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“Wisdom comes from experience. Experience is often a result of lack of wisdom.”

-- Terry Pratchett

News and Opinion

Biden rejects allies’ pleas to keep troops in Afghanistan beyond end of August

Joe Biden has rejected the pleas of domestic and international allies to keep troops in Afghanistan for evacuation efforts beyond the end of the month, citing the growing threat of a terrorist attack. In a move likely to fuel criticism that America is abandoning Afghan partners to the Taliban, the US president made clear that he is resolved to withdraw forces from Kabul airport by next Tuesday’s deadline.

“We are currently on a pace to finish by August the 31st,” Biden said at the White House on Tuesday. “The sooner we can finish, the better. Each day of operations brings added risk to our troops.” The president acknowledged that completing the airlift – one of the biggest in history – by 31 August depends on the Taliban continuing to cooperate and allowing access to the airport with no disruption to operations.

Biden also noted that he has asked the Pentagon and the state department for “contingency plans to adjust the timetable should that become necessary”. He continued: “I’m determined to ensure that we complete our mission, this mission. I’m also mindful of the increasing risks that I’ve been briefed on and the need to factor those risks in.” ...

Biden pointed out that 70,700 people have been evacuated from Kabul since 14 August. But his reluctance to extend the 31 August deadline disappointed politicians at home and leaders abroad who contend that it is unrealistic.

Medea Benjamin: Afghan War Is “Cash Cow” for Pentagon. Biden Must End “Delusional” China Rivalry

Afghanistan war profiteering: 90% of US spending went to Military-Industrial Complex contractors

Biden pours salt into wounds of relations with Europe at G7 meeting

In the end it took only seven minutes for Joe Biden to pour salt into the wounds of his fractured relationship with European leaders, telling them firmly on a video call that he would not extend the 31 August deadline for US troops to stay in Kabul, as he had been asked by the French, Italians and most of all the British. The rebuff follows Biden’s earlier decision in July to insist on the August deadline previously set in 2020 by Donald Trump for the withdrawal, a decision the US president relayed to his EU colleagues as a fait accompli.

For Europe the episode has been a rude awakening, and a moment of sober reassessment. ... European hopes that Biden might acknowledge the damage done by his handling of the Afghan withdrawal by at least accepting the US troops may stay a day or two beyond the 31 August deadline have for the moment been dashed.

The Taliban insistence in a direct meeting on Monday with the CIA director and master of the backchannel, William Burns, that the deadline had to be honoured meant from the US perspective the risk of a military confrontation, or a terrorist suicide bombing by Islamic State, at the airport was too great. The Pentagon also said the gathering speed of the evacuation was such that it was likely that all US citizens would be airlifted out by the end of this week.

“Massacre of My Dreams”: Afghan Reporter Bilal Sarwary on Fleeing Kabul, Afghanistan’s “Brain Drain”

Taliban close Kabul airport road to Afghans to block their evacuation

The Taliban have moved to prevent Afghans from leaving the country by joining the US-led airlift, declaring the route to Kabul airport only open to foreigners. The Taliban spokesperson Zabihullah Mujahid said: “The road that ends at Kabul airport has been blocked. Foreigners can go through it but Afghans are not allowed to take the road.”

The decision is likely to leave tens of thousands of Afghans who had been hoping to escape trapped under Taliban control. A number of cases had emerged in recent days of Afghans heading to the airport being turned back at Taliban checkpoints, including those with approval from western countries to join the air bridge as the group seeks to tighten its grip on the airport and the capital.

Mujahid offered contradictory justifications for the policy. He said on the one hand that the Taliban had stopped Afghans from going to the airport for fear that people might be killed in a stampede, but on the other that the evacuation was taking out experts such as engineers and doctors. “We ask [the Americans] to stop this process,” he said. “This country needs their expertise. They should not be taken to other countries.”

Kopmala working hard to get the replacement war going:

Harris urges Vietnam to join US in opposing China 'bullying'

Human Rights Watch: Israel Bombing of Gaza High-Rises Are Possible 'War Crimes'

Human Rights Watch said Monday that the Israeli military's May bombings that leveled four high-rise buildings in Gaza were "apparently unlawful" and possibly amount to war crimes.

The organization—which noted that those strikes represented "just a small fraction of the Israeli military's attacks in Gaza" in the May 10 to May 21 fighting—cited in its new analysis a lack of any evidence to back up Israeli authorities' claims that the buildings were being used by Hamas for military purposes The report also noted the disproportionate harm to civilian property caused by the Israeli attacks.

For its latest analysis of attacks during the 11-day assault, HRW reviewed video and photo evidence of the aftermath of the bombardments and conducted interviews with victims and eyewitnesses.

"The apparently unlawful Israeli strikes on four high-rise towers in Gaza City caused serious, lasting harm for countless Palestinians who lived, worked, shopped, or benefitted from businesses based there," said Richard Weir, crisis and conflict researcher at Human Rights Watch, in a statement.

“The Israeli military should publicly produce the evidence that it says it relied on to carry out these attacks," he said.

At issue are strikes on the Hanadi, al-Jawhara, al-Shorouk, and al-Jalaa towers. The latter housed offices of media outlets including Al Jazeera English and the Associated Press. 

The four towers also included residences and numerous businesses including doctors' offices.

Spain’s Supreme Court Rules Against Using Vaccine Passports to Restrict Access to Public Spaces

Spain’s Supreme Court made waves last week by becoming the first judicial authority in Europe to rule against the use of covid passports to restrict access to public spaces — specifically hospitality businesses (bars, restaurants and nightclubs). It is not the first Spanish court to come out against vaccine passports but it is the most important. So far, only five of Spain’s 17 autonomous regions – the Canary Islands, Ceuta and Melilla, Andalusia, Cantabria and Galicia – have proposed using vaccine passports to restrict access to public spaces. And all have been rejected by local judges.

The EU’s Green Pass is a one-piece QR-code document that can be issued to a traveller in both paper and digital format. It is intended to prove that the holder has either received one of the four vaccines authorised by the European Medicine Agency (BioNTech-Pfizer’s, Moderna’s, AztraZeneca’s and Johnson &Johnson’s), has tested negative for Covid-19 in the last 48 hours or has been infected with Covid in the last six months and therefore has natural immunity. However, some countries such as France have chosen only to allow entry to travellers that are fully vaccinated.

Many government are also using the documents to limit access for unvaccinated citizens to public spaces and services with their own countries. But so far Spanish judges have challenged this trend, on the grounds that it would infringe on certain constitutionally recognised individual rights, such as the right to physical integrity and privacy, while also having limited impact on public health. The Supreme Courts of Andalusia and Ceuta and Melilla said the measures were also discriminatory. When the Supreme Court of Andalusia sided with local hospitality businesses in their appeal against the region’s proposed vaccine passport measures, the regional authority took the case to the national Supreme Court. And lost.

Economic considerations may have also played a part in the courts’ decision. Spain’s hospitality sector generates a huge amount of money and a huge number of jobs, especially during the peak tourist season (i.e., right now). The sector has already been through the grinder of last year’s three-month national lockdown as well as sporadic regional lockdowns. Even with the introduction of vaccine passports, overseas visitors continue to arrive in dribs and drabs. As was the case last year, it’s domestic demand that is keeping many businesses alive. And limiting that demand is likely to create even more economic pain.

The Corporate Deterrent To More Vaccinations

Survey data suggest that roughly half of all U.S. employers are not guaranteeing workers time off to get a COVID-19 vaccine or recover from its side effects. The situation is a major obstacle in the country’s fight against the pandemic: Fears of medical complications and subsequent job loss have deterred millions of Americans from getting a COVID-19 vaccine. And yet so far, Congress and the Biden administration have refused to take even the most straightforward steps to address the problem, such as requiring employers to offer paid time off for vaccinations.

That failure may soon come to an end, if the much-discussed $3.5 trillion budget reconciliation bill ends up passing. Democrats’ current framework for that legislation, which is being held up by nine conservative Democrats in the House, would create a “paid family and medical leave” program that could give workers the time off they need to get vaccinated.

Survey data has repeatedly shown a connection between vaccination rates and employers providing paid leave. In May, the nonprofit health policy organization Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) reported that nearly one in three unvaccinated adults “say that they would be more likely to get the COVID-19 vaccine if their employer gave them paid time off to get vaccinated and recover from any side effects.” Another KFF poll from June found that about 2 of every 10 unvaccinated employees would be more open to the shot with paid time off. ...

Despite such findings, both congressional leaders and the president have declined to use their power to require paid time off for COVID-19 vaccines, even as new, more virulent variants spread throughout the country.

Hawaii governor begs tourists to stay away as Covid surges: ‘Not a good time’

Hawaii’s governor has pleaded with tourists not to travel to the islands as the state struggles to control Covid-19 amid the growing spread of the highly contagious Delta variant.

It’s “a risky time to be traveling right now,” David Ige warned on Monday, asking visitors and residents to limit their travel to essential businesses only. “I encourage everyone to restrict and curtail travel to Hawaii. It’s not a good time to travel to the islands,” he said.

Covid-19 cases in Hawaii have risen 36% in the last two weeks while hospitalizations are up 78%, according to New York Times data.

In addition to urging tourists to stay away, the governor said restaurant capacity had been restricted and there was limited access to rental cars. But Ige stopped short of banning non-residents from the islands, arguing the situation was different now than last year, when strict travel rules that required quarantining essentially shut down Hawaii’s tourism industry. ...

Multiple hospitals on the island of Oahu, where Honolulu is located, have filled their regular beds as Covid patients pour into emergency rooms. Honolulu set up a 25-cot tent outside the Queen’s medical center – West Oahu on Friday to help handle the influx.

Pelosi Runs Over Right-Wing Dems as House Approves $3.5 Trillion Budget Blueprint

In a party-line vote Tuesday afternoon that followed contentious negotiations, U.S. House Democrats adopted a resolution to advance a key voting rights bill, bipartisan infrastructure legislation, and a $3.5 trillion budget blueprint to invest in climate action, Medicare expansion, child care, free community college, and other progressive priorities.

The resolution (pdf) set up final votes for the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (H.R. 3684) and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act (H.R. 4). It also crucially includes formal approval of the Senate-approved budget blueprint that some Democrats are calling the "Build Back Better Plan," enabling Democrats to begin working on that package.

The 220-212 vote came after a small group of right-wing Democrats led by Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) threatened to block the $3.5 trillion budget resolution—for a package Democrats intend to pass without any GOP support using a process that avoids a filibuster in the evenly split Senate—if the House didn't first pass the bipartisan bill, despite House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and President Joe Biden's commitment to passing the two proposals in tandem.

After negotiations with Gottheimer's group Monday and Tuesday, language was included in the resolution to guarantee a House vote on the bipartisan deal no later than September 27. ...

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), a leader in the effort to advance the budget reconciliation bill as chair of the Senate Budget Committee, turned to Twitter to highlight the consequences if Democrats fail to pass it:

"Unless Congress passes the reconciliation bill, the $300 monthly checks sent to every working family in America will expire in December," Sanders said in a separate tweet. "We cannot let that happen. These checks are a big reason why childhood poverty in America has been cut by 61%. No reconciliation bill, no deal."

Not long before Tuesday's vote, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC), tweeted that "there's nothing 'moderate' about voting against top Dem priorities like child care, paid leave, healthcare, immigration, and climate action." ...

In comments to NBC News following the vote, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said that she is "not committing to any date" and the Democratic leadership "absolutely should not" count on her yes vote for the bipartisan plan if the bolder reconciliation package is delayed beyond the September 27 deadline.

Jayapal, in her statement, reiterated that the bipartisan bill and Democrats' package "are integrally tied together," and said that CPC members "remain united with congressional leadership and President Biden in our mission to enact the entire Build Back Better agenda that voters put us in the majority to accomplish—and every elected Democrat should do the same."

Michigan Governor Whitmer proposes to use federal pandemic relief money to fund the police

Democratic Party Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer announced on August 16 that she is proposing to spend $75 million of federal pandemic relief funds on local police departments throughout the state as part of a proposed MI Safe Communities framework. The governor outlined the plan at a press conference held at the Farwell Recreation Center on the east side of Detroit and said, “People are scared. They’re afraid to pump their gas or merge onto the highway, pull up to a red light, drive to work, drop their kids off at school. That’s not right, and we cannot and will not accept this. No one should feel unsafe as they go about their lives.”

The purpose of the media event was to promote Whitmer’s proposal within the Michigan Legislature, which is dominated by the Republican Party including politicians who collaborated with armed protestors who stormed the state capitol building in April. ... Whitmer was joined on the platform by other leading Democrats including Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan, US Representative Debbie Dingell, State Representative Tyrone Carter and Wayne County Prosecutor Kim Worthy as well as Detroit Police Department Interim Chief James White, all of whom expressed support for Whitmer’s proposal. ...

It is clear that the right-wing initiative of the Democrats is in part a response to the ongoing Republican law-and-order campaign following the George Floyd protests last summer and fall that involved millions of people across the country. The Republicans have specifically targeted Democrats for not denouncing demands of protesters to “defund the police.” However, the main motivation for increasing the funding of police departments originated with the Biden administration, which itself has been pushing a law-and-order agenda since taking office under the cover of a bogus “police reform” campaign. The Biden administration has encouraged state governments to use federal pandemic relief aid to build up the police. ...

Whitmer’s proposal was announced on the same day as a similar plan advanced by likely Republican gubernatorial candidate and former Detroit Police Chief James Craig, who has blamed Democrats for Michigan’s “public safety crisis” for not sufficiently supporting the police.

Black police groups call for ex-Black Panther jailed for 48 years to be released

A coalition of current and retired Black police officers is calling for the release on parole of Sundiata Acoli, a former Black Panther member who has been incarcerated for 48 years for the 1973 murder of a New Jersey state trooper.

Four Black law enforcement groups have joined forces to press the case for Acoli’s parole almost half a century after he was arrested. In an amicus brief filed with the New Jersey supreme court, they call his continued imprisonment “an affront to racial justice” and accuse the parole board of violating the law by repeatedly refusing to set the prisoner free.

“Mr Acoli has spent more than half of his life in prison cells the size of a parking space, including nearly 20 years as a senior citizen … He should be granted parole,” the groups write.

Acoli is one of at least 11 former members of the Black Panther Party and its armed wing, the Black Liberation Army, who are still in prison for acts of violence committed largely in the late 1960s and 1970s. Many of the prisoners are approaching their half-century behind bars.

At 84, Acoli is the oldest of the former Black radicals still languishing in prison. He contracted Covid-19 last year from his cell in FCI Cumberland in Maryland, and is suffering from physical and mental impairments including gradual deterioration of his memory.

US House passes voting rights bill, restoring critical provision of landmark law

The US House of Representatives has passed an update to the 1965 Voting Rights Act, restoring a critical provision of the landmark civil rights law that requires places with a history of voting discrimination to be under federal supervision. The John Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act passed 219-212 on a party-line vote.

The bill now faces an uncertain future in the US Senate, where it needs the support of 10 Republican Senators to overcome the filibuster and pass. While Senator Joe Manchin, a key Democratic swing vote, supports the bill, just one Republican, Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, has indicated that she does.

The House passed a similar version of the legislation in 2019, gaining just one GOP vote, but it never passed the Senate, which was then under GOP control.

The legislation is one of two pillars of congressional Democrats’ push to protect voting rights. It sets a 25-year look-back period for assessing voting rights in jurisdictions. If courts have documented at least 15 voting rights violations in a state over that period, the state will have to get any change in voting rules approved by the federal government before it goes into effect (if the violation is committed by the state as a whole only 10 violations are required to trigger federal oversight).

The updated formula comes eight years after the US supreme court said the formula in the law that determined which states were subject to pre-clearance was outdated and struck it down. Voting advocates have said that ruling, in a case called Shelby County v Holder, has offered states a green light to discriminate against Black voters.

Briahna Joy Gray: The FUTURE Of The Left, How Small Money Can BEAT Institutional Wealth

‘A combination of failures:’ why 3.6m pounds of nuclear waste is buried on a popular California beach

More than 2 million visitors flock each year to California’s San Onofre state beach, a dreamy slice of coastline just north of San Diego. The beach is popular with surfers, lies across one of the largest Marine Corps bases in the Unites States and has a 10,000-year-old sacred Native American site nearby. It even landed a shout-out in the Beach Boys’ 1963 classic Surfin’ USA. But for all the good vibes and stellar sunsets, beneath the surface hides a potential threat: 3.6m lb of nuclear waste from a group of nuclear reactors shut down nearly a decade ago. Decades of political gridlock have left it indefinitely stranded, susceptible to threats including corrosion, earthquakes and sea level rise. ...

That waste is the byproduct of the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (Songs), three nuclear reactors primarily owned by the utility Southern California Edison (SCE). Federal regulators had already cited SCE for several safety issues, including leaking radioactive waste and falsified firewatch records. But when a new steam generator began leaking a small amount of radioactivity in January 2012, just one year after it was replaced, it was SCE’s most serious problem yet. A subsequent report from the NRC’s inspector general found federal inspectors had overlooked red flags in 2009, and that SCE had replaced its own steam generators without proper approval. SCE tried to fix the problem but decided in 2013 to shut the plant down for good.

Activists thought they had scored a victory when the reactor shut down – until they learned that the nuclear waste they had produced would remain on-site. That wasn’t supposed to be the case. Under the US Nuclear Waste Policy Act of 1982, the federal government was to move waste into a centralized, remote federal facility starting in 1998. In 2002, George W Bush approved Yucca Mountain, a site about 100 miles from Las Vegas, as a permanent underground nuclear waste repository. But in 2010, the Obama administration scrapped the controversial plan.

Without a government-designated place to store the waste, the California Coastal Commission in 2015 approved the construction of an installation at San Onofre to store it until 2035. In August 2020, workers concluded the multi-year burial process, loading the last of 73 canisters of waste into a concrete enclosure. San Onofre is not the only place where waste is left stranded. As more nuclear sites shut down, communities across the country are stuck with the waste left behind. Spent fuel is stored at 76 reactor sites in 34 states, according to the Department of Energy. ...

The waste is buried about 100ft from the shoreline, along the I-5 highway, one of the nation’s busiest thoroughfares, and not far from a pair of faults that experts say could generate a 7.4 magnitude earthquake.

‘Kill it!’ US officials advise no mercy for lanternfly summer invasion

The official public guidance is simple and to the point: “Kill it! Squash it, smash it … just get rid of it!” Such is the threat posed by a summer invasion of troublesome spotted lanternfly insects in the north-east that Pennsylvania’s department of agriculture has resorted to the unorthodox language in its advice on dealing with the pest.

At least five states have reported infestations and four more have recorded the presence of the nuisance flying creatures, which experts say first arrived from China between seven and 10 years ago and which are currently feasting their way through the region on crops of apples, grapes and hops, and destroying native trees such as maple, walnut and willow. According to the US department of agriculture’s invasive species information center, the insects – which can grow to about an inch in length and have an appearance similar to a moth – pose “a serious economic threat to multiple US industries, including viticulture, fruit trees, ornamentals and timber”.

As well as their destruction of plants, spotted lanternflies excrete a pervasive substance called honeydew that turns moldy and coats anything it comes into contact with, such as vehicles and children’s play equipment. Pennsylvania is among the worst-affected states with 34 counties under a quarantine order, eight added for the first time this year. ...

State scientists say the pests are “a huge threat” to Pennsylvania’s agriculture industry, potentially impacting hundreds of millions of dollars of crops and hundreds of thousands of jobs.

Breathing wildfire smoke during pregnancy raises risk of premature birth, study finds

As California wildfires continue to rage and the Lake Tahoe area faces some of the highest air pollution levels in the world, a new study has found that breathing wildfire smoke during pregnancy increases the risk of premature birth. The study from Stanford University, published in Environmental Research this month, estimates that the effects of wildfire smoke may have resulted in as many as 7,000 extra preterm births in California between 2007 and 2012.

Researchers combined more than 3m birth records with satellite and ground data on wildfire smoke exposures for each zip code in California. They found that the more days a mother was exposed to wildfire smoke during pregnancy, the more likely she was to face a preterm birth. The effects of moderate to severe exposure levels were significantly worse.

“We found that a week’s worth of smoke exposure (at these levels) was associated with a 5% increased risk and a month’s worth was associated with a 20% increase in preterm births,” said Sam Heft-Neal, the lead author on the study.

The findings compound growing evidence that smoke and the tiny particles of air pollution it produces, known as PM2.5, have dire health effects on the human body, ranging from heart attacks, strokes and asthma to mental illness. “This stuff is tiny and it gets into the body, causes inflammation and creates a cascade of health effects,” said study co-author Marshall Burke, who is deputy director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment.

The findings come as fires continue to scorch California, with blazes such as the massive Dixie fire in the north of the state having already burned through 1.5m acres of drought-parched land. This week visitors to the Lake Tahoe region have seen air quality monitor readings shoot up into the hazardous 600 index range, far worse than current readings in some of the world’s most polluted cities including Delhi, India, and Jakarta, Indonesia.

Also of Interest

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

John Pilger: The Great Game of Smashing Nations

Exploitative Viral PR Photos Of Military Invaders With Afghan Kids

The Leak That ‘Exposed the True Afghan War’

Rahm’s Reward

Herd Immunity & Multiple Covid Waves Is A Monstrous Policy

A four-day workweek is the future. Here’s why

Central Banks Accused of 'Dawdling' on Climate as World Burns

Q&A: did the climate crisis fuel Henri and the Tennessee flooding?

Blue whales returning to Spain’s Atlantic coast after 40-year absence

Ryan Grim: Josh Gottheimer Walked Into A Bar. It Didn’t Go Well.

Kim Iversen: Mystery 'Havana Syndrome' DELAYS Kamala Harris Hanoi Trip, Who Is Behind The Attack?

California SPLIT Over Newsom Recall Election, Could The Most LIBERAL State Go RED?

Biden Admin FUMING After Veteran Congressmen Make UNAUTHORIZED Trip To Kabul To Witness Evacuation

A Little Night Music

Coleman Hawkins - Soul blues

Coleman Hawkins - Hawk Eyes

Lester Young & Coleman Hawkins - Jumpin' with the Synphony Sid

Coleman Hawkins & Ben Webster ft. Oscar Peterson - La Rosita

Coleman Hawkins - On The Sunny Side Of The Street

Coleman Hawkins with the Red Garland Trio - Blues for Ron

Count Basie and Coleman Hawkins - 9:20 Special

Coleman Hawkins All Stars - Sweet Georgia Brown

Coleman Hawkins - Disorder At the Border

Coleman Hawkins & The Mound City Blue Blowers - Hello Lola!