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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Ernie K Doe

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer Ernie K Doe. Enjoy!

^{Ernie K Doe - A Certain Girl}

"We are born of risen apes, not fallen angels."

-- Robert Ardrey

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News and Opinion

US gives Israel blank check to massacre civilians in Rafah

In multiple statements over the past 24 hours, US officials have made clear that they will take no action against Israel no matter how many civilians it massacres in its planned assault on Rafah, where one million displaced people are sheltering. These statements effectively give Israel a blank check to commit unrestrained war crimes in its assault on the city. On Monday, US National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby was asked whether the United States will reduce its military aid to Israel if it assaults Rafah without taking into consideration “what happens to civilians.”

To this, Kirby replied, “We will continue to support Israel. They have a right to defend themselves against Hamas, and we will continue to make sure they have the tools and capabilities to do that.” To drive this point home, Politico reported on Tuesday, based on statements by three US officials, that “The Biden administration is not planning to punish Israel if it launches a military campaign in Rafah without ensuring civilian safety.” Politico continued, “No reprimand plans are in the works, meaning Israeli forces could enter the city and harm civilians without facing American consequences.” ...

On Sunday, Biden declared, “The major military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible plan for ensuring the safety and support of more than 1 million people sheltering there.” The statements by Kirby and the officials who spoke on background to Politico made it clear that this declaration is meaningless, and that the United States will endorse Israeli actions no matter how many people it massacres.

In a testament to how brazenly American imperialism is endorsing the genocide, Kirby was asked again on Tuesday, “What happens if Israel does not provide this plan and moves into Rafah?” Kirby dismissed the question as a “game,” declaring, “I’m not going to get into a hypothetical game.”

Biden WEAKLY ADMITS He Won't Do ANYTHING To Stop Civilian Deaths Despite BLANK CHECK To IDF

Israel in breach of international law if it denies Gaza food and water, says UK foreign secretary

Israel is in breach of international law as the occupying power if it fails to provide food and water to the people of Gaza, the UK foreign secretary, Lord Cameron, told peers on Tuesday in his clearest warning yet over Israel’s conduct.

He also said it was simply not possible for people in Rafah to leave as proposed by the Israeli Defense Forces, remarks that suggest the UK would not endorse any Israeli plan to mount a full-scale attack on the area containing more than 1 million people in crowded refugee camps. He also argued the US was beginning to shift on when Palestine might be recognised so Israel was no longer given a veto.

He said: “The people who are in Rafah on many occasions have already moved three, four or five times. And it’s not possible to move again, they can’t go north because they’d be going back to homes that have been destroyed. They can’t go south, because that would involve going into Egypt, which none of us want to see and the Egyptians do not want to see.

“That is why it’s so important, the Israelis stop and think before going ahead with any operations and wrap up.”

His comments came as the US said it was reviewing reports that Israel had harmed civilians in Gaza, under a set of guidelines aimed at ensuring countries receiving US arms conduct military operations in line with international humanitarian law. State department spokesperson Matthew Miller said the process was taking place under the Civilian Harm Incident Response Guidance (CHIRG), which is used to investigate specific incidents where civilians may have been harmed by US weapons.

Saudi Arabia public rebuke of Biden White House

South Africa Calls on ICJ to Stop Israel's Rafah Assault

Israel's bombardment of Rafah in southern Gaza and its stated plan to expand its attack with a ground assault puts the country in breach of a clear directive from the International Court of Justice, said South African officials on Tuesday, less than three weeks after the court ordered Israel to do everything in its power to prevent genocidal violence in Gaza.

The South African government made an urgent request of the ICJ, also called the World Court, calling on it to take further action as more than 100 Palestinian people were killed by Israeli shelling and airstrikes in multiple locations across Rafah overnight Monday.

As Israel has waged relentless air and ground attacks across Gaza since October 7, more than 1.3 million people—more than half of the enclave's population—have sought refuge in shelters and makeshift tents in Rafah, leaving them with nowhere to go in recent days as the Israel Defense Forces stepped up its assault on the city.

South Africa said in a statement Tuesday that Israel's stated plan to launch a ground offensive in the city "requires that the court uses its power to prevent further imminent breach of the rights of Palestinians in Gaza."

"The unprecedented military offensive against Rafah, as announced by the state of Israel, has already led to and will result in further large scale killing, harm, and destruction," said the South African government in a court filing submitted on Monday. "This would be in serious and irreparable breach both of the Genocide Convention and of the court's order of January 26, 2024."

After South Africa filed a case at the ICJ claiming Israel is committing genocidal acts in Gaza—and presenting exhaustive evidence, including clear statements from top officials ordering the targeting of civilians in the enclave—the court issued an interim ruling on January 26 saying the complaint was "plausible" and requiring Israel to ensure its military does not violate the Genocide Convention.

South Africa noted in its filing Monday that under Article 75(1) in the rules of the ICJ, "The court may at any time decide to examine proprio motu whether the circumstances of the case require the indication of provisional measures which ought to be taken or complied with by any or all of the parties."

The government "feels that facts on the ground have changed so significantly," saidFeature Story News correspondent Alex Cadier, "that the court should urgently revisit the provisional measures it ordered a few weeks ago."

Rafah is just the latest Gaza city that, after being designated a so-called "safe zone" for civilians, has been besieged by U.S.-backed Israeli troops.

The World Food Program warned on Tuesday that yet another forced displacement of the Gaza residents who have been crammed into Rafah will further decrease "resilience" as the population is pushed toward starvation due to Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid.

More than 28,000 people have been killed by IDF attacks in Gaza since October 7.

South Africa's new filing at the ICJ came after King Abdullah II of Jordan reiterated his call for a cease-fire in Gaza in a meeting with U.S. President Joe Biden at the White House. Officials from the U.S., Qatar, Egypt, and Israel were in Cairo on Tuesday to discuss a possible truce.

Biden Spox Says IDF MORE MORAL Than US Military

IDF Let Israeli Civilians Film Torture of Palestinian Detainees: Report

Israel Defense Forces officers brought Israeli civilians into detention centers and allowed them to watch and film Palestinian prisoners being tortured, according to survivor testimonies published this week by the Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor.

Prisoners held at detention centers in Zikim on the northern border of the Gaza Strip and at a site in southern Israel affiliated with Naqab Prison "told Euro-Med Monitor that the Israeli soldiers had purposefully presented them before Israeli civilians, falsely claiming that they were fighters affiliated with Palestinian armed factions and that they had taken part in the October 7 attack on Israeli towns," the group said.

The former detainees said groups of 10-20 Israeli civilians were brought in and allowed to record torture sessions in which the men, stripped nearly naked, were beaten with metal batons, electrocuted, and had hot water poured over their heads. The ex-prisoners said some of the Israelis laughed while filming their torture.

"I was arrested at the checkpoint set up near the Kuwait roundabout, which separates Gaza City from the central region, as part of the Israeli random arrest campaigns. I was subjected to all types of torture and abuse for approximately 52 days," 43-year-old Omar Abu Mudallala told Euro-Med Monitor, adding that his IDF captors "brought Israeli civilians to watch our nude torture."

Abu Mudallala continued:

The Israeli army brought a number of Israeli civilians into our detention centers while beating us and telling them, "These are Hamas terrorists who killed you and raped your women on 7 October," while the Israeli civilians were filming us being beaten, abused, and tortured while making fun of us.

This happened five times while I was being held. The first time was in Barkasat Zikim, where we were blindfolded. However, one of the detainees who speaks Hebrew told us that the soldiers were interacting with Israeli civilians claiming that we were armed fighters. The other four incidents took place in the Negev detention facility, where successive Israeli groups were taken inside tents to witness our abuse and record the torture methods we were subjected to without allowing us to speak or interact with them. Since we were not wearing blindfolds at the time, I saw them all four times with my own eyes.

"One of the detainees who speaks Hebrew tried to explain to the Israeli civilians that we are civilians and we had nothing to do with any military activities, but that also did not help," Abu Mudallala added. "However, he was subjected to severe psychological and physical torture. It was really shameful to bring Israeli citizens to record our torture for being allegedly involved in killing and rape incidents."

Another former prisoner, identified only as 42-year-old D.H., told Euro-Med Monitor that "Israeli civilians were brought to witness the abuse and torture that we were subjected to, which the army deliberately began when they were present."

"These Israelis sometimes brought their dogs with them to bark at us," he added. "They also took pictures of us and posted them on social media apps, particularly TikTok, with the soldiers themselves doing the same."

Euro-Med Monitor asserted that "the vast majority of those arrested from within the Gaza Strip have been subjected to arbitrary detention without being charged or brought to justice, with no legal measures taken against them."

"They are also denied a fair trial and are subjected to forced disappearance, torture, and inhumane treatment," the group added. "Israeli practices against Palestinian detainees are blatant violations of international conventions and standards, particularly the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention, which forbids an occupying authority from transferring prisoners from the occupied territory to detention facilities on its territory, as well as torturing, attacking, or otherwise degrading the human dignity of those detained."

Israeli forces, with their long history of torturing Palestinian prisoners, have been accused during the current war on Gaza of torturing civilian detainees before executing them. Photos and videos of Israeli troops abusing Palestinians—both alive and dead—have been published by perpetrators on social media. Human rights defenders point to such images and their proud display as evidence of Israeli genocide in a war in which more than 100,000 Palestinians have been killed, maimed, or gone missing.

The International Court of Justice found last month in a preliminary ruling that Israel is "plausibly" committing genocide in Gaza, while ordering Israeli forces to "take all measures" to avoid perpetrating genocidal acts.

"A War Against Palestinian Americans": Jailed, Attacked, Killed in West Bank and U.S.

Israeli Minister Blocks US Flour Shipments Into Gaza

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich is blocking a US-funded flour shipment into Gaza that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu previously vowed would be allowed into the Strip, Axios reported on Tuesday.

Officials said that Netanyahu personally made the commitment to President Biden several weeks ago and that the Israeli war and security cabinets approved the delivery to be made through Israel’s Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza, where Israelis have been protesting against humanitarian aid shipments into Gaza.

Smotrich’s office says he blocked the shipment because it’s going to the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). Israel recently accused 12 UNRWA employees of participating in the October 7 Hamas attack on southern Israel, but the intelligence dossier the allegations were based on provides no evidence for the claim, according to media outlets that obtained the document. ...

Smotrich is still claiming UNRWA is a “central part” of the “Hamas war machine.” His office said he was blocking the shipment in coordination with Netanyahu and claimed it would be able to go through if they found a new delivery mechanism.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Does The CIA Destabilize the World?

PAKISTAN | Imran Khan's Party PULLS OFF WIN Despite RIGGING Elections, NO GOV'T Formed

Pakistan: coalition agrees to form government and shut out Imran Khan’s party

A coalition including the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PLM-N) and the Pakistan People’s party (PPP) have agreed to form the next government of Pakistan, ensuring that the party of former prime minister Imran Khan will not take power despite getting the most votes in the election.

At a press conference in Islamabad on Tuesday night, it was confirmed that the rival parties had agreed, with two smaller coalition partners, to form a joint government “to take Pakistan out of difficulty” and that PLM-N’s president, Shehbaz Sharif, would be their sole nominee for prime minister.

Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) party hit out at the coalition, calling them “mandate thieves”.

The announcement followed days of wrangling and political horse-trading after Pakistan’s election last week dramatically delivered the most votes – but not enough for a majority – to PTI, despite military opposition and a state-led crackdown.

It had been expected that the election would deliver an easy victory to PML-N and its leader, three-time former prime minister Nawaz Sharif, after he was given the tacit backing of Pakistan’s powerful military, who have a documented history of shaping election outcomes. But a landslide of support gave PTI the most parliamentary seats, in what was seen as a humiliation for Nawaz Sharif.

INFLATION Is HOT, HOT, HOT: Energy, Food, Mortgages SKYROCKET From January 2021

Tax-Dodging Jeff Bezos to Save $610 Million With Move to 'Billionaire Bunker' in Florida

Jeff Bezos, founder of the e-commerce behemoth Amazon and one of the richest men in the world, is poised to save at least $610 million in taxes by moving from Washington state to a hyper-exclusive Miami island that's been dubbed "Billionaire Bunker."

Bezos announced the move from Seattle—home to Amazon's headquarters—to Miami in an Instagram post on November 2. The previous month, Bezos purchased two mansions in Indian Creek Village for $68 million and $79 million. Other prominent figures, including retired NFL superstar Tom Brady and billionaire investor Carl Icahn, own properties on the island, which is only accessible to those with invites.

Bloomberg reported last month that "Bezos emissaries have reached out to at least three other homeowners on the island about purchasing their properties, according to people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be identified discussing private matters. Conversations are ongoing."

While Bezos didn't mention the potential tax savings as one of the reasons for his move, the announcement came after Washington state's new 7% capital gains tax on the sale or exchange of stocks and other assets worth more than $250,000 took effect after a lengthy court fight. The tax brought in far more revenue in its first year than supporters expected.

As CNBC reported Monday, Bezos has been selling Amazon shares nearly every year for more than two decades—but he stopped in 2022, the first year of Washington's new tax.

Now that he's in Florida, which doesn't tax income or capital gains, Bezos has resumed selling his Amazon stock, dumping around 12 million shares worth roughly $2 billion last week. CNBC pointed to recent U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings showing that Bezos has "launched a pre-scheduled stock-selling plan to unload 50 million shares before Jan. 31, 2025. At today's price, that would total more than $8.7 billion."

"On the $2 billion sale last week, he saved $140 million that he would have paid to Washington state," CNBC observed. "On the entire sale of 50 million shares over the next year, he will save at least $610 million. And that's assuming Amazon shares remain flat. If they continue to rise, the value of his shares—and his tax savings—will be even higher."

According to the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy (ITEP), Bezos' new home state has the most regressive tax system in the U.S.—a title that was held by Washington prior to the enactment of the 7% capital gains tax. ...

Right-wing commentators, such as the Cato Institute's Scott Lincicome and FreedomWorks' Stephen Moore, used Bezos' move to suggest that taxing the wealthy only pushes them to move elsewhere in search of lower tax rates.

But ITEP research director Carl Davis told Common Dreams that "when you look at the data, there isn't much support for the view that high-income people are moving in meaningful numbers because of taxes." A 2016 study by Stanford University researchers found that while "millionaire tax flight is occurring," it is "only at the margins of statistical and socioeconomic significance."

"Without good data to back them up," said Davis, "the folks who want to use migration fears to argue against taxing the rich often end up relying on anecdotes to make their point."

Americans for Tax Fairness, a progressive advocacy group, wrote on social media Tuesday that "if we had a national billionaire income tax, we'd collect that revenue no matter where he lived."

"Billionaires can't quit America to avoid paying," the group added. "If they left, we'd collect a fortune in exit taxes."

GOP Impeaches Mayorkas as Democrats Push "Dead-End Strategy" of Harsh Border & Immigration Policy

US House impeaches Biden homeland security secretary in historic vote

The US House of Representatives has voted to impeach Alejandro Mayorkas, Joe Biden’s secretary of homeland security, on explicitly political charges related to conditions at the southern border as Republicans attempt to capitalize on the issue in an election year.

The evening roll call proved tight, with speaker Mike Johnson’s threadbare Republican majority and in the face of staunch Democratic opposition to impeaching Mayorkas, the first cabinet secretary facing charges in nearly 150 years.

In the historic rebuke, the House impeached Mayorkas 214-213.

Three Republicans voted against party lines. Mike Gallagher from Wisconsin, Ken Buck from Colorado, and Tom McClintock from California said the Mayorkas impeachment did not meet the bar laid out in the constitution.

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New York special election: Tom Suozzi wins seat vacated by George Santos in boost for Biden

Democrat Tom Suozzi won the New York congressional seat vacated by the disgraced Republican George Santos on Tuesday night, in a boost for Joe Biden ahead of the presidential election.

The victory narrows the slim Republican majority in the House and gives Democrats a much-needed win in New York City’s Long Island suburbs, where Republican candidates have shown strength in recent elections.

The Associated Press called the result after 52% of votes were counted, with Suozzi on 59% compared with 41% for Republican candidate Mazi Pilip.

Wisconsin lawmakers adopt new legislative maps that could undo gerrymandering

Wisconsin lawmakers voted on Tuesday to adopt legislative maps drawn by the Democratic governor, Tony Evers – inching the state closer to undoing the extreme gerrymander that has ensured Republican control of the state for more than a decade.

The pair of votes in the Republican-dominated state assembly and state senate are a sign that the years-long battle over Wisconsin’s legislative maps may be finally drawing to a close, giving Democrats a chance to win control of the state legislature in upcoming elections for the first time since 2012.

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Climate experts sound alarm over thriving plant life at Greenland ice sheet

Significant areas of Greenland’s melted ice sheet are now producing vegetation, risking increased greenhouse gas emissions, rising sea levels and instability of the landscape. A study has documented the change since the 1980s and shows that large areas of ice have been replaced with barren rock, wetlands and shrub growth, creating a change in environment.

Analysis of satellite records has shown that over the past three decades an estimated 11,000 sq miles of Greenland’s ice sheet and glaciers have melted, an area equivalent to the size of Albania and amounting to 1.6% of its total ice cover. As ice has retreated, the amount of land with vegetation growing on it has increased by 33,774 sq miles, more than twice the area covered when the study began.

The findings show a near-quadrupling of wetlands across Greenland, which are a source of methane emissions. ...

According to the findings, there are signs that the increased vegetation is resulting in further ice loss. Jonathan Carrivick, an Earth scientist at the University of Leeds and a co-author of the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, said: “We have seen signs that the loss of ice is triggering other reactions which will result in further loss of ice and further ‘greening’ of Greenland, where shrinking ice exposes bare rock that is then colonised by tundra and eventually shrub.

Polar bears risk starvation as they face longer ice-free periods in the Arctic

Polar bears in Canada’s Hudson Bay risk starvation as the climate crisis lengthens periods without Arctic Sea ice, despite the creatures’ willingness to expand their diets.

Polar bears use the ice that stretches across the ocean surface in the Arctic during colder months to help them access their main source of prey – fatty ringed and bearded seals.

In the warmer months when the sea ice recedes, they would be expected to conserve their energy and even enter a hibernation-like state.

But human-caused climate change is extending this ice-free period in parts of the Arctic – which is heating between two and four times faster than the rest of the world – and forcing the polar bears to spend more and more time on land. ...

Nineteen out of the 20 polar bears studied lost weight during the period consistent with the amount of weight they would lose during a period of fasting, researchers said. That means that the longer polar bears spend on land, the higher their risk for starvation.

'Enough Is Enough': US Factory Farm Takeover Continues With 1.7 Billion Animals

Critics of factory farming renewed demands for U.S. policy reforms on Tuesday in response to new federal data on the nation's agricultural activity, which is released every five years.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) put out its report about the 1.9 million farms and ranches that collectively spanned more than 880 million acres as of 2022—a loss of nearly 142,000 operations and over 20 million acres since 2017. The document features state tallies and other details including inventory and values for crops and livestock.

"The USDA's new data show that without policy changes, factory farms will continue to get bigger and bigger, wreaking havoc on public health, the environment, and the climate," warned Environmental Working Group (EWG) Midwest director Anne Schechinger.

Schechinger highlighted some of the key data points for EWG's website:

For cattle and broiler chicken farms, the number of the largest factory farms has grown since 2012. In 2012, there were 1,124 cattle farms in the U.S. with 5,000 cattle or more per farm. But that increased to 1,270 mega factory farms in 2017 and 1,453 in 2022, according to the USDA's Census of Agriculture data—a 29% increase.

And the largest chicken farms increased by 17%, from 6,332 farms with 500,000 or more birds in 2012 to 7,211 farms in 2017 and 7,406 farms in 2022. The number of the biggest hog factory farms increased greatly, from 3,006 in 2012 to 3,600 in 2017 but went down slightly to 3,540 in 2022.

Across all three animal types—cattle, chickens, and hogs—the number of animals produced in the largest factory farms increased. There were 28% more cattle produced in the largest facilities in 2022 than in 2012, 24% more hogs, and 24% more chickens.

Food & Water Watch (FWW), which also analyzed the new government data, found that "there are currently 1.7 billion animals raised on U.S. factory farms every year; an increase of 6% since 2017, 47% more than roughly 20 years ago in 2002."

The group emphasized that "as factory farms take over, the number of small dairies raising animals outside the factory farm system plummeted, with barely one-third as many today compared to 20 years ago."

FWW research director Amanda Starbuck declared that "America today is truly a factory farming nation. Status quo legislating in Washington is enabling a corporate feeding frenzy in rural America."

"As industrial confinements drive family-scale farmers off their land, we are left with skyrocketing numbers of animals on factory farms producing enormous amounts of waste," she continued. "The benefits flow to private coffers while our communities and environment are left holding the bag."

The 24,000 U.S. factory farms produce 940 billion pounds of manure annually, according to Starbuck's group. That is "twice as much as the sewage produced by the entire U.S. population" and "52 billion pounds more than in 2017, equivalent to creating a new city of 39 million people (or nearly two New York City metro areas) in the past five years," FWW explained.

Animal waste from factory farms, or concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs), "often pollutes our water and air," noted EWG's Schechinger. "These environmental damages are also dangerous for public health, with toxins from animal manure sickening people and poisoning wildlife."

"The largest livestock operations are also bad for the climate," she added. "Cows release methane to the atmosphere through their burps, and cattle and hog manure releases methane and nitrous oxide, two greenhouse gases more powerful than carbon dioxide."

Starbuck argued that "enough is enough—Congress must pass the Farm System Reform Act to ban factory farming now."

That bill (S.271/H.R. 797) "would, among other things, strengthen the Packers & Stockyards Act to crack down on the monopolistic practices of meatpackers and corporate integrators, place a moratorium on large factory farms... and restore mandatory country-of-origin labeling requirements," according to its sponsors, U.S. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.).

The pair reintroduced that legislation last February alongside the Industrial Agriculture Accountability Act, Protecting America's Meatpacking Workers Act, and Protect America's Children from Toxic Pesticides Act.

"I have been very proud to partner with Sen. Booker to try and reform our broken food system to maintain fair competition, high animal welfare standards, and level the playing field for family farmers, ranchers, and agricultural workers," Khanna said at the time. "These bills shine a light on the disturbing practices in our current system and can help usher in a new, safer, and more resilient system."

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Also of Interest

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

‘No Mardi Gras mask can hide genocide’: the pro-Palestine activism of this year’s carnival

Continuing To Support Israel At This Point Just Means You’re A Garbage Human Being

Israel Proposes Creating US-Funded Tent Cities to Evacuate Rafah

Biden Is Mad at Netanyahu? Spare Me.

Russian Imperialism

Ukraine Collapse Starting. What Happens Next?

Ukraine SitRep: A Collapse Is Coming - And Then?

I’m not trying to destroy art, says man planning to do just that if Assange dies in jail

Is Lesser Evilism Failing In America

What Would Happen If Biden Stepped Aside?

El Paso residents fear air pollution will worsen after border crossing upgrade

Before and after images show California snowpack replenished by fierce storms

State Dept REJECTS Ukraine Ceasefire Plan from Putin: Report; Will U.S. Pay to REBUILD GAZA?

RESIGN, JOE: Haley Calls on Biden To STEP DOWN, POTUS Will NOT Take Cognitive Test

“The Establishment Is Desperate To Divide Us!” – Dennis Kucinich

Scott Ritter: Russia, Ukraine, and Biden

Phil Giraldi: #Congress Wants to Kill / In Depth Analysis

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A Little Night Music

Ernie K Doe - Mother In Law

Ernie K Doe - Te-Ta-Te-Ta-Ta

Lee Dorsey - Ya Ya

Ernie K.Doe - I cried my last tear

Lee Dorsey - Working In The Coal Mine

K-Doe, Ernie - Wanted, $10,000 Reward

Ernie K Doe - Waiting At The Station

Ernie K Doe - My Mother In Law Is In My Hair Again

Ernie K-Doe - Fly Away With Me

Ernie K. Doe - Here Come The Girls

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