



The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Sir Mack Rice

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Detroit r&b songwriter and musician Sir Mack Rice. Enjoy!

Sir Mack Rice w/Detroit All Star Revue - Mustang Sally

"I think perhaps we want a more conscious life. We're tired of drudging and sleeping and dying. We're tired of seeing just a few people able to be individualists. We're tired of always deferring hope till the next generation. We're tired of hearing politicians and priests and cautious reformers... coax us, 'Be calm! Be patient! Wait! We have the plans for a Utopia already made; just wiser than you.' For ten thousand years they've said that. We want our Utopia now— and we're going to try our hands at it." -- Sinclair Lewis

News and Opinion

Hiding US Lies About Libyan Invasion In writing a response the other day to a critic of my recently published book on Hillary Clinton’s electoral defeat, I was researching how the U.S. corporate media covered a 2016 British parliamentary report on Libya that showed how then Secretary of State Clinton and other Western leaders lied about an impending genocide in Libya to justify their 2011 attack on that country. Using a combination of different keywords, I searched The Washington Post archives but came up with no story on the parliamentary report at all. A search of The Los Angeles Times archives likewise came up empty. The New York Times had a dispatch from London. But it laid the blame entirely on the British and French governments, as if the U.S. had nothing to do with the devastation of Libya on false pretenses. The U.S. gave the same false war rationale as the British and French did. But The New York Times never held U.S. officials to account for it. A thorough online search shows that The Nation magazine and several alternative news sites, including ConsortiumNews and Salon, appear to be the only U.S.-based media that accurately covered the blockbuster story that undermined the entire U.S. narrative for leaving Libya a failed state. And yet the summary of the September 2016 Foreign Affairs Committee report says: “We have seen no evidence that the UK Government carried out a proper analysis of the nature of the rebellion in Libya. … UK strategy was founded on erroneous assumptions and an incomplete understanding of the evidence.” The report further said: “Despite his rhetoric, the proposition that Muammar Qadhafi would have ordered the massacre of civilians in Benghazi was not supported by the available evidence. While [he] certainly threatened violence against those who took up arms against his rule, this did not necessarily translate into a threat to everyone in Benghazi. In short, the scale of the threat to civilians was presented with unjustified certainty.” The committee pointed out that Gaddafi’s forces had taken towns from rebels without attacking civilians. In another example, the report indicates that, after fighting in February and March in the city of Misrata, just one percent of people killed by the Libyan government were women or children. “The disparity between male and female casualties suggested that Qadhafi regime forces targeted male combatants in a civil war and did not indiscriminately attack civilians,” the report said. How then could The New York Times and The Washington Post, the most influential American newspapers, either refuse to adequately cover or not cover at all a story of such magnitude, a story that should have been front page news for days? It was a story that undermined the U.S. government’s entire rationale for an unjustified attack that devastated a sovereign nation. There can be only one reason the story was ignored: precisely because the report exposed a U.S. policy that led to a horrible crime that had to be covered up.

Study Finds Relationship Between High Military Casualties and Votes for Trump Over Clinton A new study suggests that Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump won more votes from communities with high military casualties than from similar communities which suffered fewer casualties. Recall that Trump campaigned as a somewhat antiwar candidate who would break with bipartisan pro-war consensus (a promise he has not lived up to, and which didn’t exactly match his past record). His Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, ran a campaign more or less embracing the war status quo — with the emphasis occasionally, as with the case of Syria, on more. ... Boston University political science professor Douglas Krinera and University of Minnesota Law professor Francis Shen studied the relationship between military casualties and pro-Trump votes. Comparing the 2012 and 2016 presidential elections, they concluded that regions that had seen high concentrations in casualties over the past 15 years of warfare saw a swing in support towards Trump. The researchers controlled for a number of other factors, including race, income, and education; they also controlled for the percentage of the population that lives in rural areas and the military veteran population — both populations tended to support Trump overall, so controlling for these variables means that the number of military casualties was still a statistically significant driver of the vote, even in rural areas that share many of the same characteristics. Their model also suggests that three swing states — Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan — could very well have been winners for Clinton if their war casualties were lower.

The Syrian Test of Trump-Putin Accord The immediate prospect for significant improvement in U.S.-Russia relations now depends on something tangible: Will the forces that sabotaged previous ceasefire agreements in Syria succeed in doing so again, all the better to keep alive the “regime change” dreams of the neoconservatives and liberal interventionists? Or will President Trump succeed where President Obama failed by bringing the U.S. military and intelligence bureaucracies into line behind a cease-fire rather than allowing insubordination to win out? These are truly life-or-death questions for the Syrian people and could have profound repercussions across Europe, which has been destabilized by the flood of refugees fleeing the horrific violence in the six-year proxy war that has ripped Syria apart. But you would have little inkling of this important priority from the large page-one headlines Saturday morning in the U.S. mainstream media, which continued its long obsession with the more ephemeral question of whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would confess to the sin of “interference” in the 2016 U.S. election and promise to repent. ... In both the big newspapers and on cable news shows, the potential for a ceasefire in southern Syria – set to go into effect on Sunday – got decidedly second billing. Yet, the key to Putin’s assessment of Donald Trump is whether the U.S. President is strong enough to make the mutually agreed-upon ceasefire stick. As Putin is well aware, to do so Trump will have to take on the same “deep-state” forces that cheerily scuttled similar agreements in the past. In other words, the actuarial tables for this cease-fire are not good; long life for the agreement will take something just short of a miracle. ... Last fall’s limited ceasefire in Syria, painstakingly worked out over 11 months by Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and approved personally by Presidents Obama and Putin, lasted only five days (from Sept. 12-17) before it was scuttled by “coalition” air strikes on well-known, fixed Syrian army positions, which killed between 64 and 84 Syrian troops and wounded about 100 others. In public remarks bordering on the insubordinate, senior Pentagon officials a few days before the air attack on Sept. 17, showed unusually open skepticism regarding key aspects of the Kerry-Lavrov agreement – like sharing intelligence with the Russians (an important provision of the deal approved by both Obama and Putin). ... As the new U.S.-Russia agreed-upon ceasefire goes into effect on Sunday, Putin will be eager to see if this time Trump, unlike Obama, can make a ceasefire in Syria stick; or whether, like Obama, Trump will be unable to prevent it from being sabotaged by Washington’s deep-state actors.

An excellent rant:

If This Tweet Bothers You, It’s Because You’re A Piece Of Shit

...We negotiated a ceasefire in parts of Syria which will save lives. Now it is time to move forward in working constructively with Russia! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 9, 2017 America’s WWE Hall-of-Famer internet troll president — currently lurking at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue because that’s how spectacularly unelectable the heiress to the Clinton dynasty was and is — has just made a series of tweets celebrating a ceasefire negotiation in Syria and calling for a constructive relationship with Russia. If you have a problem with this, it is because you are a reprehensible neocon piece of shit with whom I should not have to share a planet. ... The Twitterverse is of course already exploding, with McResistance Maddow muppets pounding out furious responses to Trump with heavy fingers and countless hysterical corporate media articles being written as I type the end of this sentence. A new article by the CIA-funded Washington Post is being frantically circulated about Russian hackers having infiltrated America’s energy companies with no skepticism whatsoever, despite WaPo’s having leveled a very similar accusation about Russian hackers infiltrating America’s power grid a few short months ago which was proven to have been 100 percent false from top to bottom. These horrible omnicidal maniacs have somehow taken a ceasefire in Syria and an improvement in relations between two nuclear superpowers and twisted that into being a bad thing. This is unacceptable, inexcusable, and damn near unforgivable. These people are literally traitors to their species. Let me say this as clearly as I can: there is no valid reason to oppose the de-escalation of tensions between two nuclear superpowers. None. If you think that Trump has done a bad thing by purportedly working toward these de-escalations, I want you off of my planet before your idiotic neocon warmongering gets us all killed, you amoral fucking psychopath. The world would literally be better off without you.

South Syria truce seeks to allay Israel, Jordan fears about Iran A separate truce for southern Syria, brokered by the US and Russia, is meant to help allay growing concerns by neighboring Israel and Jordan about Iranian military ambitions in the area, including fears that Tehran plans to set up a disruptive long-term presence there. Such apprehensions were stoked by recent movements of Shiite Muslim militias - loyal to Iran and fighting alongside Syrian government forces - toward Jordan’s border with Syria, and to another strategic area in the southeast, close to where the two countries meet Iraq. The advances are part of Syrian President Bashar Assad’s push to regain territory from rebel groups, some backed by the West, in the southern Daraa province, and from Islamic State extremists in the southeast, near the triangle with Iraq. But Syria’s neighbors suspect that Iran is pursuing a broader agenda, including carving out a land route through Syria that would create a territorial continuum from Iran and Iraq to Lebanon. The cease-fire for southern Syria, set to start at noon Sunday, is meant to keep all forces pinned to their current positions, said Jordan’s government which participated in the talks. This would prevent further advances by forces under Iran’s command, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia.

Australian journalist demolishes Trump at G20: 'biggest threat to the west' A savage opinion of Donald Trump’s presidency that went viral was delivered by one of Australia’s most seasoned political journalists, who is well known to viewers of the national broadcaster for his frank opinions. Chris Uhlmann, the political editor of the government-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation, described Trump as “isolated and friendless” at the G20 leaders’ summit, and said his disastrous foreign policy had “pressed fast-forward on the decline of the United States”.

Trump backs away from working with Russia on cybersecurity Donald Trump appears to have backed away from working with Russia to create a cybersecurity unit to guard against election hacking following widespread criticism of the idea. The US president had said in a Sunday morning tweet that he and Vladimir Putin had discussed “forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded and safe,” following their talks at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany. Three Republican senators – Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, John McCain of Arizona and Mario Rubio of Florida – immediately criticised the idea, saying Moscow could not be trusted after its alleged meddling in the 2016 US election, and Trump appeared to backtrack in a tweet later on Sunday. Graham had told NBC’s Meet the Press that working with Russia on cybersecurity was “not the dumbest idea I have ever heard but it’s pretty close,” saying that Trump’s apparent willingness to “forgive and forget” stiffened his resolve to pass legislation imposing sanctions on Russia.

Trump administration officials signal intent to refill Guantanamo with 'bad dudes' Plans appear to be under way to begin fulfilling Donald Trump’s promise to pack US’s Guantanamo Bay prison with “bad dudes”. During his election campaign last year, Mr Trump said he would “load it up” when he became president. Last week US Attorney General Jeff Sessions and his deputy Rod Rosenstein visited the detention camp in Cuba, along with National Intelligence Director Dan Coats, to gain “an up-to-date understanding of current operations”, the Justice Department said. Mr Sessions has been in favour of continued use of Guantanamo since his days as an Alabama senator. He told ABC News it was a “very fine place for holding these kind of dangerous criminals”.

Army improperly tracked sarin, other chemical agents Officials at an Army chemical and biological storage and testing facility did not follow protocols while tracking inventories of sarin, a dangerous nerve agent, according to a recent inspector general report. ... Dugway Proving Ground was the same Utah location cited in 2015 for protocol failures that allowed live anthrax spores to be shipped to 194 laboratories in 50 states and nine foreign countries. Some of the packages were shipped by commercial carriers such as FedEx.

UK arms exports to Saudi Arabia can continue, high court rules Campaigners have lost a high-profile case calling for UK arms sales to Saudi Arabia to be stopped over humanitarian concerns, as the high court ruled exports could continue. Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) launched the judicial review of the government’s decision to continue granting weapons-export licences to Saudi Arabia despite widespread concern over the civilian death toll of its two-year bombing campaign in Yemen. CAAT called the ruling a “green light” for the UK government to sell arms to “brutal dictatorships and human rights abusers”. Delivering an open judgment in the high court in London, Lord Justice Burnett, who heard the case with Mr Justice Haddon-Cave, said: “We have concluded that the material decisions of the secretary of state were lawful. We therefore dismiss the claim.” ... UK and EU arms sales rules state that export licences cannot be granted if there is a “clear risk” that the equipment could be used to break international humanitarian law. Licences are signed off by the secretary of state for international trade, Liam Fox.

Jared Kushner Tried and Failed to Get a Half-Billion Dollar Bailout From Qatar Not long before a major crisis ripped through the Middle East, pitting the United States and a bloc of Gulf countries against Qatar, Jared Kushner’s real estate company had unsuccessfully sought a critical half-billion investment from one of the richest and most influential men in the tiny nation, according to three well-placed sources with knowledge of the near transaction. ... Qatar is facing an ongoing blockade led by Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and joined by Egypt and Bahrain, which President Trump has taken credit for sparking. Kushner, meanwhile, has reportedly played a key behind-the-scenes role in hardening the U.S. posture toward the embattled nation. ... Throughout 2015 and 2016, Jared Kushner and his father, Charles, negotiated directly with a major investor in Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani, known as HBJ for short, in an effort to refinance the property on Fifth Avenue, the sources said. ... HBJ, a former prime minister of Qatar who ran the country’s $250 billion sovereign wealth fund, is a billionaire and one of the world’s richest men. ... The former emir of Qatar summed up HBJ’s power with a quip: “I may run this country, but he owns it.”

Robert Mugabe ruling Zimbabwe from hospital bed, says opposition Robert Mugabe’s third trip to Singapore this year for medical treatment has prompted accusations that the 93-year old president is ruling Zimbabwe from a hospital bed. Mugabe is reported to have flown to the city state on Friday, prompting the ruling Zanu-PF party to cancel a youth rally that he had been scheduled to attend, suggesting that his latest trip was unplanned. A minister told the Standard newspaper that it was a private visit. Singapore “is literally his home now”, one opposition party spokesman told Zimbabwean media, while another said: “The country is stagnant today because the Zanu president is running the show from his hospital bed.” Mugabe, Africa’s oldest leader, spent more than $50m (£39m) on foreign travel last year, more than double the amount allocated to upgrading the country’s hospitals and health centres, according to data from the Zimbabwean treasury. In the same year, $30m was allocated to parliament and $32m to the ministry of foreign affairs. ... His wife, Grace Mugabe, has said he should run “as a corpse” in the next election if he dies before he can contest it. She has volunteered to push him around in a wheelchair if necessary, while Mugabe himself says he wants to live to 100 and rule for life. Zanu-PF has endorsed him as their candidate for the 2018 elections.

Facebook among tech firms battling gag orders over government surveillance Tech companies including Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft are fighting gag orders from US courts preventing them from talking about government surveillance of their users, arguing it has a chilling effect on free speech. Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft all have policies to notify users of government requests for account information unless they are prohibited by law from doing so in exceptional circumstances such as life-threatening emergencies, child sexual exploitation and terrorism. However, it seems that the US government is attaching gag orders – many with no time limit – to their data requests in about half of all cases. This means that people are having their digital lives ransacked without their knowledge and with no chance for public scrutiny or appeal. Tech companies and civil liberties campaigners argue that the gag orders are unconstitutional, violating the fourth amendment, which gives people the right to know if the government searches or seizes their property, and the first amendment, which protects the companies’ right to talk to their customers and discuss how the government conducts its investigations. Facebook is challenging a court order that prevents the company from notifying three of its users about government search warrants in relation to “potential felony charges” seeking all communication, identifying information and other records from their social media profiles for a three-month period. Most of the details of the investigation are sealed, although one filing suggests the warrants are linked to mass arrests of protesters during Donald Trump’s inauguration in January. “We believe there are important first amendment concerns with this case, including the government’s refusal to let us notify three people of broad requests for their account information in connection with public events,” said a company spokesman.

Republican senators return to work on healthcare bill amid resistance Republican senators left Washington more than a week ago without voting on a long-promised repeal of the Affordable Care Act or their unpopular plan to replace it. The GOP lawmakers return on Monday with the daunting task of crafting a bill still very much in front of them, amid swirling doubts about the prospect of finding a solution any time soon. “My view is it’s probably going to be dead,” Arizona senator John McCain told CBS on Sunday. “I fear that it’s going to fail.” A vote is unlikely to take place this week, with at least one Republican senator predicting that his colleagues are still “several more weeks away” from reaching a consensus on a healthcare replacement. ... The clearest sign of Republican resistance to the bill was how few senators were willing to defend the bill publicly. During the Fourth of July recess politicians typically relish the opportunity to march in patriotic parades and clasp hands with constituents. But this year those appearances were scarce.

Trump Treasury Ripped Its Tax Cut Recommendations Straight From The Chamber Of Commerce Treasury Department recommendations for tax regulatory changes released Friday are almost entirely copied from a U.S. Chamber of Commerce memo on the same subject. The five-page notice, released by the Internal Revenue Service, complies with Donald Trump’s Executive Order 13789, issued April 21. This order mandated a review of all tax regulations finalized since 2016. The interim report was to identify those regulations that imposed an “undue financial burden” on taxpayers, added “undue complexity” to the tax code, or exceeded the IRS’ regulatory authority. The interim report was due June 20; Treasury did not release the notice publicly until 17 days later. Delays like this have become a typical feature of federal agencies’ compliance with Trump executive orders. The tardiness of the Treasury report looks even worse considering one additional factor: in May, the Chamber of Commerce released their own report, highlighting tax regulations they believed created significant burdens and complexities. Treasury treated this report the way a kid who didn’t prepare for a test in school would treat the smart kid’s answer sheet the next desk over. The kid they cribbed from is more than just the class nerd. The Chamber of Commerce fronts as an organization pushing the broader interests of American business. But in reality, it is a gun for hire, advocating on behalf of individual companies who make largely secret contributions to the organization. It’s unlikely any of the Chamber’s recommendations wound up on that list free of charge.









Trump’s Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information on Clinton President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it. The meeting was also attended by the president’s campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times. It is unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton. But the people interviewed by The Times about the meeting said the expectation was that she would do so. When he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, Donald Trump Jr. said that it was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton. But on Sunday, presented with The Times’s findings, he offered a new account. In a statement, he said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance from the 2013 Miss Universe pageant, which his father took to Moscow. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.” He said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The 2012 law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he halted American adoptions of Russian children. “It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Mr. Trump said.





Clock Ticking to Save Monuments From Becoming Fossil Fuel 'Sacrifice Zones' With the public comment period ending Monday, there are just hours left for the public to weigh in on President Donald Trump's order that threatens protections of 27 national monuments designated since 1996. "These monuments were protected by presidents from both parties for good reason," said Randi Spivak, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's public lands program. "Their natural beauty and scientific and cultural importance is indisputable, but Trump and his corporate friends claim to know better. Sadly it's just their greed talking." Trump's executive order, issued in April, called for Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke to conduct a review of designations or expansions made by the last three presidents using executive powers under the Antiquities Act of every monument larger than 100,00 acres "or where the Secretary determines that the designation or expansion was made without adequate public outreach and coordination with relevant stakeholders." Among the currently designated areas (pdf) under review are Bears Ears National Monument and Grand Staircase-Escalante in Utah; the Mojave Trails in California; and Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii. The order suggested that the review could open the possibility of fossil fuel drilling. It states: "Monument designations that result from a lack of public outreach and proper coordination with State, tribal, and local officials and other relevant stakeholders may also create barriers to achieving energy independence, restrict public access to and use of Federal lands, burden State, tribal, and local governments, and otherwise curtail economic growth."

Ditching Diplomatic Duties, Tillerson Accepts Lifetime Achievement Award From Oil Industry Secretary of State Rex Tillerson—a former CEO of the world's largest oil company—is under fire on Monday for setting aside his diplomatic duties on Sunday to accept a lifetime achievement award from the World Petroleum Congress is Istanbul, Turkey. "Secretary Tillerson's warped notion that it's appropriate to attend and accept an award at an oil industry conference proves yet again that he has no idea how to be the United States’ chief diplomat," said Greenpeace USA senior climate campaigner Naomi Ages. Addressing a room full of executives and government officials from around the globe, the former head of ExxonMobil said: "I miss all of you....I miss you as colleagues, I miss you as partners, I miss you as competitors." Tillerson spent more than 40 years working in the fossil fuel industry before he was confirmed as President Donald Trump's secretary of state—in "a vote for climate disaster," as 350.org's May Boeve described it—earlier this year. He left ExxonMobil to lead the State Department just before being forced to retire from the company due to his age. The former oil executive joined ExxonMobil in the mid-70s and became CEO in 2006. Celebrating his time at the helm of company, the WPC said: Tillerson...is being recognized for his "outstanding contribution to the oil and gas industry" with the highest honor of the World Petroleum Council, the Dewhurst Award. This distinguished lifetime achievement award celebrates his exceptional leadership of the largest publicly traded oil and gas company in the world over the past 10 years. Tillerson is only the tenth recipient of the Dewhurst Award in the history of the WPC. The U.S.'s top diplomat said he found out about the award before accepting his Cabinet position.

Also of Interest

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

The U.S. State of War: July 2017

Donald Trump Can’t Decide If He’s Destroying, Cutting, or Boosting Entitlements

Rachel Maddow’s Exclusive “Scoop” About a Fake NSA Document Raises Several Key Questions

Lefties Need To Stop Being Shy About Working With The Anti-Establishment Right

Dismantling Power: The Zapatista Indigenous Presidential Candidate’s Vision to Transform Mexico from Below

The Enduring Injustice of Palestine

Gaza electricity crisis: 'It is the worst I can remember – but we expect it to get worse'

Ivanka Trump's qualification for sitting in at the G20? She's part of the 1%

"Show Me Your Papers" Becomes "Open Your Eyes" as Border Sherriffs Expand Iris Surveillance

A Little Night Music

Sir Mack Rice w/Detroit All Star Revue - Respect Yourself

Mack Rice - Baby I'm Coming Home

Sir Mack Rice - Love Sickness

Mack Rice - The Whip

Mack Rice - My Baby

Sir Mack Rice - Feels Good

Sir Mack Rice - It's All Right

Sir Mack Rice - You Can't Lose

Sir Mack Rice - Mini Skirt Mini

Sir Mack Rice - I Gotta Have My Baby's Love

Coal Man & Love's a Mother Brother

Sir Mack Rice - Cheaper to Keep Her

Sir Mack Rice - Cadillac Assembly Line

Sir Mack Rice - Nobody Wins Till The Game Is Over

Sir Mack Rice On Writing "Mustang Sally"