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“Israel has a right to defend itself” sounds reasonable until you realize it actually means “Israel has a right to kill as many Palestinian children as it wants in its efforts to eliminate all armed resistance to a murderous and tyrannical occupying regime.”

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

The Biggest Lie We’re Being Told About The Gaza Assault Is That It Is Necessary

The second-biggest lie we’re being told about the US-backed Israeli demolition of Gaza is that it is beneficial, and will lead to peace. The biggest lie we’re being told about it is that it is necessary.

The demolition of Gaza is not beneficial and will not lead to peace because, as we have discussed previously, it’s impossible to bomb a population into submission and obedience. Even if every member of Hamas is killed, Israel’s horrifying actions in Gaza will have radicalized far more people toward violent resistance against the occupation. Hamas is incapable of producing recruitment materials more effective than the footage Israel itself is creating by incinerating Palestinian families in full view of the entire world.

The demolition of Gaza is not necessary because there are real pathways to a true and lasting peace which do not require a single bomb to be dropped, and there are also very easy ways to return to the abusive status quo of October 6 without dropping a single bomb.

The path to a true and lasting peace in the region would be for everyone to sit down at the negotiating table, for Israel to right the wrongs of the past from 1948 onward, for Israel and its wealthy allies to invest heavily in financial reparations to Palestinian families instead of in bombs, and for Israel to completely change its nature and organization so that it is no longer a murderous apartheid state held together by endless violence and abuse.

This path would be difficult. Far more difficult than just raining hellfire on babies. It would be a long, arduous, two-steps-forward/one-step-back process that would require tremendous sacrifice, profound humility, the acknowledgement of many past offenses long held unacknowledged, a lot of tears, and a lot of healing. But it could be done.

Of course it could be done. There’s no basis for the belief that it can’t. If you can come together and make tremendous effort for war, you can come together and make tremendous effort for peace. The only way to believe such a peace is impossible would be to believe Hamas attacked Israel completely unprovoked and out of the blue, solely because they are evil and hate Jews, and thus cannot be negotiated with because they are all orc-like subhumans who are incapable of basic human rationality. It’s not okay for grown adults to believe this.

But let’s say you’re not up to the herculean task of establishing a lasting peace. Let’s say that goal sounds too naive and idealistic to your world-weary ears. Let’s say you desire nothing other than a return to the uneasy, abusive, highly militarized status quo of life before October 7. Well, that’s actually always been totally achievable too.

This is totally achievable because the damage Hamas inflicted on October 7 was completely avoidable, and was only able to occur due to the negligence and/or malfeasance of Israeli intelligence and military forces. If measures were taken to simply ensure that such colossal errors never again occur, then the abusive status quo of defending Israelis with the Iron Dome and border enforcement would work as fine post-October 7 as it did pre-.

Either because of negligence, arrogance, or for some other reason, the Hamas offensive on October 7 was left as undefended as could possibly be. Israeli defense forces did not respond for nine hours despite having received ample warning that an attack was coming for months, from both their own intelligence services and from Egyptian intelligence. No attempt was made to warn the Nova music festival of an impending attack despite Israeli security forces being aware the day before that an attack was coming, resulting in hundreds of deaths and captured hostages. The attack was met with so little resistance that Hamas themselves were reportedly surprised by how many Israelis they were able to capture and kill, their surprise perhaps due to the fact that they’d spent two years training right out in the open less than a mile from the border for an air, sea and land attack using motorized paragliders, drones and motorboats.

Then, either because of unpreparedness, incompetence, or for some other reason, IDF forces made the death toll from the attack significantly worse than it would otherwise have been by killing Israelis during the fighting. Numerous eyewitness accounts from Israelis who were on the scene, along with many reports from Israeli media, make it clear that IDF troops were firing indiscriminately into areas full of Israelis. Last month Netanyahu advisor Mark Regev acknowledged on MSNBC that the Israeli death toll from October 7 had been reduced because Israel had misidentified hundreds of Hamas fighters as Israeli because their bodies had been so badly burned by IDF fire, which logically means the Israelis said to have been burned alive by Hamas were actually probably themselves burned by IDF fire.

So it is false to say that it is necessary to destroy Hamas to keep Israel safe. All that is necessary to keep Israel safe is to do a deep investigation into exactly what happened that caused Israel’s military and intelligence services to fail so spectacularly on October 7, punish everyone who needs to be punished, and take steps to make sure those spectacular failures never happen again. Hamas is incapable of posing an existential threat to Israel, and is incapable of executing another attack like October 7 if Israeli military and intelligence services actually do their jobs.

None of this was necessary. Israeli forces could have heeded the intelligence which said an attack was coming, prepared accordingly instead of leaving itself completely undefended, repelled the attack while allowing (and causing) vastly less damage to its own people, negotiated for whatever few Israeli hostages Hamas were able to capture under those circumstances, and returned to the status quo.

Even after the October 7 attack as it actually occurred, no attack on Gaza was ever necessary. Israel could have fought off the attack, negotiated for the hostages, and then taken steps to ensure its military and intelligence services never repeat their massive faceplants which led to such losses.

Even now they could still halt their onslaught and return to the abusive status quo of October 6. There’s no reason they can’t just stop and make sure they can repel future Hamas attacks. Yes, Israel’s bloodshed in Gaza has radicalized a generation of future Palestinian resistance fighters, but that’s going to happen to a much greater extent anyway if the murdering continues.

They can just stop. They could have stopped at any time. But they’ve kept going instead, fueled by hatred and vengeance and a pre-existing desire for another land grab from the Palestinians. And the world has been fed a pack of lies to manufacture our consent for it.

Israeli airstrikes kill at least 100 as calls grow for Gaza ceasefire and hostage talks

Airstrikes in the Gaza Strip have killed at least 100 people over the last 24 hours, as Israel’s leadership faces growing international pressure for a ceasefire and calls at home to resume hostage negotiations after the Israeli army shot and killed three men kidnapped by Hamas.

The health ministry in the Hamas-run Palestinian territory said on Sunday that at least 90 people had been killed by Israeli bombardment in the Jabalia camp in the north, and another 12 had died in bombings in the central city of Deir al-Balah, as fighting was reported in several parts of Gaza.

There are growing signs that civil order is breaking down in the besieged Palestinian territory, which measures about 25 miles (40km) by 7.5 miles and is home to 2.3 million people. On Sunday, dozens of people raided lorries carrying aid after the vehicles entered Gaza through the Rafah crossing with Egypt. Some vehicles appeared to have been guarded by men with sticks, people on the ground said.

About 85% of the population have been displaced from their homes, some multiple times, while food, water, fuel and electricity remain scarce. Aid deliveries through the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel resumed on Sunday for the first time since the war broke out, although aid agencies have warned that an expected doubling of the amount entering each day – 100 trucks – is still a fraction of what is needed to alleviate the dire humanitarian crisis.

Alastair Crooke: Does Netanyahu Have an Exit Planned?

Fears grow of all-out Israel-Hezbollah war as fighting escalates

The Israeli defence minister, Yoav Gallant, and other hawks in the cabinet argued for a pre-emptive strike against Hezbollah in the immediate aftermath of the 7 October attack. That caused alarm in Washington, fearful of a regional war that could pull in Iran. With US backing, Benjamin Netanyahu fended off the proposal, but the conviction has taken hold among Israeli politicians, generals and a widening slice of the public that a new war in Lebanon is inevitable. An opinion poll carried out in late November found that 52% of those surveyed favoured an immediate strike against Hezbollah, and only 35% were opposed to opening another front in the north. ...

All along the border, Hezbollah has fired on Israeli border towns and villages in a show of support for Gazans, and Israel has struck back with artillery and airstrikes. In recent days, the fight has escalated, and the civilian death toll is rising: four Israelis and at least 14 local Lebanese. Three journalists have been killed by Israeli drone and tank strikes.

“We have this exchange of fire between Israel and Hezbollah and the trend line is one of escalation,” said Orna Mizrahi, a former Israeli deputy national security adviser for foreign policy, now at the Institute for National Security Studies in Tel Aviv. “This is the most worrying thing about the situation, this trend of escalation. Nobody wants to have a full-scale war but we can get there anyway.” ...

After the Hamas attack, Hezbollah fired on border villages and sent raiding parties across the border, in what appear to have been calibrated operations to show solidarity with the Palestinians, without going far enough to provoke a full-scale war. “Their escalation along the border has been proportional and incremental in a tit-for-tat pattern,” said Randa Slim, a senior fellow and director of conflict resolution at the Middle East Institute. “At this point, the decision to go into an all-out war is totally Israel’s to make. Hezbollah and Iran do not want the escalation.” ...

As the displacement of 80,000 northern Israelis continues, along with a deep economic slump, the calls for a military solution are getting louder. At a meeting with northern mayors on 6 December, Gallant, the defence minister, said Israel would “act with all the means at its disposal” if the international community could not force Hezbollah to withdraw.

Israel Protests ERUPT After 3 Hostages SHOT DEAD By IDF

IDF Kills 3 Shirtless Israeli Hostages Waving White Flag; Calling for Help in Hebrew

The three Israeli hostages who were shot and killed Friday by Israeli forces were shirtless and one of them was waving a white flag of surrender, a military official has said. Two hostages were killed immediately; the third was wounded and yelling for help in Hebrew before being shot again. ...

The IDF had identified a nearby building marked with “SOS” and “Help! Three hostages” two days earlier but had believed it might be a trap.

Reactions around the world Saturday moring were incredulous.

Sarah Leah Whitson, Executive Director of DAWN, tweeted "Thousands (yes thousands) of Palestinians have described how Israel fires at unarmed people who pose no threat but only when it happens to Israelis do people believe it. We wrote a report some years ago *specifically* on the topic of Israel shooting at Gazans waving white flags."

B'Tselem, the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, tweeted "It is prohibited by International Humanitarian Law (and basic moral principles) to shoot people who yielded and carry a white flag, regardless whether they’re combatants or not, regardless of their nationality and religion."

Owen Jones, a columnist for The Guardian, tweeted "Three obviously unarmed shirtless Israeli hostages yelling in Hebrew waving a white flag were shot dead by Israeli troops. Palestinian civilians don’t stand a chance."

Hundreds of relatives and supporters of hostages still held by Palestinian militants demonstrated outside the Israeli ministry of Defence in Tel Aviv Friday night.

PA health minister seeks probe into deadly Israeli raid on Gaza hospital

Palestinian Health Minister Mai al-Kaila has called for an “urgent probe” after Israeli forces were accused of crushing Palestinians, including wounded patients, using bulldozers in the yard of Kamal Adwan Hospital in northern Gaza.

On Saturday, doctors and other witnesses said Israeli forces bulldozed tents housing displaced Palestinians near the hospital – one of the 11 hospitals still functioning inside Gaza since Israel launched its military offensive on October 7 – and crushed them to death.

Witnesses told Al Jazeera that civilians were deliberately targeted.

“People were buried alive using bulldozers. Who could do that? All those who committed this crime should be brought to justice and taken to the international criminal court,” a witness said.

Several videos shared on social media also appear to show people crushed under the rubble in front of the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

​​Al Jazeera's Marwan Bishara on IDF Killing AJ Journalist, the 3 Hostages & U.S. Support for Israel

Israeli regime assassinates journalist in Gaza amid growing threat of region-wide war

The Biden administration dispatched National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan to Tel Aviv Friday to underline Washington’s unyielding support for the Israeli regime’s genocide against the Palestinians. As Sullivan reiterated that US imperialism places no restrictions on Israel’s onslaught and threatened a wider war against Hezbollah and Iran, the Israeli regime continued its savage onslaught on Gaza’s defenceless population.

The Zionist regime’s barbarism was demonstrated once again Friday with the targeted killing of Al Jazeera cameraman Samer Abudaqa. Abudaqa was fatally wounded in a drone strike on a school in Kahn Younis. His colleague, Al Jazeera Gaza bureau chief Wael Dahdouh, suffered light injuries. A third journalist, Ramy Budair of the New Press Agency, also died in Khan Younis Friday. Earlier in the conflict, Dahdouh was forced to mourn the loss of almost his entire family following a deliberate Israeli air strike on his house.

“The Network holds Israel accountable for systematically targeting and killing Al Jazeera journalists and their families,” stated Al Jazeera in an official statement condemning Abudaqa’s killing. “In today’s bombing in Khan Younis, Israeli drones fired missiles at a school where civilians sought refuge, resulting in indiscriminate casualties. Following Samer’s injury, he was left to bleed to death for over 5 hours as Israeli forces prevented ambulances and rescue workers from reaching him, denying the much-needed emergency treatment.” Denouncing Israel for “carnage and crimes against humanity,” the statement called for the International Criminal Court to pursue war crimes charges. The statement noted that over 90 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since 7 October. ...

Sullivan left no doubt during his visit of US imperialism’s endorsement of Israel’s savagery. There are “no disagreements” between the White House and Netanyahu’s government that the war in Gaza will take “months,” he told a press conference. Reiterating the blank cheque extended by Washington to Israel throughout the onslaught, he added, “We’re not here to tell anybody you must do X, you must do Y.” Sullivan added that in his meetings with Israeli government officials, he “did not hear [them]… say things that would lead me to feel I need to answer the hypothetical question of how Washington will respond if the current phase drags on.” In other words, Israel can continue using US-supplied weapons to indiscriminately slaughter men, women and children with impunity.

Al Jazeera to refer killing of cameraman in Gaza to war crimes court

Al Jazeera is preparing a legal file to send to the international criminal court (ICC) over what it called “the assassination” of one of its cameramen in Gaza, the Qatari-based network has said.

The cameraman, Samer Abu Daqqa, was killed by a drone strike on Friday while reporting on the earlier bombing of a school used as a shelter for displaced people in the southern Gaza Strip, according to the Qatar-based broadcaster.

Al Jazeera said Israeli drones fired missiles at the school that left Abu Daqqa with fatal injuries. It was not possible to verify the details of the incident.

“The Network established a joint working group, which comprises of its international legal team and international legal experts who will collaboratively initiate the process of compiling a comprehensive file for submission to the court’s prosecutor,” Al Jazeera said in a statement on Saturday.

“The legal file will also encompass recurrent attacks on the Network’s crews working and operating in the occupied Palestinian territories and instances of incitement against them.”

Oil Giant BP PAUSES Red Sea Shipments After Iran REBEL Attacks; Biden Weighs ACTION Against Houthis

US to announce expanded protection force for Red Sea shipping

The US is to announce the launch of an expanded maritime protection force involving Arab states to combat the increasingly frequent Houthi attacks being mounted from Yemen’s ports on commercial shipping in the Red Sea.

The force, provisionally entitled Operation Prosperity Guardian, is due to be announced by the defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, when he visits the Middle East. Much like the Task Force 153 already operating out of Bahrain, the larger protection force is designed to provide reassurance to commercial shipping companies that Houthi attacks will be seen off, and that the sea remains safe for commercial shipping.

Five big shipping companies have now stopped their ships using the Red Sea in the wake of attacks mounted by Houthis in protest at Israel’s efforts to eliminate Hamas in Gaza. ...

The US had been seeking to persuade China to join an enlarged maritime protection force being mounted out of Bahrain, but some officials believe it has secured the involvement of Jordan, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman, Egypt and Bahrain.

How American citizens are leading rise of ‘settler violence’ on Palestinian lands

Washington’s ban on travel to the US by extremist Jewish settlers who attack Palestinians in the West Bank has one gaping loophole. American citizens have been at the forefront of the rise of settler violence in the occupied territories, and the ongoing ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their land, but as US passport holders they cannot be barred from their own country.

Many of the estimated 60,000 Americans living in the West Bank outside of occupied East Jerusalem moved to settlements for the lifestyle and have little to do with the Palestinians on whose land they live. But a core of ideologically driven US citizens were at the forefront of building religious settlements on land expropriated from Palestinians while others have led the rise of what has been described as “settler terrorism”.

The US announced the travel restrictions as settler violence against unarmed Palestinians escalated in the wake of the Hamas cross-border attack in October, including shootings, the destruction of Arab homes and entire communities driven out at gunpoint. The UN estimates that about 500 Palestinians have been killed in the West Bank this year including dozens of children. While Israel claims many of the dead were associated with armed Palestinian groups, the UN said the army frequently works with settlers attacking Arab civilians.

Hadar Susskind, president of Americans for Peace Now, said these settlers militias draw inspiration from two Americans infamous as the godfathers of the campaign of violence against ordinary Palestinians. An American doctor from Brooklyn, Baruch Goldstein, murdered 29 Muslim worshippers in the West Bank city of Hebron in 1994. Goldstein was a follower of another American, Rabbi Meir Kahane, founder of the far-right religious Kach party that was eventually banned in Israel and the US under anti-terrorism laws. ...

Americans account for only about 15% of the total settler population in the West Bank and East Jerusalem but their influence outweighs their numbers. Sara Hirschhorn, author of a study of Jewish American settlers, City on a Hilltop, said they were distinguished from many other Jewish immigrants who make “aliyah” to Israel and live the other side of the “green line” between Israel and the West Bank. “Typically we describe American aliyah as an aliyah of choice because these aren’t immigrants like, say, today’s Ukrainians coming to Israel fleeing war or those fleeing persecution or poverty. Rather Americans are looking to fulfil a set of ideological, religious or lifestyle values that they find in Israel and particularly over the green line,” she said.

Netanyahu's Bold Boast: 'Proud' to Thwart Palestinian State Creation

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that he was "proud" of preventing the creation of a Palestinian state during a press conference in Tel Aviv Saturday night.

Speaking alongside Defense Minister Yoav Gallant and war cabinet minister Benny Gantz, Netanyahu claimed that he had halted the progression of the Oslo peace process, which began in 1993, calling the Oslo Accords "a fateful mistake" and said the results of the “little Palestinian state in Gaza” brought about by the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 demonstrated the danger of allowing Palestinian sovereignty in the West Bank. ...

Netanyahu's comments come after several Israeli officials said that there would be no two-state solution following the end of Israel's indiscriminate war on Gaza, which has destroyed much of the occupied territory and killed at least 18,800 Palestinians, primarily women and children, in Israeli attacks since October 7, according to the territory's health ministry.

Israel's right-wing ambassador to the UK, Tzipi Hotovely, answered "absolutely no" when asked during an interview on Sky News last Wednesday about whether a two-state solution would arise following the end of the Gaza War. "Israel knows today, and the world should know now that the reason the Oslo Accords failed is because the Palestinians never wanted to have a state next to Israel," Hotovely said.

Two-state solution would mean relocating 200,000 settlers, says Israeli lawyer who has David Cameron’s ear

Nearly 200,000 of the 700,000 Israeli settlers in the West Bank would have to be relocated to Israel to create a viable Palestinian state, according to an Israeli lawyer from whom the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, has sought advice on his visits to Israel.

Cameron has said he realises reaching a two-state solution would be tough, but he has not spelled out the practical consequences in terms of borders, including the need to persuade so many Israelis to relocate.

Cameron acknowledged his debt to Daniel Seidemann in giving evidence to a Lords select committee last week, saying he always seeks his advice when he visits Jerusalem.

In an interview with the Guardian, Seidemann said: “If Israel has the will, or capacity, to relocate 200,000 settlers from the West Bank and Jerusalem, a two-state solution is a viable option. If it does not have the will, the two-state solution is dead. The number might be better than most people think, but it is quite daunting.

“If you can annex incrementally, you can deoccupy incrementally.” The remaining settlers would remain on land swapped between Israel and Palestine. Leaving settlers under Palestinian sovereignty would be unacceptable to both sides, he says.

Black church leaders ‘on the fence’ on Biden endorsement amid Israel-Gaza war

Last month, the group Black Christian Faith Leaders for Ceasefire took out a full-page ad in the New York Times pushing for president Joe Biden “to call for an immediate bilateral ceasefire in the Middle East for the sake of our shared humanity and our collective security”. More than 900 Black Christian faith leaders representing churches across the country backed the letter.

Prior to the publication of the ad, signatories of the letter met with White House officials and the Congressional Black Caucus to discuss their concerns regarding the Israel-Gaza war, namely the humanitarian crisis in Gaza. The Guardian spoke with several signatories who said they were disappointed with how the meetings went.

Historically, Black Christian voters, often led by their pastors, have been instrumental in electing Democratic candidates. During the lead-up to the 2020 election, the Black Church PAC, which signed the letter in tandem with Leaders for Ceasefire, was pivotal in mobilizing Black and religious voters. They hosted virtual “souls to the polls” events, text-a-thons, voter-registration drives and digital-organizing workshops, and held a bus tour on which they hosted pop-up events to further engage voters. The PAC reached more than 30,000 people, made nearly 45,000 calls and trained more than 2,500 clergy leaders in election protection and souls-to-the-polls efforts.

But Black voter enthusiasm for Biden has waned since he took office. Losing the support of Black churches could prove disastrous for the president’s re-election chances.

Palestine to Ukraine. Conflicts without Solution - Alastair Crooke, Alex Mercouris & Glenn Diesen

In bipartisan vote, US Congress authorizes record Pentagon budget: A blueprint for global war

With bipartisan votes in both houses of Congress, the two parties of American imperialism this week authorized a record Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2024. In the face of massive protests in the US and internationally against the US/Israeli genocide in Gaza and collapsing popular support for Washington’s proxy war against Russia in Ukraine, the Democrats and Republicans combined to adopt a National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that calls for $883.7 billion in military spending in the coming year, an increase of $145 billion, or 20 percent, since 2020.

The topline figure includes $841.4 billion for the Department of Defense, $32.4 billion for “national security” programs within the Department of Energy, and $438 million in defense-related activities. The total authorization consumes more than half of the annual federal discretionary budget.

This is under conditions where hunger and homelessness are soaring, corporations are slashing jobs, and the Biden administration is using the bogus “end” of the COVID emergency to strip Medicaid and food stamp benefits from millions of workers and poor people. The full cost of the boost in war spending is to be imposed on the working class, while military contractors enjoy a profit bonanza. The Senate passed the 3,000-page bill by a lopsided 87-13 vote on Wednesday, and the House followed suit by a vote of 310 to 118 on Thursday, easily surpassing the two-thirds margin required for expedited passage under a suspension of normal procedural rules.

The NDAA is not really a “defense” bill. It is a blueprint for global war, including stepped-up preparations for nuclear war, aimed at reversing the world economic decline of US imperialism by military means. It particularly targets China for military aggression, followed by Russia, Iran and North Korea, while affirming and expanding US military support and involvement in Israel’s war of annihilation against the Palestinians.

US Homelessness Hits Record High

The number of people in shelters, temporary housing, and unsheltered settings across the United States set a new record this year, "largely due to a sharp rise in the number of people who became homeless for the first time."

That's a key takeaway from an annual report released Friday by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD).

On a single night in January 2023, "roughly 653,100 people—or about 20 of every 10,000 people in the United States—were experiencing homelessness," with about 60% in shelters and the remaining 40% unsheltered, according to HUD. That's a 12% increase from 2022 and the highest number of unhoused people since reporting began in 2007.

State supreme court dismisses Ohio’s effort to enforce abortion ban

The Ohio supreme court has dismissed the state’s challenge to a judge’s order that has blocked enforcement of Ohio’s near ban on abortions for the past 14 months. The ruling moves action in the case back to the Hamilton county common pleas court, where abortion clinics asked Judge Christian Jenkins this week to throw out the law following voters’ decision to approve enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.

The high court on Friday said the appeal was “dismissed due to a change in the law”.

The justices in March agreed to review a county judge’s order that blocked enforcement of the abortion restriction and to consider whether clinics had legal standing to challenge the law. They ultimately denied the Republican attorney general Dave Yost’s request that they launch their own review of the constitutional right to abortion, leaving such arguments for a lower court.

The clinics asked Jenkins on Thursday to block the abortion ban permanently on the heels of the amendment to the state constitution that Ohio voters approved last month to ensure access to abortion and other reproductive healthcare.

Biden will have ‘LBJ moment’ and not run for re-election, Cornel West says

Joe Biden will “have an LBJ moment” and decide not to run for re-election next year, the leftwing academic and independent presidential candidate Cornel West has predicted.

West was referring to the moment on 31 March 1968 when Lyndon B Johnson, in office since the assassination of John F Kennedy in November 1963, announced that he would not seek re-election.

Johnson cited the war in Vietnam and divisions at home. His former secretary, George Christian, said health was also a factor: Johnson was only 59 but had suffered a heart attack 13 years before. He had a fatal heart attack five years later. ...

West told Politico he might end up running against a “B team” of younger Democrats including Gavin Newsom, governor of California, and Gretchen Whitmer, governor of Michigan, because Biden was “running out of gas”.

He did not mention Kamala Harris, Biden’s vice-president.

Lead contamination in applesauce possibly ‘economically motivated’, says FDA

The Food and Drug Administration on Friday said it thinks elevated levels of lead in cinnamon applesauce that has poisoned dozens of American children could be linked to deliberate additives in the food’s cinnamon flavoring, and is inspecting a food facility in Ecuador.

There have been more than 60 reports of children reporting “adverse effects” after eating applesauce and apple puree pouches from the brands WanaBana, Schnucks and Weis. The products have been recalled.

The cases span more than two dozen states.

The FDA said it has placed the Austrofoods facility in Ecuador under investigation, and is looking into whether “the cinnamon contamination occurred as a possible result of economically motivated adulteration” – implying additives containing lead were intentionally used to enhance flavor or commercial viability.

Since there is no federal requirement for lead testing in domestically produced or imported food in the United States, the FDA is working with Ecuadorian authorities to inspect Negasmart, the supplier of cinnamon to Austrofoods. It will also investigate whether the cinnamon in question was used in other items exported to the US.

COP28: The "Tragically Historic" Failure of Yet Another U.N. Climate Summit

Biden Offshore Drilling Plan Continues 'Dangerous Cycle'

The Biden administration on Friday finalized a five-year plan for offshore fossil fuel leasing that was initially released in September and sharply condemned as a "climate nightmare."

The Department of the Interior (DOI) highlighted in a statement Friday that the 2024-29 National Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Oil and Gas Leasing Program has the fewest sales in history, with just three for the Gulf of Mexico set to be held in 2025, 2027, and 2029.

The DOI also stressed that the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed last year by President Joe Biden "prohibits the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) from issuing a lease for offshore wind development unless the agency has offered at least 60 million acres for oil and gas leasing on the OCS in the previous year."

That part of the IRA is one of the key reasons it has been criticized by climate campaigners, who continue to warn that the landmark package is far from enough to meet the U.S. goal of halving planet-heating emissions by the end of this decade.

The DOI's plan outraged the American Petroleum Institute and U.S. House Committee on Natural Resources Chairman Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) for not being friendly enough to the fossil fuel industry while advocates for the planet warned that it's not bold enough given the worsening climate emergency.

Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: The Death of Israel

Biden Intends To Keep Participating In The Incineration Of Gaza

Palestinians in Gaza using eSim cards to get around communications blackout

All The Propaganda Is Splattering Against A Solid Wall Of Reality

Craig Murray: Murder

The IDF Are So Good At Killing Israelis They Should Consider Joining Hamas

"Palestinian Terror Operative" Means Anyone Still Alive

Hawks pushing for more fronts in Israeli military operations

Registered Israeli foreign agent driving contrived campus antisemitism crisis

War in Ukraine & the ‘Crisis of Western Civilization’

‘Prison or bullet’: new Argentina government promises harsh response to protest

IMPEACHMENT: Biden Under Formal Investigation

‘Dangerous for women’: warning as Chileans vote on new draft constitution

Ukraine KIDNAPS Mentally Disabled, Old For Forced Service

Fetterman SAYS NOT Progressive After Raising Millions

Israel Sent SUITCASES OF CASH Into Gaza For Hamas Says NYTimes!

Orban exposes true purpose of European Union

Larry Johnson: Israel Shoots Itself in the Foot

Jeffrey Sachs: Is the US the Essential Nation?

A Little Night Music

Chuck Willis – Whatcha Gonna Do When Your Baby Leaves You

Chuck Willis – My Baby

Chuck Willis – Betty and Dupree

Chuck Willis – It's Too Late

Chuck Willis – Hang up My Rock and Roll Shoes

Chuck Willis – Love Me Cherry

Chuck Willis – That Train Has Gone

Chuck Willis – Lawdy Miss Mary

Chuck Willis – I Feel So Bad

Chuck Willis – Sugar Sugar