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This evening's music features blues singer Walter Davis. Enjoy!

"Much of the most important evils that mankind have to consider are those which they inflict upon each other through stupidity or malevolence or both."

-- Bertrand Russell

News and Opinion

One Month Later, Israel Has 'Simply Ignored' ICJ Ruling and Continued to Starve Gazans

In the month since the International Court of Justice handed down its interim ruling in the genocide case brought by South Africa, the Israeli government has continued to impede the delivery of humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip in violation of the court's order, Human Rights Watch said Monday.

The ICJ's January 26 ruling, which is legally binding, requires Israel to do everything in its power to prevent acts of genocide in Gaza and ensure that basic assistance flows to the enclave's population.

But according to Human Rights Watch (HRW), "the daily average number of trucks entering Gaza with food, aid, and medicine dropped by more than a third in the weeks following the ICJ ruling: 93 trucks between January 27 and February 21, 2024, compared to 147 trucks between January 1 and 26, and only 57 between February 9 and 21."

HRW's analysis comes on the day the Israeli government is set to deliver its own 30-day assessment of compliance with the ICJ decision, which stated that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The Times of Israel reported late Sunday that the government report "is being drafted by the Justice Ministry and the Foreign Ministry but will not be released to the press or general public, and both ministries have been extremely tight-lipped about the information in the document."

Observers don't expect the government's self-assessment to reflect the catastrophic reality on the ground in Gaza, where most people are starving and at growing risk of infectious disease due to the scarcity of clean water and adequate shelter. U.S.-backed Israeli forces have been accused of firing on aid convoys and targeting crowds of civilians gathering to receive food and other assistance.

In desperation, some Gazans have resorted to eating grass and animal feed and drinking contaminated water. A majority of Gaza's population is currently crowded into the city of Rafah, which Israel plans to invade whether or not there's a cease-fire deal with Hamas.

"The Israeli government is starving Gaza's 2.3 million Palestinians, putting them in even more peril than before the World Court's binding order," Omar Shakir, HRW's Israel and Palestine director, said in a statement Monday. "The Israeli government has simply ignored the court's ruling, and in some ways even intensified its repression, including further blocking lifesaving aid."

HRW's analysis notes that in addition to blocking food aid and medicine shipments, Israeli authorities have also obstructed the delivery of fuel, the lack of which has forced many of Gaza's hospitals to shut down.

"Between February 1 and 15, Israeli authorities only facilitated 2 of 21 planned missions to deliver fuel to the north of the Wadi Gaza area in central Gaza and none of the 16 planned fuel delivery or assessment missions to water and wastewater pumping stations in the north," the group said. "Fewer than 20% of planned missions to deliver fuel and undertake assessments north of Wadi Gaza have been facilitated between January 1 and February 15, as compared with 86% of missions planned between October and December."

Israel's mass killing of Gazans has also not stopped in the wake of the ICJ order, HRW said Monday. Pointing to figures from Gaza's health ministry, the group noted that Israeli forces killed more than 3,400 people in the Palestinian enclave between the day of the ICJ ruling and February 23.

"Israel's blatant disregard for the World Court's order poses a direct challenge to the rules-based international order," Shakir said. "Failure to ensure Israel's compliance puts the lives of millions of Palestinians at risk and threatens to undermine the institutions charged with ensuring respect for international law and the system that ensures civilian protection worldwide."

The Geneva-based Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor similarly concluded in a report released over the weekend that Israel is in "flagrant violation" of the ICJ's order.

The group implored the international community "to uphold its legal and moral duties to the people of the Gaza Strip, and to ensure that the ICJ ruling is carried out to prevent the crime of genocide in the Gaza Strip."

Biden MUNCHES ICE CREAM While Telling Press Israel-Hamas CEASEFIRE Could Come MONDAY

Joe Biden says Gaza ceasefire could be reached by next Monday

Joe Biden said he believes a new, temporary ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is possible by next Monday. The US president offered the update spontaneously during a visit to New York on Monday, in response to reporters inquiring about when he expected a ceasefire ceasefire could start. “My national security adviser tells me that we’re close. We’re close. We’re not done yet,” Biden said. “My hope is by next Monday, we’ll have a ceasefire.”

Biden made the comments in New York after taping an appearance on NBC’s Late Night With Seth Meyers.

Over the weekend, Israel’s war cabinet approved the broad terms of a deal to pause fighting for several weeks in exchange for the release of hostages. The weeks-long pause would allow hundreds of trucks to deliver aid to Gaza, where nearly 30,000 have been killed according its health ministry, and disease and hunger have gripped most of the population.

Last week, the United Nations food agency paused aid to northern Gaza, citing Israeli gunfire and “complete chaos and violence due to the collapse of civil order”, amid increasing reports of famine.

Netanyahu Says Hostage Deal Will Only Delay Attack on Rafah

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu explained that if Tel Aviv agrees to a new hostage deal with Hamas, it will only “delay” the Israeli attack on Rafah. International aid organizations have warned that an attack on the city of 1.5 million will be devastating to the civilian population of Gaza.

On Friday, the US, Egypt, and Qatar presented a new hostage deal that would see the release of 40 Israeli captives in exchange for a six-week pause in fighting. The deal was negotiated without the input of Tel Aviv and Hamas. While US and Israeli officials have presented the hostage release proposal as progress, neither Tel Aviv nor Hamas have signed on to it.

Hamas’ top priority is ending the Israeli onslaught. Netanyahu’s remarks signal Israel is unwilling to end the war until every city in Gaza is destroyed. “Once we begin the Rafah operation, the intense phase of the fighting is weeks away from completion. Not months,” Netanyahu told CBS. “If we don’t have a deal, we’ll do it anyway."

Matt Hoh: Principle and Sacrifice Confront Genocide

Israeli DM: Ceasefire in Gaza Would Mean Escalation in Lebanon

Ongoing fighting on the Lebanon-Israel border may well get much worse, according to Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. Commenting on the ongoing ceasefire talks looking to at least temporarily stop the open-ended offensive against the Gaza Strip, Gallant says that Israel will “increase the fire in the north independently” if there was a pause.

Interestingly, the only thing that was holding up Hezbollah in supporting their own ceasefire with Israel was the ongoing war in Gaza. If somehow that war came to an end, a deal in the north should be much more possible even if Israel sees it as a license to escalate.

Gallant says the fighting will continue until Hezbollah is forced from the border and displaced Israelis are able to return home to the north. He also said Hezbollah isn’t able to replace commanders that Israel has killed.

Ralph Nader at 90 on the "Genocidal War" in Gaza & Why Congress Is a Weapon of Mass Destruction

US Officials ‘Surprised’ by Houthi Military Capabilities

Joe Biden administration officials admitted that six weeks into the undeclared war in Yemen, the US and UK strikes have failed to erode the Houthis military capabilities. The officials said the US is surprised at the Houthis’ military capabilities and that Washington has a limited understanding of how advanced their weapons systems are.

On January 11, President Biden ordered the first round of strikes in Yemen. The White House claimed the attack was designed to force the Houthis to end attacks on Israeli-linked shipping. The Houthis, or Ansar Allah, are attacking ships they suspect to have ties with Israel to pressure Tel Aviv to end the genocide in Gaza.

Without any Congressional approval, Biden has ordered strikes on Yemen nearly every day. The attacks have not achieved their desired effects as the Houthis have expanded their targets to include US and UK-linked shipping. Last week, missiles fired from Yemen hit multiple ships in the waters off the country’s coast. One ship suffered significant damage and is leaking oil.

NYT Writer Outed As IDF PROPAGANDIST

NYT 'Reviewing' Israeli Reporter Who Liked Gaza 'Slaughterhouse' Post

Higher-ups at The New York Times have confirmed Sunday that they are looking into Anat Schwartz, who contributed to widely criticized reporting about Hamas' alleged sexual violence on October 7, after it came to light over recent days that the Israeli freelancer liked a social media post calling for Israel to turn the Gaza Strip "into a slaughterhouse" and other content.

"We are aware that a freelance journalist in Israel who has worked with the Times has 'liked' several social media posts," Danielle Rhodes Ha, a spokesperson for the newspaper, toldThe Daily Beast. "Those 'likes' are unacceptable violations of our company policy. We are currently reviewing the matter."

Confirmation of the review came after the popular account @zei_squirrel on X, formerly Twitter, highlighted Friday that Schwartz had liked the hateful "slaughterhouse" message from editor and radio presenter David Mizrahy Verthaim and other posts circulating misinformation about the October Hamas-led attack.

Esha Krishnaswamy, host of the podcast Historic.ly, who also began digging into Schwartz's online activity and history, said Saturday on X that she "has reactivated her account. But she has purged it of her previous genocidal 'likes.'"

The newspaper's social media policy states in part that journalists "must not express partisan opinions, promote political views, endorse candidates, make offensive comments, or do anything else that undercuts the Times' journalistic reputation," and "should be especially mindful of appearing to take sides on issues that the Times is seeking to cover objectively."

A filmmaker whose LinkedIn identifies her as working at the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation (Kan), Schwartz contributed to Times reporting from November to January, focusing on the Hamas attack and Israel's retaliation in Gaza—which has killed over 30,000 Palestinians and is being investigated at the International Court of Justice as genocide.

Schwartz has bylines on multiple pieces about accusations that Hamas militants committed sexual violence during the attack on Israel. She repeatedly collaborated with Times international correspondent Jeffrey Gettleman and Adam Sella, who has written dozens of articles for the paper since mid-October and is reportedly her nephew. ...

Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Will Bunch wrote that "as a veteran journalist, I know there are a lot of award-winning reporters who would kill to get their byline in the NYT. But a filmmaker with ZERO experience shows up and gets on the front page covering the world's most controversial story? Something here is not right."

Worth a click and a full read:

New York Times report demolishes the narrative of the “unprovoked war” in Ukraine

For the past two years, nearly every reference in the US media to the February 2022 invasion of Ukraine by Russia has been preceded by an obligatory word—“unprovoked.” The public was told that this was a war without cause, that Ukraine was blameless, and that the invasion was to be explained entirely in terms of the intentions and psychology of one man, Russian President Vladimir Putin.

However, on the weekend of the second anniversary of the war, the New York Times published a lengthy article revealing that the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022 was instigated by a systematic and widespread campaign of military-intelligence aggression on the part of the United States. The article details longstanding Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operations in Ukraine, in which the agency sponsored and built up the Ukrainian military intelligence agency HUR, using it as a weapon of spying, assassination and provocation directed against Russia for more than a decade.

The Times writes:

Toward the end of 2021, according to a senior European official, Mr. Putin was weighing whether to launch his full-scale invasion when he met with the head of one of Russia’s main spy services, who told him that the C.I.A., together with Britain’s MI6, were controlling Ukraine and turning it into a beachhead for operations against Moscow.

The Times report demonstrates that this Russian intelligence assessment was absolutely true. For more than a decade, dating back to 2014, the CIA was building up, training and arming Ukrainian intelligence and paramilitary forces that were engaging in assassinations and other provocations against pro-Russian forces in eastern Ukraine, against Russian forces in Crimea and across the border into Russia itself.

In a critical passage, the Times writes:

As the partnership deepened after 2016, the Ukrainians became impatient with what they considered Washington’s undue caution, and began staging assassinations and other lethal operations, which violated the terms the White House thought the Ukrainians had agreed to. Infuriated, officials in Washington threatened to cut off support, but they never did.

In other words, Ukrainian paramilitary forces that were armed, funded and led by the United States and NATO were systematically assassinating forces supporting closer relations with Russia.

The newspaper’s account begins with the Maidan Coup of February 2014, when right-wing and neo-Nazi forces backed by the US and the European Union overthrew the elected pro-Russian president and installed a pro-imperialist regime headed by the billionaire Petro Poroshenko. This coup was the culmination of two decades of imperialist inroads into the former Soviet bloc, including the expansion of NATO to include virtually all of Eastern Europe in violation of pledges made to the leaders of the former Soviet Union. The Times is silent on this earlier history, as well as on the role of the CIA in the Maidan events.

Russia GUARANTEES War After NATO Floats BOOTS In Ukraine

Macron is freaking out over Ukraine collapse

Macron refuses to rule out putting troops on ground in Ukraine in call to galvanise Europe

France’s President Emmanuel Macron said on Monday he refused to rule out sending ground troops to Ukraine, but said no consensus existed on the step, at a meeting of 20 mainly European leaders in Paris convened by Macron to ramp up the European response to the Russian military advances inside Ukraine. ...

French officials have become worried there has been no single galvanising western force responding to Vladimir Putin putting his economy on such an effective war footing, and insufficiently clear practical responses had emerged from the west.

He said the meeting, called in haste by Macron in the wake of the Ukrainian frontline starting to crumble, had agreed to focus on five key action areas: cyber defence, joint production of military weapons and ammunition in Ukraine, defence of countries directly threatened by Russian offensives such as Moldova, greater military protection for Ukraine on its border with Russian-backed Belarus, and the demining of Ukraine. He also announced a new coalition to provide long and medium-range strike missile capability.

Insisting Russia’s defeat is absolutely essential for peace and security in Europe, he said it was necessary for Europe to move from words into action so clear decisions are made to build a European defence pillar independent of America.

Asked about the possibility of continuing to support Ukraine in the context of the US presidential elections this November, he said: “We cannot wait for the outcome of the American elections to decide what our future is going to be. It is the future of Europe that is at stake so therefore it is up to the Europeans to decide. If others want to join in and help, fantastic, but that is just an added bonus.”

Sweden Joins NATO as RUSSIA Warns of "Legitimate" Military Consequences

Denmark Finds 'Deliberate Sabotage' of Nord Stream—But Ends Probe With No Charges

Denmark became the latest country to close its investigation into the underwater explosions that caused leaks in two pipelines that were built to carry gas from Russia to Germany, with authorities saying they had found that "there was deliberate sabotage" of the infrastructure but would not go further in their probe to confirm who was behind the blasts.

"The assessment is that there are not sufficient grounds to pursue a criminal case," said the Danish police, prompting criticism from Russian officials and other critics.

Since the gas leaks were discovered in September 2022, seven months after Russia invaded Ukraine, various observers have accused the two countries as well as the United States of being at fault. ...

Earlier this month, Sweden concluded its own investigation, saying the case did not fall under its jurisdiction and noting that they had given "material that can be used as evidence" to German authorities for their probe. Swedish prosecutor Mats Ljungqvist said that the "primary assumption is that a state is behind it."

The German federal prosecutor's investigation is ongoing.

Journalist Thomas Fazi suggested U.S. allies have dropped their probes because they are "terrified of actually finding the culprit."

The question of who caused the Nord Stream gas leaks, said author Tony Norfield, "has troubled Swedish and Danish investigators so much, they have closed their inquiries. Just in case they uncover something embarrassing."

Social Media Sites BEG for 1A Protections from SCOTUS as Conservatives Show Political CENSORSHIP

US supreme court appears skeptical of social media content moderation laws

Members of the United States supreme court expressed skepticism regarding two laws being debated in oral arguments Monday, both of which deal with how social media platforms moderate content and could have broad implications for freedom of speech online. Filed by NetChoice, an association representing the world’s largest social media firms, both cases challenge state laws blocking social media platforms from moderating certain user content or banning users. ...

While justices did not seem convinced of the constitutionality of the laws, they were also “unpersuaded by the Internet companies’ broad arguments that almost everything they do is protected by the first amendment”, said James Grimmelmann, professor of digital and information law at Cornell University. “I would predict that the court will issue relatively narrow rulings that make it clear that the most restrictive portions of the state laws are unconstitutional, and then let litigation play out to determine whether other provisions of these laws – or of other future laws – are constitutional,” he said.

The court first heard arguments in the case of Moody v NetChoice, which deals with a Florida law passed in 2021 that prevents platforms from “censoring” certain political candidates and media outlets by means of demonetization or removal. The law would also limit platforms’ ability to label and moderate misinformation from specific sources.

Justices also questioned whether removal of content by algorithms rather than by humans qualifies as censorship, with Amy Coney Barrett asking specifically about TikTok’s algorithm boosting pro-Palestine posts rather than pro-Israel posts. “If you have an algorithm do it, is it not speech?” she asked. Justice Samuel Alito asked of content moderation, “Is it anything more than a euphemism for censorship?”

The second case is NetChoice v Paxton, targeting a Texas law that broadly prohibits social media platforms from “censoring on the basis of user viewpoint, user expression, or the ability of a user to receive the expression of others”. NetChoice, with members including Pinterest, TikTok, X and Meta, has argued these laws violate the first amendment right to free speech of the companies. The association argues that the law unconstitutionally restricts their ability to decide what content is published on their platforms.

Explosive device detonated outside Alabama attorney general’s office

Officials in Alabama said on Monday they had launched an investigation into the detonation of an explosive device outside the office of the state’s attorney general at the weekend.

“Thankfully, no staff or personnel were injured by the explosion. The Alabama Law Enforcement Agency (Alea) will be leading the investigation, and we are urging anyone with information to contact them immediately,” the attorney general, Steve Marshall, said in a statement.

The explosion occurred early on Saturday morning, and the statement gave no other details. The extent of any property damage is not yet known. ...

Marshall, a Republican, has recently become embroiled in controversy following last week’s decision by Alabama’s supreme court that embryos created by in vitro fertilization are “extrauterine children”, a decision that has effectively halted IVF treatments in the state as providers fearful of prosecution have shuttered operations.

Matt Taibbi: Intel Blob COOKED THE BOOKS In 2016 Probe; Russians Wanted HILLARY, Not Trump

Donald Trump appeals $454m New York civil fraud judgment

Donald Trump has appealed his $454m New York civil fraud judgment, challenging a judge’s finding that the former president lied about his wealth as he grew the real estate empire that launched him to stardom and the presidency.

The former US president’s lawyers filed notices of appeal on Monday asking the state’s mid-level appeals court to overturn Judge Arthur Engoron’s 16 February verdict in the lawsuit brought by the New York attorney general, Letitia James, and reverse staggering penalties that threaten to wipe out Trump’s cash reserves.

Trump’s lawyers wrote in court papers that they were asking the appeals court to decide whether Engoron “committed errors of law and/or fact” and whether he abused his discretion or “acted in excess” of his jurisdiction.

Trump’s appeal paperwork did not address whether Trump was seeking to pause collection of the judgment while he appeals by putting up money, assets or an appeal bond covering the amount owed to qualify for an automatic stay. ...

The appeal ensures that the legal fight over Trump’s business practices will persist into the thick of the presidential primary season, and probably beyond, as he tries to clinch the Republican presidential nomination in his quest to retake the White House.

Vast swaths of US will be exposed to polluted air by 2054, says report

Vast swaths of the continental US will be exposed to unhealthy, polluted air by 2054, according to an alarming new report. Researchers at First Street Foundation, a non-profit that analyzes climate risk, found that one in four Americans are already exposed to air that is deemed “unhealthy” by the Air Quality Index (AQI), which provides daily air quality readings. That number is expected to grow by 50% in the next few decades, with an estimated total of 125 million Americans experiencing dangerous air pollution by the middle of the century.

The report warns that climate-related wildfires and heatwaves are undoing many of the gains from federal clean air regulations. Between 2010 and 2016, the United States started to see an increase in air pollution for the first time in 80 years, said Jeremy Porter, head of climate implications research at First Street. “If we’re going to start thinking about solutions, we have to start combating the origin of the air pollutants, which are wildfires and extreme heat,” Porter said.

In June 2023, smoke from forest fires in Canada caused Americans to suffer the worst day of average exposure to such pollution since 2006. The orange, apocalyptic haze that blanketed much of the continent carried PM2.5, tiny air pollutants that can lodge deep inside a person’s lungs. The particles, which measure less than 2.5 microns in diameter, are tiny enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, and high levels of exposure are linked to dementia and Parkinson’s disease, along with a host of respiratory illnesses.

British and Irish rivers in desperate state from pollution, report reveals

The rivers of Britain and Ireland are in a desperate state from the impact of pollution, with not a single waterway in England or Northern Ireland listed as being in good overall health, a report said on Monday.

The Rivers Trust annual State of Our Rivers report reveals that the impact of pollution from treated and untreated sewage and agricultural and industrial runoff means rivers are in a worse condition than ever.

More than half – 54% – of rivers in England failed to pass chemical and ecological tests because of pollution from water industry releases of treated and untreated sewage, based on data from the EU-derived water framework directive (WFD) in 2022.

Agricultural pollution contributes to 62% of waterways in England failing to meet good standards for chemical and biological pollution. Urban runoff from transport contributes to 26% of rivers not achieving good overall status.

The report shows none of England’s rivers are in good chemical health, which means the concentrations of toxic chemicals are higher than the safe limit in every river. Failing to pass chemical tests means no river in England is considered to be in good overall health. ... Similarly, no stretch of river in Northern Ireland is in good overall health.

Also of Interest

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

Aaron Bushnell Burned Himself Alive To Make You Turn Your Eyes To Gaza

Aaron Burned Himself To Make Us Look At Gaza

With all eyes on Gaza, Israel steps up demolitions of Palestinian homes

Biden wants to put the US on permanent war footing

War Is Bad for You — And the Economy

NATO Chief Gives Ukraine Green Light for Attacks Inside Russia

NATO Freakout Over Crumbling Ukraine Military: Poland Threatens US with Nuclear Development if No Aid Package

A Blueprint for Counter-Insurgency in the West

Democracy Now: Should the U.S. Send More Weapons to Ukraine? A Debate on Funding & Ways to End Two-Year-Old War

Fani Willis, Nathan Wade Texted 10K TIMES in 11 MONTHS In 2021— BEFORE She Hired Him

Pelosi FREEZES In Face Of Basic Israel Facts

Rep Rashida Tlaib pushes starvation sanctions for Syrians

A Little Night Music

Walter Davis - M & O Blues

Walter Davis (with Roosevelt Sykes, p) - Mr. Davis' Blues

Walter Davis - Root Man Blues

Walter Davis (with Roosevelt Sykes, p) - M. & O. Blues No. 2 (My Baby's Come Back)

Walter Davis - Travellin' This Lonesome Road

Walter Davis - L & N Blues

Walter Davis - Why Should I Be Blue?

Walter Davis - You Don't Smell Right

Walter Davis - Oh! Me! Oh! My! Blues