africa.

U.S. government plays games with top Venezuelan officials

The first piece of a psychological plot by the U.S. government to raise suspicion that one of the most powerful men in Venezuela may be a CIA operative was hatched in a seventh floor office of the State Department.

Around April 2017, Fernando Cutz, then-senior director at the National Security Council, stopped by the Foggy Bottom office of a veteran diplomat to get ideas about how to destabilize Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s inner circle, with the goal of further weakening the government that has thrown the once-thriving country into poverty and chaos.

As a bobble-head statue of the iconic socialist leader Hugo Chávez looked down from a shelf above them, Ambassador William Brownfield joked with Cutz that it wasn’t advanced science. There were tactical benefits to selectively choosing leaders to target with sanctions, travel restrictions and other punishments and to raise questions within the Venezuelan hierarchy about the people left alone by the U.S.

This account of an intentional strategy by the U.S. government to sow confusion about the loyalties of Maduro’s closest advisers comes from former and current officials with direct knowledge of the plans who spoke to McClatchy.

Pakistan election: Imran Khan claims victory amid rigging claims

Former cricketer Imran Khan has claimed victory in Pakistan's election, amid accusations of vote rigging by rivals. ... His PTI party is still expected to fall short of an overall majority, so it would have to seek coalition partners in order to form a government. Campaigning has been marred by violence. On voting day a bomb killed 31 people at a polling station.

The party of disgraced former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has rejected the results, as have a host of smaller parties, all alleging vote-rigging and manipulation. The election has been seen as a contest between Mr Khan's PTI party and Mr Sharif's PML-N, with the party of assassinated former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, the historically liberal PPP, widely expected to come third.

Thousands protest as Polish president signs disputed judicial reforms

Thousands cry 'shame' as Polish president signs off judicial reforms

Thousands of people have staged protests across Poland after the country’s president, Andrzej Duda, signed into law a measure effectively letting the government choose the next supreme court chief. The European Union, human rights groups and opposition parties in Poland said the legislation and other changes pushed by the ruling Law and Justice (PiS) party undermined judicial independence and democracy.

Crowds gathered outside the presidential palace in Warsaw chanting “shame”. Many held candles and pens, referring to Duda’s readiness to sign. They shouted “break the pen” and “you will go to prison”. Similar protests took place in more than two dozen cities and towns across Poland.

The PiS party said an overhaul was needed to make the courts more efficient and eradicate the influence of Poland’s communist past.

Canada is using ancestry DNA websites to help it deport people

In another example of the extraordinary lengths Canadian immigration officials go to deport failed refugee claimants, the Canada Border Services Agency has been collecting DNA from migrants and using ancestry websites to find and contact their distant relatives and establish their nationality.

“I think it is a matter of public interest that border service agencies like the CBSA are able to obtain access to DNA results from sites like Familytreedna.com and Ancestry.com,” said Subodh Bharati, a lawyer who is representing a man who says he’s Liberian, but who the government is now trying to prove is actually Nigerian. “There are clear privacy concerns. How is the CBSA able to access this information and what measures are being put in place to ensure this information remains confidential?”

Bharati, who is representing his client through CLASP, the legal aid clinic at Osgoode Hall Law School, said he is aware of at least two individuals who used Familytreedna.com, one in the UK, who have been contacted by the CBSA seeking to deport someone from Canada.

“Individuals using these sites to look at their family tree should be aware that their confidential information is being made available to the government and that border agents may contact them to help facilitate the deportation of migrants,” he said.

Both companies deny working with law enforcement.

Noam Chomsky on Family Separation & the U.S. Roots of Today’s Refugee Crisis

As Trump Administration Misses Family Reunification Deadline, Children Protest 'Horrific' Immigration Policy

Lawmakers and immigrant rights advocates called for a mass mobilization on Thursday as the Trump administration reached its court-ordered deadline for reuniting all of the families it has forcibly separated since implementing its deeply unpopular "zero tolerance" immigration policy in May—with no sign that it would reunify as many as 914 parents with their children by the end of the day.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) accused the administration of extreme negligence in how it carried out the "horrific, dark act of injuring children in order to take a political position."

"The administration was incompetent on top of it, or callous, and did not track the connection between the parents and the children, and so it's having an enormously difficult time reuniting the families," Merkley said on CNN's "New Day." ...

In June, U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw ordered Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, whose agency is tasked with overseeing the care of minors who cross U.S. borders without parents or guardians—and now, minors who have been taken from their families by the administration after arriving in the U.S.—to reunite the families, calling the family separation practice "startling" and "chaotic." ...

Some have called for Azar to be held in contempt of court for failing to abide by Sabraw's orders—which legal experts have said is possible. "It is within [the court's] right to fine or imprison government officials who do not comply with the order," Sarah Pierce, a policy analyst and immigration lawyer at Migration Policy Institute, told Newsweek.

ICE coerced dozens of immigrant parents to give up their kids, ACLU says

After taking their kids away, immigration officials corralled dozens of detained immigrant parents into rooms together and gave them just minutes to decide whether or not to leave their children behind in the U.S. before being deported, the American Civil Liberties Union claims in a new court filing Wednesday. Officials gave the parents forms to sign in English and Spanish, but many of the parents spoke indigenous dialects or were illiterate. Some thought they were signing a form to get their kids back, while others had no idea what they were signing, the ACLU says.

The government has determined that 1,637 separated parents are eligible for Thursday’s deadline, and so far at least 1,012 have been reunited with their children. Another 914 parents have been labeled ineligible, including 127 parents in Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention, who officials say signed a form indicating they do not want to be reunified with their kids. In a court filing Wednesday, the ACLU said at least 27 of those parents now say they definitely do want to be reunited.

Of the remaining parents labeled ineligible for reunification, 463 have likely been deported, and the government is still working to identify 260 others. Those parents, many who have not seen their children in months, will remain separated past Thursday’s deadline.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, an attorney with the American Immigration Council, said he interviewed 52 of the parents who the government said waived their right to get their kids back. “Many of these individuals indicated that they felt coerced into relinquishing their rights,” Reichlin-Melnick said in an affidavit filed Wednesday. “Still others appeared totally unaware that they had done so.” Two of the fathers Reichlin-Melnick interviewed said they thought they were signing a form that would allow the government to release their children. “One of these fathers burst into tears repeatedly out of fear for his son and said he had signed the form under enormous stress and confusion,” the court filing said.

GOP and Corporate Dems Gain When Democrats Run Against Putin

Progressives should figure it out. Amplifying the anti-Russia din helps to drown out the left’s core messages for economic fairness, equal rights, environmental protection, diplomacy and so much more. Echoing the racket of blaming Russia for the USA’s severe shortages of democracy plays into the hands of Republicans and corporate Democrats eager to block progressive momentum. When riding on the “Russiagate” bandwagon, progressives unwittingly aid political forces that are eager to sideline progressive messages. And with the midterm elections now scarcely 100 days away, the torrents of hyperbolic and hypocritical claims about Russia keep diverting attention from why it’s so important to defeat Republicans.

As a practical matter, devoting massive amounts of time and resources to focusing on Russia has reduced capacities to effectively challenge the domestic forces that are assaulting democratic possibilities at home — with such tactics as state voter ID laws, purging of voter rolls, and numerous barriers to suppress turnout by people of color. Instead of keeping eyes on the prize, some of the Democratic base has been watching and trusting media outlets like MSNBC. An extreme Russia obsession at the network has left precious little airtime to expose and challenge the vast quantity of terrible domestic-policy measures being advanced by the Trump administration every day.

Likewise with the U.S. government’s militarism. While some Democrats and Republicans in Congress have put forward legislation to end the active U.S. role in Saudi Arabia’s mass-murderous war on Yemen, those efforts face a steeper uphill climb because of MSNBC. This week, under the headline “It’s Been Over a Year Since MSNBC Has Mentioned U.S. War in Yemen,” journalist Adam Johnson reported for the media watchdog group FAIR about the collapse of journalistic decency at MSNBC, under the weight of the network’s Russia Russia Russia obsession. Johnson’s article asks a big-type question: “Why is the No. 1 outlet of alleged anti-Trump #resistance completely ignoring his most devastating war?”

The FAIR report says: “What seems most likely is MSNBC has found that attacking Russia from the right on matters of foreign policy is the most elegant way to preserve its ‘progressive’ image while still serving traditional centers of power — namely, the Democratic Party establishment, corporate sponsors, and their own revolving door of ex-spook and military contractor-funded talking heads.”

Noam Chomsky on Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Spectacular” Victory & Growing Split in Democratic Party

House Republicans Deeply Confused About Why Puerto Rico Might Benefit From Wind and Solar Power

In the glory days of the House of Representatives, congressional hearings were a place where ideas were exchanged, where members would call in experts to help them craft legislation in the public interest. A Trump-era version of that back-and-forth played out this week, with befuddled Republicans on the Natural Resources Committee flummoxed as officials from the Department of Energy, led by none other than Rick Perry, repeatedly insisted that renewable energy is an economical way to power Puerto Rico as it continues to rebuild from Hurricane Maria.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., used his time at the hearing Wednesday on the future of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority to try and paint several of the panelists’ recommendations to expand clean energy on the island as politically motivated. “We’re hearing a lot about renewables, presumably wind and solar. Those are the most expensive ways of generating of electricity that we have available to us,” he said. “In a system that is impoverished and in desperate need of simple generation — particularly on an island favored by trade winds — why aren’t we pursuing much less expensive and much more reliable conventional electricity generation?”

Assistant Energy Secretary Bruce Walker responded flatly, “Your assertion that it’s the most expensive generation would assume that you’re sitting in Arizona paying 1.6 cents per kilowatt. However, when you’re sitting in Puerto Rico paying 20-plus cents per kilowatt, some of the cost effectiveness of wind and solar actually become economical,” he said, noting that Energy Department modeling — “the most sophisticated in the world” — takes into account both energy costs and other market factors. “Recognizing that Puerto Rico relies on bunker [oil] fuel for the most part for their energy and/or coal, hitting below those price points is not that hard,” Walker added.

McClintock doubled down, flustered: “Why aren’t we making a simple economic … I don’t have a dog in that fight. My sense is that the simplest way to produce electricity is the best way to proceed. What is the cheapest way to produce electricity in this market, and why are we making a political decision and not an economic decision?” In his time on Capitol Hill, oil and gas companies have donated $208,100 to McClintock’s campaigns, including $41,500 from Occidental Petroleum. Walker noted the fact that high-voltage transmission lines in Puerto Rico currently have to cross the mountainous center of the island, to bring it from centralized coal- and oil-fired plants in the south to where most of the energy demand is in the north, around San Juan, at tremendous cost. On top of that, all of the fossil fuels used in Puerto Rico need to be imported, tacking on significant costs. ...

If you don't happen to take tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars from the oil and gas industry, the economics of phasing out fossil fuels in Puerto Rico look fairly straightforward. There aren’t any fossil fuel reserves on the island to be mined, meaning that all traditional fuels need to be shipped there. ... “They want to keep Puerto Rico energy dependent as an energy market for fuels, instead of promoting energy self-sufficiency for the island. I think that’s the main struggle,” Arturo Massol told me of Congress’s designs for the island. “It’s not so much if it’s public or private. It’s a matter of being energy self-sufficient or fossil fuel-dependent.”

In 'Major Win' for Clean Air and Public Health, EPA Reverses Pruitt's 'Super-Polluting' Truck Loophole

After a federal court sided with green groups that sought to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from granting a loophole to allow more "super-polluting" trucks on American roadways, acting administrator Andrew Wheeler—who took over following scandal-ridden Scott Pruitt's resignation—officially rescinded his predecessor's final giveaway to industry.

"These super-polluting diesel freight trucks fill our lungs with a toxic stew of pollution. EPA's effort to create a loophole allowing more of them onto our roads was irresponsible and dangerous," declared Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) president Fred Krupp. "This is a huge win for all Americans who care about clean air and human health."

Late Thursday, Wheeler released a memo announcing that the agency will, in fact, impose restrictions on what the industry calls glider trucks—which are old diesel engines dropped into new freight bodies and, according to the New York Times, "account for about five percent of all heavy-duty trucks on the road. ...

The move follows the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit issuing (pdf) an administrative stay last week after EDF, the Center for Biological Diversity, and Sierra Club filed an emergency motion (pdf) requesting that the court block Pruitt's last act as head of the agency.

Heatwave made more than twice as likely by climate change, say scientists

'Unprecedented' Heat Wave Fueling Arctic Fires Made More Than Twice as Likely by Climate Change

With wildfires raging the world over, a new preliminary analysis conducted by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) and reported by the Guardian found that the global climate crisis notably increased the likeliness of last year's Hurricane Harvey and "Lucifer" heat wave, as well as the current heat wave sweeping across Northern Europe and fueling fires in the Arctic Circle.

"We found that for the weather station in the far north, in the Arctic Circle, the current heat wave is just extraordinary—unprecedented in the historical record," said Geert Jan van Oldenborgh of the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute and WWA.

The researchers found that climate change made the heat wave in Northern Europe more than twice as likely, Hurricane Harvey three times more likely, and the Lucifer heat wave 10 times more likely.

"By comparing extreme weather with historical measurements and with computer models of a climate unaltered by carbon emissions, researchers can find how much global warming is increasing the risk of dangerous weather," the Guardian explained. This analysis differs from a full study that would require "many climate models to be run on high-powered computers, which takes months."

Summarizing their conclusion, Friederike Otto of the University of Oxford and WWA told the newspaper, "The logic that climate change will do this is inescapable—the world is becoming warmer, and so heat waves like this are becoming more common."

Also of Interest

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

Mass Dementia in the Western Establishment

The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy

Thomas Frank: Can liberals please work out how to win back the working class?

Letter from Britain—Lost in a Brexit Maze: a Baffled Political Class Dreads the Prospect of Jeremy Corbyn

A Little Night Music

Isley Brothers - The Drag

The Isley Bros - Twistin' With Linda

Isley Brothers - Standing On The Dance Floor

The Isley Brothers - Twist And Shout

Isley Brothers - The Snake

The Isley Brothers - Who's That Lady

The Isley Brothers - Your Old Lady

The Isley Brothers w/Jimi Hendrix - Move Over And Let Me Dance

The Isley Brothers w/Jimi Hendrix - Testify(pts.1&2)

The Isley Brothers on hiring Jimi Hendrix

The Isley Brothers - Sure Is A Lotta Woman

Isley Brothers - Get Into Something

The Isley Brothers - Black Berries(Parts 1 & 2)

The Isley Brothers - Was It Good To You?

The Isley Brothers - Harvest for the world

The Isley Brothers - I Turned You On

The Isley Brothers - It's Your Thing

Fight the Power, Pts. 1 & 2