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“Nothing strengthens authority so much as silence.”

-- Leonardo da Vinci

News and Opinion

Edward Said Warned of Anti-Palestine McCarthyism on Campus

Edward Said, the prominent Palestinian-American intellectual and distinguished Columbia professor, warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims. An early target of this academic McCarthyism was Said, whose writings on post-colonialism, humanism, and literary criticism are required reading at Columbia and across the humanities.

Said was a victim of anti-Palestinian intimidation. His office at Columbia was occasionally raided and vandalized. He received several death threats and was smeared with terrorism accusations and spied on by students and AIPAC agents. Shortly before his death, Said became the target of a vicious academic persecution, which he survived only because Columbia still had a shred of academic and moral integrity at the time. ... The era of moral clarity and intellectual integrity in academia is now unraveling amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The tragic irony is that the current atmosphere of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism on U.S. campuses — led by an unlikely coalition of far-right Republicans, mainstream media, and liberal academic institutions — was foreseen by none other than Said himself. In his 1979 seminal essay, “Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims,” Said warned:

“The special, one might even call it the privileged, place in this discussion of the United States is impressive, for all sorts of reasons. In no other country, except Israel, is Zionism enshrined as an unquestioned good, and in no other country is there so strong a conjuncture of powerful institutions and interests—the press, the liberal intelligentsia, the military-industrial complex, the academic community, labor unions—for whom […] uncritical support of Israel and Zionism enhances their domestic as well as international standing.”

Presaging the rise of anti-Palestinian McCarthyism in academia, Said detected a state of academic repression and campus policing in which Palestinians “have no permission to narrative” and are increasingly demonized and silenced in the name of fighting antisemitism — a loaded concept that has become a shield for Israel’s genocide and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Perceptively, Said warned of weaponizing antisemitism and the plight of Jews in Europe as a means to suppress and vilify Palestinians, and to justify Israel’s oppression of its victims. He understood that systematically inflating antisemitism with the critique of Zionism was feeding anti-Palestinian sentiments in U.S. academic and media discourse. He further warned:

“One must admit, however, that all liberals and even most ‘radicals’ have been unable to overcome the Zionist habit of equating anti-Zionism with antisemitism. Any well-meaning person can thus oppose South African or American racism and at the same time tacitly support Zionist racial discrimination against non-Jews in Palestine.

The almost total absence of any handily available historical knowledge from non-Zionist sources, the dissemination by the media of malicious simplifications (e.g., Jews vs. Arabs), the cynical opportunism of various Zionist pressure groups, the tendency endemic to university intellectuals uncritically to repeat cant phrases and political clichés (this is the role Gramsci assigned to traditional intellectuals, that of being ‘experts in legitimation’), the fear of treading upon the highly sensitive terrain of what Jews did to their victims, in an age of genocidal extermination of Jews—all this contributes to the dulling, regulated enforcement of almost unanimous support for Israel.”

The assault on Columbia students is an attack on constitutional rights and the basic tenets of democracy. It’s deplorable that one of the most violent crackdowns on student protests in U.S. history is coinciding with one of the worst genocides in recent memory, which has killed over 34,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them children, and displaced nearly two million others.

Months Ago State Dept. Panel Exposed Israeli Units’ Rights Abuses, But U.S. Arms Keep Flowing

UN rights chief ‘horrified’ by reports of mass graves at two Gaza hospitals

The UN human rights chief, Volker Türk, has said he was “horrified” by reports of mass graves containing hundreds of bodies at two of Gaza’s largest hospitals. Palestinian civil defence teams began exhuming bodies from a mass grave outside the Nasser hospital complex in Khan Younis last week after Israeli troops withdrew. A total of 310 bodies have been found in the last week, including 35 in the past day, Palestinian officials have said.

“We feel the need to raise the alarm because clearly there have been multiple bodies discovered,” said Ravina Shamdasani, spokesperson for the UN high commissioner for human rights. She described bodies “buried deep in the ground and covered with waste”, adding that “among the deceased were allegedly older people, women and wounded”, including some bound and stripped of their clothes.

“Some of them had their hands tied, which of course indicates serious violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law, and these need to be subjected to further investigations,” she said.

Palestinian rescue teams and several observation missions from the UN also reported the discovery of multiple mass grave sites in the Shifa hospital compound, in Gaza City, earlier this month, after Israeli ground troops withdrew after a prolonged siege. ...

Officials in Gaza said the bodies at Nasser were people who had died during the siege. Israel’s military on Tuesday rejected allegations of mass burials at the hospital, saying it had exhumed corpses to try to find hostages taken by Hamas in October. “The claim that the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) buried Palestinian bodies is baseless and unfounded,” the military said, adding that after examining the bodies, its forces had returned them to where they had previously been buried.

Phil Giraldi : Israel Has Biden Trapped

UN Rights Chief Demands International Probe of Mass Graves Near Gaza Hospitals

The United Nations' human rights chief on Tuesday called for an international investigation into mass graves discovered at two Gaza hospitals that Israeli forces recently assailed and destroyed, further imperiling the enclave's barely functioning healthcare system.

Volker Türk, the U.N. high commissioner for human rights, said in a statement that he was "horrified" by the discovery of mass graves at the Nasser and al-Shifa medical complexes, which the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) reduced to ruins.

More than 300 bodies were reportedly discovered in the mass grave near the Nasser facility in Khan Younis, Gaza, and eyewitnesses said Israeli soldiers executed civilians during their two-week-long raid of al-Shifa last month.

Türk demanded an "independent, effective, and transparent" probe into the killings and mass graves, adding that "given the prevailing climate of impunity, this should include international investigators."

"Hospitals are entitled to very special protection under international humanitarian law," he added. "And the intentional killing of civilians, detainees, and others who are hors de combat is a war crime."

The IDF's destructive attacks on Nasser and al-Shifa were part of a broader Israeli assault on Gaza's healthcare system. An analysis released Monday by Save the Children found that the rate of monthly Israeli attacks on healthcare in Gaza since October has exceeded that of any other conflict around the world since 2018.

The group estimated that Israel has launched an average of 73 attacks per month on healthcare in Gaza—and at least 435 attacks total since October.

"After six months of unimaginable horror, the healthcare system in Gaza has been brought to its knees," said Xavier Joubert, Save the Children's country director in the occupied Palestinian territory. "Healthcare workers are risking their lives daily to give Palestinian children a chance at survival. The constant attacks on healthcare are simply unjustifiable and must stop. Palestinian children must have unimpeded access to services, including healthcare and education."

Netanyahu May Face W@R CRIMES Charges!

Red Cross Says Rafah Evacuation Not ‘Possible’ as Israel Prepares for Invasion

A Red Cross official said Tuesday that an evacuation of civilians from Rafah was not “possible” under the current conditions due to the sheer destruction in Gaza as Israel is preparing to invade the city.

“When we see the level of destruction in the middle area (of Gaza) and in the north, it’s not clear to us where people will be moved to… where they can have decent shelter and essential services,” Fabrizio Carboni, Middle East director for the Red Cross, told AFP. “So today, with the information we have and from where we stand, we don’t see this (massive evacuation) as possible.” ...

The US has claimed it’s against Israel invading Rafah without a clear plan to protect civilians but is not putting any real pressure on Israel since it continues to provide military aid and political support. US and Israeli officials discussed the potential assault last week, and the White House said the two sides had a “shared objective to see Hamas defeated in Rafah.”

Hezbollah DEEPEST Israel Strike Yet

Israel-Iran strikes; Out of danger, but risk very real

Chad Signals It Wants US Troops To Leave

Chad is threatening to scrap an agreement with the US that allows American troops to operate in the country, signaling the US might lose even more of its military footprint in Africa after Niger ordered a US withdrawal.

According to CNN, Chad’s government sent a letter to the US earlier this month that said it could end the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA). The letter didn’t directly order the US military to leave, but US officials said that if the agreement were canceled, US forces would have to leave a French military base where they were stationed.

Reuters also reported on the letter and said Chad ordered the US to halt activity at the Adji Kossei Air Base because the US had failed to provide documents justifying their presence there. The US has a small military presence in Chad, with CNN putting the number of US troops in the country below 100.

Aaron Maté : War and Congressional Democrats

Hmmm... didn't Iraq politely ask the U.S. to withdraw troops from the country?

US Tells Iraq To ‘Ensure the Safety’ of US Troops, Threatens Escalation

On Tuesday, the Pentagon said the Iraqi government must “ensure the safety” of US troops and appeared to threaten airstrikes if there are more attacks on US bases in the region.

The warning came after US bases in Iraq and Syria came under drone and rocket attacks for the first time since early February.

“These are the first attacks on coalition facilities since February 4th. These attacks put coalition and Iraqi personnel at risk,” said Pentagon spokesman Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder.

Pro-Israel LITERAL False 'Flag' EXPOSED

More Than 4 Dozen Unions Demand 'End of Repression' of Columbia Protests

More than four dozen labor unions across numerous industries on Tuesday signed a letter expressing solidarity with students who have been suspended and arrested in recent days for protesting at Columbia University, including members of the on-campus labor group Student Workers of Columbia.

Unionized student workers in SWC-UAW 2710 were among the hundreds of picketers who have been protecting the Gaza Solidarity Encampment, which students set up at Columbia on April 17 to pressure administrators to divest from weapons manufacturers, tech companies, and other entities that benefit from Israel's apartheid policies in the occupied Palestinian territories.

The Ivy League institution, protesters say, will remain complicit in Israel's bombardment and blockade on Gaza, the killing of at least 34,183 Palestinians in the enclave since October, and the intentional starvation of dozens of people, until it entirely divests from Israel.

"As workers, we stand in solidarity with our union siblings in SWC-UAW 2710 who were arrested and face suspension," said the unions, including the Mother Jones Staff Union, Irvine Faculty Association, and Cleveland Jobs With Justice. "We call for their and their classmates' immediate reinstatement and for Columbia to drop all charges against them, both legal and academic. We deplore [Columbia president Minouche Shafik]'s actions and call for Columbia to immediately end the repression of protest."

The protests at Columbia—where more than 100 students were suspended, arrested for trespassing, and in some cases, evicted from their housing—have galvanized college students and faculty members at a growing number of universities in recent days.

Campus groups at the University of Minnesota and the University of Pittsburgh both announced early Tuesday that they were setting up their own encampments in solidarity with Columbia students and victims of the Israel Defense Forces' relentless attacks on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice said in January was "plausibly" a genocide.

After police arrested students at the University of Minnesota Tuesday afternoon and broke up the encampment, thousands of members of the school community rallied to demand that the university divest from all arms manufacturers.

Encampments were also erected Monday at University of California, Berkeley and University of Michigan.

Jessica Christian, a photojournalist for the San Francisco Chronicle, reported that students were stopping to "ask what supplies the campers need as they walk by to class" at Berkeley, where roughly 50 tents were set up on Tuesday.

On Monday night, dozens of students at Yale University and New York University were arrested for protesting, setting up encampments, and "disorderly conduct."

The arrests at Columbia last week have not stopped students and educators from speaking out against the administration. A new encampment was set up last Friday and hundreds of faculty members staged a walkout Monday in support of the students.

In their letter, the unions on Tuesday warned that "the repression and criminalization of activists, students, professors, and academic workers across the country are violations of our elementary rights to free speech and protest."

"The right to protest is necessary for every struggle, and the direct attack on this right is an attack on labor as well," said the unions, "An injury to one is an injury to all—if the Columbia students can be repressed for protesting, Columbia workers and all workers could be too. Workers stand in full solidarity with this student movement."

Zionist TROLLS Student Protesters, FAILS To Provoke Response

US Senate passes $95bn aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan

The US Senate voted resoundingly on Tuesday to approve $95bn in wartime aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, as a bipartisan super-majority united to send the long-stalled package to Joe Biden’s desk for signature.

The bill easily cleared a key procedural hurdle earlier in the day. The Senate overwhelmingly voted to advance the measure in a step hailed by the Senate majority leader as “one of the greatest achievements the Senate has faced in years”.

After months of delays and setbacks, the House last week approved four bills to rush funding to three American allies while approving a conservative proposal that could lead to a nationwide ban of the social media platform TikTok. The measures were combined into one large package that the Senate approved on Tuesday.

Baltimore bridge collapse: city says ship was ‘unseaworthy’ before leaving port

The city of Baltimore has sued the owner and operator of the Dali container ship that crashed into the Francis Scott Key Bridge last month, saying it had “an incompetent crew” and set sail despite receiving warnings. According to a court document filed on Monday, city officials say the ship’s parent company, Grace Ocean Private Ltd, and its operator, Synergy Marine Group, were “potentially criminally negligent” after causing the bridge to collapse on 26 March.

The accident killed six construction workers and disrupted shipping and traffic at the port of Baltimore. The city says the collapse was caused by the owner’s “carelessness, negligence, gross negligence, and recklessness, and as a result of the unseaworthiness” of the ship. Baltimore officials allege that, before leaving port, “alarms showing an inconsistent power supply on the Dali had sounded”.

“The Dali left port anyway, despite its clearly unseaworthy condition,” the documents allege. The lawsuit also alleges that the ship had “an incompetent crew” onboard who “failed to comply with local navigation customs”, and lacked proper skill and training. It accused the owner of supplying the vessel with “unseaworthy equipment, systems, and appurtenances”.

The lawsuit asks for damages to pay for the replacement of the bridge, to cover the costs tied to the interruption in transportation and cleanup, and for the two companies to be held liable for the increased maintenance and expenditures of police and other public service workers, among other costs. A federal court in Maryland is set to decide who was responsible and how much they should pay for the disaster caused by the 116,000-ton container ship.

Biden and Trump clinch Pennsylvania primaries shortly after polls close

Joe Biden and Donald Trump both won their primaries in Pennsylvania shortly after polls closed.

Pennsylvanians had gone to the polls on Tuesday to cast ballots in the state’s primary races – the results provide a window into where voters in the crucial battleground stand roughly six months out from the general election.

Biden and Trump had already locked up their parties’ nominations, but Pennsylvania voters still had other options in the presidential primaries.

In the Republican primary, former UN ambassador Nikki Haley’s name was still on the ballot. Although she withdrew from the presidential race last month, Haley has still won some support in the time since, a potentially worrisome sign for Trump’s general election prospects.

Biden faced challenges of his own in Pennsylvania, which he won by roughly 80,000 votes, or 1.2 points, in 2020. A group of progressive activists had run a campaign to encourage Democrats to write in “uncommitted” on Tuesday to protest against Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza. The effort, based on the similar Listen to Michigan campaign, hopes to get at least 40,000 Democrats to write in “uncommitted”, but it may take weeks to get those ballots counted.

World must come together to tackle plastic pollution, says chair of UN talks

Luis Vayas Valdivieso, the Ecuadorian ambassador to the UK, admitted it would be a challenge to overcome an impasse that has emerged between countries which produce plastic and others that have ambitions to tackle plastic pollution over its whole life. But Valdivieso, who will chair the UN intergovernmental negotiations on a future international legally binding instrument on plastic pollution in Ottawa, Canada, this week, said: “We have to face those challenges and work with them. Compromise is an important word that we need to take into account. ...

Previous negotiations in Nairobi stalled last November when oil-producing nations proposed to focus on waste management rather than scaling down production of plastic. Most – 98% – of single-use plastics are made from fossil fuels, and the top seven plastic-producing companies are fossil fuel companies, according to data from 2021.

Graham Forbes, the global plastic projects leader at Greenpeace USA, said: “You cannot solve the pollution crisis unless you constrain, reduce and restrict plastic production.”’

Valdivieso, however, said he had not stopped working since the Nairobi talks in his attempt to forge a pathway to the first legally binding agreement on plastic waste. “It is crucial now to bring the treaty back on track, because it has been delayed now,” he told the Guardian. ... “But what is clear is we cannot manage the amount of plastic we are producing. Only 10% of it gets recycled, something needs to be done and that is why these negotiations are so important. We need to have the whole life cycle approach.”

Valdivieso said he was confident the talks would lead to the signing next year of the first legally binding treaty on plastic pollution, in a Paris-style agreement. The talks this week in Ottawa will be followed by talks in Korea at the end of the year and he said the text would be ready for all countries to sign for the treaty declaration next year.

Climate Activists Blockade Citigroup HQ to Demand Banking Giant Stop Funding Fossil Fuels

Critics Blast 'Reckless and Impossible' Bid to Start Operating Mountain Valley Pipeline

Environmental defenders on Tuesday ripped the company behind the Mountain Valley Pipeline for asking the federal government—on Earth Day—for permission to start sending methane gas through the 303-mile conduit despite a worsening climate emergency caused largely by burning fossil fuels.

Mountain Valley Pipeline LLC sent a letter Monday to Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Acting Secretary Debbie-Anne Reese seeking final permission to begin operation on the MVP next month, even while acknowledging that much of the Virginia portion of the pipeline route remains unfinished and developers have yet to fully comply with safety requirements.

"In a manner typical of its ongoing disrespect for the environment, Mountain Valley Pipeline marked Earth Day by asking FERC for authorization to place its dangerous, unnecessary pipeline into service in late May," said Jessica Sims, the Virginia field coordinator for Appalachian Voices.

"MVP brazenly asks for this authorization while simultaneously notifying FERC that the company has completed less than two-thirds of the project to final restoration and with the mere promise that it will notify the commission when it fully complies with the requirements of a consent decree it entered into with the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration last fall," she continued.

"Requesting an in-service decision by May 23 leaves the company very little time to implement the safety measures required by its agreement with PHMSA," Sims added. "There is no rush, other than to satisfy MVP's capacity customers' contracts—a situation of the company's own making. We remain deeply concerned about the construction methods and the safety of communities along the route of MVP."

Russell Chisholm, co-director of the Protect Our Water, Heritage, Rights (POWHR) Coalition—which called MVP's request "reckless and impossible"—said in a statement that "we are watching our worst nightmare unfold in real-time: The reckless MVP is barreling towards completion."

"During construction, MVP has contaminated our water sources, destroyed our streams, and split the earth beneath our homes. Now they want to run methane gas through their degraded pipes and shoddy work," Chisholm added. "The MVP is a glaring human rights violation that is indicative of the widespread failures of our government to act on the climate crisis in service of the fossil fuel industry."

Athens swallowed up by orange haze from Sahara dust storm

Clouds of dust blown in from the Sahara covered Athens and other Greek cities on Tuesday, one of the worst such episodes to hit the country since 2018, officials said.

A yellow-orange haze smothered several regions after days of strong winds from the south, limiting visibility and prompting warnings from the authorities of breathing risks.

“It’s one of the most serious episodes of dust and sand concentrations from the Sahara since March 21-22, 2018, when the clouds invaded the island of Crete in particular,” said Kostas Lagouvardos, weather research director at the Athens Observatory.

Greece had already been struck by Sahara dust clouds in late March and early April which also smothered parts of Switzerland and southern France.

Authorities warned that the dust concentrations can reduce sunlight and visibility while increasing concentrations of fine pollution particles, posing risks for people with underlying health problems.

Also of Interest

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

Israel’s Architect of Ethnic Cleansing

Bruises and broken ribs – Palestinian deaths in Israeli prisons

Will the Freedom Flotilla Sail to Gaza?

‘I felt this was an abuse of power’: the climate activist who took on the law and won

TikTok BANNED By Biden, Congress: CEO Shou Chen RESPONDS

Mitch McConnell BLAMES Tucker Carlson For Ukraine Funding DELAY, Says Fox Was RIGHT To FIRE Him

Bernie’s Presidential Campaign Was INFILTRATED! Here’s How We Know.

A Little Night Music

Smokey Smothers - I Got My Eyes On You

Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers - Blind And Dumb Man Blues

Otis "Smokey" Smothers - I Can't Judge Nobody

Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers - Come On Rock Little Girl

Smokey Smothers w/Barrelhouse Chuck - Searching For My Baby

Smokey Smothers - Give It Back

Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers - Midnight and Day

Otis "Big Smokey" Smothers - Sugar Pie

Smokey Smothers - Do Your Thing