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"The most dangerous and successful conspiracies take place in public, in plain sight, under the clear, bright light of day -- usually with TV cameras focused on them."

-- L. Neil Smith

News and Opinion

It's a shame they won't be investigating his war crimes.

House votes to formally authorize Biden impeachment inquiry

The House voted Wednesday to formally authorize the impeachment inquiry into Joe Biden, even as Republicans have failed to produce evidence showing that the president financially benefitted from his family’s business dealings.

The House voted on partisan lines, 221-212 to launch the inquiry. The vote came hours after the president’s son, Hunter Biden, defied a subpoena to appear for a closed-door deposition with House members. Instead choosing to hold a press conference on Capitol Hill, Hunter Biden reiterated his willingness to testify publicly, an offer that House Republicans have rejected.

“I am here to testify at a public hearing, today, to answer any of the committees’ legitimate questions,” Hunter Biden said. “Republicans do not want an open process where Americans can see their tactics, expose their baseless inquiry, or hear what I have to say.”

Hunter Biden now faces two federal indictments on gun and tax charges. As he addressed reporters on Wednesday, Hunter Biden expressed regret over his past actions while denouncing Republicans’ “lies” about his family.

In a statement, Joe Biden denounced the Republican action as a “baseless impeachment stunt”. He insinuated that Republicans are avoiding “the issues facing the American people”. “Instead of doing anything to help make Americans’ lives better, they are focused on attacking me with lies. Instead of doing their job on the urgent work that needs to be done, they are choosing to waste time on this baseless political stunt that even Republicans in Congress admit is not supported by facts,” Biden said. “The American people deserve better.”

Israel Says Gaza Onslaught Will Continue ‘With or Without’ World Support

Israeli Foreign Minister Eli Cohen on Wednesday vowed that the brutal Israeli assault on Gaza will continue “with or without” global support after the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly in support of a ceasefire.

“Israel will continue the war against Hamas with or without international support. A ceasefire at the current stage is a gift to the terrorist organization Hamas and will allow it to return and threaten the residents of Israel,” Cohen said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made similar comments, insisting the international pressure will not stop his campaign. “We are continuing until the end, there is no question,” he said. “I say this even given the great pain, and the international pressure. Nothing will stop us, we will continue until the end, until victory, nothing less.”

Nakba 2.0.

Live on every smartphone on the planet.

Sponsored by the collective West's "values". pic.twitter.com/mtPuh5XiZM

— Pepe Escobar (@RealPepeEscobar) November 9, 2023

US Has No Plans to Restrict Military Aid to Israel Despite Biden Calling Gaza Bombing ‘Indiscriminate’

The US has no plans to restrict military aid to Israel or draw any red lines on Israel’s use of US-provided munitions despite President Biden labeling Israel’s bombing of Gaza “indiscriminate” and the massive civilian death toll, US officials told CNN.

One official said the US does not consider the death of civilians a violation of the laws of war unless they are purposefully targeted. A report from +972 Magazine revealed that Israel is intentionally targeting civilians as part of a strategy to put pressure on Hamas, but the Biden administration is still claiming Israel is taking steps to mitigate civilian casualties.

Jeremy Scahill: Gaza "Scorched-Earth Campaign" Is a "Joint U.S.-Israeli Operation"

Despite US Opposition, the World Shows It Wants an End to Israeli Genocide in Gaza

On Friday, December 8, the UN Security Council met under Article 99 for only the fourth time in the UN’s history. Article 99 is an emergency provision that allows the Secretary-General to summon the Council to respond to a crisis that “threatens the maintenance of international peace and security.” The previous occasions were the Belgian invasion of the Congo in 1960, the hostage crisis at the U.S. Embassy in Iran in 1979 and Lebanon’s Civil War in 1989.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres told the Security Council that he invoked Article 99 to demand an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza because “we are at a breaking point,” with a “high risk of the total collapse of the humanitarian support system in Gaza.” The United Arab Emirates drafted a ceasefire resolution that quickly garnered 97 cosponsors.

The World Food Program has reported that Gaza is on the brink of mass starvation, with 9 out of 10 people spending entire days with no food. In the two days before Guterres invoked Article 99, Rafah was the only one of Gaza’s five districts to which the UN could deliver any aid at all.

The Secretary-General stressed that “The brutality perpetrated by Hamas can never justify the collective punishment of the Palestinian people… International humanitarian law cannot be applied selectively. It is binding on all parties equally at all times, and the obligation to observe it does not depend on reciprocity.”

Mr. Guterres concluded, “The people of Gaza are looking into the abyss… The eyes of the world—and the eyes of history—are watching. It’s time to act.”

UN members delivered eloquent, persuasive pleas for the immediate humanitarian ceasefire that the resolution called for, and the Council voted thirteen to one, with the U.K. abstaining, to approve the resolution. But the one vote against by the United States, one of the five veto-wielding permanent members of the Security Council, killed the resolution, leaving the Council impotent to act as the Secretary-General warned that it must.

This was the sixteenth U.S. Security Council veto since 2000 - and fourteen of those vetoes have been to shield Israel and/or U.S. policy on Israel and Palestine from international action or accountability. While Russia and China have vetoed resolutions on a variety of issues around the world, from Myanmar to Venezuela, there is no parallel for the U.S.’s extraordinary use of its veto primarily to provide exceptional impunity under international law for one other country.

The consequences of this veto could hardly be more serious. As Brazil’s UN Ambassador Sérgio França Danese told the Council, if the U.S. hadn’t vetoed a previous resolution that Brazil drafted on October 18, “thousands of lives would have been saved.” And as the Indonesian representative asked, “How many more must die before this relentless assault is halted? 20,000? 50,000? 100,000?”

Following the previous U.S. veto of a ceasefire at the Security Council, the UN General Assembly took up the global call for a ceasefire, and the resolution, sponsored by Jordan, passed by 120 votes to 14, with 45 abstentions. The 12 small countries that voted with the United States and Israel represented less than 1% of the world’s population.

The isolated diplomatic position in which the United States found itself should have been a wake-up call, especially coming a week after a Data For Progress poll found that 66% of Americans supported a ceasefire, while a Mariiv poll found that only 29% of Israelis supported an imminent ground invasion of Gaza.

After the United States again slammed the Security Council door in Palestine’s face on December 8, the desperate need to end the massacre in Gaza returned to the UN General Assembly on December 12. An identical resolution to the one the U.S. vetoed in the Security Council was approved by a vote of 153 to 10, with 33 more yes votes than the one in October. While General Assembly resolutions are not binding, they do carry political weight, and this one sends a clear message that the international community is disgusted by the carnage in Gaza.

Another powerful instrument the world can use to try to compel an end to this massacre is the Genocide Convention, which both Israel and the United States have ratified. It only takes one country to bring a case before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) under the Convention, and, while cases can drag on for years, the ICJ can take preliminary measures to protect the victims in the meantime.

On January 23, 2020, the Court did exactly that in a case brought by The Gambia against Myanmar, alleging genocide against its Rohingya minority. In a brutal military campaign in late 2017, Myanmar massacred tens of thousands of Rohingya and burnt down dozens of villages. 740,000 Rohingyas fled into Bangladesh, and a UN-backed fact-finding mission found that the 600,000 who remained in Myanmar “may face a greater threat of genocide than ever.”

China vetoed a referral to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in the Security Council, so The Gambia, itself recovering from 20 years of repression under a brutal dictatorship, submitted a case to the ICJ under the Genocide Convention.

That opened the door for a unanimous ruling by 17 judges at the ICJ that Myanmar must prevent genocide against the Rohingya, as the Genocide Convention required. The ICJ issued that ruling as a preventive measure, the equivalent of a preliminary injunction in a domestic court, even though its final ruling on the merits of the case might be many years away. It also ordered Myanmar to file a report with the Court every six months to detail how it is protecting the Rohingya, signaling serious ongoing scrutiny of Myanmar’s conduct.

So which country will step up to bring an ICJ case against Israel under the Genocide Convention? Activists are already discussing that with a number of countries. Roots Action and World Beyond War have created an action alert that you can use to send messages to 10 of the most likely candidates (South Africa, Chile, Colombia, Jordan, Ireland, Belize, Turkïye, Bolivia, Honduras and Brazil).

There has also been increasing pressure on the International Criminal Court to take up the case against Israel. The ICC has been quick to investigate Hamas for war crimes, but has been dragging its feet on investigating Israel. After a recent visit to the region, ICC prosecutor Karim Khan was not allowed by Israel to enter Gaza, and he was criticized by Palestinians for visiting areas attacked by Hamas on October 7, but not visiting the hundreds of illegal Israeli settlements, checkpoints and refugee camps in the occupied West Bank.

However, as long as the world is faced with the United States’ tragic and debilitating abuse of institutions the rest of the world depends on to enforce international law, the economic and diplomatic actions of individual countries may have more impact than their speeches in New York.

While historically there have been about two dozen countries that have not recognized Israel, in the past two months, Belize and Bolivia have severed ties with Israel, while others—Bahrain, Chad, Chile, Colombia, Honduras, Jordan, and Turkey—have withdrawn their ambassadors.

Other countries are trying to have it both ways—condemning Israel publicly but maintaining their economic interests. At the UN Security Council, Egypt explicitly accused Israel of genocide and the U.S. of obstructing a ceasefire.

And yet Egypt’s long-standing partnership with Israel in the blockade of Gaza and its continuing role, even today, in restricting the entry of humanitarian aid into Gaza through its own border crossings, make it complicit in the genocide it condemns. If it means what it says, it must open its border crossings to all the humanitarian aid that is needed, end its cooperation with the Israeli blockade and reevaluate its obsequious and compromised relationships with Israel and the United States.

Qatar, which has worked hard to negotiate an Israeli ceasefire in Gaza, was eloquent in its denunciation of Israeli genocide in the Security Council. But Qatar was speaking on behalf of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which includes Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Under the so-called Abraham accords, the sheikhs of Bahrain and the UAE have turned their backs on Palestine to sign on to a toxic brew of self-serving commercial relations and hundred million dollar arms deals with Israel.

In New York, the UAE sponsored the latest failed Security Council resolution, and its representative declared, “The international system is teetering on the brink. For this war signals that might makes right, that compliance with international humanitarian law depends on the identity of the victim and the perpetrator.”

And yet neither the UAE nor Bahrain has renounced their Abraham deals with Israel, nor their roles in U.S. “might makes right” policies that have wreaked havoc in the Middle East for decades. Over a thousand US Air Force personnel and dozens of U.S. warplanes are still based at the Al-Dhafra Airbase in Abu Dhabi, while Manama in Bahrain, which the U.S. Navy has used as a base since 1941, remains the headquarters of the U.S. Fifth Fleet.

Many experts compare apartheid Israel to apartheid South Africa. Speeches at the UN may have helped to bring down South Africa’s apartheid regime, but change didn’t come until countries around the world embraced a global campaign to economically and politically isolate it.

The reason Israel’s die-hard supporters in the United States have tried to ban, or even criminalize, the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is not that it is illegitimate or anti-semitic. It is precisely because boycotting, sanctioning and divesting from Israel may be an effective strategy to help bring down its genocidal, expansionist, and unaccountable regime.

U.S. Alternate Representative to the U.N. Robert Wood told the Security Council that there is a “fundamental disconnect between the discussions that we have been having in this chamber and the realities on the ground” in Gaza, implying that only Israeli and U.S. views of the conflict deserve to be taken seriously.

But the real disconnect at the root of this crisis is the one between the isolated looking-glass world of U.S. and Israeli politics and the real world that is crying out for a ceasefire and justice for Palestinians.

While Israel, with U.S. bombs and howitzer shells, is killing and maiming thousands of innocent people, the rest of the world is appalled by these crimes against humanity. The grassroots clamor to end the massacre keeps building, but global leaders must move beyond non-binding votes and investigations to boycotting Israeli products, putting an embargo on weapons sales, breaking diplomatic relations, and other measures that will make Israel a pariah state on the world stage.

Israel Accused of War Crimes for "Apparently Deliberate" Killing of Reuters Journalist in Lebanon

Witnesses Say IDF Troops 'Executed' Women and Children in Gaza School

Eyewitness testimony reported Wednesday by Al Jazeera accused Israeli troops of massacring forcibly displaced women and children sheltering at a school in northern Gaza, an allegation that prompted a leading U.S. Muslim advocacy group to demand a response from President Joe Biden.

The reported massacre took place at the Shadia Abu Ghazala School in the al-Faluja area west of the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip. Video footage aired by the Qatar-based news network showed numerous covered bodies piled in one of the school's classrooms.

"The Israeli soldiers came in and opened fire on them," one unidentified witness said. "They took all men, then entered classrooms and opened fire on a woman and all the children with her," including "newborn children."

"The Israeli soldiers executed those innocent families point-blank," she added.

A man who arrived at the scene after the alleged mass murder told Al Jazeera that "we found dozens of dead bodies in the classrooms."

"There is no sign of any missiles or shells," he added. "All those who were in the buildings were executed from point-blank. The Israeli soldiers opened fire on them. Many families came searching for their children. They found them all killed. They were all killed, executed at gunpoint."

As of press time, the alleged massacre had not been independently verified.

There have been reports for a week of executions in Gaza, many based on eye witness accounts. Those witnesses are Palestinian, so they count for less in Western media, but at some point the aggregation of so many accounts, the consistency of them, and the video and photographic… https://t.co/1jeM5tLKbZ

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) December 13, 2023

Ibrahim Hooper, national communications director at the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), said in a statement that "because the Biden administration stands almost alone on the world stage in defending and enabling the far-right Israeli government's campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide in Gaza, administration officials must respond to the reported execution-style massacre of women, children, and babies seeking refuge in a school in Gaza."

SHOCK REPORT: 40-45% Gaza Strikes Are 'DUMB BOMBS', IMPRECISE, Per U.S. Intelligence

Gaza a ‘living hell’ after heavy winter rains drench makeshift tents

Heavy winter rains have lashed Gaza, washing out tents and flooding some areas, as the head of the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees described deteriorating conditions in the coastal strip as a “living hell”.

Amid escalating shortages of food, spreading waves of communicable disease and the near collapse of Gaza’s health system, the winter storm turned large areas to mud and drenched many of those sleeping in makeshift plastic tents.

Separately, Israel announced it had lost nine soldiers including two senior commanders and several other officers in a Hamas ambush in the Gaza City neighbourhood of Shejaiya amid continued heavy fighting across Gaza.

The rapidly worsening humanitarian situation comes as Israel’s air and ground war – after the attack by Hamas on 7 October – has pushed nearly 85% of Gaza’s population from their homes.

As UN calls for Gaza ceasefire, Israel begins flooding Gaza with seawater

The United Nations General Assembly voted overwhelmingly Tuesday to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, with the United States, the leading global enabler of Israel’s genocide, voting against the resolution. ...

The resolution, however, is non-binding, enabling Israel to continue to murder hundreds of Palestinians each day, and the United States to fund, arm and logistically support the genocide. In a show of open defiance, Israel added to its war crimes on Monday, blowing up a United Nations UNRWA school in Northern Gaza.

With potentially even more catastrophic effects, Israel has begun pumping seawater into Gaza with the stated aim of flooding underground tunnels and structures. The Netanyahu government has said the hostages are being held in underground tunnels, but President Joe Biden said on Tuesday he has been told Israel is not flooding tunnels where hostages are being kept.

Besides potentially drowning its own citizens being held hostage, Israel’s pumping of vast quantities of salt water into Gaza will have catastrophic health and economic consequences for the enclave and its inhabitants.

A substantial portion of the water is likely to make its way into Gaza’s underground aquifer, potentially poisoning the water supply. The salt water could also have a massive impact on Gaza’s agriculture, as a high salt content in soil is poisonous to plant life.

Gulf states press for two-state roadmap after UN vote on Israel-Gaza war

Gulf states are capitalising on the resounding vote at the UN general assembly in favour of calling for a humanitarian ceasefire in Gaza by warning the US they will not once again fund the reconstruction of Gaza unless Israel agrees to a published roadmap to a two-state solution.

In Israel the general assembly vote was dismissed as a further sign of anti-Israeli bias at the UN. But with the US national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, due to visit the region, pressure is building on Israel to show greater flexibility about what will constitute a military victory and how Gaza will be administered once the war ends.

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has said he will not permit a role for the Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, nor countenance a two-state solution. Netanyahu’s defiance led to Joe Biden delivering his most public criticism of Israel yet on Tuesday, urging Israel to avoid an indiscriminate bombing campaign in Gaza and saying Netanyahu should rid his cabinet of its extreme-right ministers.

The United Arab Emirates ambassador to the UN, Lana Nusseibeh, told the Wall Street Journal: “The message is going to be very clear: we need to see a viable two-state solution plan, a roadmap that is serious, before we talk about the next day and rebuilding the infrastructure of Gaza.”

Qatar, which has provided the most cash for Gaza in previous reconstructions, has adopted the same position. The UAE and Qatar would like to see the split between the Fatah party that runs the Palestinian Authority from the West Bank and Hamas, dominant in Gaza, to end.

Alert : The IDF is now admitting that at least 85% of the people they stripped, tortured and paraded around for the world to see were innocent civilians. pic.twitter.com/I3Fjvvus95

— Alan MacLeod (@AlanRMacLeod) December 11, 2023

Benjamin Netanyahu accused of ‘evil’ campaigning at time of war

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, has been accused of breaking with convention by campaigning while his country is at war after a series of controversial statements in recent days. A number of senior Israeli political figures have been making moves before what are seen as inevitable elections when the war is over, but Netanyahu’s efforts to improve his dire ratings with the Israeli electorate – many of whom blame him for catastrophic intelligence failures in the run-up to the Hamas attack on 7 October – are regarded as the most blatant.

Netanyahu sparked anger from the left and right on Monday when he said the Hamas attack had led to the same number of Israeli deaths as the Oslo accords, the peace agreement signed between Israel and the Palestinians in 1993. The comments, made in a leaked statement to the Knesset’s foreign affairs and defence committee, were widely seen as being politically oriented.

The opposition leader, Yair Lapid, said in response that it was “impossible to understand the level of detachment and cynicism of a prime minister who is running an evil political campaign at a time like this, the whole purpose of which is to remove responsibility from him, to blame others, to create hatred.”

A senior official in Netanyahu’s own Likud party told the rightwing Israel Hayom newspaper, formerly regarded as a mouthpiece for the PM but increasingly critical of him in recent weeks: “We need to be careful not to sow divisions now. Despite the pervasive view in the Likud that Oslo was a disaster, there are some things that are best not said while half a million troops are inside Gaza and thousands of others are grieving, mourning and worried about their loved ones’ fate in Hamas captivity.”

Another Likud official told the paper: “Netanyahu is in full campaign mode. While the external political threats are gradually increasing, Netanyahu knows that over time the attacks and the calls to remove him will also increase. He has been acting first to win back his base. You can’t in a time of war revert to divisive and inciting talk against a large segment of the public, part of which is in uniform in Gaza, part of which is licking its wounds from the massacre.”

EU leaders hope to face down Viktor Orbán over Ukraine funds veto

EU leaders hope to face down the Hungarian leader Viktor Orbán and keep their promise to find another €50bn (£43bn) for Ukraine despite his threat to veto extra funds during a crunch summit.

“There is no [one] plan B, there are plan Bs and if need be, we can go to Z,” said one diplomat, expressing the determination of the EU to ensure Orbán’s threats are not a barrier to Ukraine securing much-needed financial and military assistance to fight Russian invasion forces.

Orbán has also threatened to block opening formal negotiations on Ukraine’s EU membership, in a double whammy that Ukraine’s foreign minister has said would have devastating consequences for Kyiv.

On Wednesday diplomats expressed concern that Orbán’s tough talk on EU enlargement was attracting strategic company. “We can see a new group of countries taking a different perspective on the candidate status of Ukraine than they did last year,” one diplomat said. “And this group clearly consists of … Slovenia, Slovakia, Austria, very much Italy, very strongly. They are saying no money for Ukraine unless there’s money for … citizens. That’s quite new,” they said. Italian sources say Meloni is not putting such conditions on funds for Ukraine.

Hungary and EU leaders have been at loggerheads for the past few weeks amid repeated threats by Orbán to use his veto to stop key decisions at a pivotal summit of EU leaders in Brussels. This week Orbán reaffirmed his opposition to offering neighbouring Ukraine fast-track accession at the summit, saying this would not serve the interests of Hungary or the 27-member EU.

Protesters shut down Los Angeles highway in call for Gaza ceasefire

Police in Los Angeles arrested a group of protesters calling for a ceasefire in Gaza after they shut down a busy stretch of freeway in the city’s downtown. Dozens of people assembled on the 110 on Wednesday morning, bringing traffic to a standstill during the morning commute for more than an hour. There were tense physical confrontations as commuters attempted to remove people from the road.

The California highway patrol detained 75 people in association with the protest, NBC Los Angeles reported. The demonstration blocked all six southbound lanes of traffic, creating gridlock that stretched for miles. ...

Video posted by IfNotNow, the group behind Wednesday’s protest in LA, showed people singing as they linked arms in front of stopped cars while wearing shirts that read “not in our name” and “Jews say ceasefire now”. “We cannot allow business as usual to continue, as Palestinians are murdered with impunity,” the group said in a statement. “So we have closed the freeway.”

GLENN GREENWALD ON RISING: TikTok CENSORED My Show PERMANENTLY With NO EXPLANATION

Senate Passes Massive $886 Billion National Defense Authorization Act

On Wednesday, the Senate passed the mammoth $886 billion 2024 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which funds the Pentagon and military spending in other government agencies.

The bill passed in a vote of 87-13, with six Democrats, six Republicans, and one Independent voting against it. This NDAA now heads to the House, where it’s expected to pass in a vote on Thursday as the bill is the version that the two chambers negotiated.

The NDAA includes an amendment to extend Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), which gives the FBI the power to conduct warrantless spying of foreign targets and Americans they interact with. Section 702 has enabled mass surveillance of Americans and is set to expire at the end of the year, but the extension pushes it back to April 19. A bipartisan group of senators tried to strip the Section 702 extension from the NDAA, but their efforts failed.

Michael Shellenberger: DHS Denies Censorship SCHEME By Hiding PROXY ACTORS In Big Tech

McCarthy Democrats ratchet up the rhetoric:

Hakeem Jeffries singles out Republican ‘pro-Putin caucus’ opposing Ukraine aid

The Democratic US House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has dismissed certain Republican colleagues as the “pro-Putin caucus” amid a congressional fight over whether to send more aid to Ukraine in its efforts to fend off Russian invaders. During an interview with CNN on Wednesday, Jeffries singled out the far-right House firebrands Marjorie Taylor Greene and Jim Jordan as the face of a “loud and … growing” movement aiming to undermine a $61bn military aid package that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy lobbied for during a trip to Washington DC on Tuesday.

Jeffries told the network that Donald Trump and Tucker Carlson, the ex-Fox News host who is friendly with the former president, were like-minded figures from outside Capitol Hill whose stance can only benefit the prospects of victory in Ukraine for the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin.

“The pro-Putin caucus … is extreme,” the New York representative remarked. “And it seems increasingly clear that this pro-Putin caucus would like to see Vladimir Putin win in Ukraine.”

Judge puts Trump’s 2020 election interference case on hold

Donald Trump’s 2020 election interference case in Washington will be put on hold while the former president further pursues his claims that he is immune from prosecution, the judge overseeing the case ruled Wednesday.

US district judge Tanya Chutkan agreed to pause any “further proceedings that would move this case towards trial or impose additional burdens of litigation on defendant”. But the judge said that if the case returns to her court, she will “consider at that time whether to retain or continue the dates of any still-future deadlines and proceedings, including the trial scheduled for March 4, 2024”.

At issue is an appeal last week by Trump’s lawyers of an order from Chutkan denying their claims that the case must be dismissed on immunity grounds. Special counsel Jack Smith’s team has also asked the supreme court to take up the legally untested question.

“The prosecution has one goal in this case: to unlawfully attempt to try, convict, and sentence President Trump before an election in which he is likely to defeat President Biden,” defense lawyers wrote Wednesday. “This represents a blatant attempt to interfere with the 2024 presidential election and to disenfranchise the tens of millions of voters who support President Trump’s candidacy.”

Manchin Plots US Tour While Weighing Third-Party Run

Amid speculation that outgoing U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin may launch a third-party 2024 presidential run, the right-wing West Virginia Democrat known for battling his own party's agenda confirmed this week that he plans to start an extended trip around the country next month.

"I have made one of the toughest decisions of my life and decided that I will not be running for reelection to the United States Senate, but what I will be doing is traveling the country and speaking out to see if there is an interest in creating a movement to mobilize the middle and bring Americans together," Manchin said in a video released last month.

Asked about that statement during The Wall Street Journal CEO Council Summit on Tuesday, Manchin explained that "I start in January. I'll be two months on the road. And all we're trying to do is just mobilize people like myself who feel like they're homeless, politically homeless. I don't recognize the Democratic Party, and I have a D by my name."

"I have a lot of Republicans that don't recognize Republican Party, that have Rs by their name—so the Grand Old Party and I guess the Blue Dog Democrats, they're homeless, and I hear it every day," added the senator, who has thwarted fellow Democrats' legislative efforts to tackle the climate emergency and child poverty as well as expand abortion and voting rights. ...

Regarding 2024, Manchin also said that "I will not be a spoiler. I've never been a spoiler in anything. I get into something, I get in to win." In a recent Journal survey, he got just 3% support as a presidential candidate with No Labels, a group that wants to run a "unity ticket" next year. In response to the results, he quipped it was "probably a bad poll" and chuckled.

Biden Impeachment Inquiry FORMALLY OPENED, James Comer To Joe: SHOW US THE EMAILS

After 30 years of waiting, Cop28 deal addresses the elephant in the room

More than 190 nations accepted a text on Wednesday morning that calls on the world to “transition away” from fossil fuels. But is this a historic deal that will spell the eventual end of gas, oil and coal? Or will it be one more step on the road to hell?

In the world of climate talks, these two are not mutually exclusive. The text that was gavelled on Wednesday morning, known as the “global stocktake”, enjoins countries for the first time to embark on a de facto phase-out of fossil fuels. But it cannot require them to do so and it contains “a litany of loopholes”, according to the small island states that are most vulnerable to the impacts of the climate crisis, that will hamper the world from cutting greenhouse gas emissions drastically enough to limit global heating to 1.5C (2.7F) above pre-industrial levels.

The Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, the United Arab Emirates host of the conference, hailed the adoption of the key text on Wednesday morning, and called it the “UAE consensus”. A consensus, but not quite unanimity: Samoa spoke for small island states at the final meeting to say they would not block the deal, but warned that the world was still far off track from the 1.5C limit, and this outcome was not enough to correct that course.

As they and other developing countries pointed out, there are plenty of problems with this deal. Poor nations still need hundreds of billions more in finance, to help them make the transition away from coal, oil and gas. Developed countries and oil producers will not be forced to move as fast as climate science urges.

The US will get away lightly from this Cop, having pledged just over $20m (£16m) in new finance for the poor world, and with its position as the world’s biggest oil and gas producer intact. China will continue to pursue coal production as well as renewable energy, and India’s coal industry will also have little to fear.

Advocates demand US suspend weed-killing chemical that may cause cancer

Citing new scientific research, a coalition of farm worker, public health and environmental advocates on Wednesday filed a legal petition with US regulators demanding they immediately suspend authorization for the controversial weed-killing chemical called glyphosate.

The petition, filed with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), alleges that the chemical does not meet the required safety standard set by federal law and the EPA has “no valid assessment demonstrating otherwise”.

If the EPA fails to address the petition, the groups said they will take the agency back to court, where the groups last year successfully garnered a judicial finding that the EPA’s most recent assessment of glyphosate was deeply flawed. The legal petition comes less than 10 days after the publication of a new scientific study that lends fuel to critics who say glyphosate herbicide products can cause cancer.

In a paper published 6 December, National Institutes of Health cancer scientists said they found markers of genotoxicity in male farmers with high uses of glyphosate. The authors said their work suggested glyphosate “could confer genotoxic” effects, and amount to “novel evidence regarding the carcinogenic potential of glyphosate”. The study was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

The journal also published an accompanying opinion article from environmental and occupational health researchers who called the new study “important new evidence” that should be considered in evaluating glyphosate safety. The study was the largest of its kind and provides “mechanistic support for genotoxicity of glyphosate”, the researchers wrote.

Also of Interest

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

US Losing Allies on Gaza

Forcible Transfer of Gazans Is a Crime Against Humanity

Zionism Has Lost Young America

US Homeland Security staff accuse leadership of turning ‘blind eye’ to Gaza

U.S. Military Has More Unfeasible Plans For Ukraine

Argentina’s new government devalues peso by more than 50%

Good Cop, bad Cop: what the Cop28 agreement says and what it means

Sen Rand Paul on Rising: Dems’ HATRED of Trump BLINDS Them to Intel Abuses, Free Speech Violations

'Terrorist Scarf' Obama Linked Karen STALKS Student

Interview Between Tucker Carlson & Jimmy Dore!

TikTok Bans Glenn Greenwald AND Jimmy Dore!

A Little Night Music

Roosevelt Sykes - Pocketful Of Money

Roosevelt Sykes - Bird Nest on the Ground

Roosevelt Sykes - Hey Big Momma

Roosevelt Sykes - “44" Blues

Roosevelt Sykes - Ice Cream Freezer

Roosevelt Sykes - Mellow Queen

Roosevelt Sykes - Drivin' Wheel

Roosevelt Sykes - Rock It

Homesick James + Aces and Roosevelt Sykes - Working With Homesick