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"If you're not careful, the newspapers will have you hating the people who are being oppressed, and loving the people who are doing the oppressing."

-- Malcolm X

News and Opinion

CNN’s CEO Is Making Staff Churn Out Israel Propaganda

One of the noblest and most important things a western journalist can do these days is help expose the propagandistic manipulations of the mainstream western press institutions who have duped our civilization into consenting to a profoundly dysfunctional status quo which does not serve the interests of normal human beings. Unfortunately this rarely happens, because western journalists tend to view the mainstream press as allies and potential employers.

This happens to be one such rare occasion, and it happened in one of the last places you’d probably have guessed if you follow mass media propaganda with a critical eye. The Guardian has a great new article out titled “CNN staff say network’s pro-Israel slant amounts to ‘journalistic malpractice’” by a guy named Chris McGreal which cites multiple CNN staff members and internal documents to reveal the immense top-down pressure in the network to tilt coverage heavily in favor of Israel.

McGreal writes the following:

“CNN is facing a backlash from its own staff over editorial policies they say have led to a regurgitation of Israeli propaganda and the censoring of Palestinian perspectives in the network’s coverage of the war in Gaza.

“Journalists in CNN newsrooms in the US and overseas say broadcasts have been skewed by management edicts and a story-approval process that has resulted in highly partial coverage of the Hamas massacre on 7 October and Israel’s retaliatory attack on Gaza.

“‘The majority of news since the war began, regardless of how accurate the initial reporting, has been skewed by a systemic and institutional bias within the network toward Israel,’ said one CNN staffer. ‘Ultimately, CNN’s coverage of the Israel-Gaza war amounts to journalistic malpractice.’”

McGreal’s sources say CNN’s wildly biased coverage of Israel’s assault on Gaza is the direct result of edicts from the network’s new CEO Mark Thompson, who assumed his role two days after the October 7 attack. From 2012 to 2020 Thompson was the president and CEO of The New York Times, which is currently experiencing its own internal strife due to the pro-Israel bias of that outlet.

Before his NYT executive gig Thompson was the director-general of the BBC, where he came under fire multiple times for the pro-Israel bias he imposed on the British state broadcaster. In 2005 he held meetings in Jerusalem with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon with the reported aim to “build bridges with the country’s political class,” immediately after which he removed BBC correspondent Orla Guerin from Jerusalem following accusations of “antisemitism” made against her by the Israeli government. In 2009 he was hotly criticized for choosing not to air the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal for Gaza, and in 2011 he presided over the decision to censor the lyrics “free Palestine” from a performance by rapper Mic Righteous on BBC Radio 1Xtra.

This is the sort of person who gets hired to multiple executive positions in multiple highly influential western media platforms. If you’ve ever wondered why it looks like the western press function in pretty much the same way as the state propaganda services in the autocracies the west proudly sets itself apart from, this is why. The corporate media are owned and controlled by plutocrats who have a vested interest in preserving the status quo power structure upon which their kingdoms are built, and state broadcasters like the BBC have the same interest for the same reason. They decide who the executives of those outlets will be, and those executives make policy and hiring decisions which cause the outlet to function in a way that is indistinguishable from state propaganda.

These are the people who’ve been pulling the wool over the eyes of the mainstream public and manipulating the masses into thinking, speaking, working, consuming, and voting in ways that serve the interests of the ruling power structure. In this way they are able to ensure that revolutionary opposition to that power structure remains a fringe minority position, even as that power structure wages wars, sponsors genocides, destroys the biosphere, and keeps everyone poor, sick, and stupid.

Our world will never see the revolutionary changes it desperately needs until the people begin using the power of their numbers to force those changes to happen, and the people will never start using the power of their numbers to force revolutionary change as long as they are being manipulated by propagandists into accepting the status quo. Our task therefore, as people who love truth and desire a healthy world, is to begin waking the public up to the reality that everything they’ve been told about their society, their government and their world is a lie, and pointing them toward true information about what’s really going on.

That’s how humanity will awaken from its propaganda-induced coma to create a healthy world: one pair of eyelids at a time. This might sound like a slow-going project, but for every newly opened pair of eyes there is one more voice who can help wake up the others, which means exponential growth is possible. This is how we move humanity into the light of truth and begin the shift toward a truth-based society.

And we’ve got an advantage: the empire needs to use human beings to generate its propaganda. That’s what we’re seeing in CNN staff turning against their boss and reporting his malfeasance to another news outlet. As long as the empire depends on ordinary human beings to turn its gears and facilitate its horrific atrocities, there’s always the possibility that the next pair of eyes to open will be someone on the inside.

Colonial law and the erasure of Palestine w/Noura Erakat | The Chris Hedges Report

Worth a full read:

In The Middle East The U.S. Has Reached The End Of Its Abilities

The Biden administration is trying everything to better the situation for the Israeli government except by withdrawing its financial and munition support which are the only two measures that could bring Israel to its senses.

There are now several small wars in the Middle East which may soon accumulate into a big one. Israel is fighting Hamas and the Islamic Jihad in Gaza. It is fighting a silent resistance in the West Bank. On its norther borders it is involved in daily clashes with Hizbullah and various Palestinian resistance groups.

Israel is also bombing Syria and killing Iranian envoys to that country. Iraqi and Syrian resistance groups are attacking U.S. bases in Syria and Iraq. The U.S. is bombing these groups for more or less therapeutic purposes while trying to not hurt them too much. In the Red Sea the Ansarullah government of Yemen is blocking sea traffic related to Israel, the U.S. and UK. The U.S. and UK are bombing Ansarullah positions even as they know that no amount of bombing will change its position.

People in other Arab countries, while seemingly calm, are enraged over Israel's genocidal behavior in Gaza. Their leaders try to keep their distances from the wars but at some point may well be forced to take sides in it.

Meanwhile the U.S., the alleged superpower, is hapless and helplessly trying to achieve results that are way beyond its abilities.

Dissent Grows Inside Biden Admin over Gaza Policy as Blinken Holds Talks in Middle East

French diplomat to review UNRWA after claims of staff role in Hamas attack

A former French foreign minister, Catherine Colonna, is to lead an independent review of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees after accusations by Israel that at least 12 staff members were involved in the Hamas attack on Israel on 7 October. The review was ordered by Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), last month before the publication of the Israeli allegations and a subsequent mass exodus of donors led by the US and UK.

Colonna, a former French ambassador to the UK and a hugely experienced diplomat, will be aided in her investigation by three Scandinavian development thinktanks: the Raoul Wallenberg Institute in Sweden, the Chr Michelsens Institute in Norway and the Danish Institute for Human Rights. Colonna has worked across the French political spectrum and is likely to be the kind of figure who can produce an authoritative report with recommendations that can restore confidence in the organisation.

The Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, claimed last week that the UN agency had been “totally infiltrated” by Hamas, which has ruled Gaza since 2007.

An interim report will be published in late March 2024 and a final report by the end of April 2024.

Briahna Joy Gray: Double Standard for Israel's GENOCIDAL War Crimes as UNRWA Loses CRITICAL Funding

Senate Deal Would Block All Funding to UNRWA as Gazans Starve

As the United Nations warned Monday that at least a quarter of civilians in Gaza are suffering from "catastrophic" food insecurity and the collapse of the healthcare system is causing disease to spread, the U.S. Senate doubled down on cutting funding for the U.N.'s top humanitarian agency serving Palestinians by including in a bipartisan package a provision that would block aid for the body.

The proposed $118 billion Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, chiefly negotiated by Sens. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), Kyrsten Sinema (I-Ariz.), and James Lankford (R-Okla.) includes $14.1 billion for Israel, which has killed at least 27,468 Palestinians in Gaza and at least 360 in the West Bank since beginning its assault on the occupied territories in October.

But a provision notes that none of the $10 billion in humanitarian assistance for Palestinians and Ukrainians "may be made available for a contribution, grant, or other payment" to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Just after the International Court of Justice (ICJ) said in an interim ruling late last month that South Africa's claim that Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza is "plausible," Israel announced it had discovered that 12 of the agency's 13,000 employees in Palestine had been involved in the Hamas-led attack on southern Israel on October 7.

Israeli officials did not provide evidence confirming their allegations, but the announcement was followed by a swift suspension of UNRWA funding by countries including the United States, Canada, Finland, and the United Kingdom—imperiling the donor-supported agency's ability to continue providing shelter, food, sanitation, and other basic services to more than 1 million Palestinians who are sheltering in its facilities in Gaza.

Now, said Lara Friedman, president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace, the proposed package "bars all funding in the pipeline" to UNRWA. "I don't see any other way to read it."

HuffPost reporter Akbar Shahid Ahmed noted that the provision's inclusion in the bill is a "huge concession from Democrats," several of whom proposed amendments to reaffirm the United States' commitment to a two-state solution; to demand that any countries receiving aid through the supplemental package follow "U.S. law, international humanitarian law, and the law of armed conflict"; and to maintain congressional oversight of military aid. None of the amendments were included in the final text.

"Hard-right UNRWA critics are already celebrating this as a big win," said Ahmed.

U.S. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel confirmed in a briefing that the package in its current form would eliminate U.S. aid to UNRWA and said the government would redirect the agency's aid to other humanitarian bodies including the United Nations Children's Fund and the World Food Program—both of which have condemned Israel's U.S.-backed assault, demanded a cease-fire, and warned that ending funding for UNRWA will "have catastrophic consequences for the people of Gaza" and leave a gap that "no other entity has the capacity" to fill.

Patel told reporters that because the Biden White House is "an administration that follows the law," it would abide by the legislation's ban on UNRWA funding if passed, but sidestepped a question about evidence of Israel's human rights violations—and whether they may ever push the U.S. to stop funding the Israeli military.

Despite the ICJ's finding last month, the U.S. has continued to say it will not change its policies related to Israel.

Dr. Jeffery Sachs: Israel's Most EXTREMIST Govt. in History HELLBENT on UNENDING WAR

Biden would veto standalone Israel aid bill backed by GOP, says White House

Joe Biden’s administration said on Monday he would veto a standalone bill backed by House of Representatives Republicans that would provide aid to Israel, as it backs a broader bill providing assistance to Ukraine and Israel and providing new funds for border security.

“The Administration strongly encourages both chambers of the Congress to reject this political ploy and instead quickly send the bipartisan Emergency National Security Supplemental Appropriations Act to the President’s desk,” the Office of Management and Budget said in a statement.

Officials from the Democratic president’s administration have been working for months with Senate Democrats and Republicans on a $118bn legislation package revealed on Sunday combining billions of dollars in emergency aid for Ukraine, Israel and partners in the Indo-Pacific region, with an overhaul of US immigration policy.

The bill includes $60bn in aid to Ukraine, $14.1bn for Israel in its war in Gaza, and about $20bn for new enforcement efforts along the US-Mexico border.

IDF CONFESSES to War Crimes SNUFF Channel Psyop

11,500 Children Have Been Killed in Gaza. Horror of This Scale Has No Explanation

Thousands of names, one after the other, out of the 11,500 children killed by the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza over the last four months. The list flows like credits at the end of a long movie, a mournful tune in the background. The Al-Jazeera network posted the list of names known to it over the weekend, a total of half the 11,500 who were killed, according to Hamas' health ministry. A child killed every 15 minutes, one out of every 100 children in Gaza. ...

No explanation, no justification or excuse could ever cover up this horror. It would be best if Israel's propaganda machine didn't even try to. No stories of "Hamas is responsible for it all," and no excuses pointing to Hamas hiding among civilians. Horror of this scope has no explanation other than the existence of an army and government lacking any boundaries set by law or morality. ...

It's happening, even now, just over a one-hour drive from Tel Aviv. It's happening without being reported in Israel, without any public debate over the violent rampage Israel has allowed itself to wage in Gaza this time, more than ever before. This is also happening without anyone in Israel reflecting on what will come of this mass killing, on what Israel might gain from it and what price it will pay for it. Don't bother us, we are killing children.

The clichés are hackneyed and pathetic: "They started," "there is no choice," "what would you have us do?" "The IDF is doing everything it can to avoid the killing of innocent people." The truth is that Israel doesn't care, it doesn't even take any interest. After all, Palestinians don't love their children, and in any case, they would have only grown up to become terrorists.

In the meantime, Israel is erasing generations in Gaza, and its soldiers are killing children in numbers competing with the cruellest of wars. This will not and cannot be forgotten. How can a people ever forget those who killed its children in such a manner? How can people of conscience around the world remain silent over such mass killing of children? The fact that Israel is not deliberating this issue internally, with no tears or conscience in evidence, only desiring more of this war, until a "final victory" is achieved, does not bind the world. The world sees and is shocked.

Larry Johnson: Does the DoD Know What It Is Bombing?

Jake Sullivan Refuses to Rule Out US Airstrikes Inside Iran

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan on Sunday refused to rule out direct US airstrikes inside Iran while discussing the widespread bombing the US launched in Iraq and Syria on Friday.

Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Sullivan signaled the bombing campaign is not over, saying the US is planning “more actions.” When asked if the US has ruled out launching attacks on Iranian territory, he said, “Look, sitting on a national TV program, I’m not going to rule in and rule out any activity anywhere.”

The US launched the strikes in response to the drone attack that killed three US troops on a small base in Jordan on the Syrian border. The US blamed Iran for the attack because it arms the Shia militias the US believes were responsible but acknowledges it has no evidence Tehran was involved.

Russia Says Ukraine Killed 28 in Shelling of Bakery With US-Provided HIMARS

Russia said on Sunday that at least 28 people were killed in the Ukrainian shelling of a bakery in Lysychansk, a city in the Russian-controlled Luhansk Oblast in eastern Ukraine.

The bakery was hit on Saturday afternoon, and the death toll rose as emergency workers searched through the rubble overnight. According to Reuters, local officials said the strike was carried out by Ukrainian forces using a US-provided HIMARS rocket system.

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the strike was carried out with Western weapons. ... Zakharova called the strike a “terrorist attack” and said EU citizens should know their taxes are being used to send weapons systems to Ukraine, which “uses them to kill civilians.”

Republicans VOW to KILL Border Bill, McConnell Says ‘Mood of Country’ Has Shifted

High Grocery Bills Explain Economic Doom

Protests as Atlanta council adopts new rules for referendum on Cop City

The Atlanta city council adopted new rules on Monday that would allow the referendum process for the public to vote on the “Cop City” project to move forward. The vote came amid protests against the methodology the council adopted for signature matching on referendum petitions, which critics say gives the city a way to block a public vote on the controversial project.

Three people calling for the signature matching element of the ordinance to be removed were escorted from the council chambers ahead of the 10-5 vote adopting the ordinance.

“It just comes down to democracy or chaos. Which one do you support?” Tim Franzen asked city councilmembers at a hearing, before being hustled from behind the dais in a brief protest. “Today this isn’t even about a public safety center. It’s about whether democracy works.”

Construction of the now-$110m Atlanta Public Safety Training Center began last spring after contentious hearings at which activists criticized its expense, its location in woodlands outside the city and the city’s circumvention of public input. Protests began to escalate in 2022 and began drawing national interest after police killed activist Manuel “Tortuguita” Terán near the center’s construction site in January 2023, shortly after a state trooper was wounded by gunfire. ...

The method the city uses to validate a signature may make the difference between its acceptance and rejection, and whether the petition effort succeeds or fails. Councilman Michael Julian Bond noted that the ordinance explicitly bars the use optical character recognition, a key criticism of opponents. The adopted ordinance also provides for a mechanism for voters to cure a signature that is ruled invalid.

But critics fear, given the procedural hurdles they have faced to date, that signature matching will be applied arbitrarily to block a public vote.

Nearly half of US wants Trump election subversion verdict before November, poll says

Nearly half of those in the US want to see Donald Trump’s 2020 election subversion case resolved before the former president runs for the White House again in November, according to a poll published on Monday. Meanwhile, a quarter of Americans do not think Trump will ever concede if he loses a second time to Joe Biden, said the survey, commissioned by CNN.

The survey in question found that 48% of those polled believed it was “essential” for there to be a verdict before November’s election. Another 16% said that they would at least prefer to see one. CNN’s poll also showed that expectations Trump would concede if he loses have dropped from 37% to 25% since October – and more than three-quarters (78%) think the former president would try to pardon himself of federal charges stemming from his presidency if he wins another stint in the Oval Office.

Trump has been performing strongly in polls as compared with Biden. A survey by NBC News released on Sunday found that Biden is beset by a deficit of 20 percentage points against Trump in his handling of the economy, despite signs that the US may have achieved an almost unique “soft-landing” after a government and consumer spending boom during the Covid-19 pandemic.

The poll also found that fewer than three in 10 voters approve of Biden’s handling of the Israel-Gaza war. And Biden lags Trump by 16 points on the perception of competence and effectiveness, a reversal from 2020.

Hurricanes becoming so strong that new category needed, study says

Hurricanes are becoming so strong due to the climate crisis that the classification of them should be expanded to include a “category 6” storm, furthering the scale from the standard 1 to 5, according to a new study.

Over the past decade, five storms would have been classed at this new category 6 strength, researchers said, which would include all hurricanes with sustained winds of 192mph or more. Such mega-hurricanes are becoming more likely due to global heating, studies have found, due to the warming of the oceans and atmosphere. ...

The new study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, proposes an extension to the widely used Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale, which was developed in the early 1970s by Herbert Saffir, a civil engineer, and Robert Simpson, a meteorologist who was the director of the US National Hurricane Center. ...

Category 5 storms have caused spectacular damage in recent years – such as Hurricane Katrina’s ravaging of New Orleans in 2005 and Hurricane Maria’s devastating impact upon Puerto Rico in 2017 – but the new study argues there is now a class of even more extreme storms that demands its own category. They include Typhoon Haiyan, which killed more than 6,000 people in the Philippines in 2013, and Hurricane Patricia, which reached a top speed of 215mph when it formed near Mexico in 2015.

“There haven’t been any in the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico yet but they have conditions conducive to a category 6, it’s just luck that there hasn’t been one yet,” said Wehner. “I hope it won’t happen, but it’s just a roll of the dice. We know that these storms have already gotten more intense, and will continue to do so.”

Ancient sea sponges at centre of controversial claim world has already warmed by 1.7C

Between 30 metres and 90 metres below the surface of the Caribbean Sea, an ancient sponge species that grows a hard skeleton has been quietly recording changes in the ocean temperature for hundreds of years. Now those sponges are at the centre of a bold and controversial claim made in a leading scientific journal that, since the start of the Industrial Revolution, the planet may have already warmed by 1.7C – half a degree more than estimates used by the United Nation’s climate panel.

Several leading scientists urged caution, saying the research had “over-reached” and questioned whether such a bold claim could be made based on one sponge species from a single location.

But Prof Malcolm McCulloch of the University of Western Australia, who led the research published in the journal Nature Climate Change, said the results were robust. “Taking a precautionary principle, our findings show that global warming is more advanced than we thought and therefore it’s a wake-up call that we have to get on with reducing CO2,” he said. “We will experience more serious impacts from global warming sooner than we had anticipated.”

With the help of deep-sea divers, six specimens of Ceratoporella nicholsoni – a sponge that can take hundreds of years to grow between 10cm and 15cm – were removed from areas off the coast of Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. As the sponges grow, they store strontium and calcium in a ratio that relates directly to the temperature of the water around them.

McCulloch and colleagues reconstructed global ocean temperatures over the past 300 years from signals found in the sponges and then combined them with land-based temperatures to give an estimate of global heating. The sponges grow deep enough to be unaffected by natural fluctuations in temperature and in an area of the ocean, the authors said, where temperature changes closely match the global average.

Also of Interest

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

Amnesty Condemns Israeli Military's 'Shocking' Violence Against West Bank Civilians

More Signs of US Impotence in Middle East: Overkill Yet Ineffective Strikes, Deluded “Reshaping the Middle East” Planted Piece, Hamas Blame Pre-Positioning for Probable Ceasefire Negotiation Fail

Gaza, the German Far-Right and the Hypocrisy of the Ruling Class

Israeli Army Admits Its Staff Was Behind Graphic Gaza Telegram Channel

Orbán boycotts parliament session called to ratify Swedish Nato bid

American Pediatrician Who Worked in Gaza Hospital Recalls Horrors of Israel's War

Biden Says He Talked with DECEASED French President as Mental Fitness Concerns MOUNT

Biden CAUGHT LYING About US Strikes In Iraq

Schumer Threatens US BOOTS If Ukraine Aide Fails

A Little Night Music

Noble Watts And The Possum Bellys w/June Bateman - Possum Belly Overalls

Noble Watts - Hot Tamales

Noble Watts - Teen Scene

June Bateman & Noble Watts And His Band - I Don't Wanta

Noble ''Thin Man'' Watts - The Beaver

Noble Watts - Blast Off!

Noble Watts - Jookin

Noble Watts - The Slide

Noble "Thin Man" Watts & His Rythm Sparks - Midnite Flight

Noble "Thin Man" Watts & His Rythm Sparks - Flap Jack