Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features country blues guitarist and songwriter Son Bonds. Enjoy!

"If you still have any doubt that we live in a profoundly sick dystopia as deranged as anything that’s ever been imagined in fiction, take note of the fact that the most powerful empire in history is currently trying to propagandize you into thinking an obvious genocide is fine."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Liberal Finger-Wagging At Netanyahu Is A Phony, Cynical Charade

We’re seeing more and more of the cynical, obnoxious plan of the western liberal political-media class to try and pin the blame for the entire multinational genocidal campaign in Gaza solely on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“There is growing opposition to Netanyahu’s war machine,” reads a new tweet by Senator Bernie Sanders. “More Americans than ever are standing up against this horrific war in Gaza, which is causing tremendous suffering amongst the Palestinian people.”

This is on the same day we learned that the Biden administration has quietly signed off on the delivery of billions of dollars worth of 2,000-pound bombs and warplanes for Israel to use in its ongoing massacres of civilians in Gaza. There is absolutely no excuse for continuing to babble about “Netanyahu’s war” this far into a US-backed genocide. This is Biden’s war as much as it is Netanyahu’s — and Sanders supports Biden.

Sanders has been at this schtick for a while now, working to insert the idea into public consciousness that what we are seeing from Israel today is some kind of fluke aberration in the apartheid state’s history and not the obvious fulfillment of its inbuilt nature. The other day he publicly griped that “the Israel of today is not the Israel of Golda Meir,” falsely suggesting that there was once some kind of golden age in which Israel was not an abusive ethnostate built on ethnic cleansing, oppression, racism and injustice.

In an Al Jazeera article published earlier this month titled “This is not ‘Netanyahu’s war’, it is Israel’s genocide,” Ahmad Ibsais berates Sanders and his fellow “progressive” senator Elizabeth Warren for this pernicious narrative control campaign, saying that “Blaming Israel’s blatant human rights abuses, disregard for international law, and open celebration of war crimes on Netanyahu alone is nothing but a coping mechanism for liberals like Sanders and Warren.”

Ibsais writes the following:

“By blaming Netanyahu for the suffering and oppression of the Palestinian people, past and present, they keep alive the lie that Israel was built on progressive ideals, rather than ethnic cleansing.

“By blaming Netanyahu, they whitewash their seemingly unconditional support for a state blatantly committing war crimes and crimes against humanity.

“By blaming Netanyahu, and casting Israel as a progressive, well-meaning state that would respect international humanitarian law but is currently taken over by a bad leader, they are absolving themselves — and the US at large — of complicity in Israel’s many war crimes.”

But that’s exactly what the Democratic Party has been trying to do in recent weeks. A couple of weeks ago Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer drew the ire of the Israeli right wing with a speech on the Senate floor saying that Netanyahu has become a “major obstacle to peace” who has allowed “his political survival to take precedence over the best interests of Israel,” calling for new elections to oust the prime minister.

In a recent article for Jewish Currents titled “Chuck Schumer and Democrats’ New Line on ‘Netanyahu’s War’,” Alex Kane picks apart the fallacious reasoning behind this trend:

“But despite Democrats’ repeated suggestion that Netanyahu is the impetus for Israel’s war, political analysts say that in reality the prime minister’s actions are in step with Israel’s political mainstream. ‘Schumer is operating in this fantasy that if you get rid of Netanyahu, you might be able to get somebody else who’s more moderate who could then save the relationship between the US and Israel under the pretense of support for progressive values and democracy,’ said Omar Baddar, a Palestinian American political analyst. But this narrative ignores how Israeli politicians almost across the board agree with Israel’s conduct in Gaza, as do the majority of Israelis. Yair Lapid, the former prime minister and head of the Israeli opposition, supports the ongoing assault, as does war cabinet member Benny Gantz, Netanyahu’s main political rival and the man who, according to polling, would become prime minister if Israel held elections today…

“Instead of constituting a substantive shift in US support for Israel, experts say, Democrats’ emboldened critique of Netanyahu should be understood as an attempt to respond to growing voter frustration without changing policy, as the Biden administration remains unwilling to use US aid and arms exports to Israel as leverage to demand a change in behavior.”

NEW from me on Schumer’s speech, which was a significant shift in how the top Senate Dem approaches Israel. But in focusing on the far right, he exemplified his party’s strategy of blaming Bibi to isolate the PM and pacify voters without changing policy. https://t.co/Q4Xad1zWmB

— Alex Kane (@alexbkane) March 27, 2024

Portuguese author and journalist Bruno Maçães recently tweeted that “One possible outcome of this is 200,000 Palestinians will be dead, Gaza will be destroyed, hundreds of thousand will be expelled and everyone will blame Netanyahu and move on.”

Would it surprise you if this happened? Would it not be entirely in keeping with what we have been seeing from the US empire in recent years? Would it be very different from what happened after the US destroyed Iraq, blamed George W Bush and Dick Cheney, and then moved on without anyone having been held responsible or any meaningful policy changes implemented?

That’s the entire goal here. The empire managers want nothing to change about Israel, nothing to change about Washington’s relationship with Israel, nothing to change about US foreign policy or the US war machine in general, and for the mainstream public to be thrown some cognitive bone to chew on while the amnesia of the daily news cycle sets in.

They want everyone to pin all the blame for the Gaza genocide on Netanyahu, but this is not all the fault of Netanyahu. It’s the fault of the entire Israeli state. It’s the fault of Joe Biden. It’s the fault of the Democrats. It’s the fault of all the Israel supporters on Capitol Hill. It’s the fault of the western press. It’s the fault of the Israel lobby. It’s the fault of the unelected empire managers in US government agencies. It’s the fault of the entire US empire and all its imperial member states like Australia, the UK, the EU, and Canada.

Gaza is proof that the US empire cannot be permitted to exist any longer, and they’re trying to get everyone to ignore this fact and blame the whole thing on one guy. Don’t let them do this. Don’t let them deceive you into losing sight of what they’ve done.

The US is complicit in Gaza genocide. Lawyer Lara Elborno lays it out

Congressman Suggests NUKING GAZA, Walks Back Comparison To ‘Hiroshima, Nagasaki’

Congressman rebuked for call to bomb Gaza ‘like Nagasaki and Hiroshima’

Rather than provide humanitarian aid in Gaza, the US should ensure it is subjected to nuclear bombing the way that “Nagasaki and Hiroshima” were at the end of the second world war, a Republican congressman said in shocking remarks that were recorded recently at a gathering with a relatively small group of his constituents.

The comments by US House representative Tim Walberg of Michigan drew condemnation from progressive political quarters, including from some who expressed disbelief that a former Christian pastor would advocate for what they called the genocide of Palestinians in Gaza.

“A sitting US rep in a secret town hall feels comfortable musing privately about genocide,” said a user on Twitter/X who circulated video of Walberg’s comments late Friday. A reply to that comment read: “Exactly what Jesus would do, right?” ...

Entries on Walberg’s congressional calendar – along with videos on social media – establish that he met with members of the public in Dundee, Michigan, on 25 March. As Mediaite recounted Saturday, a clip of the session that was posted on YouTube and other sites, and recorded by an activist, showed Walberg telling his audience that the US should not spend a “dime” on humanitarian aid in Gaza, where Israel has been carrying out a military campaign for months.

The aid would be better spent on supporting Israel, which Walberg labeled the US’s “greatest ally, arguably, anywhere in the world”.

“It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima,” Walberg said, alluding to the Japanese cities where the US dropped atomic bombs at the end of the second world war, killing hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom were civilians. “Get it over quick.”

"Genocidal Machine": Dr. Ghassan Abu-Sittah on Israel's Destruction of Gaza's Hospitals

As always Hedges is worth a click and a full read.

Chris Hedges: A Genocide Foretold

There are no surprises in Gaza. Every horrifying act of Israel’s genocide has been telegraphed in advance. It has been for decades. The dispossession of Palestinians of their land is the beating heart of Israel’s settler colonial project. This dispossession has had dramatic historical moments — 1948 and 1967 — when huge parts of historic Palestine were seized and hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were ethnically cleansed. Dispossession has also occurred in increments — the slow-motion theft of land and steady ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

The incursion on Oct. 7 into Israel by Hamas and other resistance groups, which left 1,154 Israelis, tourists and migrant workers dead and saw about 240 people taken hostage, gave Israel the pretext for what it has long craved — the total erasure of Palestinians. ...

The genocide in Gaza is the culmination of a process. It is not an act. The genocide is the predictable denouement of Israel’s settler colonial project. It is coded within the DNA of the Israeli apartheid state. It is where Israel had to end up. 

Zionist leaders are open about their goals. Israeli Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, after Oct. 7, announced that Gaza would receive “no electricity, no food, no water, no fuel.” Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Israel Katz said: “Humanitarian aid to Gaza? No electrical switch will be turned on, no water hydrant will be opened.” Avi Dichter, the Minister of Agriculture, referred to Israel’s military assault as “the Gaza Nakba,” referencing the Nakba, or “catastrophe”, which between 1947 and 1949, drove 750,000 Palestinians from their land and saw thousands massacred by Zionist militias. Likud member of the Israeli Knesset Revital Gottlieb posted on her social media account: “Bring down buildings!! Bomb without distinction!!…Flatten Gaza. Without mercy! This time, there is no room for mercy!” Not to be outdone, Minister of Heritage Amichai Eliyahu supported using nuclear weapons on Gaza as “one of the possibilities.”

The message from the Israeli leadership is unequivocal. Annihilate the Palestinians the same way we annihilated Native Americans, the Australians annihilated the First Nations peoples, the Germans annihilated the Herero in Namibia, the Turks annihilated Armenians and the Nazis annihilated the Jews. The specifics are different. The process is the same.

We cannot plead ignorance. We know what happened to the Palestinians. We know what is happening to the Palestinians. We know what will happen to the Palestinians. But it is easier to pretend. Pretend Israel will allow in humanitarian aid. Pretend there will be a ceasefire. Pretend Palestinians will return to their destroyed homes in Gaza. Pretend Gaza will be rebuilt. Pretend the Palestinian Authority will administer Gaza. Pretend there will be a two-state solution. Pretend there is no genocide. The genocide, which the U.S. is funding and sustaining with weapons shipments, says something not only about Israel, but about us, about Western civilization, about who we are as a people, where we came from and what defines us. It says that all our vaunted morality and respect for human rights is a lie. It says that people of color, especially when they are poor and vulnerable, do not count. It says their hopes, dreams, dignity and aspirations for freedom are worthless. It says we will ensure global domination through racialized violence.

This lie — that Western civilization is predicated on “values” such as respect for human rights and the rule of law — is one the Palestinians, and all those in the Global South, as well as Native Americans and Black and Brown Americans have known for centuries. But, with the Gaza genocide live streamed, this lie is impossible to sustain. We do not halt Israel’s genocide because we are Israel, infected with white supremacy and intoxicated by our domination of the globe’s wealth and the power to obliterate others with our industrial weapons. Remember The New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman telling Charlie Rose on the eve of the war in Iraq that American soldiers should go house to house from Basra to Baghdad and say to Iraqis “suck on this?” That is the real credo of the U.S. empire.

U.S. signs off on more bombs, warplanes for Israel

The Biden administration in recent days quietly authorized the transfer of billions of dollars in bombs and fighter jets to Israel despite Washington’s concerns about an anticipated military offensive in southern Gaza that could threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians.

The new arms packages include more than 1,800 MK84 2,000-pound bombs and 500 MK82 500-pound bombs, according to Pentagon and State Department officials familiar with the matter. The 2,000-pound bombs have been linked to previous mass-casualty events throughout Israel’s military campaign in Gaza. These officials, like some others, spoke to The Washington Post on the condition of anonymity because recent authorizations have not been disclosed publicly.

The development underscores that while rifts have emerged between the United States and Israel over the war’s conduct, the Biden administration views weapons transfers as off-limits when considering how to influence the actions of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“We have continued to support Israel’s right to defend itself,” said a White House official. “Conditioning aid has not been our policy.”

Anya Parampil: Netanyahu’s Risky Gambles

Israel lodges proposal with UN for dismantling of Palestinian relief agency

Israel has given the UN a proposal to dismantle Unrwa, its relief agency in the Palestinian territories, and transfer its staff to a replacement agency to make large-scale food deliveries into Gaza, according to UN sources. The proposal was presented late last week by the Israeli chief of the general staff, Lt Gen Herzi Halevi, to UN officials in Israel, who forwarded it to the organisation’s secretary general, António Guterres, on Saturday, sources familiar with the discussions said.

Unrwa was not involved in the talks as the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) have been refusing to deal with it since last Monday, on the basis of claims, so far unproven, of affiliations of some of the agency’s staff with Hamas or Islamic Jihad.

Israel insists it is prepared to allow large amounts of aid into Gaza and that the limiting factor is UN capacity. Its decision not to cooperate with Unrwa severely affects that capacity. ...

Some UN officials see the Israeli plan as an attempt to portray the UN as unwilling to cooperate if there is famine in Gaza, which humanitarian organisations have warned is impending. On Thursday the international court of justice, which is examining genocide charges against Israel, ordered the Israeli government to take “all necessary and effective measures” to ensure the large-scale delivery of aid to Gaza “in full cooperation with the United Nations”.

Some inside the UN, other aid agencies and human rights groups also see the Israeli proposal as the culmination of a long Israeli campaign to destroy Unrwa.

ADL Says Palestinian Scarf Equals SWASTIKA

US Loosens Sanctions on Violent Israeli Settlers

The Joe Biden administration has clarified a new round of sanctions targeting violent Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank, saying it would allow local banks to process routine transactions with people on the blacklist.

The US Treasury Department elaborated on the penalties in a letter to Tel Aviv’s central bank – first obtained by the Times of Israel, which reported that the message was intended to “cool anger” over the sanctions by the country’s finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich.

“Israeli banks can process transactions for individuals designated under [the penalties] that are ordinarily incident and necessary to basic human needs or subsistence without exposure to OFAC sanctions risk, provided these transactions do not involve the US financial system or US persons,” the Treasury said. ...

Smotrich – a fervent supporter of Israeli settlers and himself a resident of the occupied West Bank – has reportedly threatened to retaliate to the US penalties with harsh measures against Palestinians. According to the Hebrew-language daily Israel Hayom, the minister vowed to take steps to “freeze… economic activity in the Palestinian Authority” and even “collapse the Palestinian economy” outright.

"Dying Slowly While the World Is Watching": Bethlehem Rev. on Israel's War on Palestinian Christians

The whole article is worth a read, but there's an interesting bit at the end that I noticed when it was posted by MOA, but it really stands out here
(especially in light of the recent cia/isis-k attack on Moscow):

Patrick Lawrence: Imperium: Decline on the Way to Fall

In another piece that appeared last week, Moon of Alabama, the widely read German website, argued that the defeat in Ukraine announces the end of “military hard power superiority” as the West’s most effective “instrument of deterrence.” It must now find “a new tool that allows it to press its interest against the will of other powers.”

And then, turning to the Gaza crisis, this disturbing conclusion:

It found that tool in demonstrating utter savagery.

The war on Gaza, backed by the West, is a demonstration that the West is willing to cross all lines. That it will discard any nuance of humanity. That it is willing to commit genocide. That it will do everything to prevent international organizations to intervene against this.

That it is willing to eliminate everyone and everything that resists it.

To me the Moon of Alabama piece is chilling precisely to the extent what it has to say is plausible. We are now invited to consider whether the West supports the Israelis’ barbarities in Gaza because barbarity is now policy. I cannot dismiss this argument.

“Those nations who commit themselves to multipolarity,” the piece concludes, “should steel themselves for what might be visited on them.” The comfort to be taken here, cold as it may be, is that the non–West knows all about bracing itself against the imperium and the former colonial powers. And the Russians have shown them these past few years that it can be done.

Russian investigation moving quickly. West fears Russian offensive

Russia demands extradition of Ukraine security chief and others for ‘terrorism’

Russia has demanded that Ukraine extradite a number of people, including the head of the country’s SBU security service, over claims they are connected with “terrorist” acts. The SBU immediately dismissed the Russian demand as “pointless” and said the Russian foreign ministry had “forgotten” that Vladimir Putin was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

A Russian foreign ministry statement listed violent incidents that have occurred in Russia since the full invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, including bombings that killed the daughter of a prominent nationalist and a war blogger, and an incident in which a writer was seriously hurt. The ministry said investigation of these incidents showed that “the traces of these crimes lead to Ukraine”.

“Russia has turned over to Ukrainian authorities its demands … for the immediate arrest and extradition of all those connected to the terrorist acts in question,” the statement said.

Among those listed in the statement to be handed over were the SBU head, Vasyl Maliuk, who has acknowledged that his service was behind attacks on the bridge linking Crimea to the Russian mainland. Russia seized control of Crimea in 2014 and the bridge was built after the region was annexed.

“The Russian side demands that the Kyiv regime immediately cease all support for terrorist activity, extradite guilty parties and compensate the victims for damages,” the ministry statement said. “Ukraine’s violation of its obligations under anti-terrorist conventions will result in it being held to account in international legal terms.”

Larry Johnson: NATO Waits In Vain For a Russian Offensive

Turkey’s opposition party sweeps to local elections victory in snub to Erdogan

Turkey’s main opposition party dealt an unexpected blow to Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule on Sunday with a sweeping victory in Turkey’s local elections, maintaining control of major cities including the capital, Ankara, and Istanbul, where Ekrem Imamoglu secured a second term as mayor.

“My dear Istanbulites, you opened the door to a new future today,” Imamoglu told overjoyed supporters of his opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) while declaring victory. “Starting from tomorrow, Turkey will be a different Turkey. You opened the door to the rise of democracy, equality and freedom … You ignited hope at the ballot box.”

Favourable turnout continued benefit the opposition as the night wore on, and the CHP secured control of a broad swath of western Turkey and scored wins across more conservative regions next to the Black Sea and central Anatolia, areas traditionally seen as hostile to its policies.

The results quickly became symbolic of dissatisfaction with Erdogan, who began rallying his supporters to turn out in local elections immediately after winning the presidency last year. ...

In a muted speech to a subdued crowd outside his party’s headquarters in Ankara, Erdogan praised the vote itself rather than the outcome. “Regardless of the results, the winner of this election is primarily democracy,” he said.

Texas woman charged with murder in 2022 abortion sues prosecutors for $1m

A Texas woman who was charged with murder over self-managing an abortion and spent two nights in jail has sued prosecutors along the US-Mexico border who put the criminal case in motion before it was later dropped.

The lawsuit filed by Lizelle Gonzalez in federal court Thursday comes a month after the state bar of Texas fined and disciplined the district attorney in rural Starr county over the case in 2022, when Gonzalez was charged with murder in “the death of an individual by self-induced abortion”.

Under the abortion restrictions in Texas and other states, women who seek abortions are exempt from criminal charges.

The lawsuit argues Gonzalez suffered harm from the arrest and subsequent media coverage. She is seeking $1m in damages.

“The fallout from Defendants’ illegal and unconstitutional actions has forever changed the Plaintiff’s life,” the lawsuit stated.

Copernicus online portal offers terrifying view of climate emergency

There is so much information on the newly launched Copernicus Climate Change Service atlas that my laptop started to overheat trying to process it all. As well as all the past data, it predicts where the climate is going and how soon we will breach the 1.5C “limit”, and then 2C. You can call up the region where you live, so it is specific to what is happening to you and your family – and all the more disturbing for that.

A separate part called Climate Pulse intended particularly for journalists is easier to operate. The refreshing bit is that the maps, charts and timelines from 1850 to the present day on the main atlas are entirely factual measurements, so there can be no argument on the trends. It then follows those trends into the likely scenarios for the next few years.

Spinning, whirling fish in south Florida prompt emergency response

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is launching what the agency described as an emergency response effort in south Florida after emerging reports of smalltooth sawfish spinning, whirling and displaying other abnormal behaviors.

In a statement released last Wednesday, NOAA said that in addition to the abnormal behaviors, there have been reports of fish deaths in the lower Florida Keys, including more than 28 smalltooth sawfish as of 24 March.

The cause of the abnormal behaviors and fish deaths is not known, according to the Florida fish and wildlife conservation commission (FWC). Ongoing emergency response efforts not only involve coordinating the recovery of smalltooth sawfish carcasses for necropsies, which are animal autopsies, they also encompass collecting and analyzing water samples.

Necropsy results have so far indicated zero signs of a communicable pathogen, the FWC said, adding that the specimens tested negative for bacterial infections. Dissolved oxygen, salinity, pH and temperature also are not suspected to be the causes of the abnormal behavior and deaths. ...

Populations of the smalltooth sawfish declined significantly during the second half of the 20th century due to habitat loss from coastal development and accidental capture in fisheries, according to the NOAA. As a result, the species was the first marine fish to receive federal protection as endangered.

Also of Interest

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

The Plan Is To Turn Palestine Into A Historical Footnote So It’s Too Late To Save It

Israel Lies About Being A Victim So That It Can Victimize

Manufacturing Consent

Ukraine SitRep: Syrski's Interview - Mobilizing - De-Energization

Craig Murray: UK Legal Shambles in Case of Assange

Violent Extremists Get Called “Moderates” By A Violent Extremist Empire

Feds Ordered Google To Unmask Certain YouTube Users. Critics Say It’s ‘Terrifying.’

NYC AI Chatbot Touted by Adams Tells Businesses to Break the Law

Baltimore Drive-By: The Bridge, the City, and Infrastructural Racism

Collection of unreleased Marvin Gaye songs found in Belgium

Israeli Protesters Accuse Netanyahu of Delaying Hostage Deal for His Own Political Survival

Zaid Jilani ACCUSES Matt Taibbi Of PANDERING To Right-Wing Audience, TAIBBI Fires Back

Havana Syndrome CAUSED BY RUSSIA?! 60 Minutes Blames A Kremlin Energy Weapon

Banks Set To Crash Over Commercial Real Estate Collapse! w/ Paul Stone

Assange appeal, British court seeks U.S. assurances

A Little Night Music

Son Bonds - Old Bachelor Blues

Son Bonds - A Hard Pill To Swallow

The Delta Boys (Sleepy John Estes & Son Bonds) - You Shouldn't Say That

Son Bonds & Hammie Nixon - All Night Long

Hammie Nixon & Son Bonds - Weary Worried Blues

Brother Son Bonds - Ain't That News?

Hammie Nixon & Son Bonds - Trouble Trouble Blues

The Delta Boys - Black Gal Swing

The Delta Boys (Sleepy John Estes & Son Bonds) - Don't You Want To Know