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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Johnny Winter

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues-rock guitarist Johnny Winter. Enjoy!

^{Johnny Winter – Let It Bleed}

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In the name of religion, one tortures, persecutes, builds pyres. In the guise of ideologies, one massacres, tortures and kills. In the name of justice one punishes...in the name of love of one's country or of one's race hates other countries, despises them, massacres them. In the name of equality and brotherhood there is suppression and torture. There is nothing in common between the means and the end, the means go far beyond the end...ideologies and religion... are the alibis of the means."

-- Eugene Ionesco

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News and Opinion

The Perfect Recipe For A Real Antisemitism Crisis

If I wanted to increase antisemitism, I imagine I’d do a lot of really evil stuff under a Star of David flag while adamantly insisting that my actions are inseparable from the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. I’d kill children by the thousands and commit genocidal atrocities.

To really help antisemitism spread I’d do everything I can to make people less vigilant against it. I’d try very hard to make the warning label of antisemitism look ridiculous and meaningless — circulate narratives that people who oppose genocide and ethnic cleansing hate Jews, frame peace marches as hate crimes, brand calls for justice as calls for the genocide of Jewish people. I’d falsely cry wolf as many times as possible in the most self-evidently absurd ways I could think of in order to desensitize everyone to alarm bells about the real spread of anti-Jewish hate.

I’d try to make sure the Jewish soldiers carrying out the atrocities under the Star of David flag make themselves look as inhuman as possible, thereby dehumanizing ordinary Jews in the eyes of the public. They should film themselves doing the most evil things imaginable while laughing and celebrating their deeds, and then share those videos on social media. The more viral content they can create with their horrific acts, the better.

I suppose I’d also want to research longstanding antisemitic conspiracy theories and make sure everyone’s helping to feed into them. “Jews control the media”? I’ll make sure the media are wildly biased in favor of the Star of David flag. “Jews control the government”? Make sure governments are bending over backwards to facilitate the crimes of the Star of David nation. “Child blood sacrifices”? Make sure the war crimes perpetrated under the Star of David flag are killing as many kids as possible.

These steps would create the perfect environment for very real acts of hatred toward members of the Jewish faith, which I suppose could then be used to drum up support for further atrocities, thereby making the very real antisemitism even worse. This would create a self-reinforcing feedback loop of violence and hatred, causing steadily escalating antisemitism throughout our society that one day could potentially lead to something as terrible as history has ever seen.

Of course I would never do such a thing, because it would be a terrible evil to inflict upon the Jews of the world. If such a thing happened it wouldn’t be the fault of the Jews — many of whom are among the most kind hearted and upstanding people on earth — it would be the fault of the governments and media outlets who paved the way to such an outcome. Any power structure which created or fed into such a dynamic would be unforgivably depraved, and would need to be stopped for the good of humanity.

Max Blumenthal (The GrayZone): Will Biden Stop Wars to Salvage His Presidency?

Israeli troops launch raid on Nasser hospital in southern Gaza

Israeli forces have raided the largest hospital in the Gaza Strip that is still functioning, amid warnings from the UN aid chief that a threatened ground offensive in Rafah, the area’s last remaining place of relative safety, could trigger an exodus of refugees fleeing into Egypt.

Nasser hospital, in the central town of Khan Younis, was hit directly by tank fire overnight, staff at the medical complex said on Thursday, in an attack that killed one person and injured eight more. Dr Khaled al-Serr, a surgeon at the hospital, said in an Instagram post that Israel Defense Forces (IDF) ground troops stormed the premises about an hour later and began forcing patients, medical personnel and displaced civilians sheltering at the hospital to flee.

Videos posted by Serr and others who said they were at the medical complex showed dripping water mixed with blood on the floor, and dust and smoke filling the air, as people searched for survivors under the rubble using lights on their phones. Shooting could be heard in the background. The UN’s humanitarian office had said on Wednesday that Nasser had been besieged by Israeli forces, with allegations that sniper fire had been aimed at the facility.

On Wednesday night, a doctor in the hospital’s emergency department, Haitham Ahmad, told colleagues in the UK: “We’re living through fear and anxiety amid attempts to evacuate the people sheltering in the hospital. Many civilians have been shot by snipers, most of them within the hospital parameters. “We’re panicking. We woke up today to loud airstrikes and explosions to the north. It’s terrifying. We’re running on little food, and medicines are limited. We have patients in ICU with no chance of survival if we are forced to flee.”

On Thursday morning, the IDF confirmed it had entered the hospital, describing the raid as “precise and limited” and based on intelligence that Hamas militants were using the complex and may have kept hostages there. A spokesperson for the Islamist movement dismissed the allegations as “lies”.

Israeli forces kill Palestinian after telling him to warn others to evacuate hospital

Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian man on Tuesday after sending him into al-Nasser Hospital in Khan Younis to warn others to evacuate, according to local media.

In footage shared online, the man is shown wearing protective overalls with his hands tied talking to Palestinians inside the hospital.

According to video testimony by Palestinian journalist Mohammed Akram al-Helo, which was shared by local media, the man was detained and arrested in the hospital, before being sent back to tell others that they needed to leave the building.

“He said the Israeli forces harassed him and treated him badly, and that if he did not do as he was told, they would storm the hospital, wound people and kill him,” Helo explained.

“When he finally left the hospital after doing what he was told, the Israeli soldiers shot him, he was shot three times in cold blood, in the vicinity of the hospital," he added.

Netanyahu Unilaterally Vetoes Further Hostage Deal Talks

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vetoed further hostage deal talks without consulting his war cabinet, infuriating families of Israeli hostages in Gaza, The Times of Israel reported.

The Hostages and Missing Families Forum, a group representing relatives of most of the Israeli hostages in Gaza, said it was “stunned” by Netanyahu’s move to end the talks. “It appears that some of the members of the cabinet decided to sacrifice the lives of the hostages without admitting it,” the group said, adding the decision was a “death sentence” for Israeli captives.

Israeli media is reporting that war cabinet members Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot of the National Unity party are furious over Netanyahu’s move and met on Wednesday to discuss their response.

Israel is surveilling U.S. data on settler attacks to thwart sanctions, sources reveal

Israel has been surveilling information provided to the United States by the Palestinian Authority regarding settler violence in the occupied West Bank in recent months, +972 Magazine and Local Call have learned.

Sources in Israeli intelligence told both sites that they have been tracking materials passed through private channels by the PA to the Office of U.S. Security Coordinator for Israel and the Palestinian Authority (USSC) in Jerusalem in order to “understand what the U.S. knows about settler violence.” The intention, they explained, is not to act against the perpetrators but to prevent the collected information from “developing into sanctions.”

U.S. officials, who confirmed that PA officials have been sending a great deal of information to the USSC on incidents of settler violence, told +972 and Local Call that this information contributed in part to President Joe Biden’s decision earlier this month to impose sanctions against four settlers known to have attacked Palestinians and left-wing Israeli activists. The officials added that the information led in recent months to the inclusion of dozens of other settlers on a “blacklist” prohibiting their entry into the United States. ...

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in response to these sanctions that “Israel acts against lawbreakers everywhere, so there is no need for exceptional steps in this matter.” But according to an investigation conducted by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din, 97 percent of the 1,664 Israeli police files opened between 2005 and 2023 regarding settler violence were closed without convicting any settler. In around 81 percent of these cases, the files were closed because of the police’s failure to identify evidence or culprits.

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: War and Debt

Israel’s Gaza war threatens to shut down West’s fifth-gen fighter programme

The Dutch government is urgently appealing a court decision that would bring global production of the West’s fifth-generation fighter jet to a halt.

A first instance decision on Monday gave the government a week to stop exporting parts for the F-35 stealth fighter-bomber, which Israel is using in its bombardment of the Gaza strip, where its war has killed more than 28,000 Palestinians, a majority of them women and children.

The Court of Appeal in The Hague cited “a clear risk that Israel’s F-35 fighter jets might be used in the commission of serious violations of international humanitarian law.” That could, in turn, implicate the Netherlands, which both manufactures and stocks F-35 parts. ...

“Israel does not take sufficient account of the consequences of its attacks for the civilian population,” the Dutch court said. “This means that the export of F-35 parts from the Netherlands to Israel has to be stopped.”

Doing so would have consequences that extend far beyond Israel and the war in Gaza. The Netherlands hosts one of three warehouses worldwide for F-35 parts, at Woensdrecht. However, the Netherlands argues that Israel cannot be singled out for an embargo, because the Dutch government exports parts to all countries in the F-35 programme under a single licence, labelled AV009. This was one reason why the Dutch government refused to suspend parts deliveries to Israel in the first place.

“Based on AV009 it is not possible to exclude a specific country as a destination from deliveries,” the court acknowledged. “All suppliers to Israel would then have to be excluded, but that would mean that those suppliers would no longer be allowed to supply to other countries.” ... The decision, if it is not overturned on appeal, could have serious implications for the F-35, designed and built by the United States-based Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Avdeyevka is collapsing, Zelensky travels to Germany

‘A lot higher than we expected’: Russian arms production worries Europe’s war planners

As Ukraine has scrambled to source ammunition, arms and equipment for its defence, Russia has presided over a massive ramping up of industrial production over the last two years that has outstripped what many western defence planners expected when Vladimir Putin launched his invasion.

Total defence spending has risen to an estimated 7.5% of Russia’s GDP, supply chains have been redesigned to secure many key inputs and evade sanctions, and factories producing ammunition, vehicles and equipment are running around the clock, often on mandatory 12-hour shifts with double overtime, in order to sustain the Russian war machine for the foreseeable future.

The transformation has put defence at the centre of Russia’s economy. Putin claimed this month that 520,000 new jobs had been created in the military-industrial complex, which now employs an estimated 3.5 million Russians, or 2.5% of the population. Machinists and welders in Russian factories producing war equipment are now making more money than many white-collar managers and lawyers, according to a Moscow Times analysis of Russian labour data in November.

As Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its third year, the massive Russian investment in the military, projected this year to be the largest as a share of GDP since the Soviet Union, has worried European war planners, who have said Nato underestimated Russia’s ability to sustain a long-term war.

“We still haven’t seen where is Russia’s breaking point,” said Mark Riisik, a deputy director in the policy planning department of Estonia’s defence ministry. “Basically one-third of their national budget is going on military production and on the war in Ukraine … But we don’t know when it will actually impact on society. So it’s a little bit challenging to say when will this stop.” One key indicator in the artillery war has been the domestic manufacture of shells, which experts put at 2.5m to 5m units a year. Riisik called the trends worrying, noting that production could run above 4m units in the next year or two. The import of more than a million shells already from North Korea, and a strategic stockpile of shells in the millions, gives Russia an additional cushion.

$95 Billion More for War, But No to $1 Billion to Feed 2 Million Families?

Following the passage of a $95 billion foreign aid package that includes funding for Israel's relentless assault on Gaza, economists and policy experts this week are expressing alarm over the failure of the U.S. Congress to ensure a federal program for low-income parents and their babies is fully funded—a gap that could leave 2 million children and parents without sufficient food.

The Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) has never turned away eligible families in its 50-year history, but analysts say that with Congress deadlocked over whether to fully fund the program, states may soon be forced to place up to 2 million families on waiting lists—"jeopardizing access to this highly effective program during an important window for child development," the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said in December.

The program, which has been linked to a decrease in infant and maternal mortality in the past five decades, is currently being funded by a short-term continuing resolution (CR) that Congress passed in January to keep the government running until early March.

While lawmakers have not agreed on funding for WIC, which is estimated to cost $6.3 billion in 2024 and faces a $1 billion shortfall, the Senate on Tuesday did pass the $95 billion foreign aid package, including $14.1 billion for Israel.

Israel's bombardment of Gaza has killed more than 28,000 people since October, including more than 12,000 children.

The Senate's 70-29 bipartisan vote in favor of the package, wrote defense analyst William Hartung of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, "lays bare the skewed priorities of the federal government."

Alexey Navalny dies in prison

Hundreds of deaths in US prisons linked to policy violations and failures

Institutional failures and policy violations by the US Bureau of Prisons (BoP) have contributed to hundreds of preventable deaths of incarcerated people in recent years, according to a federal watchdog report released on Thursday.

The US justice department office of the inspector general (OIG) found that from 2014 to 2021, 187 people died by suicide inside BoP institutions, with the prisons’ psychology services staff reporting that these types of deaths could be prevented if the facilities followed protocols and delivered proper resources and treatment to people in custody. The report also documented 89 homicides and 56 deaths deemed “accidental” during that time period, and said the BoP consistently failed to effectively discipline staff for misconduct that contributed to the deaths.

The scathing report by Michael Horowitz, the DoJ inspector general, paints a picture of a systemic and worsening crisis, and highlights the high-profile 2018 killing of the mobster James “Whitey” Bulger and the 2019 suicide of Jeffrey Epstein. Both deaths were deemed preventable and blamed in part on staff negligence and misconduct. The findings add to escalating concerns about human rights violations within the BoP after the US Senate found that staff have sexually abused women in custody in at least two-thirds of facilities, with some victims abused for months or years.

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FBI informant charged with lying about Bidens’ role in Ukraine business

An FBI informant has been charged with lying to his handler about ties between Joe Biden, his son Hunter and a Ukrainian energy company.

Alexander Smirnov falsely told FBI agents in June 2020 that executives associated with the Ukrainian energy company Burisma paid Hunter and Joe Biden $5m each in 2015 and 2016, prosecutors said on Thursday.

Smirnov told the FBI that a Burisma executive had claimed to have hired Hunter Biden to “protect us, through his dad, from all kinds of problems”, prosecutors said in a statement. ...

Smirnov, 43, was charged with making a false statement and creating a false and fictitious record. No attorney was immediately listed for him in court records. He was expected to make a first court appearance in Las Vegas, where he was arrested on Wednesday after arriving from overseas, prosecutors said.

The charges were filed by the justice department special counsel David Weiss, who has separately charged Hunter with firearm and tax violations.

East Palestine DEMANDS Biden Visit More Than 'PHOTO OP'

House Republicans will hold hearing with Robert Hur over Biden report

House Republicans will hold a public hearing next month with special counsel Robert Hur, who investigated Joe Biden’s mishandling of classified documents after his vice-presidency, as the White House counsel reportedly wrote to the attorney general attacking Hur’s commentary on the US president’s memory as a violation of federal policy.

The House judiciary committee, chaired by rightwing Republican Jim Jordan, will hear testimony from Hur on 12 March, two unnamed people familiar with the plans told the Associated Press on Thursday. The White House declined to comment on the plans.

The committee has spearheaded much of the House GOP’s investigations into Biden, including the effort to impeach him. While that effort has floundered, Republicans want to hear from Hur after his report last week offered an unflattering assessment of Biden’s competency and age.

Hur’s report concluded that criminal charges would not be warranted against Biden in relation to wrongly retaining classified material.

But he elaborated by going on to describe vividly the president’s memory recall as vague and having “significant limitations”, while citing the possibility that Biden would present himself to a jury as a “sympathetic, well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”.

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‘They lied’: plastics producers deceived public about recycling

Plastic producers have known for more than 30 years that recycling is not an economically or technically feasible plastic waste management solution. That has not stopped them from promoting it, according to a new report. “The companies lied,” said Richard Wiles, president of fossil-fuel accountability advocacy group the Center for Climate Integrity (CCI), which published the report. “It’s time to hold them accountable for the damage they’ve caused.”

Plastic, which is made from oil and gas, is notoriously difficult to recycle. Doing so requires meticulous sorting, since most of the thousands of chemically distinct varieties of plastic cannot be recycled together. That renders an already pricey process even more expensive. Another challenge: the material degrades each time it is reused, meaning it can generally only be reused once or twice.

The industry has known for decades about these existential challenges, but obscured that information in its marketing campaigns, the report shows. The research draws on previous investigations as well as newly revealed internal documents illustrating the extent of this decades-long campaign. Industry insiders over the past several decades have variously referred to plastic recycling as “uneconomical”, said it “cannot be considered a permanent solid waste solution”, and said it “cannot go on indefinitely”, the revelations show.

The authors say the evidence demonstrates that oil and petrochemical companies, as well as their trade associations, may have broken laws designed to protect the public from misleading marketing and pollution.

Ill-judged tree planting in Africa threatens ecosystems, scientists warn

Misguided tree-planting projects are threatening crucial ecosystems across Africa, scientists have warned. Research has revealed that an area the size of France is threatened by forest restoration initiatives that are taking place in inappropriate landscapes.

One project in particular, the African Forest Landscape Restoration Initiative, aims to plant trees across 100m hectares (247m acres) of land by 2030. Scientists have warned that the scheme plans to plant trees in non-forest ecosystems such as savannahs and grasslands, potentially disrupting or destroying intact ecosystems.

The research found that 52% of tree-planting projects in Africa are occurring in savannahs, with almost 60% using non-native tree species, which also brings the risk of introducing invasive species. The researchers say the misclassification of grassy ecosystems including savannahs as “forests” could lead to misplaced reforestation and destruction of these ancient grasslands.

The definition currently used by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization defines forests as areas of land spanning more than 0.5 hectares with trees higher than 5 metres, with tree canopy cover of at least 10%. Under this definition, open-spaced ecosystems with trees, such as savannahs, would be classified as forests and would meet the required standards for reforestation – even if they were not appropriate.

The addition of more trees to these areas creates more canopy cover and decreases the amount of light that can reach the ground below, which can change the grassy environment of the savannah. This could be a risk to wildlife such as rhinos and wildebeest, as well as people who depend on these ecosystems.

Heavy metals and E coli: raw sewage at US-Mexico border a ‘public health crisis’

Raw sewage and runoff in the Tijuana River is exposing communities at the US-Mexico border to an unusual and noxious brew of pathogens and toxic chemicals, according to a report released this week. Billions of gallons of sewage flow through the river, which winds north from Mexico through California and empties into the Pacific Ocean, containing a mix of carcinogenic chemicals including arsenic, as well as viruses, bacteria and parasites, according to public health researchers at San Diego State University, who published the report.

The researchers have called the situation “a pressing public health crisis”. Wastewater flowing into the ocean has resulted in more than 700 consecutive days of beach closures in San Diego county, but the contamination isn’t limited to the water. Pollutants and pathogens contained in sewage have also been detected in the local air and soil – exposing even those who live miles away from the water.

Communities on both sides of the border have been raising the alarm about this contamination for decades, complaining of the near-constant stench in the air, and pushing for better wastewater infrastructure. Unprecedented storms in recent years, exacerbated by the climate crisis, have put even more pressure on faltering sewage systems – and increased public health risks. ...

In January, Mexico broke ground on a new wastewater treatment plant to replace an outdated facility in Punta Bandera, six miles south of the border. Meanwhile, the US government in 2020 approved a $300m fund to expand a wastewater treatment plant in San Ysidro, just north of the border. But a government memo obtained by the San Diego Union Tribune last year revealed the facility had been in such disrepair that half the funds would be needed just to maintain the existing infrastructure.

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Also of Interest

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

We Think This Dystopia Is Normal Like People In Abusive Relationships Think It’s Normal

Israel’s Big Game Propaganda

The Unrepentant West Embraces Israeli Genocide in Gaza

"Democracies" Deny the Popular Will While Suppressing Protest and Dissent

The Truth About Joe Biden, America, And Europe’s Future

FERC Ignores Climate Impacts and Rubber-Stamps Texas Pipeline

‘It’s almost carbon-negative’: how hemp became a surprise building material

Hind Rajab: Israel Kills Medics Trying to Save Dying 6-Year-Old Girl in Gaza

Putin Critic Alexei Navalny DEAD At 47 Under MYSTERIOUS CIRCUMSTANCES In Russian Prison

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A Little Night Music

Johnny Winter And – It’s My Own Fault

Johnny Winter – Thirty Days

Johnny Winter – Fast Life Rider

Johnny Winter – Drinkin' Blues

Johnny Winter – Kind Hearted Woman

Johnny Winter – Broke Down Engine

Sonny Terry, Johnny Winter - I Got My Eyes On You

Johnny Winter – It Was Rainin'

Johnny Winter – Walking Thru The Park

Johnny Winter – Forty Four

Johnny Winter – Stray Cat Blues

Johnny Winter – Boney Moroney

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