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This evening's music features odds and ends that I ran across when putting together other features. Enjoy!

"The Israeli government has proved over the past year its commitment to peace, both in words and deeds."

-- Benjamin Netanyahu

News and Opinion

Here are some parts of an excellent interview:

On the Gaza Protesters Murdered by Israeli Forces

The latest Israeli slaughter of Gazans falls into the category of shooting fish in a tank. Indeed, as tens of thousands of Gazans protested the longest occupation in modern history and demanded their historical Right to Return, last Friday, March 30, Israeli snipers raised their rifles repeatedly and, from behind a wide-buffer and an electrified fence, opened fire on the Palestinians. ...

Diana Buttu is a Palestinian/Canadian lawyer based in the Occupied West Bank of Palestine. She is a former Palestinian negotiator. I spoke with her in Haifa on April 2nd, 2018.

Dennis Bernstein: What do we know about how this unfolded?  I heard in an NPR report that this was not just a protest, that these were militants.

Diana Buttu: We know that the Israeli government announced days in advance that they were going to be positioning snipers along the border. Now, there are multiple sets of borders in effect here. There is an electrified fence on the eastern and northern sides of the Gaza Strip. A cement wall is on the southern border with Egypt. The water is blockaded by the Israeli navy on the western side.

In addition to those physical borders, the Israeli army has been enforcing what they call a buffer zone, which is about 1,000 feet away from the electrified fence. We know that when Palestinians approached the buffer zone on the eastern side, the Israelis immediately started shooting Palestinian protesters.

From video footage we can see that people were shot in the back. Others were shot for carrying tires or for simply walking into these areas. These were individuals who posed no threat whatsoever. Even if they were attempting to cross the border, you don’t use live fire to kill people who are crossing a border. And secondly, the point of this was to highlight the fact that Palestinians cannot return. 80% of the Palestinian population of the Gaza Strip does not come from the Gaza Strip. They are actually refugees driven out by the Israelis. While Israel keeps claiming that there were attempts to “infiltrate,” in any case this is not a proper response.

The fact that Israel was positioning snipers on the border indicates that they were ready, willing and able to shoot protesters in the back. The head of the Israeli defense establishment has said that every one of these snipers should be commended.

Dennis Bernstein: How many Israeli soldiers were wounded and killed?

Diana Buttu: Zero. Again, this was not a question of the protesters posing any danger to any individual. It was the mere fact that Palestinians were out in protest.

I want to put this in its proper historical perspective. The reason they were out on March 30 is because this day, in 1976, the Israelis did the exact same thing to Palestinians who were citizens of Israel. At that time, Palestinians were protesting the confiscation of thousands of acres of Palestinian land by the Israeli government in order to make way for Jewish towns.

On that day in 1976 Israel shot and killed six unarmed Palestinian protesters. Here we are forty years later, with people commemorating the killings, Israel does the exact same thing, this time killing three times that number.

Israel Is Prepared to Kill More Unarmed Protesters in Gaza

Israel's army expects up to 50,000 Palestinians to attend protests in Gaza on Friday, and is prepared to once again use deadly force against unarmed demonstrators, one week after Israeli snipers fired at least 650 bullets at Palestinian civilians, killing 15.

With President Donald Trump apparently ignoring last week’s massacre in a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, senior Israeli officials brushed off pleas from human rights groups to rescind orders that permit snipers to open fire on protesters who approach Israel’s perimeter fence.

“We have defined the rules of the game clearly and we do not intend to change them,” Israeli Defense Minister Avigdor Liberman said as he toured the frontier on Tuesday. “Anyone trying to approach the fence is putting their lives at risk.” ...

The Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, which monitors the treatment of Palestinians in the territories Israel’s military has controlled since 1967, published ads on Thursday urging soldiers to “refuse patently unlawful orders, to open fire on unarmed demonstrators in Gaza.”

Israeli forces shoot dead seven Palestinians and wound hundreds more as protests near Gaza border continue

For a second week, thousands of Palestinians are protesting along the eastern borders of the Gaza Strip, as part of the Great March of Return movement.

Israeli forces have killed 29 Palestinians during the past week, including 21 during and after the March 30 protests, which wounded more than 1,600 others.

Eight Palestinians died on Friday, including one who succumbed to his wounds after being shot last week. ...

Health officials in Gaza said that at least 780 protesters have been wounded, including seven women and 31 children.

US officials: Trump-Netanyahu call grew tense over plans to leave Syria

A phone call Wednesday between Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and US President Donald Trump grew tense over Israeli objections to US plans to leave Syria, US administration officials said Wednesday, adding that Trump wants to pull out all troops within six months to the dismay of the country’s main security agencies and allies.

A short statement from the White House early Wednesday said Netanyahu and Trump had discussed “recent developments in the Middle East” during their phone conversation, without clarifying what developments were addressed or what was said.
...

But two US officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday the talks grew tense because of Israeli concerns that the United States will withdraw from Syria in the near future and allow its enemies — primarily Iran — to gain a further foothold in a neighboring country through its various proxies. Officials also said Trump is dramatically scaling back the country’s goals in Syria as he pushes for a quick military withdrawal, abandoning plans to stay long-term to stabilize the country and prevent the Islamic State terror group from re-emerging.

Trump has given no formal order to pull out the 2,000 US troops currently in Syria, nor offered a public timetable, other than to say the United States will pull out just as soon as the last remaining IS fighters can be vanquished. But Trump has signaled to his advisers that ideally, he wants all troops out within six months, three US officials told The Associated Press — a finale that would come shortly before the US midterm elections.

US troops will remain in Syria despite Trump telling rally he ‘wanted’ to bring them home

Donald Trump has decided to keep US forces in Syria for a limited period, ending speculation about an immediate pull-out fuelled by the president himself. He agreed at a National Security Council meeting that the 2,000 US troops backed by massive airpower should stay in Syria where they support the Kurds in the east of the country. “We’re not going to immediately withdraw, but neither is the president willing to back a long-term commitment,” said a senior administration official. He added that Mr Trump wanted to ensure the final defeat of Isis and would like other countries to help stabilise Syria.

In recent weeks Mr Trump has been at odds with the Pentagon in promising a swift US withdrawal, just as senior generals were reiterating their commitment to stand by the Syrian Kurdish forces, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). These hold between 25 and 30 per cent of Syria and are the only US ally in the country. Isis has lost almost all its territory but is reverting to guerrilla warfare in parts of eastern Syria. Its fighters have been emboldened by the withdrawal of YPG forces, which have gone to confront the Turkish-led invasion of the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria. ...

The one big aim uniting Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani in their approach to the Syrian conflict is that they all want US forces out of Syria, though their motives differ.

If the limited number of US ground troops were pulled out of Syria, along with – most crucially – the YPG’s ability to call in massive US airstrikes, then the YPG would be unable to stop a Turkish invasion across the long Syrian-Turkish border. The north Syrian plain is flat and could not be defended against Turkish tanks backed by airstrikes. In a joint statement released at the end of their summit, Mr Putin, Mr Rouhani and Mr Erdogan said they “rejected all attempts to create new realities on the ground under the pretext of combating terrorism”. This is a clear reference to the US. They said they were committed to Syria’s unity, but this is not preventing them intervening by using local proxies and allies. ...

The three countries meeting in Ankara pledged to stabilise Syria, and this, to some extent, they can do because Isis has been eliminated as a territorial state, though not as a guerrilla force. Isis will be hoping that differences among its enemies will enable it to strengthen itself once again. Mr Assad will soon control all of Damascus, Aleppo and the most highly populated areas in Syria. He will also draw hope from the fact that, while the Syrian Kurds do not like his government, they prefer it to the prospect of being overrun by the Turkish army and its Sunni Arab auxiliaries.

Trump Inks Arms Deal with Saudis as Humanitarian Crisis Rages in Yemen & Saudi Prince Tours U.S.

UK and US given case file on 'nerve agent made in Russian lab'

British and American authorities have been given several chemical analyses of a substance believed to be a novichok nerve agent produced in Russia’s closed Shikhany military facility, a Russian lawyer has told the Guardian. Boris Kuznetsov, who fled Russia in 2007, said he had handed British diplomats the police case files from the 1995 murder of a Russian banker and his secretary with a toxic substance, which scientists have identified as a product of the Soviet-designed Foliant programme. A related nerve agent was used in the Salisbury poisoning last month.

The documents, some of which had previously been leaked by the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, were given to British diplomats in Latvia in March, Kuznetsov said. He told the Guardian he had also handed the case files to US authorities. Among the documents, which have been seen by the Guardian, are the results of a mass spectrometry and an infrared spectroscopy of the poisonous substance, which was scraped off a telephone receiver used by the businessman Ivan Kivelidi and his secretary. Both died in agony.

The files may provide rare physical evidence about chemical weapons production at Shikhany. The British case has so far relied more heavily in public on circumstantial evidence and secret intelligence.

Trump administration hits 24 Russians with sanctions over 'malign activity'

The Trump administration announced new sanctions on seven Russian oligarchs and 17 top government officials on Friday, in a move that targets Vladimir Putin’s inner circle for “malign activity” including meddling in the 2016 US election and other aggressions.

The new economic sanctions represent the most forceful action yet taken by the Trump administration against Putin’s circle.

“The Russian government operates for the disproportionate benefit of oligarchs and government elites,” said the treasury secretary, Steven Mnuchin. “Russian oligarchs and elites who profit from this corrupt system will no longer be insulated from the consequences of their government’s destabilizing activities.”

Mnuchin cited Russian aggression in Crimea and Moscow’s support of the regime of Bashar al-Assad in the bloody civil war in Syria as well as “attempting to subvert western democracies, and malicious cyber activities” as reasons for the sanctions.

How Iona Craig Exposed the White House Lie About 2017 SEAL Raid That Killed Yemeni Women & Children

Carles Puigdemont just got bail from a German court

Former Catalan president Carles Puigdemont left a German prison on bail Friday, after a court ruled he could not be extradited to Spain on charges of rebellion. The 55-year-old activist for Catalan independence was released on €75,000 bail ($92,000), after judges in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein ruled Thursday that the rebellion charge he faced in Spain was not an offence under German law.

Puigdemont could still be extradited on the lesser charge of misuse of funds, which Spanish authorities levied against him for using public monies to hold an illegal referendum last year.

Speaking outside the prison in Neumuenster Friday, Puigdemont thanked his supporters, and said the time had arrived to “find a political solution” to the simmering Catalan crisis. He said Catalan leaders had demanded dialogue for six years only to be met with “a violent and repressive response.” He added: “Now, seeing the fall of that response, it’s time to do politics.”

Brazil’s Popular Ex-President Lula Ordered to Prison After Politically Motivated Trial & Conviction

Brazilian judge orders arrest of former president Lula

A Brazilian judge has ordered the arrest of the former president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, whose appeal to avoid prison on corruption charges was earlier denied by the supreme court. The arrest warrant, ordered on Thursday evening by Sergio Moro, who leads Brazil’s mammoth Car Wash investigation, stipulates that Lula must hand himself in by 5pm local time to federal police in the southern city of Curitiba, though it is also understood that he can hand himself in at the São Paulo branch.

Lula’s defence team issued a note saying they had filed a request to the UN human rights committee requesting interim measures to block the arrest warrant, alleging bias and the violation of the right to presumption of innocence. They said Lula’s case had been judged far quicker than any other in the Car Wash investigation.

On Friday morning, Brazil’s daily newspaper Folha de São Paulo reported that Lula would not hand himself in. He is staying at a metalworkers’ union HQ in the Sāo Bernardo do Campo area of São Paulo, accompanied by growing groups of supporters.

Park Geun-hye, the impeached former South Korean president, has been jailed

Former South Korean President Park Geun-hye was jailed for 24 years Friday after a court in Seoul found her guilty on multiple counts of abuse of power, bribery and coercion.

The charges stemmed from an influence-peddling scandal that embroiled the country’s political elite and some of its most powerful business conglomerates and led to Park last year becoming South Korea’s first democratically elected leader to be impeached.

“The defendant abused her presidential power entrusted by the people, and as a result, brought massive chaos to the order of state affairs and led to the impeachment of the president, which was unprecedented,” judge Kim Se-yoon said in sentencing the 66-year-old.

He said the harsh sentence was necessary in order to send a message to future leaders. Prosecutors had requested a 30 year sentence. Park was also fined 18 billion won ($16.9 million).

Trump’s plan for National Guard at the border needs state governors

President Trump is calling for 2,000 to 4,000 National Guard troops to be deployed to the U.S. southern border to provide support for the Border Patrol, but governors could stand in his way. National Guard troops are under the command of state governors, and some have already said they won’t contribute troops to the effort. It’s also unclear whether California, which is locked in legal battles on many fronts with the Trump administration, will cooperate.

There are two primary ways the federal government can activate National Guardsmen — either by Title 10 of the U.S. Code or Title 32. Title 10, which typically happens in an emergency or a war, would mean troops were federally-funded and under command of the federal government. Title 32, which is what the Trump administration has decided upon, means troops are federally-funded, but under command of state governors.

The key difference between the two is what it allows National Guard troops to actually do. Under federal laws like the Posse Comitatus Act, the U.S. military is barred from domestic law enforcement activities outside of a military base, so in the past, troops have assisted border patrol with information-sharing, training, and surveillance.

However, with Title 32, ”the Governor may use the Guard in a law enforcement capacity while the chain of command rests in the State,” according to the National Guard Association. This means that providing the Trump administration gets approval from the governors, National Guard troops could be engaging in arresting and detaining suspects. ... Using Title 32 may mean more flexibility for law enforcement activities, but it does give state governors the power to reject Trump’s request.

Police are furious California lawmakers are trying to limit their use of deadly force

Police in California are pushing back on a new bill that could be a game changer for how officers are treated under the law when they kill civilians. If passed, the “Police Accountability and Community Protection Act” would significantly restrict when law enforcement can use deadly force. Current California law states that an officer needs to demonstrate that she or he had “reasonable fear” when they reached for their gun, a legal standard that notoriously favors law enforcement.

But after police in Sacramento shot and killed 22-year-old Stephon Clark, an unarmed black man, seven times in the back while he was standing in his grandmother’s backyard, legislators are looking to change the current standard. Several law enforcement unions in the state, however, are accusing politicians of grandstanding without consideration for officer safety, VICE News learned.

California lawmakers, joined by Clark’s grandfather, introduced the bill on Tuesday. The proposed measure dictates that deadly force should be used only when it’s “necessary to prevent imminent and serious bodily injury or death,” said Democratic Assemblywoman Shirley Weber from San Diego, who co-authored the bill. Although some local jurisdictions restrict lethal force, California would become the first state to do so, according to the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).

The Supreme Court first determined the “objectively reasonable fear” standard in 1989 and ruled that an officer’s use of deadly force should be considered within the wider context of how dangerous policing is. ... Under California’s proposed standard, contextual danger wouldn’t be relevant. For officers to justify their use of deadly force, they would have to demonstrate an immediate threat to their own or someone else’s life in that exact moment which couldn’t be resolved by other non- or less-lethal methods.

Onion Skewers Rachel Maddow - Cable News’ #1 Host

Watch: Ted Cruz Asked To Take 'DNA Test To Prove You’re Human'

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) was asked an unexpected question Tuesday by a woman. The video of his reply has gone viral.

The video uploader, who identified herself as Tammy Talpas, first explained that she was really worried about missing out on healthcare benefits because she had seven pre-existing conditions.

“If you force me into a high-risk pool, you will either bankrupt me or kill me,” she said. “I take these threats of medical aggression personally and seriously, and I can assure you I’m not the only Texan who does. My question is: Will you pledge to submit to a DNA test to prove that you’re human?”

[Audio leaves something to be desired. - js]

Shell Knew, Too: New Docs Show Oil Giant's Scientists Secretly Warned About Climate Threat Decades Ago

Royal Dutch Shell's scientists warned the oil giant about the threat that fossil fuel emissions pose to the planet as early as the 1980s, according to a trove of documents obtained by a Dutch journalist and published Thursday at Climate Files.

Environmental advocates say the documents—which bolster an investigative report published last year—demonstrate the "stunning" immorality of oil and gas companies. The records are expected to aid global efforts to hold the industry to account for its contributions to global warming.

One such document, a confidential 1988 report entitled "The Greenhouse Effect," outlines a comprehensive study of climate science and the projected impact of fossil fuels, and reveals that the company secretly had been commissioning such analyses since at least 1981. The report acknowledges the central role that fossil fuels—especially oil—play in increasing CO2 emissions that drive global warming.

"Although CO2 is emitted to the atmosphere through several natural processes," the report states, "the main cause of increasing CO2 concentrations is considered to be fossil fuel burning."

This latest confirmation that Shell, for more than three decades, has been privately aware of its products' contributions to the climate crisis but opted to publicly promote skepticism about climate science mirrored similar findings about ExxonMobil in 2015.

Pee and pesticides: Thoreau's Walden Pond in trouble, warn scientists

The water of Walden Pond, which Henry David Thoreau described in 1854 as “so transparent that the bottom can easily be discerned at the depth of 25 or 30 feet”, is no longer quite so clear according to a new study.

The Massachusetts pond was made famous in Walden, the transcendentalist writer’s account of the years he spent next to it in order to “live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life”. The pond has been greatly affected by human activity. Everything from forest fires in the 19th century, to wood-cutting operations, the use of pesticides in the 1960s and increasing tourism have affected the water quality, according to the paper. Over half of the phosphorus in the lake in the summer “may now be attributable to urine released by swimmers”, while a footpath to Thoreau’s cabin “caused large amounts of soil to wash into the lake”.

“In the century and a half since Thoreau and his transcendentalist colleagues wrote of humanity as somehow separate from nature, we’ve become a force of nature in our own right, powerful enough to change the chemistry and temperature of the atmosphere and the ecology of lakes and ponds worldwide,” Curt Stager, a natural sciences professor at Paul Smith’s college, New York, and one of the authors of the paper told CNET. ...

“If we’re not careful, this beautiful, iconic lake … could easily become more like a murky, green stew of algae,” Stager told CNET.

Also of Interest

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

Deconstructed Podcast: Stephon Clark’s Fiancée Speaks Out on Police Shooting

Congress, Not Amazon, Messed Up the Post Office

Scott Pruitt’s condo and travel scandals just got even worse

'We know we may be killed': the rangers risking their lives for Virunga's gorillas

A Little Night Music

Blanche Thomas - You Ain't So Such A Much

Little Oscar - Empty Bottles

Rose Mitchell - Slipping In

Little Mac - Times Are Getting Tougher

Cookie Jackson - Try Love (Just One More Time)

The Diamonds - The Lost City

Phillip Wolf - Little Woman

Rene Hall - Flippin'

Sonny Til and the Orioles - Hey Little Woman

Banny Price - You Love Me Pretty Baby

Willie Jones - Where's my Money

Willie Egan - Wear Your Black Dress

The Supremes - Don't Leave Me Here To Cry

Leroy and the Drivers - The Sad Chicken