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This evening's music features Piedmont blues and gospel guitarist Rev. Gary Davis. Enjoy!

"The US presidential election drawing nearer means Democrats finally get to stop pretending to be sad and concerned about Gaza and go back to never thinking about US atrocities overseas. I bet it feels like releasing a long-held fart after your crush finally leaves the room."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Genocide Monster Drops Out, Endorses Fellow Genocide Monster

President Biden has caved to mounting pressure to drop out of the presidential race due to widespread concerns about his obvious neurological decline, bowing out and endorsing his exact ideological clone Kamala Harris. Apparently the consensus is that he’s too demented to run for president, but is not too demented to actually be president for the next six months.

And hell, whatever man. This means nothing and changes nothing, other than perhaps arguably somewhat diminishing the likelihood of a Republican empire manager being sworn into the White House in January. Harris differs from Biden only in voice and appearance, and has been an enthusiastic supporter of Biden’s genocidal atrocities in Gaza over the last nine and a half months.

Harris, assuming she wins the nomination, will campaign on the promise of continuing Biden’s incineration of Gaza, continuing Biden’s “ironclad” support for Israel, continuing Biden’s proxy war in Ukraine, continuing Biden’s escalations against Russia and China, continuing Biden’s expansion of the US war machine, continuing Biden’s facilitation of ecocidal capitalism, and continuing Biden’s dehumanizing policies of worldwide exploitation and imperialist extraction. If she gets into the White House the face of the operation will change, but the operation itself will not.

And the same will be true if Trump gets in. Every few years the US empire has this weird little festival where it pretends the government is changing hands and will now begin operating in a way that is meaningfully different from the way it was operating before. But then exploitation continues, the injustice continues, the ecocide continues, the wars continue, the militarism continues, the imperialism continues, the propaganda indoctrination continues, the authoritarianism and oppression continues.

The behavior of the empire is no more changed by getting a new president than a corporation is changed by getting a new secretary at the front desk of its main office.

Much will be made of Kamala Harris’ race and gender. Much will be made of the fact that she is not Donald Trump. Much emotion will surround her campaign. And then, whether she wins or loses, nothing much will change. You won’t be able to tell by looking at the machinery of the empire who took office in January. Its behavior will remain the same.

Nothing real is happening on the level of electoral politics in America. The protests are real. The activism is real. The efforts to fight the imperial propaganda machine and wake people up from their indoctrination are real. The efforts to give rise to a real revolutionary zeitgeist are real. But the elections themselves are a performative ritual put on to help people feel good about themselves, like a religious sacrament performed by a priest.

A genocide monster has bowed out and endorsed another genocide monster. That’s the whole entire story here. That’s all the commentary and attention this new development deserves.

Israeli Military Strikes Claim Lives of 64 Individuals in a Single Day

The local Health Ministry says at least 64 people were killed and 105 injured in Israeli attacks across Gaza in the past 24 hours. Many victims are still under the rubble and on roads, with civil defense crews not able to reach them, it adds.

The Israeli military has launched numerous deadly strikes focused on the Al-Nuseirat refugee camp, including the targeting of multiple UN-run schools housing displaced people.

Nuseirat residents described living in constant fear of being bombed and a deteriorating humanitarian situation.

“The situation is scary,” said Rahma Abu Hajjaj, a 39-year-old mother of five from Nuserirat. “There are no warnings, there are no alarms when homes are bombed, we are hiding all the time and we do not know why they are targeting these homes.”

"We hear the sounds of explosions in Nuseirat and we see the smoke rising from here in Deir Al-Balah, the last refuge you can say and we are being terrorized by the feeling tanks may roll here," Tamer Aburakan, a resident of Gaza City, told Reuters.

"Where should we go next? The entire Gaza Strip is under fire, and we are being hunted like deer in a forest. When is enough? When will the war ever end?" he said via a chat app.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is due to travel to the US on Monday. Netanyahu is expected to meet with US President Joe Biden on Tuesday afternoon. The next day, he is due to address a joint session of US Congress.

Thousands of people are expected to protest against the visit of Netanyahu for whom the top prosecutor of the International Criminal Court is seeking an arrest warrant for war crimes.

Houthis STRIKE TEL AVIV In Major BLOW To Israel

Israel says it intercepted missile fired by Houthis at port city of Eilat

Israeli forces have said they intercepted a ballistic missile fired by Houthi militants in Yemen targeting the southern city of Eilat, in retaliation for a series of Israeli strikes on the Yemeni port city of Hodeidah. ...

The Houthi military spokesperson, Brig Gen Yahya Saree, said the militants fired multiple ballistic missiles towards Eilat early on Sunday morning, and targeted an American ship in the Red Sea with missiles and drones, calling both attempts “successful”. The group had promised a “huge” response to Israeli attacks, amid fears of increasing regional conflict. Gaza’s civil defence reported heavy fighting in the southern city of Rafah as well as dozens of deaths from Israeli airstrikes in the central part of the territory.

The Houthis’ “response to the Israeli aggression against our country is inevitably coming and will be huge”, said Saree.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said its long-range Arrow 3 missile defence system intercepted the missiles directed at Eilat outside Israeli airspace, but sirens sounded as a warning to local people about possible falling shrapnel.

The attempted strikes on the port city followed a barrage of Israeli airstrikes targeting oil facilities, cranes, and a power station near Hodeidah, which Saree said killed three people, wounded 87 and left columns of smoke and fire towering over the port facilities.

Israel and wiping lipstick from the pig

International Court of Justice finds Israel’s occupation of Palestine illegal

In a devastating condemnation of the Israeli government and its imperialist backers, the International Court of Justice (ICJ) ruled Friday that Israel’s occupation of Palestine is unlawful, ordering all countries to cease enabling it. The court ruled categorically that Israel’s 56-year-old domination over “the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967” is “illegal.” The occupied territories include the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, whose population is being systematically massacred by Israel in an ongoing genocide.

In its sweeping ruling, the court found that, beyond the criminality of Israel’s war against the population of Gaza, the entire framework within which the genocide is being conducted is itself illegal, and that its enablement by the imperialist powers is also illegal. ... In a refutation of the imperialist powers’ justifications for funding and arming the Gaza genocide based on claims that “Israel has a right to defend itself,” the court ruled that “Israel’s security concerns cannot override the principle of the prohibition of acquisition of territory by force.” ...

In announcing the ruling, Nawaf Salam, the president of the ICJ, said:

The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the occupied Palestinian territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the occupied Palestinian territory unlawful.

...

Israeli officials responded with condemnations of the ICJ and by reasserting the very content of the ruling: That Israel is seeking to dominate and annex the entirety of the Palestinian territories. “We will not accept moral preaching from the court,” blustered Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said:

The Jewish people are not conquerors in their own land—neither in our eternal capital Jerusalem nor in the land of our ancestors in Judea and Samaria. No false decision in The Hague will distort this historical truth, and the legality of Israeli settlement in all the territories of our homeland cannot be disputed.

...

While Friday’s ruling presents a devastating legal indictment of the Israeli government and its imperialist backers, the fact remains that it, like numerous other court rulings and UN resolutions, has no practical force whatsoever.

Draft Israeli law to limit academic speech labelled ‘McCarthyite’

Israel’s education minister and the country’s national union of students are backing a draft law to limit academic speech in the country, which the heads of leading universities have attacked as “McCarthyite” and fundamentally undemocratic.

The legislation, currently being debated in the Knesset, would give a government-appointed committee the power to order the firing of academic staff that it decides have expressed “support for terror”. If the universities refuse, their funding would be cut.

Critics say the legislation is fundamentally undemocratic and would undermine Israeli academia, because it restricts free speech and allows politicians to weaponise accusations that should be handled by the legal system.

The president of the prestigious Technion – Israel Institute of Technology, known for links to the country’s hi-tech and defence industries, said the law was “McCarthyite”.

“It is a form of McCarthyism, a very violent form, because it is meant to threaten people not to express their mind, in a system that should be free of any intimidation, encouraging free speech, encouraging criticism,” Uri Sivan said.

Scott Ritter : Netanyahu’s Dangerous American Trip

Russia Says It May Deploy Nuclear Missiles in Response to New US Missile Deployment to Germany

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said Thursday that Moscow won’t rule out deploying nuclear missiles in response to the US planning to deploy missile systems to Germany in 2026 that were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty.

“I don’t rule anything out,” Ryabkov said when asked about the possibility of a nuclear deployment.

Ryabkov went on to reference Kaliningrad, the Russian Oblast on the Baltic Sea that’s wedged between Lithuania and Poland and separated from the rest of Russia. He said the territory “has long attracted the unhealthy attention of our opponents.”

Hinting Russia could respond to the US deployment by sending weapons to Kaliningrad, Ryabkov said, “Kaliningrad is no exception in terms of our 100 percent determination to do everything necessary to push back those who may harbor aggressive plans and who try to provoke us to take certain steps that are undesirable for anyone and are fraught with further complications.”

Pepe Escobar : World Reactions to #Trump Shooting

Developing countries face worst debt crisis in history

Developing countries are facing the worst debt crisis in history with almost half their budgets being spent on paying back their creditors, a study has found.

The report, by the campaign group Debt Relief International for Norwegian Church Aid, says more than 100 countries are struggling to service their debts, resulting in them cutting back on investment in health, education, social protection and climate change measures.

Debt service is absorbing 41.5% of budget revenues, 41.6% of spending, and 8.4% of GDP on average across 144 developing countries, according to the study.

It said that without urgent action problems would persist into the 2030s, and that pressures were greater than during both the Latin American debt crisis of 1982 and the debt crisis of the 1990s. The latter prompted relief under the Heavily Indebted Poor Country Initiative (HIPC).

In 2020 the G20 group of leading developed and developing countries launched the common framework, a scheme designed to speed up and simplify the debt relief process. However, progress has been much slower than hoped, reflecting the fact that much poor country debt is now owed to China and private bondholders. The report said the common framework was falling “way short of expectations in terms of timeliness, participation by creditors, and the scale of relief provided”.

Federal judge delays posting of Ten Commandments in Louisiana public schools

A federal judge blocked Louisiana from posting the Ten Commandments in public schools until November after parents from five districts sued the state over the law.

In a brief ruling Friday, district court judge John deGravelles said that the parents and the state agreed that the Ten Commandments will not be posted in any public school classroom before 15 November. The state also agreed to not “promulgate advice, rules or regulations regarding proper implementation of the challenged statute”.

The state’s Republican governor, Jeff Landry, signed into law last month a bill that requires all classrooms, in K-12 public schools and colleges, to have Ten Commandments posters with “large, easily readable font”. The state is also requiring a four-paragraph “context statement” about how the commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries”.

Soon after the bill was signed, a coalition of parents, supported by the American Civil Liberties Union and other civil rights groups, sued the state saying the bill violates the first amendment. The bill “unconstitutionally pressures students into religious observance, veneration and adoption of the state’s favored religious scripture”, the lawsuit reads.

The state gave schools a deadline of 1 January to put the posters up and said the deadline had not been affected by the lawsuit.

Biden Drops Out Of 2024 Presidential Race

Biden endorses Kamala Harris for president after dropping out of race

Joe Biden was quick to endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, for the US Democratic party’s 2024 presidential nomination in the wake of his stunning decision not to seek re-election to the White House.

In a tweet posted minutes after the publication of his letter announcing his decision to withdraw from the race, Biden said choosing Harris to be his second-in-command for the duration of his term of office was “the best decision I’ve made”.

The message also said he was committed to focusing on the rest of his time in the White House while his party made a decision on his successor at the top of the ticket for the November election.

In response, Harris said in a statement: “I am honored to have the president’s endorsement and my intention is to earn and win this nomination.” ...

Bill and Hillary Clinton also announced their backing. “We are honored to join the president in endorsing Vice-President Harris and will do whatever we can to support her,” they said.

Will Obama SABOTAGE Kamala Anointment

Trump leads Republican taunts of Biden after president drops out of 2024 race

Donald Trump’s vicious attack on Joe Biden and his legacy led the Republican party’s reaction to the president’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 race. “Crooked Joe Biden was not fit to run for president, and is certainly not fit to serve – and never was!” Trump, the Republican nominee, said in a post to Truth Social, repeating his favored insult for the man who beat him in the 2020 election, and rehashing a familiar litany of unsubstantiated grievances.

“He only attained the position of president by lies, fake news, and not leaving his basement. All those around him, including his doctor and the media, knew that he wasn’t capable of being president, and he wasn’t.

“And now look what he’s done to our country, with millions of people coming across our border, totally unchecked and unvetted, many from prisons, mental institutions, and record numbers of terrorists. We will suffer greatly because of his presidency, but we will remedy the damage he has done very quickly.”

JD Vance, Trump’s newly installed running mate, called Biden “the worst president of my lifetime” in a tweet, and attempted to link Vice-President Kamala Harris to his “scam policies”.

“Kamala Harris has been right there with him every step of the way. She owns all of these failures, and she lied for nearly four years about Biden’s mental capacity – saddling the nation with a president who can’t do the job,” he said. “President Trump and I are ready to save America, whoever’s at the top of the Democrat ticket. Bring it on.”

Secret Service Director Kimberly Cheatle GRILLED By Congress On ASTOUNDING FAILURE: Watch

Could robot weedkillers replace the need for pesticides?

On a sweltering summer day in central Kansas, farm fields shimmer in the heat as Clint Brauer watches a team of bright yellow robots churn up and down the rows, tirelessly slicing away any weeds that stand in their way while avoiding the growing crops. The battery-powered machines, 4ft (1.2 metres) long and 2ft (0.6 metres) wide, pick their way through the fields with precision, without any human hand to guide them.

Brauer, a former California-based tech executive who moved back to his family farm in central Kansas after his father developed Parkinson’s disease, sees the robots as critical tools to help farmers reduce their reliance on chemicals and be more protective of their health and the environment. His Greenfield agricultural technology company now builds and programs its robots in a shed behind an old farmhouse where his grandmother once lived. Twenty farmers are signed up for the robotic services this season, and the company hopes to weed 5,000 acres (2,023 hectares) this year. “The answer is here,” he said. “This solves a lot of problems for farmers.”

Farmers have been fighting weeds in their fields – pulling, cutting and killing them off with an array of tools – for centuries. Weeds compete with crops for soil moisture and nutrients and can block out sunlight needed for crop growth, cutting into final yields. Over the last 50-plus years, chemical eradication has been the method of choice. It is common for farmers to spray or otherwise apply several weedkilling chemicals on to their fields in a single season.

But as chemical use has expanded, so has scientific evidence that exposure to the toxic substances in weedkillers can cause disease. In addition to glyphosate’s link to cancer, the weedkilling chemical paraquat has been linked to Parkinson’s disease. Another common farm herbicide, atrazine, can be harmful to reproductive health and is linked to several other health problems.

Weedkilling chemicals have also been found to be harmful to the environment, with negative impacts on soil health and on pollinators and other important species. The widespread use of herbicides in farming has fueled weed resistance, leaving many farmers struggling to control weeds in their fields even with repeated applications of herbicides.

Florida grasshopper sparrow: scientists hail resurgence of endangered bird

Scientists in Florida are hailing the landmark release this week of a tiny bird only 5in tall as an oversized success in their fight to save a critically endangered species.

Numbers of the Florida grasshopper sparrow, seen only in prairies in central regions of the state, dwindled so severely by 2015, mostly through habitat loss, that authorities took the decision to remove remaining breeding pairs into captivity. Their wager was that a controlled repopulation program would be more successful than leaving the birds to their own devices.

On Tuesday, their gamble was rewarded. Partners joined the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) to release into the wild the 1,000th bird bred under controlled conditions, adding to an increasingly stable population that researchers believe has turned the tide towards the species’ survival.

“The recovery and release program diverted the extinction of the Florida grasshopper sparrow,” said Adrienne Fitzwilliam, lead sparrow research scientist at the FWC’s fish and wildlife research institute.

“The fear was we might just be expediting their demise by bringing in proven breeders, so to see these birds making it in the wild, breeding with wild birds and other release birds, and their offspring going on to breed, has just been incredibly rewarding.

Also of Interest

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

The “Criticizing Israel Is Antisemitic” Narrative Reinforces Itself

NATO’s Obscure Relations With Israel

What Happens With the War in Ukraine if Trump Wins?

The US Vassal State of Germany Comes Apart

CrowdStrike Further Tainted By Worldwide Crash

Looking Ahead, But Not Forward, to Five More Years of “Queen” Ursula von der Leyen

Biologist Rosemary Grant: ‘Evolution happens much quicker than Darwin thought

Where time has stood still for 50 years: the UN buffer zone in Cyprus – in pictures

ICJ Rules Israel’s Occupation of West Bank, Jerusalem, Gaza Is Illegal: Diana Buttu Explains

Is JD Vance A Real Populist Or Captured By Donors?

Democratic Party factional war

A Little Night Music

Rev. Gary Davis - Mornin' Train

Reverend Gary Davis - Cocaine Blues

Rev. Gary Davis - Hesitation Blues

Reverend Gary Davis - If I Had My Way

Reverend Gary Davis - Say No to the Devil

Reverend Gary Davis - I'll Fly Away

Reverend Gary Davis - I Am The Light Of This World

Reverend Gary Davis - Candy Man

Rev. Gary Davis - You Got To Move