The Evening Blues - 11-21-23



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Sam Cooke

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features The King of Soul, Sam Cooke. Enjoy!

Sam Cooke - A change is gonna come

“The international community warns of a humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and of severe epidemics. We must not shy away from it, as hard as it is. After all, severe epidemics in the south of the Strip will hasten victory”

-- Israeli General Giora Eiland


News and Opinion

Chris Hedges: Israel’s War on Hospitals

Israel is not attacking hospitals in Gaza because they are “Hamas command centers.” Israel is systematically and deliberately destroying Gaza’s medical infrastructure as part of a scorched earth campaign to make Gaza uninhabitable and escalate a humanitarian crisis. It intends to force 2.3 million Palestinians over the border into Egypt where they will never return. Israel has destroyed and nearly emptied the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. The Indonesian Hospital in Beit Lahia is next. Israel is deploying tanks and armored personnel carriers around the hospital and has fired rounds into the building, killing twelve people.

The playbook is familiar. Flyers are dropped by Israel over a hospital telling people to leave because the hospital is a base for “Hamas terrorist activities.” Tanks and artillery shells rip away parts of the hospital walls. Ambulances are blown up by Israeli missiles. Power and water is cut. Medical supplies are blocked. There are no painkillers, antibiotics and oxygen. The most vulnerable, premature babies in incubators and the gravely ill, die. Israeli soldiers raid the hospital and force everyone out at gunpoint. This is what happened at Al Shifa hospital. This is what happened at Al Rantisi Children’s Hospital. This is what happened at Gaza’s main psychiatric hospital. This is what happened at Nasser Hospital. This is what happened at the other hospitals that Israel has destroyed. And this is what will happen at the few hospitals that remain.

Israel has shut down 21 of Gaza’s 35 hospitals, including Gaza’s only cancer hospital. The hospitals still operating have severe shortages of basic medicine and supplies. One by one the hospitals are being picked off. Soon there will be no health facilities left. This is by design. Tens of thousands of terrified Palestinians, forced to evacuate by Israel, their homes blasted into rubble, seek refuge from the relentless bombing by camping out in and around Gaza’s hospitals. They hope the medical centers will not be targeted by Israel. If Israel abided by the Geneva Conventions they would be correct. But Israel is not carrying out a war. It is carrying out a genocide. And in a genocide, a population, and all that sustains a population, is obliterated.

In an ominous sign that Israel will turn on the Palestinians in the West Bank once it is done flattening Gaza, armored vehicles have surrounded at least four West Bank hospitals. The Ibn Sina Hospital has been raided by Israeli soldiers along with the East Jerusalem Hospital.

Israel’s settler colonial state was founded on lies. It is sustained by lies. And now, when it is grimly determined to carry out the worst slaughter and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians since the 1948 Nakba, or “catastrophe,” that saw 750,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed and some 50 massacres by Jewish militias, it spits out one grotesque absurdity after another. It speaks of Palestinians as a dehumanized mass. There are no mothers, fathers, children, teachers, doctors, lawyers, cooks, poets, taxi drivers or shopkeepers. Palestinians, in the Israeli lexicon, are a single contagion that must be eradicated.

Watch this video of Israeli school children singing, “We Will Annihilate Everyone” in Gaza.

Hitler Youth used to sing songs like this about Jews.

Israel, with the backing of the Biden administration, will continue to snuff out all systems that sustain life in Gaza. Hospitals. Schools. Power plants. Water treatment facilities. Factories. Farms. Apartment blocks. Houses. Then Israel will pretend, like the killers in past genocides, it never happened. The lies used by Israel to absolve itself of responsibility will eat away at Israeli society. They will corrode its moral, religious, civic, intellectual and political life. The lies will elevate war criminals to heroic status and demonize those with a conscience. ... It will deform itself. It will celebrate its crimes. It will turn evil into good. It will exist within a self-constructed myth. The truth, as in all despotisms, will be banished. Israel, a monster to the Palestinians, will be a monster to itself.

Ray McGovern (fmr CIA): From Cold War to Cyber War: The Evolving Role of CIA Spying

Alastair Crooke: Evaluating Israel's Moral Justifications

IDF closes in on Indonesian hospital in Gaza as 12 people reportedly killed

A dozen people reportedly have been killed at another major medical facility in northern Gaza as Israeli forces close in on the packed Indonesian hospital despite hopes that a ceasefire-for-hostages deal may be agreed. Video broadcast on Al Jazeera TV on Monday showed damage to what were described as patient facilities, while daytime footage on social media appeared to show Israeli tanks close to the medical complex.

One medical worker, Marwan Abdallah, said the tanks were clearly visible from the hospital windows. “Women and children are terrified. There are constant sounds of explosions and gunfire,” he said. The ministry of health in Gaza said it believed 12 people had been killed in shelling overnight and that it feared a repeat of what happened at al-Shifa hospital complex, which was surrounded and raided by Israeli forces last week.

The ministry of health said 700 people, including medical staff, were crowded into the Indonesian hospital, the last hospital operating in northern Gaza. Broadcast footage showed wounded people and sheltering civilians packed into its corridors, seeking treatment or safety from the fighting.

Efforts were being made to coordinate a rescue of patients with the Red Cross, the health ministry said, although it said it had received no commitments from Israel about allowing safe passage. Only 10 out of Gaza’s 36 hospitals remain open, the World Health Organization said on Monday. The Indonesian hospital was coming under “extreme pressure”, the WHO executive director Michael Ryan said. ...

Separately, the medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said a clinic it operated in Gaza City came under attack on Monday morning. Part of the building was engulfed in flames, it said, and four marked MSF cars were burned while a fifth was found crushed by a heavy vehicle or a tank. The charity said it was not immediately aware of the status of one member of staff and 20 family members.

HOSTAGE DEAL IMMINENT: Ceasefire Reportedly Coming As Israel & Hamas Near SWAP Agreement

Hostages’ families clash with Israeli politicians over talk of death penalty

Families of Israeli hostages held by Hamas have clashed with far-right Israeli politicians who want to bring in the death penalty as a possible sentence for captured Palestinian militants.

The families said on Monday that even talk of doing so might endanger the lives of their relatives. The row underlines the deep divisions in Israel over how to deal with the hostage crisis.

Reports have suggested that Israel and Hamas are edging towards a deal that would bring the release of a significant number of the more than 240 people seized by the extremist Islamist organisation during their attack in Israel last month, possibly in return for a limited ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails. ...

When confronted by relatives of the hostages opposing such a change, far-right politicians shouted that they did not have “a monopoly of pain” in comments that appalled many Israelis.

As many as 300 Hamas militants are being held by Israel, military officials have said. Some were involved in the bloody attacks last month, which killed 1,200 people, mostly civilians in their homes or at a dance party.

A Grim Milestone: Journalist Death Toll Tops 53 as Israel Kills More Reporters in Gaza and Lebanon

Merkley Just Second US Senator to Demand Gaza Cease-Fire

U.S. Sen. Jeff Merkley on Monday became just the second member of the Senate to demand a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip, over six weeks into Israel's brutal bombardment and ground operations that have killed over 13,000 Palestinians, including 5,500 children.

The Oregon Democrat's move, which he explained in a lengthy post on Medium, follows a cease-fire call from Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), the number two Senate Democrat, earlier this month, and demands from a couple dozen Democratic House members. ...

"The whole world was with Israel," Merkley wrote, noting U.S. President Joe Biden's trip to meet with Netanyahu—which was followed by a request that Congress give Israel $14.3 billion in military aid, on top of the $3.8 billion that the country already gets each year. "I and others defended Israel’s right to respond with a campaign targeted at destroying Hamas."

"But the way that Israel has conducted that campaign matters and has been deeply disturbing for me and millions of others," the senator asserted, pointing to civilians in Gaza facing "the immediate possibility of starvation," hospitals operating without basic medical supplies, a lack of clean water that could spread diseases, and Israel's refusal to boost the flow of humanitarian aid.

Merkley also highlighted that "Israel has unleashed a bombing campaign on Gaza of phenomenal ferocity. Israel defends this campaign as necessary to strike Hamas wherever necessary. But the impression the world has been left with is one of indiscriminate bombing. Airstrikes have leveled much of Gaza City and hit crowded refugee camps, schools, hospitals, and even shelters operated by the United Nations."

"The result is mass carnage," he declared. "Too many civilians and too many children have died, and we must value each and every child equally whether they are Israeli or Palestinian. The war will damage Israel's economy with so many workers called to military duty. It also risks undoing the relationships with Arab neighbors won through the Abraham Accords, puts the negotiations for normalization with Saudi Arabia on ice, and could trigger a regional conflict with Hezbollah and other powers."

The senator previously called for humanitarian pauses, the position also held by the White House and various other senators. He wrote Monday that "after grimly witnessing accelerating body counts, many Americans, including thousands of Oregonians, have raised their voices to say more must be done to stop the carnage. I agree. So today I am calling for a cease-fire."

"The cease-fire requires an immediate cessation of military hostilities by both sides. But the cease-fire and the negotiations that follow must accomplish a number of objectives or it will not endure," he stressed. "Most importantly, the Israeli people and the Palestinian people must find leaders determined to partner with each other and the world to replace the cycle of hate and violence with both a long-term vision for security, peace and prosperity featuring two states for two peoples, and immediate, concrete steps toward that goal."

While individuals and groups who have spent weeks demanding a cease-fire—including with massive demonstrations around the world—celebrated Merkley's shift as proof that the pressure is working, he is still just the second of 100 senators.

"At this rate there won't be any Palestinians left in Gaza before enough U.S. senators screw up the courage to do the right thing and demand a cease-fire, and this after collectively embracing colonial Zionism and calling for its incessant support," University of California, Berkeley history professor Ussama Makdisi said on social media.

Hezbollah DESTROYS Israeli Military Base

Yemen’s Houthi rebels seize cargo ship in Red Sea and call Israeli vessels ‘legitimate targets’

Yemen’s Houthi rebels said they have seized what they called an Israeli cargo ship in the Red Sea, and warned that all vessels linked to Israel “will become a legitimate target for armed forces”. Houthi forces would “continue to carry out military operations against the Israeli enemy until the aggression against Gaza stops and the ugly crimes … against our Palestinian brothers in Gaza and the West Bank stop”, said a spokesperson for the group, Yahya Sare’e, in a statement on X.

On Monday the rebels released a video purporting to show Sunday’s seizure. The footage showed masked armed men jumping on to the ship from a helicopter while the vessel was still moving, and holding crew members at gunpoint. Palestinian and Yemeni flags were raised onboard. It was not immediately possible to verify the clip.

Israel said the vessel was a British-owned and Japanese-operated cargo ship and described the incident as an “Iranian act of terrorism” with consequences for international maritime security. ...

Japan’s top government spokesperson on Monday confirmed the capture of the Nippon Yusen-operated Galaxy Leader, adding that Japan was appealing to the Houthis while seeking the help of Saudi, Omani and Iranian authorities to work towards the swift release of the vessel and its crew. ...

The maritime security company Ambrey said the vessel’s group owner “is listed as Ray Car Carriers”, whose parent company belongs to Abraham “Rami” Ungar, an Israeli businessperson. Ray Car Carriers and its parent company, Ray Shipping, could not be immediately reached for comment outside business hours.

Palestinian Poet Mosab Abu Toha Freed After Being Abducted in Gaza & Beaten by Israeli Forces

Israeli troops detained and reportedly beat the acclaimed Palestinian poet and author Mosab Abu Toha after he was stopped at an Israeli military checkpoint Sunday while heading toward the Rafah border crossing with his family in Gaza. His whereabouts had been unknown until today, when news emerged that he had been released. According to the Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu, Abu Toha was taken to an Israeli prison in the Naqab, where he was interrogated and beaten along with more than 200 other Palestinians who remain in detention.

Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha arrested by Israelis in Gaza

A celebrated Palestinian poet and author, Mosab Abu Toha, has been arrested by Israeli forces while trying to leave Gaza, according to his friends and family.

Abu Toha had been told by US officials that he and his family would be able to cross into Egypt, as one of his children is an American citizen. They were on the way from north to south Gaza, heading for the Rafah crossing point on Sunday, when he was arrested along with other Palestinian men at an Israeli military checkpoint.

“The army took Mosab when he arrived at the checkpoint, leaving from the north to the south, as the army had ordered. The American embassy sent him and his family to go through the Rafah crossing,” the poet’s brother, Hamza, said on social media. “We have heard nothing from him.” ...

Abu Toha had been writing in the New Yorker magazine about his experiences under bombardment in Jabalia refugee camp in northern Gaza. A collection of his poetry published in English in the US was a finalist in the National Book Critics Circle award and won an American Book award this year.

“His whereabouts are now unknown,” the New Yorker reported on its website on Monday night, saying it joined other organisations in calling for his safe return.

The BBC Has Finally Turned Against Israel!

Rightwing group pressures states to pass pro-Israel resolutions

A powerful rightwing pressure group, the American Legislative Exchange Council (Alec), is engineering pledges of unconditional support for Israel’s attack on Gaza by state legislatures across the US.

Alec is promoting a model resolution expressing “support for Israel’s right to pursue without interference or condemnation the elimination of Hamas”. A version has been accepted by legislatures in at least eight states, including Pennsylvania, Nebraska and North Dakota.

The resolution adopts Israeli claims that Hamas uses “civilians as human shields” and names Iran as giving logistical support to the group. Some state legislatures have also denounced calls for a ceasefire in Israel’s assault on Gaza. ...

Although state legislatures have limited direct influence over Washington’s policy on Israel, Alec and allied groups have long been instrumental in mobilising political pressure by pushing local legislation and resolutions in support of the Jewish state. They include laws to block and punish support for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel’s oppression of the Palestinians.

Alec, which is corporate-funded but has deep ties to Christian evangelicals strongly supportive of Israel, pushed the model resolution to state legislatures after an emergency meeting two weeks ago. A copy of the agenda obtained by the Center for Media and Democracy shows that the presentation of the case for supporting Israel was made by Rabbi Aryeh Lightstone, who is close to the country’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Jeffrey Sachs ON RISING: Zelensky & MSM Are LYING About Nord Stream, Ukraine War

Albania opposition starts fire in parliament during anti-government protest

Albania’s opposition has set off smoke bombs and started a small fire in the middle of parliament in a failed attempt to stop the chamber from voting on the 2024 budget.

MPs involved in the protest on Monday piled chairs in the centre of the chamber and red, green and purple smoke filled the air as security kept protesters back from the seat of the prime minister, Edi Rama.

One MP appeared to light a small fire that was passed forward in a container before flames briefly spread and were doused by surrounding politicians.

The de facto leader of the opposition Democratic party, Sali Berisha, a former prime minister who was also Albania’s first post-communist president from 1992 until 1997, has accused the government of trying to silence the opposition in parliament, where Rama’s Socialist party has a majority.

“The battle has no way back,” Berisha told reporters after the disturbance in the chamber where the budget passed a first vote in a session that lasted less than five minutes. “Our goal is to bring pluralism to parliament.”

Secretive White House Surveillance Program Gives Cops Access to Trillions of US Phone Records

A little-known surveillance program tracks more than a trillion domestic phone records within the United States each year, according to a letter WIRED obtained that was sent by US senator Ron Wyden to the Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, challenging the program’s legality.

According to the letter, a surveillance program now known as Data Analytical Services (DAS) has for more than a decade allowed federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies to mine the details of Americans’ calls, analyzing the phone records of countless people who are not suspected of any crime, including victims. Using a technique known as chain analysis, the program targets not only those in direct phone contact with a criminal suspect but anyone with whom those individuals have been in contact as well.

The DAS program, formerly known as Hemisphere, is run in coordination with the telecom giant AT&T, which captures and conducts analysis of US call records for law enforcement agencies, from local police and sheriffs’ departments to US customs offices and postal inspectors across the country, according to a White House memo reviewed by WIRED. Records show that the White House has, for the past decade, provided more than $6 million to the program, which allows the targeting of the records of any calls that use AT&T’s infrastructure—a maze of routers and switches that crisscross the United States.

In a letter to US attorney general Merrick Garland on Sunday, Wyden wrote that he had “serious concerns about the legality” of the DAS program, adding that “troubling information” he’d received “would justifiably outrage many Americans and other members of Congress.” That information, which Wyden says the DOJ confidentially provided to him, is considered “sensitive but unclassified” by the US government, meaning that while it poses no risk to national security, federal officials, like Wyden, are forbidden from disclosing it to the public, according to the senator’s letter.

AT&T spokesperson Kim Hart Jonson declined WIRED’s request to comment on the DAS program, saying only that the company is required by law to comply with a lawful subpoena. There is no law requiring AT&T to store decades’ worth of Americans’ call records for law enforcement purposes. Documents reviewed by WIRED show that AT&T officials have attended law enforcement conferences in Texas as recently as 2018 to train police officials on how best to utilize AT&T’s voluntary, albeit revenue-generating, assistance.

Supreme court rejects Chauvin’s appeal of George Floyd murder conviction

The US supreme court rejected on Monday a conviction appeal for the former Minneapolis police officer who murdered George Floyd.

The decision affirms Derek Chauvin’s conviction for second-degree murder and sentence of more than 20 years in prison.

In October, Chauvin’s legal defense requested the highest court in their nation take up their client’s case, arguing he was denied a fair trial in 2021 because of prejudice in the pretrial due to publicity.

They also argued juror misconduct, alleging that it was in the jurors’ best interest to find Chauvin guilty to avoid threats of violence from the public.

The supreme court did not provide comment on its decision to refuse Chauvin’s appeal.



the horse race



Court rules that only US government can sue to enforce Voting Rights Act

A federal appeals court shocked voting rights groups on Monday with a ruling that only the US government, not outside groups or citizens, could sue to enforce the Voting Rights Act’s provisions.

The civil rights law, which outlaws racial discrimination as it relates to voting, has typically been enforced by lawsuits from these groups, not by the government itself. Now that the Republican-appointed eighth circuit court of appeals has made the ruling by 2-1, this “private right of action” to enforce Section 2 of the law is called into question.

The ruling stemmed from a case brought by the Arkansas State Conference NAACP and Arkansas Public Policy Panel over new maps created during redistricting that the two groups allege diluted the voting power of Black voters in the state.

While courts at all levels have allowed private claims seeking to enforce the voting rights law for decades, this is an “assumption that rests of flimsy footing”, the opinion written by Judge David Stras, who was appointed by Donald Trump, said. The ruling dissected the law itself, finding it did not include specific language that allows anyone aside from the attorney general to bring enforcement action.

In a dissenting opinion, Chief Judge Lavenski Smith said that, though the courts may not have directly addressed the idea of private parties trying to enforce this law, it has repeatedly heard these cases, so it would follow that “existing precedent that permits citizens to seek a judicial remedy”.

Cardi B TRASHES Biden, Says Foreign Wars Are BANKRUPTING America

Cardi B drops support for Biden over military aid to Ukraine and Israel

Three years after supporting Joe Biden’s victorious 2020 campaign, the straight-talking rap superstar Cardi B has ditched her backing of the president after public service cuts in her home town of New York.

The Grammy winner, whose legal name is Belcalis Almánzar, said in an Instagram live stream she was done with Biden. Her tirade highlighted what she portrayed as contradiction between US domestic and foreign policies, saying the White House was helping Ukraine fight Russia and Israel fight Hamas while the New York City mayor, Eric Adams, announced a 5% municipal budget cut last week. ... Adams warned last week that more cuts would be necessary without additional funding from Washington to manage New York’s increase of migrants. ...

Cardi B, who memorably helped promote Biden’s candidacy as he successfully ran for the White House in 2020, vowed that she would no longer endorse political candidates in the future. “I’m endorsing no presidents no more,” Cardi B warned. “Joe Biden is talking about, ‘Yeah, we can fund two wars,’ … talking about, ‘Yeah, we got it, we’re the greatest nation.’ No … we’re not. We don’t got it, and we’re going through some shit right now. So say it!”

She added: “We are really, really, really fucked right now. No, we cannot fund these … wars.” Cardi B asked whether the US was going broke and then answered: “Yes, it is. We ain’t got McDonald’s money.” In a final rebuke to Biden’s economic and foreign policy management, she said: “Feed that … to somebody else, twinkle, but don’t feed it to me.” She then promised “to get to the bottom of it”.



the evening greens


World facing ‘hellish’ 3C of climate heating, UN warns before Cop28

The world is on track for a “hellish” 3C of global heating, the UN has warned before the crucial Cop28 climate summit that begins next week in the United Arab Emirates. The report found that today’s carbon-cutting policies are so inadequate that 3C of heating would be reached this century.

Temperature records have already been obliterated in 2023 and intensifying heatwaves, floods and droughts have taken lives and hit livelihoods across the globe, in response to a temperature rise of 1.4C to date. Scientists say far worse is to come if temperatures continue to rise. The secretary general of the UN, António Guterres, has said repeatedly the world is heading for a “hellish” future.

The UN Environment Programme (Unep) report said that implementing future policies already promised by countries would shave 0.1C off the 3C limit. Putting in place emissions cuts pledged by developing countries on condition of receiving financial and technical support would cut the temperature rise to 2.5C, still a catastrophic scenario.

To get on track for the internationally agreed target of 1.5C, 22bn tonnes of CO2 must be cut from the currently projected total in 2030, the report said. That is 42% of global emissions and equivalent to the output of the world’s five worst polluters: China, US, India, Russia and Japan.

Inger Andersen, the Unep executive director, said: “There is no person or economy left on the planet untouched by climate change, so we need to stop setting unwanted records on emissions, temperature and extreme weather. We must instead lift the needle out of the same old groove of insufficient action, and start setting other records: on cutting emissions and on climate finance.”

Guterres said: “Present trends are racing our planet down a dead-end 3C temperature rise. This is a failure of leadership, a betrayal of the vulnerable, and a massive missed opportunity. Renewables have never been cheaper or more accessible. We know it is still possible to make the 1.5 degree limit a reality. It requires tearing out the poisoned root of the climate crisis: fossil fuels.”

Biden's Key Climate Law Gives Big Oil a 'Massive Escape Hatch'

The 2022 law heralded as U.S. President Biden's key climate achievement may support an expansion of clean energy, but a new analysis out Monday demonstrates how the Inflation Reduction Act leaves the fossil fuel industry with vast opportunities to extract more oil and gas and continue boosting its record-breaking profits at the expense of frontline communities.

The report, said Oil Change International (OCI) as it released the new findings, proves that the Biden administration can't rely on the IRA to demonstrate its commitment to the emissions reduction that scientists agree is needed to mitigate the climate crisis.

Titled Biden's Fossil Fuel Fail: How U.S. Oil and Gas Supply Rises Under the Inflation Reduction Act, Exacerbating Environmental Injustice and released 10 days before the 28th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP28), the analysis uses previously unpublished data from climate modeling by the Rhodium Group, an environmental think tank.

"The model projects that despite the IRA's investment in renewable energy, electric vehicles, and batteries, the United States could still miss its Paris Agreement goal of reducing U.S. emissions by 50 to 52% below 2005 levels by 2030," reads the report, noting that as the world's largest historical emitter of fossil fuel emissions, the U.S. has a responsibility to "cut its emissions faster than the global average."

The group's model projects that domestic fossil gas demand in the U.S. will decline by 16% by 2035, yet production is expected to rise by 7%. Petroleum demand is expected to decline by 20%, yet production will rise by 13%.

"The gap between production and demand is filled by surging exports," explained OCI. "Gas exports are projected to double by 2035, while oil and petroleum product exports rise 23%."

Wind and solar power are expected to replace gas domestically, added the organization, but the positive effects of the decline in gas demand in the U.S. are "tempered by an increase in gas consumption within the oil and gas industry itself."

The "energy-hungry" liquefied natural gas (LNG) export sector will essentially cancel out progress made by surging wind and solar power in the U.S., said OCI, with gas consumption by LNG export plants growing 140% by 2035.

"The Biden administration touts the Inflation Reduction Act as a centerpiece of its achievements on climate," said Collin Rees, U.S. campaign manager for OCI. "In reality, the bill leaves a massive escape hatch for the fossil fuel industry to continue business as usual."

Rhodium's modeling projects that the U.S. will miss its targeted emissions reduction for 2030 by 16-18 percentage points if the Biden administration relies on the IRA and its investments in technological fixes like carbon capture and storage and fossil hydrogen production while allowing continued investments in oil and gas exports.

"While the IRA was touted as the 'largest investment in climate and energy in American history,' it could turn out to be a failure if Biden doesn't also take bold action on fossil fuels," said OCI in a statement. "As the world gathers for COP28, Biden still has a chance to be the climate leader he claims he is by making a commitment to phasing out fossil fuels."


Also of Interest

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

Award-winning novelist Arundhati Roy denounces “brazen slaughter” and “crimes against humanity” in Gaza

Love Gaza

The Logic Of Ethnic Cleansing And Genocide

Ann Boyer’s Powerful New York Times Resignation Letter

Ukraine End Game: Putin and Medvedev Discuss Maps, Putting Kiev on the Menu

A Look At Others' Notes On Ukraine

Revealed: the huge climate impact of the middle classes

Wallace and Gromit studio Aardman Animations running out of clay

Becca Balint, First Jewish Congressmember to Back Ceasefire, Expresses Support for Rashida Tlaib

Media Matters Dems Want to DESTROY Musk's Twitter & END Free Speech Online: Michael Shellenberger

Collective west has no plan, talks about Russia containment


A Little Night Music

Sam Cooke - Twistin' the Night Away

Sam Cooke - Chain Gang

Sam Cooke - Cupid

Sam Cooke - You Send Me

Sam Cooke - Having A Party

Sam Cooke - Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen

Sam Cooke - Trouble Blues

Sam Cooke - Wonderful World

Sam Cooke - Nothing Can Change This Love

Sam Cooke - Bring It On Home To Me


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JekyllnHyde's picture

Hope all of you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and have the chance to catch up with family members.

Thanks, JtC, joe s, and all other contributors who keep this place going.

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14 users have voted.

A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma

enhydra lutris's picture

@JekyllnHyde

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11 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@JekyllnHyde

great to see you! i hope that all is well with you and yours, happy thanksgiving!

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10 users have voted.
QMS's picture

your sam cooke or my turkey stock

thanks for the tunage!

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11 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

that must be some darned good turkey stock! have a good one!

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6 users have voted.
QMS's picture

@joe shikspack

just boiling down parts and pieces
to feed the cornbread and gravy dishes
one of the good things about spatchcock
is you get a free spine to work with
unlike most politicians we know
Wink

up
6 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

perhaps people could send those spines to washington. Smile

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2 users have voted.
QMS's picture

@joe shikspack

what this world really needs
I'm all in for raining backbones
on the turkeys
c.o.d.

up
5 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

snoopydawg's picture

.

The right to violent resistance and a false Western morality

If I had lived under a siege all my life in a tiny open air prison camp – if I had no hope for the future – I too might be tempted to violently resist a brutal, unrelenting and illegal occupation, which is my right under international law.

In recent decades citizens of liberal democracies have frequently supported politically-motivated violence undertaken by the state, when it is politely referred to as “war” or “conflict” instead of the more accurate description: “state terrorism”.

Traditionally states are said to have a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence, but this a norm of international society, not international law nor a justifiable pretext for aggression.
…..

If I had lived under a siege all my life in a tiny open air prison camp (David Cameron) which I cannot leave, periodically bombed by people who say they are just “mowing the lawn”, had no prospects for employment, had barely enough food to eat and safe water to drink, and only rubble for a home – in other words if I had no hope for the future – I too might be tempted to violently resist a brutal and illegal occupation, which is my right under international law.
…..
Returning to the key question which confronts us: when is the use of violence for political objectives considered legitimate, at least in the Western world?

Forget consistency, principle, the norms of international society, international law or morality. Ultimately support for, or opposition to politically-motivated violence has little to do with repugnance in the face of cruelty and bloodshed. After all, across the world much of the worst violence is initiated and sponsored by the West.

I see many people saying that the Palestinians voted for Hamas so that means they deserve what they are getting. The almost 7,000 kids who have been murdered didn’t vote for it because they weren’t alive then. I just can’t believe how many people see nothing wrong with what Israel is doing. They are also ignoring 75 years of history of Israel ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

Jonathan Cook’s latest.

Israel and its allies are repurposing the goals and lies of 1948 – in Gaza in 2023

History is repeating itself – and every politician and establishment journalist is pretending they cannot see what is staring them in the face. There is a collective and wilful refusal to join the dots in Gaza, even when they point in one direction only.

There has been a consistent pattern to Israel’s behaviour since its creation 75 years ago – just as there has been a consistent pattern to the “see no evil, hear no evil” response of western powers.

In 1948, in events the Palestinians call their “Nakba”, or Catastrophe, 80 percent of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed from their lands in what became the self-declared Jewish state of Israel.

As Palestinians maintained at the time – and Israeli historians later confirmed from archival documents – Israel’s leaders lied when they said Palestinians had fled of their own volition, on the orders of neighbouring Arab states.

As the historians also discovered, Israeli leaders lied when they claimed that they had pleaded, first, with the 900,000 Palestinians inside the new state’s borders to stay and, later, with the 750,000 forced into exile to return home.

Rather, the archives showed that the new Israeli state’s soldiers had carried out terrible massacres to drive out the Palestinian population. The overall ethnic cleansing operation had a name, Plan Dalet.

Hedges once again hit it out of the park. The attacks on hospitals should have the world screaming in outrage and yet I’m not hearing anything from world leaders. The first attack on the refugee camp let alone the 2 after should have also. And the attacks on the infrastructure that will probably never be repaired. Gawd who would have thought that we would witness a real time mass murdering genocide and no one tried to stop it? I’m voting for the giant meteor because humans have shown that they are not redeemable. Not all, but more than not.

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13 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

QMS's picture

@snoopydawg

if for the people of the world to stand up to blatant misuse of power
the "elected" politicos won't do it, as they are bought
the global corporate oligarchs won't do it,
cause they make money on these injustices

It comes down to we the people to fight back
demand accountability and force change

but you already know this is how it must be

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10 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

thanks for the articles!

I see many people saying that the Palestinians voted for Hamas so that means they deserve what they are getting.

i think that's just a function of their own sense of impunity. after all, americans voted for some regimes that did some pretty awful things in other nations who might one day respond in kind. i'm sure that these people would suddenly find a reasons aplenty why voting for a regime doesn't make you complicit in whatever it decides to do after taking power if they bore some risk of reprisal for it.

Gawd who would have thought that we would witness a real time mass murdering genocide and no one tried to stop it?

millions of people around the world have made clear that they want the genocide to stop. sadly, that hasn't been enough.

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11 users have voted.

the problem. Netenyahoo and his extremist right wing cabinet are still in power.

https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/22/middleeast/israel-approves-hamas-hostage-...

Israel’s cabinet has approved a deal that would see the release of at least 50 hostages – women and children – from Gaza, according to an Israeli government statement, in what is expected to result in the first sustained pause in fighting and major de-escalatory step since Israel’s war with Hamas began.

The freeing of the hostages will come in exchange for a four-day truce in Israel’s air and ground campaign in Gaza, the statement said. It made no mention of the release of Palestinian prisoners held in Israeli jails, though it is understood this is also a key part of the deal. Earlier reports suggested about 150 Palestinian prisoners, also predominantly women and children, would be released.

The deal was approved by the Israeli cabinet by a significant majority, a government source told CNN.

The statement held out the potential for the truce to extend beyond the original four-day period, saying that an extra day would be added to the truce for each ten additional hostages available for release.

The statement held out the potential for the truce to extend beyond the original four-day period, saying that an extra day would be added to the truce for each ten additional hostages available for release.

It also made clear that Israel plans to resume its air and ground campaign “to complete the eradication of Hamas” once this round of hostage releases concludes.

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9 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

it will be interesting to see what happens over the days of the temporary truce, whether aid manages to get in and temporary field hospitals can get set up and the like.

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11 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

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7 users have voted.

"The expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States." - Tim Walz

snoopydawg's picture

@Cassiodorus

on Cardi B in this edition of the news and blues?

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5 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

Cassiodorus's picture

@snoopydawg

Thanks for the heads up about news and blues.

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4 users have voted.

"The expansion of Israel and its proxies is an absolute fundamental necessity for the United States." - Tim Walz

QMS's picture

@Cassiodorus

kinda wondered about that
like who the hell is this?

anyway, like your new little image thingy

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7 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

enhydra lutris's picture

Hezbollah seemingly has had enough, so what happens now? Is Israel going to roll into Lebanon the way they did Gaza? That would maybe be more than they can comfortably take on.

And our bases. Out there with no clear goals and no clear enemies, but our generals whine instead of just demanding that we simply get the hell out of foreign countries where we aren't wanted. Realistically, we are such an almost obligatory warfare state that the people can't do a damn thing to stop this, only the military can.

be well and have a good one

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9 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

snoopydawg's picture

@enhydra lutris

that they were never invited in to so we can’t say that we’re attacking them in self defense. An occupying force has no right to self defense. Humphrey posted a UN representative saying that yesterday. But since we only follow the rules based orders that we make up….

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9 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

enhydra lutris's picture

@snoopydawg

Iraq and Syria have told us to leave their countries
that they were never invited in to so we can’t say that we’re attacking them in self defense.

Syria, for sure, we are invaders and occupiers, and the Syrians have a perpetual right to resist our incursion an occupation in any way they see fir.

Iraq is a bit trickier. They told us to get out, but they later asked for our help with ISIS, or so we say. The question is whether we can just sit out there in our bases and not be occupiers, if we are claiming to be there to fight ISIS, then we need to be either fighting or pursuing them 24-7, IMHO, to use that for an excuse. Everybody knows that we really don't give a shit about ISIS.

The UN dude was just racapitulating the obvious. When everybody has a right to attack your ass because you are an aggressor, clearly you cannot have some effsetting right to self-defense.

be well and have a good one

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8 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

QMS's picture

@enhydra lutris

here in the good ol' US of A
did we get permission to claim
all of the lands of the indigent nations?
Manhattan for some beads and trinkets
such a deal
think that Israel is operating under the same
false sense of *rights*
we are more powerful and shrewd
therefore we take whatever we want

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8 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

i guess we'll see what happens with hizbullah. i can't imagine that israel will let what happened the other day pass without a response. i guess it's a matter of whether they respond proportionately or whether they do what they usually do which is to go batshit crazy and massacre thousands of civilians.

our bases are stations to hold american troops hostage so that they can be harmed or killed and provide a rationale for military attacks on adversaries that the u.s. government wishes to liquidate. it's no wonder the u.s. military is having trouble signing up fresh meat to stuff in uniforms.

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10 users have voted.
snoopydawg's picture

@joe shikspack

our bases are stations to hold american troops hostage so that they can be harmed or killed and provide a rationale for military attacks on adversaries that the u.s. government wishes to liquidate. it's no wonder the u.s. military is having trouble signing up fresh meat to stuff in uniforms.

A detailed dive into the Israeli women who kept an eye on the border.

https://archive.is/6tX1g

The women talk about how they were ignored by their leaders on what they were seeing Hamas doing for months. They say that they are being harassed to go back to their positions even though they are traumatized by what happened that day. Some of this information has been posted here before, but this is much more detailed.

As we know Israel was warned 3 times about the upcoming attacks and they even discussed it, but it still happened leaving so many people thinking that they let it happen so Bibi could get his genocide on. After reading this I think that’s exactly what he did. He never seemed that interested in rescuing the hostages.

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8 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

joe shikspack's picture

@snoopydawg

you can never be too cynical. it's just an impossibility at least regarding governments, foreign policy and war.

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7 users have voted.
mimi's picture

those turkeys, but let them run them wild in the houses of all those turkey lovers and then ask those turkey lovers to clean up their shit they drop all over.

Please, you have to bring some good news, I am getting seriously depressed and angry.

Matter of fact, Turkey meat is the most boring, tasteless meat there is.

So there, I said it, I pooped over all the turkey lovers feelings.

I always hated to cook a turkey and am genuinely happy that I don't have to cook a turkey in my woods over here.

Just be happy, with or without turkeys.

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10 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

yeah, but when you stuff that turkey with a tasty stuffing and slather it with gravy, it doesn't taste so bad. Smile

have a great thanksgiving, even if the thing that you most give thanks for is that you aren't surrounded by turkey-eating americans.

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8 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@joe shikspack

you usually only find that in deli slices.

Turkey dark meat is pretty good too, and you can sometimes find a combo turkey breast/dark meat roast if you look long and hard enough.

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4 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

mimi's picture

@TheOtherMaven
as a tool to not go overboard with all my frustrations. Sorry. Here in my woods it is hard to find and buy a Turkey. I have to admit I did not miss them much.

So now my sincere Happy Thanksgiving wishes to all my friends over here at c99p.Pretty good best friends to have here. Thank You all for all your efforts to remain here through thick and thin. My advice: Do not hop in and out through the US and Europe. Stay put, where ever you are. Really.

Thanks to all of you, who write here and educate some pretty old ladies from over here in my woods.

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8 users have voted.
mimi's picture

@joe shikspack @joe shikspack
in Washington DC, who could show me how to stuff a Turkey and make a tasty gravy- I had to come to Germany first to make some American friends here in the US to think about some Turkey gravy

Ok, if you come to Germany, I will cook a Turkey. Promised. Smile

I need to stop watching euroews here, makws me want to die. I hate the EU. I can't understand what is so great about the EU- There is no common language. At least the US has just one language.

So, have all a great Turkey Pallooza.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2oxlAalw-U

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8 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@mimi

ok, and if you come back here, i will grill up some bratwursts. Smile

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5 users have voted.
mimi's picture

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3 users have voted.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/11/21/joe-biden-cornel-west-michigan-...

Independent presidential hopeful Cornel West is taking aim at Michigan by courting voter groups that Joe Biden is struggling with — in a state where a single percentage point could make the difference for the president’s reelection bid.

West will take his threadbare campaign to the state early next year to rally support among Arab American voters in Dearborn, “environmental justice advocates” in the majority Black city of Flint, university students and indigenous populations, according to plans shared with POLITICO.

Michigan’s diverse population gives West the opportunity to court support at a time when Biden’s weakness with voters of color is becoming more pronounced. Recent polling in Michigan shows Biden’s softening support among Black voters and the large Arab American population in the state has been highly critical of the administration’s handling of the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“We’re the only major candidate, I think, who’s bringing any kind of sanity and sensitivity to the suffering in Gaza. Just strikes me that all the other three major candidates are living in a Neolithic Age when it comes to dealing with what’s going on in the Middle East,” West said in an interview. “They would take us back, and I’m the only one who would take us forward.”

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8 users have voted.
joe shikspack's picture

@humphrey

like genocide joe needs cornel west's help to sink his campaign. Smile

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8 users have voted.

@joe shikspack

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10 users have voted.
soryang's picture

@humphrey Besides being a bigoted psychopath, is also completely wrong about his "freedom" to stand there and utter provocative insults likely to elicit violence from even a reasonable person. Fighting words like this are not within the scope of freedom of speech. It's remarkable but not unusual that this kind of person could be a government advisor.

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11 users have voted.

語必忠信 行必正直

QMS's picture

@soryang

do you wonder why the psychopaths have taken over?

somebody hit this guy with a baseball bat to knock some
sense into his entitled ass

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9 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

soryang's picture

@QMS But just to make it clear, every vicious insult that guy delivered is a misdemeanor, called uttering fighting words, or something like that. It's a crime. I don't know where this video was taken, doesn't matter really. Expressing this sort of ethnic bigotry is very dangerous in some places in the US. So the guy isn't very street wise. He's obviously been living in a bubble.

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10 users have voted.

語必忠信 行必正直

QMS's picture

@soryang

while insulting the worker is creepy as hell
these are people in charge of this lunatic asylum

up
9 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

QMS's picture

@humphrey

hit your opponent in their weak spot
as if Brandon has any strengths left

up
6 users have voted.

truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

snoopydawg's picture

@humphrey

that West had been in SLC for his campaign. It seems to like doing that about important events that people might like knowing about before they happen.

Gotta love how many people are showing their true colors. The bad thing about Biden losing the election is that Trump is the only one who can beat him and he would be just as bad as Biden on Israel. If not worse. Gahh! The 2 worst candidates are all we have?

Wowzer see the replies to the tweet. He’s being scrubbed and disowned from organizations very quickly. I wish him luck on his next job interview.

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8 users have voted.

“When out of fear you twist the lesser evil into the lie that it is something good, you eventually rob people of the capacity to distinguish between good and evil.”
~ Hannah Arendt

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10 users have voted.

Sam Cooke was just all that. No words of praise are sufficient. He is a great reminder of what things were, and what they are now. Lots of things to absorb in the ebs tonight. I guess DC isn't flying Ukie flags everywhere. What will Pelosi do?
I am beginning to be bothered with my typical eating habits Here I am, scarfing up whatever we cook, giving high fives to Dear One on how great it tastes, etc...As a child of a father who suffered hunger during The Great Depression, then later suffered getting shot 8 times in his abdomen, he told me that hunger hurt worse than those bullets. With every delicious bite I take, I think of the Gazans. This is beginning to really make me clearly understand my government and these ass hole presidential candidates in a stark way.
There must be a solution.
Anyway, the vacation is ongoing for a few more days, and it has been everything we hope it would be.
Take care, joe, and you are just the best.

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8 users have voted.

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

joe shikspack's picture

@on the cusp

glad to hear that your vacation is going well despite genocide joe's efforts to mess it up. i hope that satan is saving him along with some of his buddies a warm spot by the fire.

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5 users have voted.
TheOtherMaven's picture

@joe shikspack

Dante's version got colder the deeper you went, and the Ninth Circle was solid ice. There were other interesting variations along the way, too.

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7 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

lotlizard's picture

… apologize for slavery, if the very first time Europe has a chance to show if Europeans have learned anything — by responding to the slaughter in Gaza — European governments still side with the colonizers and their industrialized, high-tech mass murder methods?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-66076562

It’s all bullshit and performative theater.

☞ ✎  Dutch people go to the polls today to elect the lower house of parliament. They have their pick of 26 — count ’em, twenty-six — parties, of which 17 currently hold at least one seat in the lower house.

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11 users have voted.