https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Won-XY0u3E
Friday, June 3, 2022
Thursday, June 2, 2022
'Slippery Slope... Just Got a Lot Steeper': US to Send Ukraine Advanced Missiles as Russia Holds Nuke Drills
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/01/slippery-slope-just-got-lot-steeper-us-send-ukraine-advanced-missiles-russia-holds
Peace advocates fear the Biden administration's high-tech arms shipments to Ukraine are increasing the likelihood of a full-scale conflict between the U.S. and Russia.
Jake Johnson June 1, 2022
Peace advocates warned Tuesday that the Biden administration's newly unveiled decision to arm Ukraine with advanced missile systems further heightens the risk of a direct military conflict between the U.S. and Russia, which accused the White House of "adding fuel to the fire deliberately" as Moscow's deadly invasion of its neighbor rages on.
"The slippery slope leading to a direct U.S. confrontation with Russia just got a lot steeper," Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the progressive anti-war group CodePink, wrote in response to the Biden administration's move, which was followed by news that Russian forces are holding nuclear drills northeast of Moscow on Wednesday.
"The U.S. and U.K. governments show no efforts or desire to achieve peaceful settlement of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine."
The U.S.-made High Mobility Artillery Rocket System, also known as HIMARS, will give Ukraine the capability to strike Russian targets roughly 50 miles away with powerful, satellite-guided missiles. The rocket system, the most advanced weaponry the U.S. has sent to Ukraine to date, is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, the world's largest military contractor.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, the Pentagon has spent around $5.4 billion to buy more than 42,000 HIMARS rockets since 1998.
U.S. President Joe Biden, who recently visited a Lockheed Martin facility in Alabama, took to the pages of the New York Times on Tuesday to explain his decision to supply Ukraine with high-tech weaponry, despite the risk that such arms could prolong the war and increase the already ghastly civilian death toll.
"We will continue providing Ukraine with advanced weaponry, including Javelin anti-tank missiles, Stinger antiaircraft missiles, powerful artillery and precision rocket systems, radars, unmanned aerial vehicles, Mi-17 helicopters, and ammunition," Biden wrote, arguing that continued U.S. weapons shipments put Ukraine in the "strongest possible position at the negotiating table."
Moscow has said repeatedly that it views Western arms shipments to Ukraine as "legitimate targets," but Biden waved away the idea that such deliveries would lead to a head-to-head military conflict between the U.S. and Russia.
"We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia," the president declared Tuesday. "As much as I disagree with Mr. Putin, and find his actions an outrage, the United States will not try to bring about his ouster in Moscow. So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces."
"We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We do not want to prolong the war just to inflict pain on Russia," he added, comments that appear to conflict with recent remarks by Pentagon Secretary Lloyd Austin, who said last month that the U.S. wants "to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can't do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine."
"We want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability," Austin added.
An unnamed senior Biden administration official told the Times on Tuesday that the U.S. only agreed to provide Ukraine with the longer-range missile system after the country provided assurances that it would not use the weapons to launch attacks inside Russia.
But such assurances are unlikely to satisfy analysts and peace activists who argue that Russia's assault on Ukraine has devolved into a dangerous proxy war between the West and Moscow that's just one deliberate attack or miscalculation away from a broader—and potentially nuclear—conflict.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that Moscow doesn't "trust" Ukraine's promise not to directly attack Russian territory.
Compounding the risk of a larger war is the collapse of diplomatic talks between Ukrainian and Russian delegations, leaving the path to a peaceful settlement highly uncertain in the near-term.
While Biden insisted in his Times op-ed that his administration backs Ukraine's efforts to "achieve a negotiated end to the conflict," the U.S. and other Western governments—particularly the United Kingdom—have faced criticism for failing to sufficiently support and even directly undermining peace talks.
"The U.S. and U.K. governments show no efforts or desire to achieve peaceful settlement of the armed conflict between Russia and Ukraine," Ivan Katchanovski, a Ukrainian professor of political studies at the University of Ottawa, told Jacobin earlier this week.
'A Gift to McConnell': Biden HHS Won't Reverse Medicare Premium Hike This Year
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/01/gift-mcconnell-biden-hhs-wont-reverse-medicare-premium-hike-year
"Imagine being able to put more money in the pockets of senior citizens who are struggling to put food on the table right now and doing nothing instead," said a top aide to Sen. Bernie Sanders. "This is how you blow a slam dunk."
Jake Johnson June 1, 2022
The Biden administration quietly announced last week that it will leave in place one of the largest-ever Medicare premium hikes for the remainder of 2022, despite federal health officials' decision to restrict coverage of the expensive and potentially ineffective Alzheimer's drug that drove the increase.
Progressive healthcare advocates responded with outrage to the administration's Friday announcement, warning that it will inflict entirely avoidable financial pain on vulnerable seniors and hand the GOP an effective talking point heading into the November midterms.
"Keeping Medicare premiums needlessly high until after the election is a gift to Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans."
"This is a terrible decision," Linda Benesch, communications director of Social Security Works, told Common Dreams. "Seniors should never have been forced to pay inflated Medicare premiums for an ineffective, dangerous, and massively overpriced drug."
"Not only is lowering Medicare premiums the right thing to do, it's also a political necessity," said Benesch. "Older voters are a key force in midterm elections. Keeping Medicare premiums needlessly high until after the election is a gift to Mitch McConnell and his fellow Republicans. Every Congressional Democrat who wants to keep their seat in November should join us in calling on the Biden administration to reverse this decision and lower Medicare premiums now!"
Warren Gunnels, the staff director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), similarly argued that the Biden administration's refusal to reverse the premium hike is both political and policy malpractice.
"Imagine being able to put more money in the pockets of senior citizens who are struggling to put food on the table right now and doing nothing instead," Gunnels wrote on Twitter. "This is how you blow a slam dunk."
First announced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) last November, the monthly Medicare Part B premium increase of 14.5% over the 2021 rate—from $148.50 to $170.10—was enacted to account for the potentially massive cost that Biogen's Alzheimer's drug Aduhelm was expected to impose on the federal health program in 2022.
But in January, under pressure from progressive lawmakers and organizations, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra instructed CMS to reexamine the 2022 Medicare premium hike in light of Biogen's decision to cut Aduhelm's annual price from $56,000 to $28,200.
And last month, CMS finalized its decision to restrict coverage of Aduhelm to Medicare patients enrolled in clinical trials, further undercutting the justification for the 2022 premium spike.
Citing CMS' Aduhelm coverage decision, Sanders—the chair of the Senate Budget Committee—pushed the Biden administration earlier this year to swiftly reverse the Medicare premium increase and refund seniors who had already paid the inflated price.
Benesch echoed that demand on Tuesday, arguing that "once Medicare rightfully decided not to cover Aduhelm in most circumstances, beneficiaries should have gotten a refund."
"We are going to keep organizing seniors to demand that the Biden administration reverse course and send Medicare beneficiaries the refund they deserve, along with lowering premiums for the rest of the year," said Benesch.
In a five-page analysis released Friday, CMS insisted that carrying out a mid-year change to Medicare's 2022 premiums would be "prohibitively complex and highly risky, requiring significant resources and unproven technical solutions from the varied entities which manage premium collection and payment."
The agency estimated that Medicare Part B's monthly premiums in 2022 would have been $160.30 instead of $170.10 if Aduhelm were removed from the equation.
"Potential Aduhelm costs resulted in roughly half of the 2022 premium increase," CMS said.
Becerra pointed to CMS' conclusion as evidence that the Biden administration's hands are tied by its own November decision to hike premiums in preparation for Aduhelm cost burdens.
Lamenting the "legal and operational hurdles" flagged by CMS, Becerra promised the administration will work to ensure that seniors see premium relief next year—cold comfort to those hurt by higher costs in 2022.
"After receiving CMS' report reevaluating the 2022 Medicare Part B premiums, we have determined that we can put cost-savings directly back into the pockets of people enrolled in Medicare in 2023," said Becerra. "We had hoped to achieve this sooner, but CMS explains that the options to accomplish this would not be feasible."
"CMS and HHS are committed to lowering healthcare costs—so we look forward to seeing this Medicare premium adjustment across the finish line to ensure seniors get their cost savings in 2023," Becerra added.
But Rachel Cohrs of STAT noted that while "overpayments will instead be factored into next year's premiums," it is "possible seniors won't see a decrease in premiums next year, but instead premiums may hold steady or increase at a slower rate than they otherwise would have."
In response to STAT's reporting, Sanders' communications director Mike Casca called it "a classic Democratic Party story."
"Pharma greed and a broken bureaucracy drove up Medicare premiums," Casca added. "[The] White House could take a victory lap and tout lower rates after taking action. Nope!"
Tapes Expose GOP Plot to Install Poll Workers in 'Massive Election Subversion Program'
https://www.commondreams.org/news/2022/06/01/tapes-expose-gop-plot-install-poll-workers-massive-election-subversion-program
Recordings obtained by Politico detail strategy by GOP operatives to disrupt upcoming elections.
Andrea Germanos June 1, 2022
New reporting on Wednesday exposes a strategy by Republican Party operatives to disrupt upcoming elections in strongly Democratic areas that includes mobilizing "an army" of GOP-friendly lawyers ready to aid newly recruited poll workers positioned on the frontlines of this year's midterms.
The "huge story" by Heidi Przybyla at Politico is based on multiple recordings from meetings lead by GOP operatives over the past year.
"Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger," RNC's election integrity director for Michigan Matthew Seifried said at one of the meetings.
The strategy detailed by Przybyla follows previous reporting on a so-called "precinct strategy" being promoted by Republicans like far-right nationalist Steve Bannon, former President Donald Trump's adviser, to get GOP recruits into election worker positions.
That strategy has been endorsed by the former president and is already being rolled out in states including Michigan, a battleground state that CNN has described as "a microcosm of a broader, nationwide strategy being carried out by Trump" and his allies.
Part of the multi-pronged strategy detailed in the new reporting is "a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts."
The poll worker recruits are also being instructed on "how to challenge a voter," and would have at their disposal a hotline so that they could chat in real time with a party-aligned lawyer.
"Installing party loyalists on the Board of Canvassers, which is responsible for certifying the election, also appears to be part of the GOP strategy," Politico reported. "In Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Republicans nominated to their board a man who said he would not have certified the 2020 election."
The implications of all the plans could be massive disruption to voters which could then be used "as a vehicle for rejecting vote counts from that precinct."
It could lead to a "massive failure of certification" in Democratic precincts and subsequently "throw the choosing of electors to state legislatures," the reporting added.
Nick Penniman, founder and CEO election watchdog group Issue One, told the outlet, "This is completely unprecedented in the history of American elections that a political party would be working at this granular level to put a network together."
Marc Elias, founder of media platform Democracy Docket, said the GOP plan was "what I have been warning about for months."
"Republicans are planning a massive election subversion program," Elias tweeted. "We need to shine a spotlight on it, prepare for it, and realize that much of the fight will be in court."
Biden’s reckless escalation toward nuclear war with Russia
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/01/mljl-j01.html
David North
@davidnorthwsws
20 hours ago
This article was originally posted as a thread on Twitter.
The Biden administration’s decision to provide Ukraine with what the president himself described yesterday in a New York Times column as “advanced rocket systems” is a massive escalation of the war with potentially catastrophic consequences.
Biden’s claim that “We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia” is a lie. NATO, supplying Ukraine with unlimited financial and military support, is at war with Russia. And having made this vast commitment, the US is taking reckless actions to defeat Russia.
Biden writes: “So long as the United States or our allies are not attacked, we will not be directly engaged in this conflict, either by sending American troops to fight in Ukraine or by attacking Russian forces.”
But this statement is contradicted by the fact that the US is providing Ukraine with weapons and logistical support to attack Russian forces, including the assassination of Russian generals and the sinking of a Russian ship.
Biden states: “We are not encouraging or enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders.” But the United States is sending Ukraine “advanced rocket systems” that, in fact, encourage and enable Ukraine to attack Russia.
Biden is providing Ukraine a carte blanche to use these weapons in whatever way it believes necessary. Ukraine will take actions to provoke military confrontation between NATO and Russia. Striking Russia with US-supplied rockets will achieve that aim. Russia will retaliate.
Biden casually notes in passing: “I know many people around the world are concerned about the use of nuclear weapons.” He then proceeds to dismiss such concerns by absurdly reassuring readers:
We currently see no indication that Russia has intent to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, though Russia’s occasional rhetoric to rattle the nuclear saber is itself dangerous and extremely irresponsible.
But what is “Russia’s occasional rhetoric to rattle the nuclear sabre” other than an extremely serious “indication” of an “intent to use nuclear weapons”? And if it is not such an indication, why does Biden describe it as “dangerous and extremely irresponsible”?
During the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, President Kennedy stated: “It shall be the policy of this Nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba... as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.”
What will be the consequences if the Russian government adopts the same policy proclaimed by Kennedy 60 years ago: to view any attack on Russia by Ukraine, using US-supplied rockets, as an attack by the US on Russia, “requiring a full retaliatory response”?
The Biden administration’s actions are so staggeringly reckless that they give the impression that the United States is being run by an unstable war-crazed camarilla that has lost touch with reality.
This recklessness is explainable only as the reaction of a government and ruling class that have been fundamentally destabilized by the intersection of domestic, economic, political and social crises for which they have no rational answers.
The Financial Times asked yesterday: “Is America heading for civil war?” and replied, “A clutch of books makes an alarmingly persuasive case that the warning lights are flashing redder than at any point since 1861.”
In 1861, Secretary of State Seward conceived the mad idea of provoking war with Britain to stop the breakup of the United States. Lincoln put a stop to that idiotic plan. Biden, to say the least, is no Lincoln, let alone the leader of a great democratic revolution.
Biden is, rather, the exhausted and disoriented leader of a crisis-torn imperialist power. A million Americans are dead of COVID as a result of the government’s prioritization of corporate profits over lives. Living standards are being ravaged by inflation.
The daily outbreaks of mass shootings testify to the sociopathic state of American society. The only sign of a positive response to this crisis is the growth of working class militancy and the intensification of the class struggle.
But this is the alternative that the Biden administration and the reactionary cabal that rules both capitalist parties are desperate suppress. So they seek to divert all the internal pressures building within American society to the reactionary and destructive channel of war.
The Socialist Equality Party, with its comrades in the International Committee of the Fourth International, is fighting to build a socialist movement in the working class that will stop the Ukraine war and the imperialist militarism that threatens a nuclear catastrophe.
German government and opposition agree on €100 billion special fund for war
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2022/06/01/xecy-j01.html
Johannes Stern
@JSternWSWS
14 hours ago
On Friday, as part of the budget debate, the federal government plans to pass the so-called Special Fund for the Bundeswehr to the tune of €100 billion. This is the biggest rearmament offensive since the fall of Hitler’s Third Reich 77 years ago. It makes Germany the most powerful military nation in Europe.
“The decision to now equip the Bundeswehr significantly better via the special fund will have a considerable impact. Germany will soon have the largest conventional army in Europe within the framework of NATO,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz (Social Democratic Party, SPD) gloated in an interview with the Stuttgarter Zeitung on Monday.
In backroom talks the day before, the governing parties—SPD, Liberal Democrats (FDP) and Greens—had agreed to launch the special fund with the largest opposition faction, the Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU).
“We have successfully concluded our talks this evening on an amendment to the constitution to create a special fund for the Bundeswehr with the purpose of strengthening alliance and defence capabilities, as well as on a law to finance the Bundeswehr and establish this special fund,” the parties announced in a joint statement.
They “jointly ensure that the Bundeswehr will be strengthened in the coming years with 100 billion euros in additional investments.” In doing so, “NATO's so-called two-percent [of GDP] target will be achieved on a multi-year average.” At the same time, “an initiative to accelerate procurement will be launched immediately and before the parliamentary summer recess.”
The government will also “present a strategy to strengthen security in cyber and information space.” Additional measures “for cyber security, civil defence and the strengthening and stabilisation of partners” would be financed from the federal budget. And even “after the special fund has been drawn down,” the “necessary funds would continue to be provided to achieve the NATO capability goals then in force.”
In other words, the rearmament plans go far beyond the special fund and amount to a permanent balooning of the military budget. Even achieving the two-percent target means that the defence budget will rise from the current level of about €50 billion per year to well over €70 billion. Scholz had already announced the massive rearmament programme in a speech on February 27, presenting a long list of armament projects in the Bundestag.
It concerned the “next generation of combat aircraft and tanks,” the “Eurodrone” and “the acquisition of the armed Heron drone,” the Chancellor explained. Also, “for nuclear sharing,” he said, “a modern replacement for the obsolete Tornado jets will be procured in good time.” In any case, Germany needed “aircraft that fly, ships that set sail, and soldiers who are optimally equipped for their missions.”
The rearmament offensive is in every respect a declaration of war on the working class. The costs will be borne exclusively by workers. “I am inscribing on my banner: preserve the debt brake, avert tax increases, finance the Bundeswehr more strongly,” Finance Minister Christian Lindner told broadcaster ZDF on Monday. In a year of war and crisis, this was “a good start to continuing budget consolidation.” In 2023, for him, “the debt brake is non-negotiable.”
What that means is obvious. Every cent that flows into rearmament and war will be taken from the working class. This year, the departments of labour and social affairs and education will be cut by a total of more than five billion euros. And that is only the beginning. To get a better grasp of the dimension of the impending slash-and-burn: The current education budget, at around €20 billion, is just about one-fifth of the planned Bundeswehr special fund.
Very directly, rearmament serves the escalation of the NATO war against Russia. In his interview with the Stuttgarter Zeitung, Scholz bragged about Germany's leading role in arming Ukraine. He said that Germany had already “supplied weapons on a large scale from Bundeswehr stocks, for example hundreds of anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, thousands of anti-tank mines and hand grenades, many millions of rounds of ammunition.”
In addition, his government had “compiled a list of military equipment that the Ukrainian defence ministry can order from the German arms industry.” This included heavy weapons such as Gepard anti-aircraft guns. And the self-propelled Howitzer 2000 was being delivered and Ukrainian military personnel were being trained on the weapon systems “so that they can also operate this equipment.” In addition, Eastern European countries “that transferred Russian-made weapons”—including battle tanks—“to Ukraine, which can be used there immediately,” would be supported by backfilling.
In the general debate in the Bundestag on Wednesday, Scholz announced further arms deliveries and promised to supply Ukraine with the modern Iris-T air defence system and tracking radar.
Representatives of the same ruling class that conducted a war of extermination against the Soviet Union in World War II are now reiterating that Germany’s war aim today is the military defeat of Russia.
“Russia must not win this war under any circumstances, and that means this needs a strategic defeat for Russia,” Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock demanded on Deutschlandfunk radio on Monday. “Ukraine must be able to win,” and that was why “it is so crucial we continue to support Ukraine in this situation, continue to ensure they can push back Russian troops in the Donbass in particular.”
Officially, Scholz, Baerbock and Co. justify their “foreign policy turn” with Putin's invasion of Ukraine. But this is pure propaganda. In fact, the plans—including the €100 billion 'special fund'—were prepared long in advance.
With the systematic military encirclement of Russia, NATO deliberately provoked the Ukraine war. Now, the imperialist powers are escalating the conflict to subjugate a resource-rich Russia. In the process, Berlin is pursuing the goal of establishing itself as the leading European power and building independent German-European military structures to pursue its global interests—increasingly, also, against the United States.
“The EU must finally give itself a foreign and defence policy that includes, for example, joint cyber and missile defence. EU states could also acquire joint aircraft carriers to become operational in self-defence or the world's crisis areas,” Manfred Weber, leader of the European People's Party (EPP) block in the EU, told Der Spiegel in a recent interview.
And regarding the United States, he added, “The role of the USA is elementary at the moment. But in the long term they may not be able to remain our protective power but will have to turn to Asia. Therefore, the EU must conduct its own foreign and security policy and get down to the nitty-gritty. This includes the question of the nuclear shield.”
The Sozialistische Gleichheitspartei (SGP, Socialist Equality Party) and the World Socialist Web Site have strongly condemned the ruling class war conspiracy from the beginning. The task now is to organise the growing opposition in the working class by building a powerful anti-war movement and arming it with a socialist programme. The SGP event entitled “No Third World War! Billions for health and work instead of armaments and war!” was an important step in this.
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