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This evening's music features West coast blues singer and guitarist Johnny Fuller. Enjoy!

"It’s so surreal how Americans watched undeniable evidence that the president doesn’t run America during the first presidential debate, and then went right back to arguing about who should be president as though this never happened.

I mean, they watched it happen. Right in front of their faces. They saw clear, unequivocal evidence that the person who’s supposedly calling the shots in their country has a brain which does not work, which means the shots are necessarily being called by someone else. And yet here they are, still arguing over who should be president as though they didn’t just see the very premise of this argument exposed as complete nonsense.

It’s like if a wife was talking to her husband, and then he told her “I’m not actually your husband, I’m a space alien,” and then he took off his mask and showed her his flying saucer, and then after he put his mask back on she asks him what he wants for dinner and reminds him they’re having drinks with the Millers on Friday."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

OMG Haaretz Is Hamas Propaganda Now!

A new report from the Israeli outlet Haaretz titled “IDF Ordered Hannibal Directive on October 7 to Prevent Hamas Taking Soldiers Captive” confirms what independent outlets like The Grayzone and Electronic Intifada have been getting smeared as antisemitic conspiracy theorists for saying this entire time: that many of the Israeli deaths on October 7 were the result of an IDF policy of deliberately firing on their own people to prevent them from being taken hostage by Hamas.

Citing a “very senior IDF source,” Haaretz reports that Israeli troops responding to the Hamas attack were told “Not a single vehicle can return to Gaza,” and that “it was entirely clear what that message meant, and what the fate of some of the kidnapped people would be.”

This acknowledgement flies in the face of everything the imperial media and western officials have been saying since October about these claims. Just last month State Department spokesman Matthew Miller acted as though journalist Sam Husseini was a raving lunatic for asking about the possible implementation of the Hannibal Directive on October 7. The Grayzone’s Max Blumenthal notes that he was actually smeared as a “manipulator” by Haaretz itself back in November for his reporting on the evidence of IDF fire being behind many deaths during the attack.

When I asked about Hannibal Directive last month, the State Dept remarkably claimed they didn’t know about the “supposed directive”. More revealingly, no major media took note of this denial even though it’s about The Hostages they all claim to care about. Today in Haaretz: https://t.co/xCezkj53Y1 pic.twitter.com/oSzVdjKWuP

— Sam Husseini (@samhusseini) July 7, 2024

So I guess at this point we need to ask, which is it? Are mainstream Israeli media outlets now guilty of antisemitic Holocaust denialist blood libel conspiracy theories, or is it no longer an antisemitic Holocaust denialist blood libel conspiracy theory to say that this happened?

Scott Ritter : US Thrives on Continuous Conflict

Thousands of Palestinians flee amid heavy Israeli attack on Gaza City

People in Gaza City have reported one of the heaviest attacks by Israeli forces since 7 October, sending thousands of Palestinians fleeing from an area already ravaged in the early weeks of the nine-month-old war. The latest Israeli incursion into the eastern sector of Gaza City came as Israel’s far-right coalition parties threatened again to stop ongoing negotiations in Qatar for a ceasefire, arguing that halting the fighting now would be a huge mistake.

Sporadic militant activity has hindered Israeli efforts to maintain control in Gaza. Despite claiming authority over the Gaza City area months ago, Israel has had to contend with persistent pockets of resistance, forcing a re-evaluation of its military strategy and redeployment of forces. Before the recent offensive, the Israeli military said it had issued evacuation orders in the targeted zone.

The territory’s civil emergency service told Reuters it believed that dozens of people had been killed in Gaza City but that teams were unable to reach them because of offensives in a number of areas. Local sources said Israeli warplanes had bombed a residential apartment near an industrial junction south of Gaza City, killing two citizens and wounding five others. They said a house south of Gaza City was bombed, killing one person and wounding seven others. ...

Hopes among Gaza residents of a pause in the fighting had revived after Hamas accepted a key part of a US ceasefire proposal, prompting an official in the Israeli negotiating team to say there was a real chance of a deal.

However, the Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, who heads a pro-settler party that is part of Benjamin Netanyahu’s governing coalition, said stopping the war now would be a huge mistake. “Hamas is collapsing and begging for a ceasefire,” Smotrich wrote on X. “This is the time to squeeze the neck until we crush and break the enemy. To stop now, just before the end, and let him recover and fight us again, is a senseless folly."

186K KILLED In Gaza, Medical Journal Says

'Unfathomable': Lancet Study Estimates Gaza Death Toll May Exceed 186,000

Amid the decimation of Gaza's healthcare system and Israel's relentless attacks on the enclave, officials have struggled to account for all the Palestinians who have been killed since the Israel Defense Forces began its assault in October—and a new analysis shows how "indirect" killings will likely push the death toll of the war to what one peace advocate called an "unfathomable" number.

In a letter published in the medical journal The Lancet on July 5, three public health experts cited a previous official death toll of 37,396, but pointed out that "armed conflicts have indirect health implications beyond the direct harm from violence," making it likely that the total number of deaths of Palestinians so far is much higher—and could ultimately reach close to 200,000, if not more.

"Even if the conflict ends immediately, there will continue to be many indirect deaths in the coming months and years from causes such as reproductive, communicable, and noncommunicable disease," wrote the authors. "The total death toll is expected to be large given the intensity of this conflict."

Since the authors researched the analysis, the death toll has grown to 38,193, according to Gaza health officials.

The authors wrote that an untold number of Palestinians in Gaza have died as a result of destroyed healthcare infrastructure and an inability to get medical care, starvation amid Israel's near-total blockade on humanitarian aid, and the loss of funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), one of the "very few humanitarian organizations" still working in Gaza.

Rasha Khatib of the Advocate Aurora Research Institute, Martin McKee of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, and Salim Yusuf of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences noted that "in recent conflicts, such indirect deaths range from three to 15 times the number of direct deaths."

"Applying a conservative estimate of four indirect deaths per one direct death to the 37,396 deaths reported, it is not implausible to estimate that up to 186,000 or even more deaths could be attributable to the current conflict in Gaza."

Using the 2022 population estimate of more than 2.3 million people, the projected total death toll "would translate to 7%-9% of the total population in the Gaza Strip," reads the study. ...

The analysis was published days before the Israeli news outlet +972 Magazine published an article drawing from interviews with six Israeli soldiers who described how they "routinely executed Palestinian civilians simply because they entered an area that the military defined as a 'no-go zone'" and followed a "systematic policy of setting Palestinian homes on fire after occupying them." ...

The authors of the study said that "an immediate and urgent cease-fire in the Gaza Strip is essential, accompanied by measures to enable the distribution of medical supplies, food, clean water, and other resources for basic human needs."

"At the same time, there is a need to record the scale and nature of suffering in this conflict," they wrote. "Documenting the true scale is crucial for ensuring historical accountability and acknowledging the full cost of the war."

Matt Hoh : Human Rights Hypocrisy and the Gaza Crisis

IDF Soldier Confesses That in Gaza, 'It's Permissible to Shoot Everyone'

Disputing the repeated claims of Israeli officials and their vehement supporters in the Biden administration, who have scoffed at concerns that the Israel Defense Forces are targeting civilians in Gaza, in-depth reporting on Monday based on the testimony of six former IDF soldiers described how they were encouraged to fire their weapons to relieve "boredom" and felt "authorized to open fire on Palestinians virtually at will, including civilians."

In their latest investigative report on the IDF's rules of engagement in Gaza, Israeli publications +972 Magazine and Local Call interviewed six soldiers who had been released from active duty.

Medical providers and eyewitnesses have described the shooting of Palestinian women and children by Israeli snipers, and footage has shown unarmed Palestinians being executed while walking along a road, but the soldiers confirmed that the IDF has been operating with "total freedom of action," as one said, since October.

"If there is [even] a feeling of threat, there is no need to explain—you just shoot," said a soldier identified as B.

If troops see a person approaching and don't know whether they are armed or pose a threat, "it is permissible to shoot at their center of mass [their body], not into the air... It's permissible to shoot everyone, a young girl, an old woman," said B.

The soldiers said they sometimes fired their weapons as "a way to blow off steam or relieve the dullness of their daily routine," with one reservist saying that they wanted "to experience the event [fully]."

The reservist described shooting "for no reason" at times, "into the sea or at the sidewalk or an abandoned building," while a soldier identified as S. told +972 and Local Call that the IDF would engage in a tactic called "demonstrating presence," in which they would repeatedly fire their weapons to show any Palestinians in the area that they were there.

They would "shoot a lot, even for no reason—anyone who wants to shoot, no matter what the reason, shoots," said S. ...

Al Jazeera journalist Laila Al-Arian said that the confessions of the Israeli soldiers to +972 only confirm what "has been clear since the beginning."

"Israeli soldiers in Gaza are operating under the premise that they can kill anything that moves and that every Palestinian is fair game for slaughter," she said.

The soldiers also described "routinely" executing Palestinian civilians because they had entered an area designated a "no-go zone" by the IDF, and allowing their surroundings to become "littered with civilian corpses, which are left to rot or be eaten by stray animals."

The soldiers were instructed to hide the bodies when international aid groups arrived, to ensure that "images of people in advanced stages of decay don't come out."

S. said they "saw a lot of civilians—families, women, children," and confirmed that "there are more fatalities than are reported."

"Every day, at least one or two [civilians] are killed [because] they walked in a no-go area. I don't know who is a terrorist and who is not, but most of them did not carry weapons," they said.

B. told +972 and Local Call that the army suspects any male between the ages of 16 and 50 of being a terrorist, and treats anyone walking around outside or looking at the IDF from a building as suspicious—and a legitimate target.

"You shoot," said B. "The [army's] perception is that any contact [with the population] endangers the forces, and a situation must be created in which it is forbidden to approach [the soldiers] under any circumstances."

The report follows previous revelations from the Israeli news outlets on the IDF's use of artificial intelligence to target Palestinians, with little regard for civilians who might be killed when suspected Hamas members were attacked in their homes.

A soldier identified as A. said that working alongside commanders in an operations room and determining which buildings should be struck "felt like a computer game."

"I, too, a rather left-wing soldier, forget very quickly that these are real homes," said A. "Only after two weeks did I realize that these are [actual] buildings that are falling: if there are inhabitants [inside], then [the buildings are collapsing] on their heads."

Yuval Green, who served in the 55th Paratroopers Brigade late last year and signed a letter with 40 other reservists last month refusing to take part in the invasion of Rafah, testified that soldiers were ordered to burn down homes that they had occupied.

"If you move, you have to burn down the house," he said, adding that the policy did not make sense to him in an operation that was supposedly aimed at targeting Hamas.

"We are in these houses not because they belong to Hamas operatives, but because they serve us operationally," Green said. "It is a house of two or three families—to destroy it means they will be homeless."

Policy analyst Tariq Kenney-Shawa addressed those who might be surprised that "Israeli soldiers would so readily admit their war crimes."

"It's simple," Kenney-Shawa said. "They've never faced any consequences. They are only rewarded for their massacres."

Yael Berda of the Middle East Initiative said the latest dispatch from +972 regarding the orders IDF soldiers are given is likely just a fraction of the truth that will eventually come out about the war in Gaza.

"I am pretty sure we don't know half of what went on during these nine months in Gaza," she said.

Internal memo reveals Anti-Defamation League surveillance of leftwing activist

The Anti-Defamation League has surveilled leftwing activists and “regularly tracks, profiles and sends threat assessments of individuals” it perceives as a problem, according to an internal email obtained by the Guardian. The May 2020 email was sent from ADL’s head of security to chief executive Jonathan Greenblatt and unspecified employees of the Jewish group, which labels itself the “leading anti-hate organization in the world”. A self-styled civil rights organization, it plays an outsize role in shaping public sentiment and national policy around antisemitism, but it has been plagued by controversy in recent years over its attacks on Israel critics and social justice groups.

The memo shows the ADL collected information on a Black Indianapolis activist, Tatjana Rebelle, who worked on Deadly Exchange, a national campaign against an ADL-backed program to send US police officials for training with the Israeli military. Rebelle, however, said the local campaign on which they worked did not target the ADL, and they had never directly engaged with the group.

In the email, which included a picture and personal information about Rebelle, ADL head of security Chris Delia concluded Rebelle was “a radical with antisemitic and hateful views” but was “not a threat” to the organization. Still, he recommended the file be referred to the organization’s Center on Extremism, which tracks, in its words, “extremist trends, ideologies and groups across the ideological spectrum”. ...

The memo is the latest evidence that the ADL has spied on, surveilled or tracked its opponents on the left and right. In 1993, the ADL faced multiple lawsuits and an FBI investigation over a nationwide intelligence network it developed over the span of several decades with an investigator on its payroll, Roy Bullock. Bullock was alleged to have infiltrated or kept files on the United Auto Workers union, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, neo-Nazi groups, Mother Jones magazine, the American Civil Liberties Union, the NAACP and many more. He also allegedly sold personal information on US politicians and others to the apartheid South African government at the ADL’s behest. The ADL initially backed the apartheid regime, labeling Nelson Mandela’s party “totalitarian, anti-humane, anti-democratic, anti-Israel, and anti-American”.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Political Upheaval and Global Security Challenges

Russia Steps Up Strikes on Ukrainian Airfields Ahead of F-16 Delivery

Russia has stepped up attacks on Ukrainian airfields as Kyiv is preparing to receive its first batch of long-awaited US-made F-16 fighter jets.

Last week, Russia hit three airfields and said it destroyed a total of seven aircraft, including five Soviet-made Su-27 fighter jets, one Mig-29 fighter jet, and a Mi-17 helicopter.

In each attack, Russia published videos of the strikes as the airfields were being monitored by Russian drones. The successful Russian attacks are raising concern among Ukrainian officials about securing more Western jets.

New Popular Front shocks world with French election win

Georgia accused of stopping defense lawyers visiting ‘Cop City’ protest site

The state of Georgia has dragged its feet for months on allowing defense attorneys to visit the forest where a criminal conspiracy allegedly operated in opposition to the “Cop City” police training center, according to a motion filed this week and the Guardian’s reporting.

In his motion filed in Fulton county superior court, attorney Xavier de Janon is seeking to dismiss all charges related to the South River Forest, located south-east of Atlanta – for his client and for dozens of others. The forest’s importance to the case is underlined by the fact that the indictment mentions the word, “forest”, 310 times in its 109 pages, according to the motion.

Since January, deputy attorney general John Fowler has failed to schedule a visit to the alleged “crime scene”, all while construction of the $109m training center has proceeded apace, according to the motion.

Judge Kimberly Esmond Adams ordered Fowler at a court conference in early May to schedule visits by the end of June, adding that the jury in an eventual trial may also need to visit the site. Fowler sent an email to the more than 70 attorneys involved in the case shortly thereafter – but never followed up to schedule visits, effectively ignoring the judge’s deadline.

“Material, exculpatory evidence has been forever lost” due to months of construction, the motion asserts.

Hallelujah!

Satanists to volunteer in Florida schools in protest at DeSantis religious bill

Dark messengers of satanism could soon be walking the hallways of Florida’s public schools, and it’s a consequence of hard-right governor Ron DeSantis’s push for more religion in education. Members of the Satanic Temple say they are poised to act as volunteer chaplains under a state law that took effect this week opening campuses to “additional counseling and support to students” from outside organizations.

Although HB 931 leaves the implementation of chaplain programs to individual school districts, and only requires schools to list a volunteer’s religion “if any”, DeSantis has made clear its intent is to restore the tenets of Christianity to public education. Without the bill, DeSantis said at its signing in April: “You’re basically saying that God has no place [on campus]. That’s wrong.”

The satanists see the law, which comes amid a vigorous theocratic drive into education by the religious right nationally, as an equal opportunity: if Christian chaplains are permitted access to students, often at the most vulnerable and impressionable stages of their lives, then so are they.

There are, however, no plans to introduce studies of the dark arts or satanic rituals to any classroom. The Satanic Temple champions Satan not as a literal, omnipresent demon, but as a symbol of rebellion and resistance to authoritarianism. It says its strategy here is to highlight flagrant violations of the constitutionally protected separation of church and state.

Leading House Democrat Adam Smith calls on Biden to end presidential bid

Joe Biden’s position among congressional Democrats eroded further on Monday when an influential House committee member lent his voice to calls for him to end his presidential campaign following last month’s spectacular debate failure.

Adam Smith, the ranking Democrat on the armed services committee in the House of Representatives, issued the plea just hours after the president emphatically rejected calls for him to step aside in a letter to the party’s congressional contingent.

Biden had also expressed determination to continue in an unscheduled phone interview with the MSNBC politics show Morning Joe. But in a clear sign such messaging may be falling on deaf ears, Smith suggested that sentiments of voters that he was too old to be an effective candidate and then president for the next four years was clear from opinion polls.

“The president’s performance in the debate was alarming to watch and the American people have made it clear they no longer see him as a credible candidate to serve four more years as president,” Smith, a congressman from Washington state, said in a statement.

“Since the debate, the president has not seriously addressed these concerns.” He said the president should stand aside “as soon as possible”, though he qualified it by saying he would support him “unreservedly” if he insisted on remaining as the nominee.

Biden insists in letter to Democrats and live TV interview he’s staying in race

Joe Biden came out swinging on Monday against critics of his calamitous June debate performance, telling Democrats in an open letter and Americans in a pugnacious live TV interview he is staying in the presidential race – rejecting growing calls to concede that at 81 he is too ineffective to beat Donald Trump and should drop out in favour of a younger candidate.

The president lashed out at “elites in the party” in a live telephone interview with the MSNBC show Morning Joe, saying they were behind calls for him to quit. He added: “If any of these guys don’t think I should run, run against me. Go ahead. Announce for president – challenge me at the convention!”

Touting what he said was a demanding campaign schedule around hosting a Nato summit this week, the president insisted: “The American public is not going to move away from me. I’m here for two reasons, pal. One, to rebuild the economy for hard-working middle class people, to give everybody a shot. It’s a straight shot. Everybody gets a fair chance. Number two, people always talk about how I don’t have the wide support. Come on, give me a break. Come with me. Watch.”

Radio host resigns after admitting Biden aides gave her questions for interview

The Philadelphia radio host who conducted the first interview with Joe Biden following the president’s woeful 27 June debate performance has resigned from her job after she admitted she asked the president a handful of questions supplied by his aides.

Andrea Lawful-Sanders said Sunday on Instagram that WURD Radio had accepted her resignation after she tendered it.

In its own statement later Sunday, WURD Radio said that Andrea Lawful-Sanders had arranged the interview “without knowledge, consultation or collaboration with … management” – and violated the station’s editorial independence by accepting questions supplied by Biden’s team.

The outlet, which describes itself as Pennsylvania’s only African American-owned and operated radio station, also said Biden aides’ decision to supply questions to Lawful-Sanders prolonged a historical practice of marginalizing and “de-legitimizing Black voices” in US media.

“WURD Radio is not a mouthpiece for the Biden or any other administration,” said the statement from chief executive officer Sara Lomax, who added that the station would review its policies, procedures and practices to re-establish its “independence and trust … with listeners”.

Lawful-Sanders was one of two battleground state radio hosts who aired an interview with Biden on 4 July and described being given questions by the president’s staff ahead of the conversation. Wisconsin’s Earl Ingram – whose show in Milwaukee has a primarily Black audience – told ABC News on Saturday that Biden’s team supplied him with five questions. He said he asked four of them.

“Yes, I was given some questions for Biden,” Ingram said. He also remarked that the president’s lengthy answers left him little time for follow-ups. “I didn’t get a chance to ask him all the things I wanted,” he said.

Temperatures 1.5C above pre-industrial era average for 12 months, data shows

The world has baked for 12 consecutive months in temperatures 1.5C (2.7F) greater than their average before the fossil fuel era, new data shows.

Temperatures between July 2023 and June 2024 were the highest on record, scientists found, creating a year-long stretch in which the Earth was 1.64C hotter than in preindustrial times.

The findings do not mean world leaders have already failed to honour their promises to stop the planet heating 1.5C by the end of the century – a target that is measured in decadal averages rather than single years – but that scorching heat will have exposed more people to violent weather. A sustained rise in temperatures above this level also increases the risk of uncertain but catastrophic tipping points.

Carlo Buontempo, director of the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which analysed the data, said the results were not a statistical oddity but a “large and continuing shift” in the climate.

“Even if this specific streak of extremes ends at some point, we are bound to see new records being broken as the climate continues to warm,” he said. “This is inevitable unless we stop adding greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the oceans.”

Three dead and millions without power as Tropical Storm Beryl hits Texas

Tropical Storm Beryl made landfall in south-east Texas on Monday with howling winds and torrential rains, causing the deaths of at least three people, closing oil ports, and knocking out power to more than 2.5 million homes and businesses. ... The storm, which approached Texas with sustained winds of 75mph (120km/h), was moving north-west at 10mph and made landfall near Matagorda, a coastal town about 95 miles south of Houston, according to the US National Weather Service (NWS).

Oil-refining activity slowed and some production sites were evacuated in the state that is the nation’s biggest producer of US oil and natural gas. “Life-threatening storm surge and heavy rainfall is ongoing across portions of Texas. Damaging winds ongoing along the coast, with strong winds moving inland,” the NHC said even as Beryl began to lose strength.

A tornado watch was in place for an area covering more than 7 million people, according to the Storm Prediction Center. The storm is expected to weaken to a tropical storm and then to a depression as it moves inland along eastern Texas, into the Mississippi Valley and then the Ohio Valley.

“Beryl’s moving inland but this is not the end of the story yet,” said Jack Beven, a senior hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center. Beryl was forecast to become a post-tropical cyclone on Tuesday and is forecast to hit Oklahoma, Arkansas and Missouri with heavy rainfall.

Also of Interest

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

Patrick Lawrence: Netanyahu Goes for Broke

The Palestine-Israel nightmare won’t end until we accept these basic truths

Israel using water as 'weapon' in Gaza, rights group says

Israel 'summarily executes' four Palestinian prisoners near Karem Abu Salem

What Would a Russian Victory in Ukraine Look Like?

What is the New Popular Front, surprise winner of the French election?

The Left’s “Victory” In France

Owen Jones DIRE WARNING For Labour After UK Election

A Little Night Music

Johnny Fuller - First Stage Of The Blues

Johnny Fuller - Train Train Blues

Johnny Fuller - Comin Round the Corner

Johnny Fuller - I Walk All Night

Johnny Fuller - Don't Slam That Door

Johnny Fuller - Johnny's Low Down Blues

Johnny Fuller - Mean Old World

Johnny Fuller - The Power

Johnny Fuller - Stop, Look & Listen

Johnny Fuller - Mercy Mercy