This evening's music features Memphis bluesman Rufus Thomas.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

"Democracy Cannot Be Blackmailed": Greek Voters Overwhelmingly Reject Creditors’ Austerity Demand

From 'No' to 'Yes': Rejection of Austerity Just Beginning of European Battle

Even with a historic political victory in his pocket after seeing his nation vote overwhelmingly against the imposition of further austerity in exchange for a new loan package from foreign creditors on Sunday, Yanis Varoufakis, the outspoken finance minister of Greece's Syriza-led government, announced his resignation on Monday morning.

In a statement posted to his personal blog, Varoufakis said he "shall wear the creditors' loathing with pride" after it was made clear to him that his "absence" from future talks was urged by negotiating members of the so-called Troika—the European Commission, European Central Bank, and International Monetary Fund.

"Soon after the announcement of the referendum results, I was made aware of a certain preference by some Eurogroup participants, and assorted 'partners', for my… 'absence' from its meetings; an idea that the Prime Minister [Alexis Tsipras] judged to be potentially helpful to him in reaching an agreement. For this reason I am leaving the Ministry of Finance today," he stated. "I consider it my duty to help Alexis Tsipras exploit, as he sees fit, the capital that the Greek people granted us through yesterday’s referendum."

This is an excellent article by Bill Black with far too much great background to excerpt fairly. Here's a taste:

Greece Proves Again Why Democracy is the Criminal Classes’ Great Fear

The people of Greece have just shown great courage, and even greater common sense, in voting “No” in overwhelming numbers against the troika’s war on the Greek people and labor throughout the EU. In recent days we have seen the spectacle of the major media shamelessly lying globally about the referendum and the Greek government – cheered on by the troika. The troika openly sought to depose a second Greek head of state for the high crime of favoring a democratic vote on the troika’s economic malpractice and effort to extort the Greek people by threatening to destroy their economy. The tone and content of the propaganda were extraordinary – and reversed reality.

If you read the media very closely, you can see how hard it would have been to craft this propaganda if it was supposed to have any basis in reality. First, the IMF now admits that its long suppressed studies show that it has known for years that the Greek debt is unsustainable. That confirmed the position of the Greek government (and what every financial specialist has known since 2009). The logical answer in the commercial sphere is (routinely) to write-down part of the debt in what is known as a troubled debt restructuring (TDR). TDRs are treated as having no moral content – they’re just smart business. In Greece’s case, however, the media is suffused with fake morality and is enraged that Greece is seeking a TDR. TDRs are less common for nation states, but they have been done hundreds of times in the modern era – including for Germany after World War II. Germany’s TDR was essential to its economic recovery. Note that there was a vastly stronger moral argument against Germany’s TDR than Greece’s request, but the major media overwhelmingly avoided these facts.

Greece's finance minister at London Conference of 1953 signing a treaty agreeing to cancel 50% of Germany's debt pic.twitter.com/ckdDYSDvTD

— suzanne moore (@suzanne_moore) July 4, 2015

The CFR has a bright idea, why doesn't Greece just cut defense spending? (Um, perhaps it hasn't occurred to them that the troika doesn't want that and rejects agreements with defense cuts - just might have something to do with the fact that the Greek military is a great customer for Germany and France... )

Greece and Its Creditors Should Do a Guns-For-Pensions Deal

IMF Chief Economist Olivier Blanchard has said that Greece needs to slash pension spending by 1% of GDP in order to reach its new budget targets. The Greek government continues to resist, arguing that Greeks dependent on pensions have already suffered enough. ....

Greece spends a whopping 2.2% of GDP on defense, more than any NATO member-state save the United States and France. Bringing Greece into line with the NATO average would alone achieve ¾ of what the IMF is demanding through pension cuts.

This is a really excellent analysis, well worth reading in full:

Michael Hudson: Greece Rejects the Troika

Just after 7 PM Greek time on Sunday, I was told that the “No” vote (Gk. Oxi) was winning approximately 60/40. The “opinion polls” showing a dead heat evidently were wrong. ... The margin of victory shows that Greek voters were immune to media misrepresentation during the week-long run-up as to whether to accept the troika’s demand for austerity to be conducted on anti-labor lines. ... It should not have been so great a surprise. Voting age for the referendum was lowered to 18 years, and included army members. Faced with an unemployment rate of over 50 percent, Greek youth understandably wanted no more euro-austerity.

The Troika’s demand was for austerity to be deepened solely by taxing labor and reducing pensions. Its policy makers had vetoed Syriza’s proposed taxes on the wealthy and steps to stop their tax avoidance. The IMF for its part vetoed cutbacks in Greek military spending (far above the 2% of GDP demanded by NATO), despite even the European Central Bank (ECB) and German Chancellor Merkel agreeing to this

European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker threatened to expel Greece from Europe, despite no law permitting this to occur. Let us see now whether he still tries to carry out his bluff, which has been echoed by right-wing leaders throughout Europe.

His retaliatory actions from an ostensibly non-political, non-elected office are not alone. The eurozone class war in support of finance against labor and industry is now open and in earnest. Instead of doing what a central bank is supposed to do – provide liquidity (and paper currency) to banks, ECB head Mario “Whatever it takes” Draghi forced them to shut down even their ATM machines for lack of cash. Evidently this was intended to frighten Greek voters to think that this would be their country’s future if they voted No. ...

What Greece needs is a domestic central bank – or failing that, a national Treasury – empowered to create the money to monetize government spending on economic recovery. Mr. Draghi has shown the ECB not to be “technocratic,” but a cabal of right-wing operatives working to bring down the Syriza government, in a way quite willing to empower the far-right Golden Dawn party in its stead. ...

U.S. popular media echoed the European right by trying to frighten Greeks and their sympathizers into believing that the vote is whether or not to remain part of Europe – as if Britain does not have its own currency while remaining part of the European Union. However, the vote does throw into question just what it means to be what pro-austerity advocates call “committed to the European project.” Eurozone officials are unanimous that it means a commitment to financial war against labor – to austerity and yet further economic shrinkage; to faster privatization selloffs (but not to Russians if they offer higher prices, as Gazprom did) and hence higher prices for hitherto public utilities; to no rejection of past insider deals privatization to higher value-added taxes on consumers; and to lower pensions for labor.

I am shocked, shocked to find out that the government is systematically lying to Congress and the 'merkan peepholes.

Wiretap Numbers Don’t Add Up

Last week, the Administrative Office (AO) of the US Courts published the 2014 Wiretap Report, an annual report to Congress concerning intercepted wire, oral, or electronic communications as required by Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968. News headlines touted that the number of federal and state wiretaps for 2014 was down 1% for a total of 3,554. Of these, there were few involving encrypted communications; and for those, law enforcement agencies were in most cases able to overcome the encryption. But there is a bigger story that calls into question the accuracy of the all of the prior reports submitted to the AO and the overall data provided to Congress and the public in the Wiretap Reports.

Since the Snowden revelations, more and more companies have started publishing “transparency reports” about the number and nature of government demands to access their users’ data. AT&T, Verizon, and Sprint published data for 2014 earlier this year and T-Mobile published its first transparency report on the same day the AO released the Wiretap Report. In aggregate, the four companies state that they implemented 10,712 wiretaps, a threefold difference over the total number reported by the AO. Note that the 10,712 number is only for the four companies listed above and does not reflect wiretap orders received by other telephone carriers or online providers, so the discrepancy actually is larger. ...

So what accounts for the huge gap in reporting? That is a question Congress and the AO should be asking prosecutors and judges who are required by law to make complete and accurate reports of the number of wiretaps conducted each year. Are wiretaps being consistently under­reported to Congress and the public? Based on the data reported by the four major carriers for 2013 and 2014, it certainly would appear to be the case.

Also of interest:

Still Waiting for USS Liberty’s Truth

A Revolutionary Pope Calls for Rethinking the Outdated Criteria That Rule the World

Hat tip Azazello:

Nuland’s NEMESIS – Will Greece, or won't Greece be destroyed to save her from Russia, like Ukraine?