This evening's music features Texas by way of Louisiana multi-instrumentalist bluesman, Clarence "Gatemouth" Brown.

Here are some stories from tonight's posting:

Obama promises to keep military options open in Iran nuclear deal

Barack Obama is promising Democratic lawmakers that the US will continue to keep economic pressure on Iran – and keep military options open – if a nuclear deal with Tehran goes ahead.

Obama, in a letter addressed to New York Democratic representative Jerrold Nadler, said that if Iran rushes to build a nuclear weapon, “all of the options available to the United States – including the military option – will remain available”.

In the letter, which has been seen by the Guardian and was first published by the New York Times, the president also says the US will uphold sanctions targeting Iran’s non-nuclear activities, such as its support for Lebanon’s Hezbollah group and what Obama calls Iran’s “destabilising role in Yemen”.

“We have a wide range of unilateral and multilateral responses that we can employ should Iran fail to meet its commitments,” the letter goes on, citing the “snap back” provisions of the deal, which allow the US and its European partners to restore sanctions in the event of a breach by Tehran.

An excellent article by Henry Giroux. Here's a taste:

The Plague of American Authoritarianism

Authoritarianism in the American collective psyche and in what might be called traditional narratives of historical memory is always viewed as existing elsewhere. Viewed as an alien and demagogic political system, it is primarily understood as a mode of governance associated with the dictatorships in Latin America in the 1970s and, of course, in its most vile extremes, with Hitler’s poisonous Nazi rule and Mussolini’s fascist state in the 1930s and 1940s. These were and are societies that idealized war, soldiers, nationalism, militarism, political certainty, fallen warriors, racial cleansing, and a dogmatic allegiance to the homeland.[i] Education and the media were the propaganda tools of authoritarianism, merging fascist and religious symbols with the language of God, family, and country, and were integral to promoting servility and conformity among the populace. This script is well known to the American public and it has been played out in films, popular culture, museums, the mainstream media, and other cultural apparatuses. Historical memory that posits the threat of the return of an updated authoritarianism turns the potential threat of the return of authoritarianism into dead memory. Hence, any totalitarian mode of governance is now treated as a relic of a sealed past that bears no relationship to the present. The need to retell the story of totalitarianism becomes a frozen lesson in history rather than a narrative necessary to understanding the present

Hannah Arendt, the great theorist of totalitarianism, believed that the protean elements of totalitarianism are still with us and that they would crystalize in different forms.[ii] Far from being a thing of the past, she believed that totalitarianism “heralds as a possible model for the future.”[iii] Arendt was keenly aware that the culture of traditionalism, an ever present culture of fear, the corporatization of civil society, the capture of state power by corporations, the destruction of public goods, the corporate control of the media, the rise of a survival-of-the-fittest ethos, the dismantling of civil and political rights, the ongoing militarization of society, the “religionization of politics,”[iv] a rampant sexism, an attack on labor, an obsession with national security, human rights abuses, the emergence of a police state, a deeply rooted racism, and the attempts by demagogues to undermine critical education as a foundation for producing critical citizenry were all at work in American society. For Arendt, these anti-democratic elements in American society constituted what she called the “sand storm,” a metaphor for totalitarianism.[v]

Historical conjunctures produce different forms of authoritarianism, though they all share a hatred for democracy, dissent, and human rights. It is too easy to believe in a simplistic binary logic that strictly categorizes a country as either authoritarian or democratic and leaves no room for entertaining the possibility of a mixture of both systems. American politics today suggests a more updated if not different form of authoritarianism or what some have called the curse of totalitarianism. In this context, it is worth remembering what Huey Long said in response to the question of whether America could ever become fascist: “Yes, but we will call it anti-fascist.” [vi] Long’s reply indicates that fascism is not an ideological apparatus frozen in a particular historical period, but as Arendt suggested a complex and often shifting theoretical and political register for understanding how democracy can be subverted, if not destroyed, from within.

Jeremy Corbyn to apologise for Iraq war on behalf of Labour if he becomes leader

The Labour leadership frontrunner Jeremy Corbyn is to issue a public apology over the Iraq war on behalf of the party if he becomes leader next month, a move Tony Blair repeatedly resisted.

In a statement to the Guardian, Corbyn said he would apologise to the British people for the “deception” in the runup to the 2003 invasion and to the Iraqi people for their subsequent suffering.

Such an apology would be important symbolically – particularly in a party where Iraq remains a sore point, 12 years after Britain joined the US in the invasion – and signal a wider departure from existing Labour’s defence and foreign policy.

The MP made a vow that suggests future UK military interventions will become rarer: “Let us say we will never again unnecessarily put our troops under fire and our country’s standing in the world at risk. Let us make it clear that Labour will never make the same mistake again, will never flout the United Nations and international law.”

Turkish Election Commission Proposes November Vote

With the June 7 election deadlocked and no majority government possible, Turkey’s election commission has proposed November 1 for its next vote. This is sooner than many expected, though it won’t be finalized until they receive “input” from the various political parties involved.

The deadline for forming a government is August 23, and after that the current ruling party, the AKP, will either have to get approval for an election date or President Erdogan will have to form an “election government” with opposition parties to make the arrangements. PM Ahmet Davutoglu says he is keen to avoid the election government scenario, as this would mean the pro-minority HDP would be in the temporary government, at the same time as the AKP is carrying out a war against the Kurdish region from which most of their electoral support is coming. ...

The AKP tried to form coalition governments with both the CHP and MHP, though neither was willing. The MHP had apparently offered to join under several conditions, including starting a new war against the PKK, which the AKP actually did, but they also wanted to strip Kurds and other minorities of their citizenship, and demanded the AKP tackle corruption. It is generally believed the corruption call was the biggest problem for them.

The stink tank that helped coordinate the crackdown on occupy now has some ideas about how to prevent police brutality. Commondreams reports it without identifying the nature of the group.

To Prevent Police Brutality, Overhaul Police Culture: Report

The Police Executive Research Forum (PERF), a nonprofit policy organization based in Washington, D.C., analyzed a number of cases in which officers used excessive force as a first-resort means of addressing situations and found that, in departments throughout the country, police do not receive adequate training in communication, crisis intervention, and nonviolent deescalation of crises.

Rather, a pervasive culture of aggression and competition encourages officers to react with force, even when suspects are unarmed, which has caused "missed opportunities to ratchet down the encounter, to slow things down, to call in additional resources," PERF executive director Chuck Wexler wrote in a summary of the report, Re-Engineering Training On Police Use of Force (pdf).

[I find it quite odd that the group that worked to coordinate the brutalization of occupy is suddenly all worried about curbing police brutality. - js]

Greek PM Tsipras Resigns, Calls for New Election as Left Wing of Syriza Splits to Form New Party

Syriza rebels break away to form Popular Unity party

MPs angry at what they consider a betrayal of anti-austerity principles announce decision in letter to parliament, the day after Alexis Tsipras’ resignation

Led by the former energy minister, Panagiotis Lafazanis, the new movement will be the third-largest group in the Greek parliament and could conceivably receive a mandate to try to form a new government.

Tsipras announced his resignation in a televised address on Thursday night. He said he felt a moral obligation to put Greece’s third international bailout deal, and the further swingeing austerity measures it requires, to the people.

Last week he piloted the punishing deal through the Greek parliament, but suffered a major rebellion when nearly one-third of Syriza MPs either voted against the package or abstained. Tsipras is gambling that he will be able to silence the rebels and shore up public support for the three-year bailout programme.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, the Syriza labour minister, George Katrougalos, said the government needed to “reconfirm its mandate” to implement the third Greek bailout and that the party is “crippled by a number of dissident MPs”.

“This is the essence of democracy, we do not have any problem to ask the people. We do not want to govern against the popular will,” he said, adding that Tspiras and his government were “confident in rightness of our policies and the maturity of the Greek electorate”.

Sen. Bernie Sanders: From Greece to Puerto Rico, the Financial Rules Are Rigged to Favor the 1%

Martin O'Malley to campaign on expansion of social security

The Democratic presidential hopeful Martin O’Malley is to unveil a detailed plan to expand social security on Friday.

In a white paper shared with the Guardian, the former Maryland governor calls for expanding social security benefits and raising the payroll tax used to fund the government retirement program so that all income above $250,000 is taxable. Currently the threshold on earnings subject to the social security tax is set at $118,500. The O’Malley campaign would create a “doughnut hole”, exempting income over $118,500 and below $250,000 from taxation. The overall goal of O’Malley’s plan is to “increase the number of Americans with adequate retirement savings by 50% within two terms in office”.

O’Malley also expresses his support for a number of other progressive goals including the controversial “fiduciary rule” recently introduced by the Department of Labor which requires financial advisers to provide advice “in the best interest of their clients” as well as changing how cost of living adjustments are calculated to provide increased benefits to retirees.

The former Maryland governor is not the only candidate to call for an expansion of social security. The Liberal insurgent Bernie Sanders has introduced a bill in the Senate which would include the same tax increase on income over $250,000 and expand it to capital gains income above $250,000 as well.

A World on Fire: July Was Hottest Month Ever Recorded

The world is burning up.

The previously available evidence for that statement is staggering and on Thursday the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in the U.S. announced that July was the hottest month the planet has ever experienced since records began and that both land and ocean temperatures are on pace to make 2015 the hottest year ever recorded.

According to NOAA's latest figures, the July average temperature across global land and ocean surfaces was 1.46°F (0.81°C) above the 20^th century average. As July consistently marks the warmest month of the year, NOAA said this most recent one now registers as having the all-time highest monthly temperature since records began in 1880, with an average global thermometer reading of 61.86°F (16.61°C).

NOAA's temperature analysis follows on the heels of similar findings by both NASA and the Japan Meteorological Agency (JMA) published earlier this week which also said July was a record-breaker in terms of heat.

Also of interest:

How the Flawed Science of Bite Mark Analysis Imprisoned a Man for Murder

How DuPont Slipped Past the EPA

Climate change is so dire we need a new kind of science fiction to make sense of it

Why Are We Ignoring the War on Yemen?

Nothing to See Here: On Pooh-Poohing Sanders’ Surging Crowds

Noam Chomsky: America is the gravest danger to world peace

Panic Attackers: Grass-Roots Challenge Sparks High-Level Hissy Fit