Trump will use Lame Duck Session to Gin Up Persian Crisis

UPDATE: In a brilliant display of misdirection the GOP advanced out of the Judiciary Committee Kavanaugh's confirmation at the same time publicly proclaiming a delay to allow for an FBI investigation:

WASHINGTON — Senate Republican leaders, bowing to a last-minute demand from Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona, will delay by as much as one week a vote on whether to confirm Judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, to allow time for an F.B.I. investigation into accusations of sexual assault against the nominee.

The decision, made in a hurried closed-door meeting between Republicans on the Judiciary Committee and Senator Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader, came after a dramatic reversal by Mr. Flake, who announced he would not support final confirmation until the F.B.I. investigates the allegations. With that stipulation, the Judiciary Committee then voted along party lines to advance Judge Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Senate.

The delay puts a cloud over what Republicans expected to be a triumphant day, but they still had reason to be optimistic: Despite adamant Democratic opposition, they were still able to muscle the nomination through committee with an 11-to-10 vote and send it to the full Senate with a favorable recommendation.

The White House needs to approve reopening the FBI investigation into Kavanaugh, and there is no indication that Trump will do so. My guess is that the wily McConnell felt Kavanaugh's confirmation out of Judiciary slipping away. So he punted the ball to Trump knowing that Trump is opposed to the FBI and will now take the lead on Kavanaugh's rushed confirmation.

Or I could be wrong. Prevailing GOP wisdom might have turned after yesterday's hearing. Placing Kavanaugh on the supreme court might now appear to be too costly, the specter of a Blue Wave turning into a Blue Tsunami. I'm sure all those committed #MeToo activists on Capitol Hill are having an impact.

We'll see. My bet is still on McConnell pushing the confirmation.

****

Kavanaugh will be confirmed today by the Senate Judiciary Committee, followed by a final vote as early as Tuesday.

After Christine Blasey Ford told the story of her assault by Kavanaugh in 1982, Kavanaugh played the victim aggressively. According to "Brett Kavanaugh and Christine Blasey Ford Duel With Tears and Fury" by Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Nicholas Fandos,

Playing out against the backdrop of the #MeToo movement, only weeks before midterm elections that have already energized female voters and Democrats, the testimony occurred at the combustible intersection of politics and women’s rights. It evoked strong memories of one of Washington’s most memorable judicial confirmations: the 1991 hearings of Judge Clarence Thomas, who was accused of sexual harassment by the law professor Anita F. Hill.

At times, it appeared that Judge Kavanaugh was channeling Judge Thomas himself, who in 1991 denounced a “high-tech lynching for uppity blacks” at the hands of Democrats.

“My family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false additional allegations,” Judge Kavanaugh told the committee on Thursday. But he vowed never to withdraw.

Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican hermaphrodite from South Carolina, staged a temper tantrum for the committee, slobbering on about the crucifixion of the Kavanaugh family by power-mad Democrats.

There were 57 arrests yesterday near the Supreme Court. Maybe there will be more today for the Judiciary Committee vote.

National politics are irredeemable. There is little or no connection between the rulers and the ruled. Any critical assessment of the decline and fall of a civilization will usually list this -- a governing class hermetically sealed from the genpop -- as a prime cause of collapse.

Regardless of the Blue Wave bearing down on him, Trump is moving full speed ahead with a war on Iran. Netanyahu made his annual appearance before the United Nations General Assembly to promote that war, accusing Iran of maintaining a “secret atomic warehouse” in downtown Tehran.

The problem with a war on Iran is that it cannot be won, a broadly accepted fact in the vast Western intelligence bureaucracy. It is the whole reason years were spent negotiating the JCPOA.

Trump isn't kowtowing to the Kremlin. Trump is kowtowing to Riyadh and Tel Aviv. So an Iranian war there will be. The Blue Wave will crash down on the White House this November (Trump's NAFTA reboot is headed for defeat) and Trump will use the lame duck period to gin up a Persian crisis.

Trump will enjoy a high probability of success in pushing the United States into a war with Iran because in order to block Trump Democrats will have to rediscover their atrophied inner dove. Democrats have too long suckled at the tit of neo-McCarthyite hysteria. The Democrats are a war-addled party.

Another mark in Trump's favor is the slavish nature of the European Union. The EU appears to be ontologically incapable of action absent U.S. backing.

The Kavanaugh Confirmation: a Super Bowl in September

It's hard to resist rubbernecking this spectacle. There are so few moments in our fractured digitally connected world that promote a singular cultural focus, I feel a bad sport if I don't participate, if I don't read the list of questions that The New York Times Editorial Board has prepared for Judge Brett Kavanaugh, an example of which is:

On Wednesday, Julie Swetnick, a woman who grew up in the Washington suburbs and claims to have traveled the same 1980s social circuit as you, gave a sworn statement alleging that you drank excessively at many parties she attended; that you were verbally abusive and physically aggressive toward young women, fondling and grabbing them; and that you were part of a group of young men who would spike the punch at parties with alcohol or illicit drugs with an eye toward incapacitating the female attendees, including Ms. Swetnick herself, and then raping them. Could she be right about any of this?

It's the Super Bowl in September, and the grand barbecue is beginning to have an effect. As Nicholas Fandos and Michael Shear report in "Before Kavanaugh Hearing, New Accusations and Doubts Emerge" this morning:

Democrats seized on the latest accusations to call on Judge Kavanaugh to withdraw, and they pummeled Republicans with requests for outside investigations of the accusations. Republicans, fuming over what they view as increasingly craven partisan attacks, vowed to push ahead with a committee vote scheduled for Friday.

But even before Thursday’s hearings, it was clear that Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation was in jeopardy. Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine and a key swing vote, told colleagues in a private meeting that she was troubled by the latest accusations. Holding a printout of Ms. Swetnick’s declaration, she asked why the Judiciary Committee was not issuing a subpoena for Mr. Judge, who has appeared in two separate accusations, according to an official familiar with the meeting.

Ms. Collins joined two other Republican senators, Jeff Flake of Arizona and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, in expressing reservations about the Kavanaugh nomination, more than enough to sink it.

I'm still skeptical that Democrats can derail Kavanaugh's confirmation. McConnell has promised it, and Flake is a phony; he also expressed reservations about repealing Obamacare before voting to do so. Collins and Murkowski might vote against Kavanaugh. They are both outliers in their party who bucked Trump on the Obamacare repeal. I would guess that if they support Kavanaugh they'll guarantee themselves an Emily's List challenger in the future. But I don't know what their plans are. Both are up for reelection in 2020.

Either way Democrats win here. If Kavanaugh is rammed home, a large Blue Wave crashes on the GOP in November. If Kavanaugh is blocked, Trump will be flummoxed. A new supreme court candidate will have to wait until after the Blue Wave reaches the shore. By that time things will be different. A lame duck confirmation of a new nominee is possible but difficult.

One interesting aspect of this barbecue is how the Trotskyists at WSWS are largely in agreement with Trump regarding Kavanaugh's confirmation. It's a witch hunt.

Make or Break for #MeToo

It might be too much to say that tomorrow is a make-or-break moment for #MeToo, but it certainly feels as if some sort of Battle of Waterloo is about to take place. Judge Brett Kavanaugh is scheduled to be confirmed on Friday, but not before his accuser Christine Blasey Ford gives testimony on Thursday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Ford says that Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were teenagers.

As was the case with Obamacare, Kavanaugh's confirmation hinges on the votes of two Republican senators, Collins and Murkowski. According to "Trump Unleashes on Kavanaugh Accuser as Key Republican Wavers" by Peter Baker and Nicholas Fandos,

With a 51-to-49 majority, Senate Republicans can afford to lose only one vote, assuming they get no Democrats. If Ms. Murkowski votes no, she could swing Senator Susan Collins of Maine, the other abortion-rights Republican in the Senate. But Republican leaders went ahead to schedule a committee vote for Friday, just a day after the hearing, a move that drew rebukes from Democrats who said the majority was not taking the allegations seriously. “I’m confident we’re going to win,” Mr. McConnell said.

What's encouraging is the number of arrests activists are willing to take to block Kavanaugh's confirmation. On Monday over 100 were arrested in acts of civil disobedience at senate office buildings.

There is no better gauge of democratic commitment than civil disobedience. Nationwide protests are being planned for tomorrow.

It makes me wonder why we as a nation aren't willing to take arrests for the genocide that the United States is enabling in Yemen because you know 50 years ago we would have, but it does speak to the potency of #MeToo.

My position on #MeToo since it leaped out of the fetid mass of the Weinstein scandal is that we must support it. Though at first blush it might reek of puritanical sexual McCarthyism, it is a legitimate social movement that expresses the real grievances of women in the workplace. In Western culture's currently decades-long neoliberal stasis, #MeToo is one of the only social movements to have generated momentum since Trump's election.

Kavanaugh needs to blocked. The damage a hard right supreme court can do cannot be dismissed. My guess is that McConnell will ram Kavanaugh through, and that Collins, if not Murkowski as well, will line up with the "good old boys."

Then we'll see what #MeToo can deliver. I would hope that Capitol Hill is shut down on Friday. Why not? It could be done with enough disobedient people.

The War on Iran

Russia says the S-300 missile system will be delivered to Syria in two-week's time. There is some debate as to whether this is a "game changer" for Israel. It seems to me that now Israel will have to clear all of its attacks on Syria with Russia, something Israel says it already does through the use of a deconfliction line, or risk having its planes shot down by the Russian operated S-300.

The terror attack on Ahvaz appears to be the official announcement of the coming war on Iran. The U.S. position on Syria has changed right before our eyes. It is now explicitly linked to Iran, with Bolton declaring that U.S. troops will stay in Syria as long as Iranian forces are there.

War is coming to Iran, and when that happens I don't have much confidence that Europe will be of much help.

The silver lining here is that the coming conflict will reanimate the antiwar movement in the West. Right now there is no antiwar movement to speak of. Without an antiwar movement within a warfare state like the U.S. you can't say there is a functioning democracy.

November is key. Trump will lose big in the midterms and the U.S. oil embargo on Iran will be launched.

Labour's Alleged Anti-Semitism

Surprisingly the latest issue of Harper's contains  a "Corbyn is an anti-Semite" feature (see "Among Britain’s Anti-Semites" by Tanya Gold). It's a professionally written tendentious hit piece that manages urbanity but nonetheless falls flat, as can be gleaned in this exchange between Gold and Jackie Walker:

Later [Jackie Walker] told me, “Presenting anti-­Semitism as the almost total focus of racism in this country in the last two years is feeding into antiblack racism and Islamophobia. Why aren’t you concerned about that?” What makes her think that I am not concerned? “What I perceive is that a minority with a lot more voice than blacks or Muslims have have taken up all the space.” So there is a limited space for justice in the world, and Jews took it all.

I told her that I thought the people in Parliament Square were frightened. She replied, “How do you think people of African descent feel? How do you think I as a black person feel when you say that to me? When I look at the Jewish community I see a community of relative privilege and power. How do you think that makes me feel? It makes me feel like shit.” She continued, “That [black] guy three weeks ago died in police custody. When did the last Jewish person die in police custody?” I don’t know. I have no corpse to present in evidence.

Gold's article fails to mention any of Israel's controversies -- settlements, Gaza embargo, bombing Syria, terrorizing Iran -- and proves the left's point that any criticism of the Israeli state is now reflexively greeted with cries of anti-Semitism.

Robert Stevens in "Blairites and Tories share platform calling for Corbyn’s removal" explains why the mainstream media is obsessed with the Corbyn's alleged anti-Semitism:

With Theresa May’s government tottering on the brink of collapse as tensions deepen over Brexit, with a scheduled exit from the EU less than 200 days away, the ruling elite fear the social and political implications of a Corbyn government coming to power with the support of millions opposed to austerity, militarism and war. [Tory MP Chris] Green gave voice to these fears, warning his audience that at last year’s general election, Labour “came within 20,000 votes around the country of being able to form a coalition government and Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister.

Crash-Out Brexit on the Way

Theresa May's "Chequers plan" for Brexit was rejected yesterday at a European Council meeting in Salzburg. As Yves Smith explains in "Crash Out Brexit Virtually Guaranteed as EU Leaders Talk Tough to Theresa May, Reject Chequers Plan, and Give Her October Deadline":

The EU has been clear from the get-go: no four freedoms (and that includes the free movement of people), no Single Market. And asking the EU to set up a whole new bureaucracy and legal arrangements to let the UK have its cake and eat it to was an obviously ludicrous demand, save to those inside the UK’s bubble.

Tusk told May she needs to deliver a new plan by October 18, and that also includes a “breakthrough” for the Irish border, and that the emergency EU summit set for November was on only if the European Council deemed there to be a realistic possibility of getting a deal done in its October meeting.

[snip]

[T]he EU leaders may have come, either intellectually or on gut instinct, to our conclusion that a crash out is close to inevitable. UK punters were putting the odds at 62% this week. We had them at 80% before today and we thought that was being too optimistic. With May digging in on Checkers even after the stern EU messages, there’s not even a credible path for the UK to escape a crash out. So if a disorderly Brexit is inevitable, better to make that clear as soon as possible to give businesses some chance to plan.

Sadly, but not surprisingly given the press spin, the public reaction seems to be to pump for a hard Brexit. One Financial Times reader says the “most recommended” comments in the BBC were of the “just leave” variety.

As for the deus ex machina of a second referendum, fuggedaboutit. May has ruled it out. If the Ultras oust her, they certainly won’t initiate one. The Tories will not vote themselves out of office and DUP is unlikely to play spoiler (they have power now as essential to the Tories majority that they stand to lose in a new General Election). It’s not even clear a new referendum would produce a different outcome. And in any event, it’s too late. A referendum that followed the procedures takes a minimum of eight months (the LibDem’s campaign site set forth the timetable) and the Ultras would be guaranteed to challenge any process that cut corners.

So if you are in the UK, start stockpiling. Or find a way to be out of the UK for at least six months starting shortly before the Brexit date. It won’t be pretty.

As I often mention, Smith's dour assessments of current affairs, which tack to the neoliberal center, are usually on the money. So if she says a crash-out Brexit is coming, that is the safe bet.

While Smith dismisses another referendum as unfeasible, she does not give enough attention to the possibility of snap elections. If a crash out comes, I don't see how May can just ignore the resulting hue and cry. Tories might leave her as a PM burning in effigy, but the demand for new elections will be unavoidable.

That inevitability, along with the likely triumph of a Momentum-led Labour, is what all the "Corbyn is an anti-Semite" stories have been about.

Facebook's New Censorship "War Room"

Today The New York Times features another "The Russians Stole My Election!" wrap-up. The "newspaper of record" does these about every other month, if not monthly. The ruling elite are absolutely committed to this neo-McCarthyite narrative. The message is clear: We're back to the Cold War, and, absent a political revolution in the United States, it'll be with us for the rest of our lives.

Accompanying "The Russians Stole My Election!" piece is a laughable story ("Inside Facebook’s Election ‘War Room’" by Sheera Frenkel and Mike Ives) about the new election war room being constructed at Facebook's Menlo Park headquarters.

The key passage -- the one most highlighted in the comments section appended to the story -- is as follows:

Already, foreign operatives have evolved their online influence campaigns to skirt the measures Facebook has put in place ahead of the midterms, said Priscilla Moriuchi, director of strategic threat development at the cybersecurity firm Recorded Future.

“If you look at the way that foreign influence operations have changed these last two years, their focus isn’t really on propagating fake news anymore,” Ms. Moriuchi said. “It’s on augmenting stories already out there which speak to hyperpartisan audiences.”

In other words, "fake news" is not the concern, communication itself is. Filtering of communication is the goal, which is going to be a problem because the tech giants have monetized communication. The more clicks the better. The more divisive the more clicks.

The whole neo-McCarthyite narrative is like slapping a 1950s Red Menace comic book horror story over our postmodern neoliberal reality. It's a perversion, a monstrosity. A horrible price will no doubt be paid.

The Russian-Turkish Demilitarized Zone in Idlib

Niqnaq posts several translated items from Colonel Cassad which deal with the Russia-Turkey agreement creating a demilitarized zone in Syria's Idlib Province:

On the demilitarized zone.

1. Let’s move on to what, apparently, we already know by Oct 15 will be established area with a width of 9-12 miles. It will not include heavy weapons or extreme elements of the insurgency (rebels associated with AQ). The zone will be patrolled by Turkish and Russian forces.

2. The first critical point is to note whether this transaction will ensure that the highway that passes through Idlib and connects the north and the south of the country passes under government control. This was one of the strategic goals of Damascus in any operation in Idlib.

3. Damascus approved the deal, providing the highway will be considered as an immediate benefit. The deal will mean a delay in the plan of the state to reclaim “every inch” of its territory. Damascus is wary of the fact that the uprising has turned into a separatist project.

4. Turning to the armed groups in the transaction indicates that the area will not include heavy weapons or HTS/Nusra, but all other armed groups can stay. What we will likely see is a wholesale change of image, rebranding HTS/Nusra to become Ahrar al-Sham, Failaq al-Sham, etc.

5. There are various scenarios: A) Turkey has effective control over HTS/Nusra and therefore the ability to withdraw them from the new zone. B) the group agrees to obey, but rebrands itself and stays. C) Turkey will not be able to fulfill its end of the bargain and HTS/Nusra will remain as it is.

6. Regardless of whether HTS/Nusra disappears just visually or for real, this transaction is based on the assumption that all armed forces will carry out their part of the bargain and adhere to the requirements of Turkey to cease all military operations against the Syrian state from this area.

7. When it comes to Turkey, there is no doubt that Erdogan was able to delay/prevent a military operation in Idlib for the moment. But now he has to make the Idlib train arrive by the time scheduled at the final station. The behaviour of the armed groups in the province now explicitly depends on Ankara.

8. As for Russia, its own military will now officially patrol one area with a NATO member. Putin is patient and will see that this transaction will exacerbate divisions within NATO. All he had to pay for it, is to promise a delay in any military operations in Idlib.

9. The United States, of course, is absent in today’s agreement, but nevertheless Washington ascribes to itself the merits of preventing the attack on Idlib by means of pressure on Russia. In fact, Moscow and Ankara are now the leading foreign capitals in the matter of Idlib.

10. Like most of the previous “deals” in Syria, time will tell whether this agreement “demilitarized zones” different from those who preceded it. It’s an obvious assumption in this agreement that Erdoğan will be able to control all these armed people gathered in the province.

11. At the moment, Erdogan has strengthened his legendary status in the Syrian opposition. He personally voted to prevent military strikes against the province, and it will add points to his very high popularity in most opposition.

Israel's Stepped Up Assault on Syria

The recent acceleration of Israel's attacks on Syria have led to the friendly-fire destruction of a Russian military surveillance plane off the coast of Latakia. Latakia was being bombarded not only by Israeli F-16s but a French frigate as well.

RT has a breakdown of the stepped up Israeli aggression:

Despite the fact that Israel rarely acknowledges striking specific targets inside Syria, earlier this month the IDF admitted hitting at least 202 “Iranian targets” in the country. Overall, Israel has launched 792 bombs and missiles at Syria since 2017, arguing that the strikes were necessary to prevent Iran from setting up bases in the country in order to stage attacks against the Jewish state.

As Israel continues to claim the right to intrude in Syria, despite repeated condemnations from Damascus, France had said that it will join the US-led campaign to strike Syria again if there are reports of chemical weapons use.

Over the last few weeks, Moscow has been beating drums about a false-flag chemical attack that is being prepared by the notorious White Helmets and jihadists in Idlib province in order to frame government forces. Such a provocation, the Russian military argues, will be used to trigger a US-led attack against Damascus.

The attack on Latakia came just hours after Russia and Turkey negotiated a partial demilitarization of Idlib province, which is the last remaining stronghold of anti-government militants, including the Al-Qaeda affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (also known as the Jabhat Al-Nusra).

Israel response is a cut-and-paste job: Its one-hour bombardment targeted Syrian weapons that were to be transferred to Hezbollah. This has been the identical rationale trotted out over the last four years.

Don't expect an escalation from Moscow. Putin is already ratcheting down tensions.

The Russian strategy appears to be to avoid at all costs getting sucked into direct conflict with Israel or the United States, or France or the United Kingdom, for that matter. The idea must be that the internal contradictions of these states are so enormous eventually they will irrupt and thereby alleviate the pressure on the Russian Federation. The question is whether elites who guide the U.S. empire can focus that irruption on Russia.

Bloomberg. Again.

A strong indication that the big-money donors who fund the Democratic Party are worried about the leftward drift of its rank'n'file is the news that billionaire Michael Bloomberg is talking up a presidential run as a Democrat. According to "Bloomberg May Run for President as a Democrat. His Views on Policing and #MeToo Could Be a Problem.," by Alexander Burns and Sydney Embers,

Mr. Bloomberg has mapped an energetic travel schedule for the midterms that will also take him to battleground states that would be crucial in a presidential race. He will make stops in Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania and address influential liberal groups, including the League of Conservation Voters and Emily’s List, aides said. And he is weighing a visit to the early primary state of South Carolina.

Mr. Bloomberg is also preparing to reissue a revised edition of his autobiography, “Bloomberg by Bloomberg,” aides confirmed.

Democratic leaders have so far embraced Mr. Bloomberg, giving him a regal reception aimed at ushering him securely into the party. At a climate conference in San Francisco, he stood beside Gov. Jerry Brown of California, a popular Democrat, to show support for the Paris climate agreement. And in an embrace laden with political symbolism, Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, introduced Mr. Bloomberg at two events as a herculean champion of the environment and a master of business and government.

“His name is synonymous with excellence,” Ms. Pelosi said, at a dinner atop the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. “And he knows how to get the job done.”

In a private conversation at the dinner, Mr. Bloomberg pressed Ms. Pelosi to govern the House in a bipartisan way if Democrats take power, he said — a message he also trumpeted publicly in Las Vegas as he pleaded with Democrats to pursue the center. “Candidates who listen to voters in the middle are more likely to reach across the aisle and to get things done,” Mr. Bloomberg argued there.

[snip]

There is considerable skepticism among Democratic leaders, and even some of Mr. Bloomberg’s close allies, that he will actually pursue the presidency, because he has entertained the idea fruitlessly several times before, and shown little appetite for the rough-and-tumble tactics of traditional partisan politics.

[snip]

Close allies of Mr. Bloomberg are divided as to whether it would be wise for him to run for president in 2020, and at least one longtime associate has predicted that he will never seek the White House. Bradley Tusk, Mr. Bloomberg’s former campaign manager who helped him explore an independent candidacy in 2016, declared at a recent dinner in Washington, D.C., that he expected Mr. Bloomberg to toy with running before opting out yet again, multiple people who attended the event confirmed.

Bloomberg's public flirtation with presidential politics has become a structural feature of the two-party system in the United States. He has threatened to run in every presidential election going back to 2004. 

Bloomberg's intention is to maintain popular fealty to an imaginary "center," a fiction that has served the plutocrats well for the last 40 years. After Hillary's win on Super Tuesday in 2016, Bloomberg pulled the plug on a third-party campaign because it appeared that Hillary would sail to victory in the Dem primary over her challenger from Vermont. Needless to say, Bloomberg misjudged badly regarding both Hillary's popularity in the general election, and Trump's.

Bloomberg's not making the same mistake this time around. He is actively campaigning for Democrats in suburban districts. He wants to flip the House in 2018. He'll throw his hat in the ring in 2020 only if  Bernie is on his way to securing the nomination, something I consider unlikely because I think it already belongs to Andrew Cuomo. Bloomberg is fine with Andrew Cuomo.

Lies Have Become the Basis of Governance

Both George Galloway and Craig Murray have written pointed criticisms of the latest Skripals poisoning roll-out by Theresa May. The identification of the two allegedly Russian perpetrators in the Skripals case coincides with stepped up claims by the U.S. that Syria is planning a chemical weapons attack for its offensive against Qaeda-controlled Idlib Province. Trump has apparently done an about-face on Syria and is now in full agreement with the longstanding U.S. position of regime change.

Lies have become the basis of governance. It is a tricky and volatile way to rule. Eventually the truth will out. The problem nowadays is that it doesn't matter. Lies will simply be dusted off and re-used. Look at Iraq and its illusory WMDs.

NFL Opener

The regular season of the National Football League begins tonight with the defending champion Philadelphia Eagles taking on the Atlanta Falcons. Yesterday blacklisted quarterback Colin Kaepernick was all over the newspaper because of a new Nike ad. Kaepernick's anthem protests have been blamed -- and continue to be blamed -- for the substantial ratings drop -- 10% last year; 8% the year before -- plaguing the league, which is significant because the NFL is really the last bastion of a cultural commons in the U.S. Its disappearing fan base is a harbinger of even greater political divisiveness.

My sense is that this year, absent some unforeseen development, will be as bad as last year, if not worse. Tom Brady's theory about the ratings drop is media overload. I think he is partially correct. It's that in tandem with a decrease in quality of the games, whether due to fears of CTE, conservative play-calling, or increased injuries from the Thursday-Monday schedule.

I'll be a canary in the coal mine. I'll tune into the hometown Seahawks, now in a rebuilding year, but have vowed to tune out in a week or two if the team continues to play as poorly as they did in preseason.

The U.S. Defends Al Qaeda

Despite all warnings of dire consequences coming from the U.S. politburo, it doesn't appear to me that the Syrian offensive to recapture Idlib can be halted. The U.S. must either talk tough and then act modestly as it did in Douma last year or go in heavy and risk a war with Russia. The U.S. has heretofore avoided a direct conflict with the Russian Federation.

As Bill Van Auken notes this morning in "Washington escalates threats over Syria as Russia bombs Al Qaeda positions," the United States is now openly acting as a defender of Al Qaeda:

Absent from the US statements is any recognition that Idlib is effectively run by the Syrian Al Qaeda affiliate, which leads the dominant “rebel” faction, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (IHT), and includes large numbers of so-called foreign fighters. The IHT has reportedly set up gallows and employed firing squads to eliminate opponents seeking accommodation with the Syrian government.

The UN’s special envoy to Syria, Staffan de Mistura, has acknowledged that there are at least 10,000 Al Qaeda-affiliated fighters in Idlib. The front that the group leads is said to control 60 percent of the province’s territory along with its capital, and effectively governs the region. Others have put the number of Al Qaeda-linked fighters at between 20,000 and 30,000.

Washington is threatening to intervene not out of any humanitarian concerns. Successive US administration have carried out bloody interventions in the region—from the war of aggression in Iraq, to the regime change operations in Libya and Syria and the near genocidal US-Saudi war against Yemen—that have claimed the lives of millions and decimated entire societies. 

If it launches a new act of aggression in Syria, it will be to rescue the Al Qaeda-led “rebels,” which Washington and its Western and regional allies have supported since the onset of the proxy war for regime change in 2011, pouring billions of dollars’ worth of money and weapons to support these forces. And it will be to further US geo-strategic interests in dominating the Middle East and rolling back the influence of Iran and Russia in both Syria and the wider region.

With the open defense of Al Qaeda in Syria, Washington is unceremoniously ditching the 17-year-old “global war on terror” in favor of preparations for military confrontation with what US national security documents describe as “revisionist states” challenging US hegemony—i.e., Russia and China.

As for the warnings over a chemical weapons attack, these amount to an invitation to the Al Qaeda forces to stage an incident in order to secure air support from the US and its allies. Damascus flatly denied responsibility for earlier incidents—in Douma last April and in Khan Shaykhun a year before. Both were used as the pretext for missile and air strikes by Washington and its allies.

The Splintering of the Labour Party

I've developed a screen aversion of late. Mostly I would say it is due to work. Work is a seemingly never ending source of misery. But my screen aversion also tracks back to nauseating news -- a lunatic rudderless Russophobia, threats emanating from the United States as Syria readies its offensive to reclaim Idlib Province from Al Qaeda control, the ongoing campaign to censor social media and the robust effort to tar Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite.

Corbyn is a threat to the listing neoliberal "New World Order" because the Labour Party which he leads will likely form the next UK government once a crash-out Brexit becomes a reality. Before that can happen, the Blairite wing of Labour is making sure that the party will split.

Paul Mitchell writes this morning in "Momentum’s Jon Lansman aids witch-hunt against Corbyn, joins Blairites at Jewish Labour Movement event" that

[T]he former welfare minister, Frank Field, quit the Labour group at Westminster complaining of the “tolerance” of anti-Semitism and “culture of nastiness” under Corbyn. Rather than forcing a by-election, as is usual, Field arrogantly declared he would continue as an independent Labour MP.

In 2010, Field accepted Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s invitation to act as “Poverty Tsar” in the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition that was overseeing vicious austerity. He has described former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a “hero”, commenting that he would see “Mrs. T from time to time”, during the time she was in office. His decision to quit the Labour group came after he had suffered a “no confidence” motion by his own Birkenhead constituency Labour party, in response to his voting with the Tory government on Brexit, preventing its potentially damaging defeat.

The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley commented that more resignations by the right-wing are on the way and that, “One of the challenges for this group over the summer of Labour ferment has been persuading some of their number to wait rather than resign immediately.” He reports that one associate of Mike Gapes, the Labour MP for Ilford South, who says he has been “agonising daily” over whether to quit, stating, “A lot of the summer has been about holding the gang together and stopping people splitting off, one by one. We’re all trying to stay in formation until the right moment.”

A front-page article in the Sunday Times, owned by billionaire oligarch Rupert Murdoch and which has played a central role in the manufactured anti-Semitism campaign, was headlined, “Labour Rebel MPs plot breakaway party and ‘no confidence’ vote.”

It reported that a group of Blairite MPs “ plan a no-confidence vote to give MPs a way of expressing their disgust at Corbyn’s handling of the affair in the hope that it will embolden others to join a breakaway.” It added, “Fury at Corbyn’s approach to anti-Semitism has pushed up to 15 MPs to the brink of a breakaway from Labour...”

Craig Murray cogently sums up the situation -- either Corbyn and the majority of Labour's rank'n'file membership is ousted or conservation Blairite MPs split off:

There are only two ways to resolve this. Either the MPs will have to leave parliament or the members will have to leave the party. There is no coherent party at present.

The Blairite Labour MPs have painted themselves into a corner by their decision to brand Jeremy Corbyn as personally a racist and an anti-semite. If I was in a party led by a racist and anti-semite, I would leave the party. The idea that they can continue as members of parliament for the party while expressing such views about the leader is a nonsense. But they do not wish to leave, because they would lose their comfy jobs. All of the right wing Labour MPs realise they would never win an election on their own account, without Labour Party support. It would be hilarious if not so serious, that they claim Frank Field can resign the Labour whip but this does not mean leave the party, and that he must still be the Labour Party candidate at the next election!

Their hope is twofold. Firstly, that the charges of anti-semitism against Corbyn will be widely believed and lead to a drastic drop in public support which will force Corbyn out. This is not happening. The public realise that the charges of anti-semitism are false and based on a definition of the word which simply means critic of Israel. Other than the normal polling malaise which follows any split in a party, there is no drastic plunge in support for Labour of the kind which would definitely follow if the public thought the party were led by an anti-semite.

To put it another way, either 40% of the public are anti-semites, or the public do not take these accusations seriously.

The Blairites other hope is that, by the Labour Party adopting the IHRA’s malicious definition of anti-semitism as embracing criticism of Israel, they will manage through legal action to force Jeremy Corbyn’s expulsion from the Labour Party. This attempt to use the British Establishment to circumvent party democracy is extraordinary.

By bringing things to this pitch, the Blairites have made compromise impossible. Either Corbyn and most of the members will have to go, or the Blairite MPs will.