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"Funny how empire simps spent the last seven years screaming the word “whataboutism” and saying it’s evil, and now their response to all criticisms of Israel is “what about what Hamas did” and “what about those other countries who do bad things”."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

How Much Killing Is Enough Killing?

Israel has killed multiple times as many people since October 7 as were killed on October 7, has caused many times more destruction since October 7 than was caused on October 7, and has inflicted many times more pain and suffering since October 7 than was inflicted on October 7.

Even if you completely ignore the power dynamics and abuses which led to the Hamas attack and just look impartially at the raw data, it’s an easily quantifiable fact that what Israel has done since October 7 is worse than what Hamas did on October 7. While there is a huge taboo against saying this publicly, it’s not seriously debatable. The only way to make it seem otherwise would be to see Palestinian lives as worth less than Israeli lives, which is not a position that deserves to be taken seriously.

But that isn’t the foremost objective fact separating the death and destruction on October 7 from all the death and destruction that’s happened since. The foremost objective fact separating the death and destruction on October 7 from the death and destruction that’s happened since is that October 7 already happened, while the Gaza massacre is still ongoing and can be stopped.

Everything that happened on October 7 is in the past. It’s done. No matter how many bombs the IDF drops, no matter how many civilians in Gaza are killed, no matter how many buildings are smashed to rocks and powder, no matter how much propaganda the western media churn out, it won’t bring one single Israeli who died on October 7 back to life.

Nothing about October 7 can be changed. It’s in the past. We have no access to it. But what can be changed is the decision to keep killing civilians by the thousands with a relentless barrage of military explosives and strangling them to death with siege warfare for something they did not do.

At any time Israel could stop turning entire city blocks into rubble and adding to the thousands of children who’ve been killed, but they don’t. It’s still happening. Every hour this goes on is another decision made by the Israeli government to keep it going, and every hour it keeps going is more death and human misery in Gaza.

And at a certain point there’s a very important question that will need to be answered, and that question is this: how much is enough?

How much killing is enough killing? How many civilians need to die before we can draw a line under this one?

How high does the pile of mutilated and dismembered children need to be before it’s high enough? Give me a specific height please, in meters or in yards.

It’s an answer we’re going to come to one way or another. At some point we’re going to reach the end of the killing, either because some sliver of conscience awakened in the powers perpetrating and facilitating it, or because it became politically inconvenient to continue, or because some meaningless and arbitrary goal was declared to have been met, or because the killers felt satiated by the amount of killing they’d done, or because there was no one left to kill.

So we may as well begin chewing on that question right now so we can get settle on a number as soon as possible. How much is enough? It’s a question that demands an answer. And the answer we come to collectively will say a lot about our species, and about where it is headed.

Amnesty International Finds "Damning Evidence of War Crimes" by Israel as Gaza Death Toll Tops 6,500

UN’s António Guterres calls for immediate ceasefire to end ‘epic suffering’ in Gaza

The United Nations’ secretary general has called for an immediate ceasefire to end “epic suffering” in the Gaza Strip after Israeli airstrikes reportedly killed more than 700 people in a single day and hospitals began to shut down for lack of fuel. António Guterres said the bombardment and blockade of Gaza amounted to the “collective punishment of the Palestinian people” and violated international law, comments that sparked a fierce row with Israel. ...

Guterres said the 7 October attacks by Hamas were “appalling” but did not happen in a vacuum. “The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation,” he said. “They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.”

Israel’s envoy to the UN, Gilad Erdan, called on Guterres to resign immediately, accusing him of being detached from reality. “His comments … constitute a justification for terrorism and murder. It’s sad that a person with such views is the head of an organisation that arose after the Holocaust.” Israel’s foreign minister, Eli Cohen, cancelled a planned meeting with Gutteres.

Airstrikes killed at least 704 people in the past day, the Hamas-run health ministry said, bringing Gaza’s total death toll after 18 days of bombing to 5,791 including 2,360 children.

Twenty trucks of aid that had been expected to enter the besieged territory on Tuesday were unable to cross into Gaza from Egypt amid wrangling between Israel, Egypt, the US and the UN over procedures for inspecting the shipments. The Palestinian Red Crescent later confirmed that eight trucks had arrived in Gaza carrying water, food and medicine. Asked by reporters in Washington whether aid was getting into Gaza, the US president, Joe Biden, replied: “Not fast enough.” ...

According to the UN, some Palestinians who had fled their homes in northern Gaza have returned because of a lack of food and shelter in the south.

Israel Divisions, US No Plan, US Generals to Israel; China Peace Conf; Rus-Brazil Confer

Gaza hospitals ceasing to function as water and fuel run out

Hospitals in Gaza are ceasing to function because they are running out of water and fuel for generators, while being overwhelmed by huge numbers of casualties and civilians seeking shelter from Israeli bombing. Doctors, health administrators and international aid organisations describe nightmarish conditions, including doctors forced to operate with little or no anaesthesia, or by the light of mobile phones, and using vinegar in some cases in place of antiseptic.

Not only are Gaza’s hospitals overwhelmed by thousands of patients with traumatic wounds from constant aerial bombardment, they are also filled with tens of thousands of people seeking shelter, making it even harder to attend to the wounded.

Meanwhile, more than 20 hospitals in north and central Gaza, representing the bulk of the Gaza health service, have been told to evacuate by the Israeli army – an order doctors say is impossible to carry out. “We have no fuel to run the standby generators, and those who are affected first are the operation rooms, the intensive care units and emergency rooms,” Dr Medhat Abbass, the director general of the Gaza health ministry, said.

“We have mass casualties in the hospitals dealing with surgical cases. The problem is that the staff are exhausted and we have no medical supplies. We are consuming in a day what we used to consume in a month.” ...

Limited quantities of medical supplies have been allowed over the Egypt-Gaza border in recent days, but Israel refuses to allow them to be distributed in the north, where most of the hospitals are, as the Israeli government wants the whole northern half of the Gaza Strip evacuated before a planned ground offensive.

US inflames war throughout the Middle East

The United States, whose military has killed over one million people during illegal wars in the Middle East over the past quarter-century, is using Israel’s assault against the Palestinians to provoke a wider war throughout the region. The US is surging troops, warships and aircraft to the Middle East. At least 10,000 sailors, soldiers and airmen have already been deployed to the region, and an unspecified number of troops—possibly in the tens of thousands—have been told to make ready to deploy. The Biden administration has given its full support for Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians which is taking place through the mass bombing of civilians, killing between 300 and 400 people every single day, as well as the deliberate starvation and dehydration of the population.

At the same time, it is providing the weapons with which Israel is simultaneously carrying out attacks on Lebanon, Syria and the West Bank. Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians, using American weapons and with American political, military and logistical support, is just one component of the US military escalation throughout the region.

On Saturday, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin announced steps to “strengthen” the US military’s “posture in the region,” citing “escalations by Iran.” Austin said he was putting US missile defense systems on alert throughout the region and had placed an “additional number of forces on prepare to deploy order.” The US military has asserted that over the past week troops stationed in Iraq have come under attack from what it claims are Iranian proxy forces.

“Iran is closely monitoring these events and, in some cases, actively facilitating these attacks and spurring on others who may want to exploit the conflict for their own good or for that of Iran,” said Pentagon spokesperson John Kirby on Monday.

In an interview on Sunday, Secretary of State Antony Blinken declared, “We expect that there’s a likelihood of escalation, escalation by Iranian proxies directed against our forces, directed against our personnel. We are taking steps to make sure that we can effectively defend our people and respond decisively if we need to.” Blinken insisted, “This is not what we want, not what we’re looking for. We don’t want escalation.” He added, “We’ve also deployed very significant assets to the region, two aircraft carrier battle groups, not to provoke, but to deter.” Blinken, as always, is lying. The escalation is on the part of the United States, which is flooding the Middle East with troops and weapons.

US BLAMES IRAN For Attacks On Troops In Iraq, Syria

Pentagon Expects ‘Significant Escalation’ of Attacks on US Troops Over Gaza War

A Pentagon official told reporters on Monday that the military is preparing for a “significant escalation” of attacks on US troops stationed in the Middle East due to President Biden’s support for Israel’s onslaught in Gaza.

The comments came the same day US Central Command said its forces downed two drones that were fired at a base in Syria. Starting last week, there have been a series of attacks on bases housing US troops in Iraq and Syria.

“They’ve been under an increase of attacks for the really for the last three days or so at various locations,” said a senior Pentagon official, who was not authorized to speak on the record, according to Military Times.

A group that calls itself the Islamic Resistance in Iraq claimed it launched drones at US forces in Syria on Monday, but the US has not attributed blame. The Pentagon official pointed the finger at Iran due to Tehran’s support for Shia militias that operate in Syria and Iraq, although there’s no indication Iran is directly involved.

Clare Daly Criticises Ursula Von Der Leyen For Saying “Europe Stands With Israel"

Biden Admin DEMANDS CENSORSHIP of Al-Jazeera Over Israel-Palestine Coverage

In Hours of Israel/Gaza Crisis Coverage, a Word You’ll Seldom Hear: ‘Ceasefire’

Since the October 7 Hamas attacks, and the subsequent, ongoing Israeli airstrikes, US TV news has offered extensive coverage of Israel and Gaza. But as casualties mount, most outlets have paid scant attention to the growing calls for a ceasefire.

After Hamas killed more than 1,400 people in Israel on October 7 and took some 200 hostages, Israeli bombing killed over 5,000 people in Gaza, as of October 22—including more than 1,400 children—and at least 23 journalists and 35 UN staff (UN News, 10/23/23). Ninety-five Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank as well, by both Israeli government forces and settlers. With Israel enacting a “complete siege” of Gaza, cutting off power, food, water and medical supplies, and nowhere for civilians to seek safety, a broad spectrum of critical voices have decried the humanitarian crisis and insisted on a ceasefire and an end to the siege.

Jewish-led protests in New York and other cities on October 13, and again in Washington, DC, on October 18, made a ceasefire their central message. Progressive lawmakers on October 16 introduced a House resolution “calling for an immediate de-escalation and ceasefire.” And a recent Data for Progress poll (10/20/23) found that 66% of likely US voters agree that “the US should call for a ceasefire and a de-escalation of violence in Gaza.”

Internationally, the head of the UN, the UN human rights expert on Palestine, a growing list of scores of legal scholars, and hundreds of human rights groups—including Save the Children, Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders—have likewise spoken out for a ceasefire.

But the Biden administration has actively tried to suppress discussion of de-escalation. HuffPost reported on October 13 that an internal State Department memo instructed staff not to use the words “de-escalation/ceasefire,” “end to violence/bloodshed” and “restoring calm” in press materials on the Middle East.

At the UN Security Council, a Russian resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire was voted down last Tuesday by the US, Britain, France and Japan; a Brazilian resolution the next day seeking “humanitarian pauses” in the violence was vetoed by the US alone. (On October 24, however, Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that “humanitarian pauses must be considered” to bring help to Gaza civilians—ABC, 10/24/23.)

US television news outlets appear largely to be following the administration’s lead, minimizing any talk of ceasefire or de-escalation on the air. FAIR searched transcripts of the nightly news shows of the four major broadcast networks for one week (October 12–18) in the Nexis news database and Archive.org, and found that, even as the outlets devoted a great deal of time to the conflict, they rarely mentioned the idea of a ceasefire or de-escalation.

While ABC World News Tonight, CBS Evening News, NBC Nightly News and PBS NewsHour aired a total of 105 segments primarily about Israel/Gaza and broader repercussions of the conflict, only eight segments included the word “ceasefire” or some form of the word “de-escalate.” (The word “de-escalate” never appeared without the word “ceasefire.”)

NBC and PBS aired three segments each with ceasefire mentions; CBS aired two, and ABC aired none.

The October 18 protest on Capitol Hill led by Jewish Voice for Peace and If Not Now demanding a ceasefire—a peaceful protest that ended with over 300 arrests—accounted for half of the mentions, briefly making the evening news that night on all the broadcast networks except ABC. (The protesters’ demand was mentioned in two segments on NBC.)

That was the only day CBS Evening News (10/18/23) mentioned a ceasefire or de-escalation, though correspondent Margaret Brennan also noted in that episode, in response to a question from anchor Norah O’Donnell referencing the protest, that Biden “refrained from calling a ceasefire. In fact, the US vetoed a UN resolution to that effect earlier today.” Brennan continued:

Given that there have now been 11 days of bombing of Gaza by Israel, with thousands killed, there is a perception in Arab countries that this looks like the US is treating Palestinian lives differently than Israeli lives.

Of course, one doesn’t have to live in an Arab country to see a double standard.

Only twice across all nightly news shows did viewers see anyone, guest or journalist, advocating for a ceasefire—both times on PBS NewsHour.

The NewsHour featured a phone interview with Gaza resident Diana Odeh (10/12/23), who described the dire situation on the ground and pleaded: “We need help. We don’t need money. We don’t need anything, but we need a ceasefire. People are getting worse and worse.”

A few days later, the NewsHour (10/18/23) brought on Marc Garlasco, a former Pentagon analyst currently serving as military advisor at PAX Protection of Civilians, who said: “You’re talking about 6,000 bombs in less than a week in Gaza, which is the size of Newark, New Jersey. It’s just incredibly dangerous to the population, and we need to have a ceasefire and get an end to this conflict as quickly as possible.”

Across the agenda-setting Sunday shows, which are largely aimed at an audience of DC insiders, the word “ceasefire” was entirely absent, except on CNN State of the Union (10/15/23)—but there, only in the context of reporting on a poll from earlier this year that found a strong majority of Gazans supporting the ceasefire that had previously been in place between Hamas and Israel.

Looking at the broader cable news coverage, where the 24-hour news cycle means much more coverage of the conflict, viewers were still unlikely to encounter any mention of the idea of a ceasefire. Using the Stanford Cable TV News Analyzer, FAIR found that mentions of “cease” appeared in closed captioning on screen for an average of only 19.7 seconds per day on Fox, 11.1 seconds per day on CNN, and 9.2 seconds per day on MSNBC. (FAIR used the shortened form of the word to account for variations in hyphenation and compounding; some false positives are likely.)

Meanwhile, mentions of “Israel” did not differ substantially across networks, averaging 18–20 minutes per day. (Note that this is not the amount of time Israel was discussed, but the amount of time mentions of “Israel” appeared onscreen in closed captions.)

Fox mentioned a ceasefire roughly twice as often as either CNN or MSNBC, largely to ridicule those on the left who called for one, as with host Greg Gutfeld’s comment (10/18/23):

Enough with the ceasefire talk…. I mean, Jewish protesters calling for a ceasefire is like the typical leftist pleading not to arrest their mugger because he had a bad childhood.

Fox also frequently compared Jewish peace advocates unfavorably with January 6 rioters (Media Matters, 10/19/23).

CNN on a few occasions featured a guest advocating a ceasefire, such as Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, the leader of the Palestinian National Initiative party. On Situation Room (10/17/23), Barghouti argued forcefully:

The only way out of this is to have immediate ceasefire, immediate supply of food, drinking water to people immediately in Gaza and then to have exchange of prisoners so that the Israeli prisoners can come back home safe to Israel.

On CNN‘s most-watched show, Anderson Cooper 360, the possibility of a ceasefire was mentioned in three segments during the study period—each time in an interview with a former military or intelligence official, none of whom supported the idea. For instance, with former Mossad agent Rami Igra on the show (10/16/23), Cooper asked about negotiating the release of hostages. Igra noted that Hamas had “twice already” said they were “willing to negotiate the release of the prisoners,” contingent upon a ceasefire and release of Palestinian prisoners. But Igra insisted Israel should not negotiate:

IGRA: Israel will do all it can in order to release these prisoners, and some of them will or maybe all of them will be released, but by force.

COOPER: That’s the only way.

IGRA: The only way to release prisoners in this kind of situation is force.

Meanwhile, the only time viewers of MSNBC‘s popular primetime show The Beat heard about the possibility of a ceasefire was when guest Elise Labott of Politico told host Ari Melber (10/12/23) that, for Israel, “this is not a ceasefire situation.” Melber responded:

If you said to someone in the United States, if ISIS or Al Qaeda or even a criminal group came into their home and murdered children or kidnapped children or burned babies, the next day you don’t typically hear rational individuals discuss a ceasefire or moving on. You discuss resorting to the criminal justice system or the war machine to respond.

Melber’s eagerness to lean on the “war machine” left his argument a muddle. Obviously, those calling for a ceasefire are not suggesting simply “moving on”—in fact, a “criminal justice system” response is more than compatible with a ceasefire, as you don’t try to bomb someone that you’re seeking to put on trial.

Netanyahu has been trying with limited success to equate Hamas with ISIS for many years now (Times of Israel, 8/27/14), and the Israeli government continues to try to paint Hamas’s tactics as so barbaric as to justify the mass killings by Israel. (See FAIR.org, 10/20/23.) But it’s passions, not reason, that allow individuals like Melber to gloss over the deaths of thousands of civilians—a child every 15 minutes, according to one widely circulated estimate—in their thirst for revenge.

With Israeli bombing intensifying and a ground invasion appearing imminent, US television news outlets’ refusal to give more than minimal airtime to the widespread calls for a ceasefire fails to reflect either US or global public opinion, and fuels the warmongering march to follow one horror with another.

Using U.S. WW2 War Crimes To Justify Current War Crimes BackFires!

Zionist think tank publishes blueprint for Palestinian genocide

In a white paper released over a week after the Hamas-led surprise attack on Israeli military bases and kibbutzes, The Institute for National Security and Zionist Strategy outlined “a plan for resettlement and final rehabilitation in Egypt of the entire population of Gaza,” based on the “unique and rare opportunity to evacuate the entire Gaza Strip” that Israel’s latest assault on the besieged costal enclave provided.

Published in Hebrew on the organization’s website, the paper was authored by Amir Weitman, “an investment manager and visiting researcher” at the Institute who also leads the libertarian caucus of Israel’s ruling Likud Party. The document began by noting that there are 10 million vacant housing units in neighboring Egypt that could be “immediately” filled with Palestinians. Weitman then assured readers that the “sustainable plan…aligns well with the economic and geopolitical interests of the State of Israel, Egypt, the USA and Saudi Arabia.”

Weitman’s ethnic cleansing proposal echoes forced transfer plans advanced in recent days by former Israeli officials while capitalizing on evacuation orders delivered to the entire civilian population of northern Gaza by the Israeli military.

Weitman’s sinister blueprint imagined Israel purchasing these properties at a cost of $5 – 8 billion dollars, a whopping price-tag that reflects just 1 – 1.5 percent of Israel’s GDP.

“These sums of money [required to cleanse Gaza] in relation to the Israeli economy, are minimal,” Weitman posits. “Investing individual billions of dollars to solve this difficult issue is an innovative, cheap and sustainable solution.”

Weitman acknowledged that his plan virtually amounts to Israel “buying the Gaza Strip,” arguing the move would be “a very worthwhile investment” for Zionists because it would “add a lot of value over time.” He asserted local “land conditions” in the area would provide “many” Israeli settlers a high standard of living, therefore allowing for an expansion of settlements in Gush Dan near the Egyptian border, giving “a tremendous impetus to settlement in the Negev.”

Turkey's Erdogan says cancelling plans to visit Israel over 'inhumane' war against Hamas

Finland recovers ship’s anchor close to damaged Baltic Sea pipeline

Finnish investigators have recovered a large ship’s anchor from near the spot where a Baltic Sea gas pipeline was extensively damaged and are seeking to establish whether it came from a Chinese container vessel.

Finland’s central criminal police (KRP) said on Tuesday that the anchor, weighing 6 tonnes and missing one of its prongs, had been lifted from the seabed using a navy crane. Deep drag marks were found on both sides of the fractured pipeline.

The country’s National Bureau of Investigation (NBI), which last week said inquiries were focused on the Hong Kong-flagged, Chinese-owned NewNew Polar Bear, told reporters in Helsinki on Tuesday that the container ship was missing a front anchor.

Efforts had been made to contact the vessel, whose movements closely coincided with the pipeline damage, but had so far proved unsuccessful, the NBI said, adding that the investigation was now focused on whether the damage was deliberate.

The NBI chief, Robin Lardot, said: “The next questions are about whether it was intentional, negligence, poor seamanship, and that’s where we get into whether there could be a motive for what’s going on. It’s too early to answer that at this stage.”

Juan González: U.S. "Economic Warfare" Targeting Venezuela, Cuba & Nicaragua Fuels Migrant Crisis

UAW expands strike against GM with walkout at Texas assembly plant

The United Auto Workers (UAW) union struck a General Motors assembly plant in Texas on Tuesday that builds the US automaker’s profitable full-size sport utility vehicles, in another significant expansion of the strike. The UAW said another 5,000 workers are going on strike, bringing the total number of UAW members on strike at the big three automakers to over 45,000, on day 40 of the strike.

The workers took the strike to Arlington Assembly, home to some of GM’s most profitable vehicles, the Chevy Tahoe, Chevy Suburban, GMC Yukon and Cadillac Escalade. With that, UAW has now shut down three of the most profitable auto factories in the world, including Ford’s Kentucky Truck heavy duty pickup factory and Chrysler-owner Stellantis’s Ram pickup plant in Sterling Heights, Michigan.

The union’s strategy of targeted strikes has throttled billions in revenue for the Detroit three while requiring fewer than half the 150,000 UAW members at the companies to forgo pay and walk picket lines.

GM earlier on Tuesday reported a stronger-than-expected third-quarter profit but withdrew its full-year financial forecast due to the uncertainty of the strike.

“Another record quarter, another record year. As we’ve said for months: record profits equal record contracts,” said UAW’s president, Shawn Fain. “It’s time GM workers, and the whole working class, get their fair share.” He on Friday indicated that a settlement could be near but that negotiations could get tougher, calling talks before a deal “the hardest part of a strike”.

Georgia supreme court upholds state’s six-week abortion ban

Abortions after roughly six weeks of pregnancy will remain illegal in Georgia, the state’s supreme court ruled on Tuesday. The ruling will allow the state’s six-week ban, which was first passed in 2019 and took effect after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade last year, to stay in place while litigation over the ban continues.

In their challenge to a six-week ban, known as the Living Infants Fairness and Equality (Life) Act, a group of abortion rights supporters had argued that it should be struck down because it ignored the fact that, in 2019, the US still recognized the constitutional right to abortion. A lower court in Georgia agreed with that argument, but the Georgia supreme court discarded it.

While the US supreme court’s interpretation of the constitution has changed, the constitution itself has not, the justices found. And, according to Dobbs v Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the case that overturned Roe, the US constitution never contained a right to abortion.

Thus, the Georgia supreme court reasoned, the Georgia law complied with the US constitution when it was first enacted – even if Roe was technically the law of the land at the time.

“The trial court erred in relying on overruled decisions of the United States supreme court to conclude that portions of the Life Act violated the United States constitution when enacted in 2019,” reads the court’s majority opinion, which was written by Justice Verda M Colvin. “Because Dobbs is controlling precedent on whether the United States constitution confers a right to abortion, and because the parties and the trial court do not dispute that the Life Act complies with Dobbs, it follows that the Life Act did not violate the United States constitution when enacted in 2019.”

House still without speaker as Republicans fail yet again to unify

After three weeks of the House having no speaker and mere hours after Tom Emmer of Minnesota won the nomination, the House still did not have a speaker on Tuesday when Emmer dropped out after just hours. Again, Republicans have failed to unify after the historic removal of Kevin McCarthy.

Ahead of the Tuesday vote, seven House Republicans had launched speakership bids: Emmer, Jack Bergman of Michigan, Byron Donalds of Florida, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mike Johnson of Louisiana, Austin Scott of Georgia and Pete Sessions of Texas. Two other declared candidates, Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania and Gary Palmer of Alabama, announced before the Tuesday vote that they would withdraw from the race.

Sessions, Bergman, Scott and Hern were eliminated after the first four ballots, while Donalds dropped out following the fourth round of voting. On the fifth and final ballot, Emmer and Johnson were the only two candidates, and Emmer pulled off the win, becoming the conference’s third speaker nominee in three weeks.

The final vote was 117 to 97, underscoring the significant challenge that Emmer faced in attempting to unify his deeply divided conference. An internal roll call vote taken after Emmer won the nomination indicated that more than 20 Republicans intended to oppose him on the floor, members told reporters. Although Emmer tried to allay those members’ concerns, he was unable to sway enough of his detractors to advance to a floor vote. ...

Emmer’s nomination came four days after Jim Jordan of Ohio abandoned his speakership bid due to entrenched opposition among more moderate Republicans. The House has now been without a speaker for three weeks, since McCarthy’s ouster earlier this month. Because of Republicans’ razor-thin majority in the House, any speaker candidate can only afford four defections within the party and still secure the 217 votes needed to win the gavel.

Earth’s ‘vital signs’ worse than at any time in human history, scientists warn

Earth’s “vital signs” are worse than at any time in human history, an international team of scientists has warned, meaning life on the planet is in peril. Their report found that 20 of the 35 planetary vital signs they use to track the climate crisis are at record extremes. As well as greenhouse gas emissions, global temperature and sea level rise, the indicators also include human and livestock population numbers.

Many climate records were broken by enormous margins in 2023, including global air temperature, ocean temperature and Antarctic sea ice extent, the researchers said. The highest monthly surface temperature ever recorded was in July and was probably the hottest the planet has been in 100,000 years.

The scientists also highlighted an extraordinary wildfire season in Canada that produced unprecedented carbon dioxide emissions. These totalled 1bn tonnes of CO2, equivalent to the entire annual output of Japan, the world’s fifth biggest polluter. They said the huge area burned could indicate a tipping point into a new fire regime.

The researchers urged a transition to a global economy that prioritised human wellbeing and cut the overconsumption and excessive emissions of the rich. The top 10% of emitters were responsible for almost 50% of global emissions in 2019, they said. ...

The analysis, published in the journal Bioscience, is an update of a 2019 report that has been endorsed by 15,000 scientists.

EU must cut carbon emissions three times faster to meet targets

The EU must cut greenhouse gas pollution almost three times more quickly than it has over the past decade to meet its climate targets, a European Commission report has said. In an attempt to stop weather growing more extreme, the EU has promised to pump 55% less planet-heating gas into the air in 2030 than it did in 1990. But over the past three decades it has cut emissions by just 32%, leaving behind “significant gaps” for the next seven years, the commission found in its latest State of the Energy Union report.

Current policies will cut emissions in 2030 by just 43%, according to new estimates from the European Environment Agency project. The figure rises to 48% if they include policies that have been planned but not yet put in place, but still leave a deficit in climate action of seven percentage points. “To fully achieve these targets, the pace of emissions reductions needs to step up,” said Wopke Hoekstra, the EU’s new climate commissioner.

The commission report praised efforts to quickly ditch gas from Russia in the wake of its war in Ukraine, which rapidly pushed up energy prices. The EU slashed imports of Russian gas from 155bn cubic metres in 2021 to 80bn cubic metres in 2022 and to an estimated 40-45bn cubic metres in 2023.

The EU also oversaw a boom in clean technologies such as wind turbines and solar panels, the report found, but the commission cautioned that renewable energy needed to grow much faster than it had over the past decade. On average, the share of renewables in European energy has grown 0.67 percentage points each year to hit 21.8% in 2021. Reaching the EU target of 42.5% by the end of the decade “will require a much faster growth in the coming years”, the report found.

Emissions are falling steadily but three things stand out, said Hoekstra. “One, significant emissions cuts are needed in buildings and transport. Progress in these sectors has been sluggish at best. Two, the natural carbon sink needs to grow. In certain places the carbon sink has become a source of emissions, and that is worrying. And three, we need much more substantial progress in cutting emissions in agriculture.”

Also of Interest

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

Refusal to Back Cease-Fire Is an Endorsement of Israel's Genocidal Attack on Gaza

NEVER AGAIN (The Sequel)

Israeli think tank lays out a blueprint for the complete ethnic cleansing of Gaza

If Israel Stops Murdering Thousands Of Children, The Bad Guys Might Win

Developing World Sees Double Standard in West’s Actions in Gaza and Ukraine

The Humanitarian Case for Another Arab Oil Embargo

UK Labour’s crisis deepens as Starmer’s lame denial that he endorsed Israeli war crimes flops

Are the Walls Finally Closing In on Ursula von der Leyen?

The Dow Went Negative for the Year on Friday. One-Third of the Dow Is Down by Double-Digits

Scientists discover hidden landscape ‘frozen in time’ under Antarctic ice

Biden Admin PROMISES More Gaza Civilian Casualties 'It Is Ugly'

300+ Bernie Staffers DEMAND Call For Ceasefire

Bernie ALL IN For War On Gaza!

Israel Or Gaza?! NYT, WSJ Issue CONFLICTING Accounts Of Who Launched Hospital Strike

Ben Shapiro CALLS OUT Tucker Carlson, Accuses Conservatives of Siding WITH THE LEFT On Gaza

FREE SPEECH Violation?! SCOTUS To Decide GOV'T's Social Media Meddling Against 1A

Extreme FOX Rhetoric Pushes for Annihilation of Gaza

DERANGED: Neocon Senator Demands US Bomb Iran

Takedown Of BOTH Major Parties w/ Mischa Paullin

A Little Night Music

Katie Webster w/ the Songettes - I Feel So Low

Katie Webster - Hoo Wee, Sweet Daddy

BB King & Katie Webster - Since I Met You Baby

Katie Webster - Two-Fisted Mama

Katie Webster - A Little Meat On The Side

Katie Webster - Came Home This Morning

Katie Webster & Ashton Conroy - Baby, Baby

Katie Webster with Gatemouth Brown - Everyday I Have The Blues, Jelly Jelly

Katie Webster - Pussycat Moan

Katie Webster - I Ain't Looking for Trouble

Katie Webster - C.Q. Boogie