Saturday, June 22, 2024

The Corrupt Court's election interference

Rebecca's "john roberts better think about his legacy" makes a good point.  The corruption of Justices Samuel Alito and Clarence Thomas reflect on Chief Justice John Roberts.  He will go down in history as a failed Chief Justice because it was under his leadership that the Court grew ever more corrupt and that public confidence in the institution plummeted.  Let me also note Mike's "Crooked Clarence Thomas can't stop lying" from last week.  I've had a headache all week -- my temples are throbbing right now, for most of the week, it's been as though the base of my skull was being pinched with a steel claw.  So sorry to Mike because we'd swapped that night and I should have noted -- and thanked -- him for grabbing the topic.





Famous Harvard Constitutional Scholar Laurence Tribe amplified the assertion by political analyst Michael Podhorzer that SCOTUS justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are interfering in the 2024 election. From Podhorzer’s long assessment of the current dangers facing American democracy, Tribe selected and shared Podhorzer’s conclusion that:

"By shielding Trump from standing trial before a jury in two of his felony cases, Trump's three appointments to the Supreme Court, along with the even more MAGA Justices Alito and Thomas and Judge Aileen Cannon, have already irreparably interfered in the 2024 election."

Podhorzer is full of lament about the current state of affairs, seeing the government’s increasing vulnerability to autocracy and the system of checks and balances between the branches eroded by bad faith actors.

The erosion of public faith in the system isn’t organic, he asserts, but is rather part of a plan to undermine the rule of law in order to subvert it, creating a situation at present where “somehow, Topic A continues to be whether duly prosecuting Trump will erode confidence in the legal system, despite overwhelming evidence that the DOJ has been scrupulous in affording him every possible deference.” 

Podhorzer believes that “instead, we should be asking whether it erodes confidence in the legal system when the judges Trump appointed intervene to shield him from accountability.



Exactly.  I had a dream the other night where aliens invaded.  They lined Clarence, Donald, Alito and Roger Stone up against a wall and shot them.  And a crowd had gathered and cheered them on.  In the dream, I wasn't sure whether the aliens had done the right thing or not.  Another planet sends them to kill our creeps -- is it a global sovereignty issue?  But while, in the dream, I was bothered by the complexities -- including whether laser guns are permitted in DC.  It was a dream, so don't rag on me, but for whatever reason that was one of the details.  CNN and other networks were there broadcasting and I was one of the people being asked what I thought and one of my first questions was whether or not laser guns were permitted in DC.  But, anyway, I didn't feel sorry for the vile four executed.  Did wonder if it was legal and if it would kick off a global war and whether or not it was creating a dangerous precedent.  But about the four chosen to die?  Didn't sweat it.


"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Friday, June 21, 2024.  As the slaughter continues in Gaza, Junior and his campaign sputter out.


June 27th, the nation will suffer through a debate with Donald Trump onstage.  It could be worse, yes, it could.  Robert Kennedy Jr could be onstage as well.  Instead, it will just be Donald and Joe Biden -- the Convicted Felon and the sitting President.  But no Junior.  Kathryn Watson (CBS NEWS) report:



Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy has failed to qualify for the presidential debate with President Biden and former President Donald Trump. The debate will be hosted by CNN next week in Atlanta, on June 27. Kennedy had until 12:00:01 a.m. ET Thursday to fulfill the debate requirements.

Under CNN's criteria, a candidate must appear on a sufficient number of state ballots to be eligible to win 270 electoral votes, the number needed to win the presidency. Kennedy is on the ballot in five states — Utah, Michigan, Delaware, Oklahoma and Tennessee — for a total of 42 electoral votes. He'll also be on the ballot in California as the nominee of the American Independent Party, and in Hawaii, on his We the People ticket, which adds up to 100 potential electoral votes.


Junior is stomping his feet and crying.  It's so unfair!!!!

I'm sorry, did Junior first become famous this election cycle?  

Because I'm not remembering him ever railing against the debate system ever before.

But now that he's a candidate, he wants to whine and scream:

“My exclusion by Presidents Biden and Trump from the debate is undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly. Americans want an independent leader who will break apart the two-party duopoly,” Kennedy said in a statement. He also falsely claimed that debate is illegal.

In an effort to qualify, Kennedy filed a legal complaint to the Federal Election Commission. But the agency has not taken any action.


Junior's an idiot and a fool.

He's spent a fortune on this campaign and he's still not on all the ballots and he's not on enough ballots to qualify for the debate.  He's so good at wasting time, isn't he?  The election is less then five months away, when exactly does he plan on getting his campaign together?  

He's sent out two e-mailings in the last 12 hours.  The usual beg for money is one, the other "Urgent Call to Action: Report Censorship & Support RFK Jr." insists he's being deplatformed.

Begging for money and whining about a 'documentary' about himself allegedly being 'censored.'

Robert F. Kennedy is dead and no where is that more apparent than in the actions of his son Junior.

RFK didn't make his campaign for the Democratic Party's 1968 presidential nomination about himself.  He made about the people and what they needed.  But Junior, who's achieved far less in his 70 years than his own father did in 42, does not focus on people.  He's self-centered and self-obsessed.  His vanity is his destruction.  And if that comes as a surprise to you, you do realize he's on steroids, right?  He's 70 and he takes steroids for those topless photo shoots he loves so much.  

Junior doesn't know anything oor care about anything unless it effects him.

Which is why he's acted as though he can wait until the day before the election to qualify for ballot access.

He's not in the debate, he didn't qualify, he needs to stop whining.

But this is Junior.




"The new head of NPR is a CIA agent," Kennedy declared at a New York campaign fundraiser in April, drawing gasps from some of his supporters.
He was specifically referring to Katherine Maher, who nearly two months earlier became NPR's CEO and president after a long career in international development and digital advocacy. At the fundraiser, Kennedy said Maher's hiring at NPR was just the latest salvo in the CIA's "systematic takeover of the American press, particularly the liberal media."
Kennedy continues to amplify such claims at campaign events, in media interviews, and on social media, supporting them with what experts described to ABC News as "half-truths," "intimations," misinterpretations of law, and twisted historical anecdotes. He often cites widespread -- but utterly unsubstantiated -- allegations that a CIA program supposedly called "Operation Mockingbird" secretly recruited journalists decades ago to help brainwash Americans.
"Operation Mockingbird is alive and well today," Kennedy has said repeatedly in recent months.


And it's coming from inside the campaign!!!!

Amaryllis Fox Kennedy.  That's his 43 year old daughter in law and campaign manager -- and former CIA officer!

Oh, Junior, it was all a deep CIA plot to plant Amaryllis into your campaign and deep six it!!!! In 2010, she officially left the CIA while secretly assigned to her new mission OUTFOX JUNIOR!!!! and she circled RFK III until he married her in 2018 thereby putting her in place to disrupt your 2024 campaign!!!! 

As crazy as my sarcastic comments are, they probably make more sense than Junior's crazy ones. 

He is not up to the job and that's clear by his sorry campaign and all the money he's wasted. 


Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign raised $2.6 million in May and had just over $6.4 million in cash on hand at the end of the month, according to new filings, a paltry sum compared to the fundraising juggernauts behind his two major competitors.

Kennedy’s independent presidential bid announced the tepid fundraising haul in Federal Election Commission filings Wednesday. The documents show his team spent $6.3 million in May as he worked to gain access to ballots around the country and appear at next week’s presidential debate on CNN.

About $2.7 million of that figure went to a consulting firm that specializes in ballot access.

Those efforts appeared to be in vain on Wednesday before a midnight deadline, with the network requiring candidates to appear on enough ballots to have a shot at winning the White House, as well as receive at least 15% in four national polls. 




He has been steadily declining in the polls for months and now sits at around 7 percent, down from nearly 20 percent in the fall. It’s possible, meanwhile, that many of his biggest fans may not even get the chance to vote for him—he currently only has enough signatures to appear on the ballot in just nine states. And he’s hemorrhaging cash. If not for his vice president—an unknown tech billionaire who may have been selected because her immense wealth has allowed her to fund their political operations—his campaign may very well be flat broke. It raised a paltry $2.6 million in May, suggesting that no one really wants to give him money.  Kennedy is, in other words, spending millions to be on the ballot in a handful of states and is only getting less popular in the process. 

On Thursday, Kennedy’s campaign got even more bad news. He would not be appearing at next week’s presidential debate due to his low poll numbers. The candidate was apoplectic. “My exclusion by Presidents Biden and Trump from the debate is undemocratic, un-American, and cowardly,” Kennedy Jr. seethed in a statement released soon after CNN announced that he didn’t make the count. “Americans want an independent leader who will break apart the two-party duopoly. They want a President who will heal the divide, restore the middle class, unwind the war machine, and end the chronic disease epidemic.”

That may be true—at the very least Americans certainly say they want those things in a leader when polled. But it’s abundantly clear that they don’t want Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The candidate should be grateful he didn’t make the cut—appearing in next week’s debate would only accelerate his campaign’s demise. 

The biggest problem with Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s campaign is that voters do not like him. That’s not an overstatement. Last October, his favorability rating, per 538’s average, was plus eight points; he was, around the same period, regularly polling in the 15-20 percent range. His favorability rating today is minus nine points; he has been polling in the high single digits for months. 


On the upcoming election, let's note this from Tyler Walicek (TRUTHOUT):

During presidential primary elections this spring, a nationwide network of organizers under the banner of the Uncommitted movement rolled out a groundswell campaign across nine states urging participants to vote in protest of President Joe Biden’s role in the Gaza genocide. With November’s Trump-Biden rematch not yet an entirely foregone conclusion, the primaries offered an opportunity to send a message to elected officials. Uncommitted campaigners argued that instead of reflexively backing the presumptive Democratic candidate, the voting public, a majority of whom disapprove of the administration’s record on Gaza, should take the chance to register their distaste, aiming to motivate Biden to use the U.S.’s considerable influence on Israel to halt its attacks.

The organizers of Uncommitted campaigns cited both strategic and ethical arguments for the protest vote. The latter, in short, is that the Democratic establishment — which has been in many respects directly complicit with Israel’s perpetration of genocide — must not be rewarded for its involvement in a world-historical crime.

Now, at the conclusion of the primaries, it appears that the Uncommitted campaigners’ energies were well spent. After weeks of fevered organizing and turnout efforts, the “uncommitted” vote scored substantial percentages in multiple primaries, including 13 percent of the vote in Michigan.

Let's note this from yesterday's THE NEWSHOUR (PBS).


Excerpt.

  • Geoff Bennett:

    Today, Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu repeated criticism the Biden administration calls untrue and unfair, that the U.S. has withheld weapons Israel needs to fight the war in Gaza.

    The diplomatic spat between the prime minister and the Biden White House comes as simmering tensions between Netanyahu and his own military boiled over.

    Nick Schifrin is here with more — Nick.

  • Nick Schifrin:

    For months, even years, military officials in Israel have often disagreed with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but most military criticism of Israel's longest-serving leader is made anonymously or after retirement.

    This week, though, Israel's Defense Forces' top spokesman made public the military's concerns about Netanyahu's repeated claim of total victory over Hamas.

  • Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari, Spokesperson, Israeli Defense Forces (through interpreter):

    The political echelon has to decide and the Israel Defense Forces will implement. But this business, this business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear, it's simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public. If we don't bring something else to Gaza, then at the end of the day, we will get Hamas.

  • Nick Schifrin:

    So how significant is this public criticism by the military of the prime minister? And how does it play into the diplomatic tensions between Netanyahu and the Biden administration?

    For answers to that, we turn to Laura Blumenfeld, a former senior policy adviser on the State Department's Israeli-Palestinian negotiating team and currently a senior fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies.

    Laura Blumenfeld, thanks very much. Welcome to the "NewsHour."

    So, how significant is this public military criticism of the prime minister?

    Laura Blumenfeld, Senior Fellow, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies: I think it's very significant.

    I think the IDF recognizes, while they may be winning militarily, they're losing morally, and that has long-term strategic implications for Israel's security.

    This idea of indecision, I think what they're saying to the prime minister is, take a position and defend it. The prime minister cannot be an undecided voter. We need you to support our ask for Ultra-Orthodox fighters. Our forces are depleted.

    Number two, we have a political horizon that we're looking for that we can aim for militarily, and we don't want to occupy the Gaza Strip after the war. I remember spending time with the last military commander of Gaza before Israel withdrew, and he wore what I recall was the Gaza mask.

    It was this combination of dust, sweat, and the smell of regret. We rode around in a Jeep while kids were throwing stones at him, and he said: "This is the most morally corrosive thing for our state and ultimately for our security."

  • Nick Schifrin:

    For Netanyahu, this is not only about what is now a public spot with the military. It's also tensions within his coalition.

    And, this week, he released a statement saying — quote — I demand that all coalition partners get a hold of themselves and rise to the importance of the hour, put aside every other consideration, put aside all extraneous interests, line up as one together behind our fighters."

    How fractious is this coalition, and how important are those tensions?

  • Laura Blumenfeld:

    Well, look, he needs the coalition in order to exercise what he calls the cease-fire deal, which is the most important priority right now for the Israeli public.

    And to get to that deal, he's going to have to keep his coalition together. There are sort of some behind-the-scenes assurances and winks from the United States that maybe Lapid and some of his opposition members will support him. But he's got to be able to pull this through for the Israeli public.

    That is the number one demand and he's responding to it, or he's trying to.


  • Meanwhile ALJAZEERA notes, "Broadcaster Al-Aqsa TV announced via Telegram that one of its journalists, Salim al-Sharafa, was targeted in an Israeli bombing in the Gaza Strip a short while ago." At least 108 journalists have already been killed in the ongoing slaughter.  Salim is the latest. 


    Israeli forces killed another journalist in the Gaza Strip on Thursday, bringing the total number of Palestinian media workers' deaths since Oct. 7, 2023, to 152.

    The Government Media Office in Gaza identified the victim as Salim al-Sharafa, who worked as a presenter and journalist for local broadcaster Al-Aqsa TV. The statement, however, did not elaborate on how or where he was killed.

    The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said the war in Gaza has become "the deadliest for journalists" since it began documenting journalist killings worldwide in 1992.

    In February, the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ), a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit organization, said the war in Gaza has seen the highest levels of violence against journalists in 30 years.







    Gaza remains under assault. Day 259 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 37,431, with 85,653 injured."    Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

      



    April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
     

    As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."


    Meanwhile, how's that 'tactical pause' doing?  THE NATIONAL notes this morning:

    A "tactical pause" declared by the Israeli military in Gaza to enable aid flows has had no impact on deliveries of the badly-needed aid, the UN's health agency said on Friday.

    "Overall, we the UN can say that we did not see an impact on the humanitarian supplies coming in since that, I will say unilateral, announcement of this technical pause," said Richard Peeperkorn, the World Health Organisation representative in the Palestinian territories.

    "That is the overall assessment".




    The following sites updated:



  • Thursday, June 20, 2024

    Crooks of a feather

    Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito are the two biggest crooks in our court system but they are not the only ones.  Last year, a crooked judge 



    An unsigned, one-page bombshell of a letter made the rounds at Kirkland & Ellis, the world’s largest law firm by revenue. It threatened havoc for the firm and others that did business before the most powerful bankruptcy judge in the U.S.

    The letter alleged that U.S. Bankruptcy Judge David R. Jones, chief of the bankruptcy court in Houston, was in a romantic relationship with Elizabeth Freeman, a Texas attorney who as Kirkland’s co-counsel helped the firm shepherd multibillion-dollar cases in Jones’s courtroom.


    The intimate relationship was the reason Freeman and her law firm, Jackson Walker, were often brought in to represent large corporations, knowing they would likely have “the judge in their favor,” according to the letter, which surfaced in March 2021.

    Such a conflict of interest would sink Jones and upend his work elevating Houston’s bankruptcy court to the nation’s top tier. It also would taint judgments affecting hundreds of thousands of employees, investors, vendors and others.

    Certain lawyers at Kirkland had already heard talk that Jones and Freeman were lovers, and some spoke about it with other lawyers, according to people familiar with the conversations. If the anonymous letter was true—and became public—Kirkland risked losing its favorite bankruptcy judge. Jones was known for ruling in favor of Kirkland and other firms representing corporate debtors, according to dozens of bankruptcy lawyers who worked on cases Jones oversaw.

    The crook got appointed to the court on September 30, 2011 and in 2015 he was made the chief judge of the court then he finally resigned on November 15th of last year.

    Texas community members told us about the price gouging during the bad ice storm of 2021.  Wouldn't you know crooked David Jones was involved in that as well.



    On Thursday, Walker, the former chairwoman of the Public Utility Commission who resigned after disastrous testimony at the Capitol, testified that [Governor Greg] Abbott ordered her to ERCOT’s headquarters in Taylor. She said a Texas game warden took her to the facility outside of Austin, where she stayed overnight with several key players in the public and private sector involved in grid operations.

    Abbott “told me to go out to the Taylor facility and to figure out a way to get the power back on to all the customers and to not go back into throwing outages,” Walker said.

    Walker also confirmed that a top Abbott advisor, Ryland Ramos, was at ERCOT’s headquarters with her when the decision was made to keep energy market rates at the artificially inflated price. Ramos’ presence was first reported by the Houston Chronicle in April.

    After Walker waffled somewhat on who placed to order to keep pricing high, stating that Magness made the order despite knowing that the PUC set orders for ERCOT, Presiding Judge David R. Jones expressed doubts over her “veracity” and later told Walker from the bench that he was “disappointed” with her as he excused her from the witness stand.

    “I will tell you I am disappointed at your conduct and disappointed at your lack of candor this morning,” Jones said. “I am disappointed at your lack of reliability as a witness.”



    Crooks of a feather.  We need judicial reform and we need it ASAP.

    "Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

    Thursday, June 20, 20224.  Jonathan S. Tobin competes with Ben Stiller in the battle of the nitwits, Green Peace supports a cease-fire, and much more.


    Not sure what to say but I guess: Hats off Jonathan S. Tobin.

    We were all fooled.  Everyone but him.  As the neocon 'reveals' in his just published JEWISH NEWS SYNDICATE piece, there's no starvation in Gaza.  No.  We all got it wrong.  The UN, aid agencies, medical workers, journalists, news consumers, we all got it wrong.

    Suicide non-eaters!  Slapping my forehead as I realize, they were suicide non-eaters -- those children who are dead now.  They killed themselves.  Jonathan's figured it all out!

    What do we do with this nonsense?  

    Is he an idiot?  

    Yes.

    Is he lying?

    Yes.  

    How does anyone arrive at that point where they are so willing to lie?  I don't get it.  

    If I'm wrong, I say I'm wrong.  I don't paint myself into a corner.  But where do you go if you're Toobin now?  When you're denying the starvation going on in Gaza?  When you're ignoring the deaths of children in Gaza from starvation?  

    How do you think you come back from that?

    And I also don't get how you think you look like an American?

    That's not say that Americans don't lie, we lie all the time.

    That is to say that Tobin's not lying for his country.  Wouldn't make the lie more acceptable if he was but he's lying for another country.

    I wonder about people like that.  You know when Bully Boy Bush was pushing the Iraq War, where would someone like Toobin be?  What do you think he would have been focusing on?

    Oh, wait, we don't have to wonder.  

    Isn't that cute, how he always has the government of Israel's back.

    So is Tobin an American as he likes to bill himself or is he someone with dual citizenship who's actually an Israeli-American?

    He may be worse than the right-wing Cuban exiles in Florida.  

    If you've missed him so far, you've been so lucky.  Since October alone, he's called for street action and push back against any efforts at peace and he's 'explained' that sympathies and support for the Palestinian people (not, Hamas, the Palestinian people) is just someone who hates Jewish people (here for his column that someone's reposted in full on LINKED-IN -- byline is at the end of the column).











    Today, The Idiot Tobin pushes past everyone else on the face of the planet to advance from village idiot to global idiot.  Wear the crown well, Jonathan, wear the crown well.

    Maybe loan it to Ben Stiller?

    The acting career ended long ago and he's seen about as current today as Burt Reynolds was in the 90s but all that time freed from an actual acting career (yes, he produces a show on APPLE+ -- no, that's nothing to brag about) led him to write a piece for TIME.  He's upset, people, Ben's upset.

    What a time we are all living through. Like so many people, I have been watching the awful events happening in the Middle East over the last year and trying to determine how to react. I have been seeing the brazen antisemitic incidents in my own city and feeling a mix of anger, fear, and astonishment that we are at this place in our country. Saying nothing at this point feels like I am betraying my own conscience. But what do you say? How does one express the complicated and very real feelings in this scary world of social media, where it seems any sentiment opens you to online vitriol from one side or another? The issues we are dealing with are so nuanced and complicated that short statements cannot in any way express fully what I want to say from my heart. As a public advocate for refugees, I’ve been struggling to reconcile my silence with that work. Please bear with me as I explain. And to be clear, what I say here is my personal view, not that of any organization–it’s just how I feel.

    Is Ben in shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo Sugar Town?


    Yesterday it rained in TennesseeI heard it also rained in TallahasseeBut not a drop fell on little old me'Cause I was in shoo-shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo-shooShoo-shoo, shoo-shoo, shoo-shoo Sugar Town


    Wow, Ben, the Iraq War, didn't register on you, did it.  No, not one drop fell on little old you but now you're concerned about an event.

    And you don't realize how you are the problem.

    You blather on about Israel over and over and whine like you've always whined throughout your adult life -- your inability to find a backbone goes along way towards explaining why audiences turned on you -- and then you write this:


    I also see a troubling conflation in criticism of the actions of the Israeli government with denunciations of all Israelis and Jewish people. And as a result, we are seeing an undeniable rise in global antisemitism. I am seeing it myself, on the streets of the city I grew up in. It isn’t right and must be denounced.

    Antisemitism must be condemned whenever it happens and wherever it exists. As should Islamophobia and bigotry of all kinds. There is a frightening amnesia for history in the air. We must remind ourselves that we can only manifest a more hopeful, just, and peaceful future by learning from the past.



    You're the one conflating the two: The Israeli people and the Israeli government.

    That's you and one single sentence in your excessive essay doesn't change that reality.

    You're a piece of garbage sexist and we all know it in the industry and we've always known it. People who harm women are people who are deluded and your delusions are on full display.

    A frightening amnesia?  You mean the one that denies decades of oppression of the Palestinian people by the government of Israel?  

    He writes that he has to stand against terrorism?

    Okay, Ben, do so.  Call out the War Crimes being carried out by the Israeli government.

    Oh, that's right, you won't do that.  

    And the world sees that.  And so don't pretend you are not responsible for any public mental merger of the state of Israel with the people of Israel.  

    You are 100% responsible and it's all there you awful column -- a 1143 word column that only uses the term Palestinians twice.  

    Yeah, let's pretend like you really give a damn about the Paletinian people.

    And before we close on your stupidity and lies, stop lying about your father: "My dad served in the U.S. Army at the end of World War II."  That sentence is dishonest and you damn well know it.  Your father is not someone who fought in WWII.  Gary Susman (VANITY FAIR):


    Stiller enlisted in the Army during World War II but wasn’t sent overseas until after the fighting was over; as he recalled, he spent most of his stint in Italy playing football. Through the G.I. Bill, he enrolled at Syracuse University, where he was one of the school’s first-ever drama majors. After graduation, he returned to New York City and spent years in bit parts on Broadway and TV.



    The humanitarian situation in southern Gaza is “quickly deteriorating” as people have been crammed in a “highly congested area along the beach in the burning summer heat”, the UN said.

    Active conflict and lawlessness in the area have made it “near impossible” for the World Food Programme and its partners to meet the surging demand, the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) said in its latest situation report issued on Wednesday.

    There is also a critical lack of milk and formula for babies and nutritional supplements for children and pregnant and breastfeeding women, Ocha said.

    “Many households report having only one meal every day, with some having one meal every two or three days, relying mostly on bread, food sharing with other families and rationing stocks,” it said.

    WFP deputy executive director Carl Skau spent two days in Gaza this month. “The situation in southern Gaza is quickly deteriorating," he said.

    "A million people have been pushed out of Rafah and are trapped in a highly congested area along the beach in the burning summer heat. We drove through rivers of sewage.”

    More than one million people have been forced out of the southern city of Rafah since Israel began a ground operation there on May 7, the UN said.






    Israel's chief army spokesman has appeared to question the stated goal of destroying the Hamas militant group in Gaza in an apparent rare public rift between the country's political and military leadership.

    Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari, the face of the Israel Defense Forces' (IDF) daily war briefings and military videos, made the comments during an interview on Israeli TV on Wednesday. 

    Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has insisted Israel will pursue the fight to "destroy Hamas", the group running the besieged Gaza Strip, until its military and governing capabilities in the Palestinian territory are eliminated.

    But with the war now in its ninth month, frustration has been mounting with no clear end or postwar plan in sight.

    "This business of destroying Hamas, making Hamas disappear — it's simply throwing sand in the eyes of the public," Mr Hagari told Israel's Channel 13 TV.



    Reporting from Amman, Jordan, Al Jazeera’s Hamdah Salhut said Netanyahu’s office was “fuming” at Hagari’s remarks.

    “This just gives you an idea of what Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies are in this war, and the army on the ground saying it is actually not realistic,” she added.

    Netanyahu’s office responded by saying that the security cabinet, chaired by the prime minister, “has defined the destruction of Hamas’ military and governing capabilities as one of the goals of the war. The Israeli military, of course, is committed to this.”



    War Criminal Netanyahu is supposed to address the US Congress next month.  Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) reports:


    U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said late Tuesday that Democratic and Republican leaders should withdraw their invitation for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak at a joint meeting of Congress next month after he released a video attacking the Biden administration for "withholding" weapons from Israel's military.

    "This man should not be addressing Congress. He is a war criminal," Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) wrote on social media. "And he certainly has no regard for U.S. law, which is explicitly designed to prevent U.S. weapons from facilitating human rights abuses."

    "His invitation should be revoked," she added. "It should've never been sent in the first place."

    House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.), House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) formally invited Netanyahu to address a joint meeting last month, roughly two weeks after the Biden administration all but acknowledged what leading human rights organizations had been saying for months: that Israeli forces have used American weaponry to commit war crimes in the Gaza Strip.

    The invitation also came roughly two months after Schumer criticized Netanyahu in a speech on the Senate floor, accusing the prime minister of being "too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza" and calling for new leadership in Israel.



    Gaza remains under assault. Day 258 of  the assault in the wave that began in October.  Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion.  The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction.  But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets:  How to justify it?  Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence."   CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund."  ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them."  NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza."  The slaughter continues.  It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service.  Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."   The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher.  United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse."  THE NATIONAL notes, "The death toll in Gaza has increased to 37,431, the enclave's Health Ministry said on Thursday.  It added that 85,653 had been injured since the war began on October 7.  More than 35 were killed and 130 injured in the last 24 hours, the ministry said."    Months ago,  AP  noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing."  February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home."  February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:

      



    April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
     

    As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."


    Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) reports on a new development in calls for a ceasefire:

    As part of its quest for "a green and peaceful future," Greenpeace International on Tuesday urged the Israeli government and Hamas to "unequivocally agree to support and abide by" a recent United Nations Security Council resolution and declare "an immediate and permanent cease-fire" in the Gaza Strip.

    "We call for the bullets and bombs to be silenced so that the growing voices for peace can be heard," the environmental advocacy group said in a statement that acknowledges "the horrific events" of October 7—in which Hamas-led militants killed more than 1,100 people in Israel and took around 240 hostages—and the over 37,000 Palestinians who Israeli forces have slaughtered since.

    In addition to the rising death toll and at least 85,523 Palestinians injured by the war, "the majority of Gaza's 2.3 million people have been forced to flee their homes," Greenpeace highlighted. "Much of Gaza has been reduced to rubble, famine and disease are rife, nowhere and no one is safe. Sanity and humanity must be restored in the face of this unfolding genocide."

    "Beyond the urgent need to end the civilian suffering and ecological devastation, all parties must resume peaceful negotiations."

    The organization pointed to South Africa's genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice as well as a U.N. commission's report from last week that concludes the Israeli government and Palestinian militants have committed war crimes.

    "We call on Hamas to immediately release all hostages," Greenpeace said. "We call for the Israeli government to immediately end the blockades on the supply of food, water, medicine, and fuel to the people of Gaza and release all illegally detained civilians."

    "Violence is never the answer, it only brings more violence," the group emphasized. "Beyond the urgent need to end the civilian suffering and ecological devastation, all parties must resume peaceful negotiations towards a lasting peace built on safety, justice, and equal rights for all. International law must be upheld."

    The United States and European countries that are arming Israel have faced international pressure to use their leverage to halt crimes by its forces. Greenpeace called for "a global embargo on all arms sales and transfers that could be used to further increase the toll of war crimes to be answered by both sides once this war and conflict ends."

    "Greenpeace recognizes the deep historic roots that need to be discussed and negotiated if a permanent peace is to be established," the group said. "Greenpeace calls for an end to the illegal occupation of Palestine. Greenpeace supports the UNSC resolution ambition that 'Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders, consistent with international law and relevant U.N. resolutions."

    The Greenpeace statement was released the same day that the U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) published a preliminary assessment of the "environmental impact of the conflict in Gaza," which features three main sections. The first part addresses the state of the environment and natural resources in the Hamas-governed enclave before October 7.

    The second section discusses topics including water, wastewater treatment, and sewage systems; solid waste collection and treatment; destruction of infrastructure and related debris; energy, fuel, and associated infrastructure; marine and coastal environments; terrestrial ecosystems, soil, and cultivated lands; and air pollution.

    The third section focuses on chemicals and waste associated with armed conflicts as well as construction, destruction, and flooding of tunnels in Gaza—which, as the report notes, "is a small, densely populated coastal area, the environment of which has been affected by repeated escalations of the decadeslong conflict, unplanned urbanization, and population growth."

    "We urgently need a cease-fire to save lives and restore the environment."

    Inger Andersen, UNEP's executive director, said in a statement that "not only are the people of Gaza dealing with untold suffering from the ongoing war, the significant and growing environmental damage in Gaza risks locking its people into a painful, long recovery."



    The following cites updated: