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"I believe there are monsters born in the world to human parents.... The face and body may be perfect, but if a twisted gene or a malformed egg can produce physical monsters, may not the same process produce a malformed soul?"

-- John Steinbeck

News and Opinion

Gaza Is The Single Defining Feature Of This Political Moment In The US

The single defining feature of this political moment in the United States is that all major presidential candidates favor continuing the perpetration of an active genocide — and that everyone’s trying to tap dance around this issue.

That’s it. That’s the main story here. It’s not “American democracy is on the line in this election.” It’s not “Making America great again” or “Taking back our country” or “Fighting the woke agenda” or any of that braindead nonsense. The main story is that an actual genocide is scheduled to continue no matter whom Americans elect, and everyone’s meant to just ignore that point as though it’s some small insignificant quibble and focus on the candidates’ positions on other issues like immigration reform and student loan debt forgiveness.

The main story is this mind-warpingly insane situation in which progressive-minded Americans now find themselves saying plainly ridiculous things like “Gosh I’m not crazy about this candidate’s pro-genocide policies, but I really like what she’s saying about tax credits for low and middle income families!” It’s that right wingers are now forced to adopt the position “Yeehaw, Trump’s gonna end the wars and bring our troops home and Make America Great Again, right after he helps Israel defeat Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, and oh yeah, also Iran.” It’s that independents are saying “RFK Jr is going to dismantle the war machine while simultaneously backing a genocide and pledging ‘unconditional support’ for the front-line aggressor in today’s major conflicts throughout the middle east.”

That’s what all the headlines should be about. Not how Trump’s 2024 campaign strategy differs from his other presidential runs. Not the ways Kamala should go after him in their first debate. The main story in US politics is the fact that there’s a genocide happening which all viable candidates support, and that an entire country is trying to find ways to psychologically compartmentalize around this horrifying fact.

You can’t “lesser evil” a genocide. That’s not a thing. Past a certain line a candidate is just plain evil, and if genocide is not on the other side of that line for you, then it no longer makes sense for you to talk about “evil” — or any other moral distinction for that matter. By framing the single worst thing a leader can do as a forgivable infraction, you have made all moral distinctions nonsensical. You live your life with your head in a moral universe where good and bad have no meaning apart from your feelings and how things make you feel.

You can say you’re voting for your preferred genocidal monster because you feel a preference for that genocidal monster’s positions on healthcare or gun control or whatever, but what you can’t do is fool anyone who has their eyes open into believing you are siding with any kind of “lesser evil”. Once you’ve crossed into the same kind of moral landscape that would argue for supporting Six-Headed Hitler to stop Seven-Headed Hitler, you’re no longer standing in a landscape where it makes sense to talk about good and evil.

Jeffrey Sachs: Palestinian factions agreement 'extremely positive and important'

Doctors in Khan Younis overwhelmed as casualties of new Israeli invasion mount

Doctors in the largest hospital in Gaza’s southern city of Khan Younis pleaded for supplies from a facility overwhelmed by wounded people, as Israeli airstrikes, artillery fire and fighting on the streets continued for a second day. “There’s no space for more patients. There’s no space in the operating theatres. There is a lack of medical supplies, so we cannot save our patients,” Mohammed Zaqout, the director of Nasser hospital, told AFP.

The UN’s office for humanitarian affairs (OCHA) said the hospital was facing “a new mass casualty influx, amid a dire lack of blood units, medical supplies and hospital beds”.

Palestinian health officials said more than 70 people have been killed and more than 200 injured since Israeli forces launched a new ground invasion of Khan Younis, the enclave’s second city.

Residents told Reuters that Israeli tanks had advanced into Bani Suhaila, a town on the edge of central Khan Younis, as soldiers searched the town’s cemetery and others took over the rooftops of high-rise buildings, occasionally firing their weapons.

Israeli airstrikes targeted Khan Younis, which has already been reduced to little more than shattered concrete and rubble from months of fighting. The Israeli military described fighting in “close-quarters combat”, as Palestinian militants battled Israeli troops on the streets.

The people of Yemen are unvanquishable

American Surgeon Who Volunteered in Gaza Says IDF Snipers Shoot Toddlers

An American surgeon who volunteered in Gaza told “CBS Sunday Morning” in an interview that aired Sunday that Israeli snipers were purposely shooting Palestinian children, including toddlers.

“I had children who were shot twice,” said Dr. Mark Perlmutter, who said he was in Gaza at the end of April and the first couple weeks of May. “I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately and directly on the side of the head in the same child.”

Perlmutter added, “No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by ‘the world’s best snipers.’ And they’re dead-center shots.” Other foreign doctors who volunteered in Gaza gave a similar account to The Guardian back in April, saying Israeli snipers were shooting children in the head.

Resigned State Dep Official SPEAKS OUT On Kamala Israel Policy

Oxfam: Israel Has Reduced Water Access in Gaza by 94 Percent Since October

Oxfam has warned that Israel’s longstanding policy of using water as a weapon against Palestinians has reached its peak amid Israel’s genocide, with water access for Palestinians in Gaza now at a small fraction of pre-genocide levels as Palestinians die of dehydration, starvation and disease.

According to a report on Israel’s water deprivation policies by Oxfam, Israel has reduced water access in Gaza by a whopping 94 percent since October. This means Palestinians only have access to an average of roughly 4.7 liters of water per person per day, or only about 1.2 gallons a day.

In the supposed “humanitarian safe zone” in al-Mawasi — which Israeli forces have attacked relentlessly — Palestinians only have access to an average of 2.5 liters per day, the report said.

This paltry amount of water must be used for all purposes: drinking, cooking, bathing, laundry, and more. It is far less than the minimum of 15 liters needed per day in emergencies, as determined by UN officials.

This dramatic reduction in water access is the result of Israel’s sustained attacks on Gaza’s water infrastructure, Oxfam said. Israel has destroyed 100 percent of wastewater treatment plants in Gaza and has destroyed all water desalination plants and water sanitation warehouses in Gaza City, while destroying the vast majority of infrastructure in other parts of the Strip.

“Terrible Mistake”: Leading Israelis Say Netanyahu’s Invite to Address Congress Rewards Bad Behavior

Tlaib Says Netanyahu 'Should Be Arrested' in DC

As U.S. lawmakers prepared to host Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for a rare joint address to Congress, Rep. Rashida Tlaib contended Monday that the leader of a country on trial for genocide at the World Court should be apprehended and sent to The Hague to face justice.

"Netanyahu is a war criminal committing genocide against the Palestinian people," Tlaib (D-Mich.)—the only Palestinian American member of Congress—said in a statement ahead of the Israeli leader's scheduled speech on Wednesday. "It is utterly disgraceful that leaders from both parties have invited him to address Congress. He should be arrested and sent to the International Criminal Court."

While the ICC has not authorized Netanyahu's arrest, its chief prosecutor has applied for warrants to apprehend the far-right prime minister and Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged crimes including extermination and forced starvation, as well as three Hamas leaders for war crimes allegedly committed during the October 7 attack on Israel.

Israel is also on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice—also known as the World Court—which ruled last week in a separate case that the 57-year Israeli occupation of Palestine is an illegal form of apartheid that must end "as rapidly as possible."

Tlaib continued:

Since 1948, the U.S. has provided more than $141 billion in weapons to the Israeli government to fund the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, including $17.9 billion since October. Netanyahu's apartheid regime has already slaughtered over 39,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including over 15,000 children. Yet my colleagues and the Biden administration continue to approve more funding and send more weapons—even as innocent children like Hind Rajab are targeted with 355 bullets, shot in the head by Israeli snipers, burned to death in their tents with U.S.-made weapons, bombed while playing at school, deliberately starved to death, and Palestinians are bombed in refugee camps and discovered in mass graves, naked and with their hands tied, all livestreamed for the world to see. These are undeniably war crimes under international law.

"Make no mistake: This event is a celebration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians," Tlaib asserted. "It is a sad day for our democracy when my colleagues will smile for a photo-op with a man who is actively committing genocide."

Dozens of Democratic U.S. lawmakers and Independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont have said they will skip Netanyahu's speech. Vice President Kamala Harris—the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee—has declined to preside over the prime minister's address as Senate president, although she is reportedly planning to meet privately with him on Thursday.

While U.S. President Joe Biden has decried Israel's "indiscriminate bombing" of Gaza and Secretary of State Antony Blinken has lamented that "far too many Palestinians have been killed," the administration continues to send billions of dollars worth of arms to the key Middle Eastern ally.

"It is hypocritical to claim to be concerned about the massive death toll of innocent civilians, and then turn around and welcome the person responsible for these war crimes to our Capitol," Tlaib added. "Their silence is betrayal, and history will remember them accordingly. Our government must stop supporting and funding this genocide now."

Kamala To DITCH Biden State Dep Officials In 2024 Win

Netanyahu upstaged by Biden and Harris on highly anticipated US visit

Benjamin Netanyahu expected to land in Washington DC this week with a bang. So far, it has been more of a whimper. The Israeli prime minister has kept a low profile in the US capital, which was stunned by Joe Biden’s decision on Sunday to drop out of the presidential race and endorse his vice-president, Kamala Harris, to challenge Donald Trump. ...

A day into his trip, Netanyahu had not publicly met any US officials, and his meeting with Biden, who is recovering from Covid-19, was rescheduled to Thursday. Trump said he would meet the Israeli prime minister on Friday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. No timings for meetings have been released with Harris.

And Biden will address the nation on Wednesday evening, upstaging the Israeli PM once again just hours after Netanyahu was set to deliver an address to a joint session of Congress.

“I think Netanyahu was dismayed that he’s not the center of attention,” said Aaron David Miller, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who focuses on US foreign policy and the Middle East. “He’s not the center of attention here because of what Biden did and what’s going on with Kamala. And he’s certainly not the center of the attention in Israel.”

On Tuesday, Netanyahu is set to meet with leaders of the US evangelical Christian community, then hold an event with leaders of the local Jewish community, according to his office.

Battle for Donbass coming to an end

Centrist government to remain in power until after Paris Olympics, says Macron

Emmanuel Macron has said he will maintain the country’s centrist caretaker government until the end of the Olympic Games in mid-August to avoid disorder, dismissing an effort by a leftwing alliance to name a prime minister. His announcement in a TV interview came shortly after the leftist coalition that won the most votes in this month’s parliamentary elections selected the little-known civil servant Lucie Castets as its choice for prime minister.

Macron said the current caretaker government would “handle current affairs during the Olympics”, which end on 11 August. When asked about Castets, Macron told France 2: “This is not the issue. The name is not the issue. The issue is: which majority can emerge at the (national) assembly?

“Until mid-August, we’re in no position to change things, because it would create disorder.”

There is no firm timeline for when Macron must name a new prime minister. The parliamentary elections left the national assembly with no dominant political bloc in power for the first time in France’s modern republic. Macron, who has a presidential mandate until 2027, has the ultimate say in who will be appointed as prime minister. However, the prime minister would need the support of a majority of lawmakers to avoid a no-confidence vote.

German Officials at Odds Over Planned US Missile Deployment

Members of Germany’s ruling coalition government are at odds with each other over a US plan to deploy missile systems to the country in 2026 that were previously banned by the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which the US withdrew from in 2019.

The plan was announced in a joint statement released by the US and Germany during the NATO summit earlier this month, but some German officials said they were caught off guard or denounced the plan as unnecessary escalation, including members of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s Social Democratic Party (SDP).

Rolf Mützenich, parliamentary leader of the SDP, warned that the “danger of an unintentional military escalation is considerable.” Russian officials have said they’re not ruling out deploying new nuclear missiles in response.

“Tragic Beyond Proportions”: Attorney Ben Crump on Sonya Massey’s Killing and Police Cover-Up

Sonya Massey killing: family accuse police of attempted cover-up

The family of Sonya Massey, a 36-year-old Black woman who was shot in the face and killed by a white sheriff’s deputy in Illinois, have said police initially tried to cover up her killing.

Police audio obtained by the Guardian features someone on scene the night of Massey’s killing – presumably a deputy – saying Massey’s wound was “self-inflicted”. A dispatcher asks to confirm, and the person on scene repeats “self-inflicted”. The recording is in line with what the family says was misleading information given by police when Massey was taken to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead.

At a press conference on Tuesday, the family said police initially told Massey’s loved ones she had either killed herself or was killed by an intruder.

“They tried to make me believe that a neighbor had did it,” said Jimmie Crawford Jr, Massey’s former partner and the father of one of her children, who added that law enforcement told nurses at the hospital that Massey had “killed herself”. “How do you get that confused?” said Crawford Jr.

Only after a doctor said Massey’s death was a homicide did law enforcement begin classifying it as a police killing, the family said. Some of Massey’s family did not learn who had actually killed her until they read news reports about the 6 July killing, her father, James Wilburn, said on Tuesday.

RIP

John Mayall, pioneering figure of British blues, dies aged 90

John Mayall, the British blues musician whose influential band the Bluesbreakers was a training ground for Eric Clapton, Mick Fleetwood and many other superstars, has died. He was 90.

A statement on Mayall’s Instagram page announced his death, saying the musician died on Monday at his home in California. “Health issues that forced John to end his epic touring career have finally led to peace for one of this world’s greatest road warriors,” the post said.

He is credited with helping develop the English take on urban, Chicago-style rhythm and blues that played an important role in the blues revival of the late 1960s. At various times, the Bluesbreakers included Clapton and Jack Bruce, later of Cream; Fleetwood, John McVie and Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac; Mick Taylor, who played five years with the Rolling Stones; Harvey Mandel and Larry Taylor of Canned Heat; and Jon Mark and John Almond, who went on to form the Mark-Almond Band.

Mayall protested in interviews that he was not a talent scout, but played for the love of the music he had first heard on his father’s 78rpm records. “I’m a band leader and I know what I want to play in my band – who can be good friends of mine,” Mayall said in an interview with the Southern Vermont Review. “It’s definitely a family. It’s a small kind of thing really.”

Who might Kamala Harris pick for VP? Three favorites emerge

Two Democratic state governors, Josh Shapiro of Pennsylvania and Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and the Arizona senator Mark Kelly have emerged as early favourites to be Kamala Harris’s running mate after being asked to submit personal information in a vice-presidential vetting process.

The trio are understood to be among 10 Democrats – nearly all of them elected officials – identified by a vetting team led by the former attorney general Eric Holder. Holder’s law firm Covington & Burling LLP has been charged with the responsibility of scrutinising the personal finances, public statements and family histories of likely candidates. Shapiro, Cooper and Kelly have endorsed Harris to replace Joe Biden as the presidential nominee in November.

The vetting process, which normally takes months, will be accelerated to conclude before the start of the Democratic national convention, which opens in Chicago on 19 August.

Even before Biden announced his withdrawal on Sunday from seeking re-election as president, Democratic donors had begun funding a vetting procedure in preparation for the need to scrutinise fresh candidates. ...

While Shapiro, Cooper and Kelly were the first three to be publicly identified, it emerged on Tuesday that Andy Beshear, the governor of Kentucky, had also been asked to submit vetting information.

Trump files complaint against Harris for taking over Biden’s campaign funds

Donald Trump’s campaign on Tuesday filed a complaint with the Federal Election Commission against the vice-president Kamala Harris, accusing her 2024 campaign of violating federal campaign finance laws by replacing Joe Biden’s name with her own to take control of his campaign funds.

The complaint, filed by the Trump campaign’s general counsel, David Warrington, argued that the Biden campaign could not rename its committee from “Biden for President” to “Harris for President” once Biden dropped out of the race on Sunday, and roll over $91m.

“This is little more than a thinly veiled $91.5m excessive contribution from one presidential candidate to another, that is, from Joe Biden’s old campaign to Kamala Harris’s new campaign. This effort makes a mockery of our campaign finance laws,” the eight-page complaint said.

“Federal candidates are prohibited from keeping contributions for elections in which they do not participate,” it added. “Biden for President 2024 has shown no intention to properly refund or re-designate the general election funds it has already received. This makes them all excess contributions.”

Whether the complaint generates traction with the FEC remains unclear, but the Trump campaign has been looking for any way to slow down the momentum Harris has been able to generate with voters and donors after she quickly became the presumptive Democratic nominee.

Sunday was world’s hottest ever recorded day, data suggests

World temperature records were shattered on Sunday on what may be the hottest day scientists have ever logged, data suggests. Inflamed by the carbon pollution spewed from burning fossils and farming livestock, the average surface air temperature hit 17.09C (62.76F) on Sunday, according to preliminary data from the Copernicus Climate Change Service, which holds data that stretches back to 1940. The reading inched above the previous record of 17.08C (62.74F) set on 6 July last year, but the scientists cautioned that the difference was not statistically distinguishable.

“What is truly staggering is how large the difference is between the temperature of the last 13 months and the previous temperature records,” said the Copernicus director, Carlo Buontempo. “We are now in truly uncharted territory – and as the climate keeps warming, we are bound to see new records being broken in future months and years.”

The finding comes as large parts of the world roast in punishing heat. Hot weather fuels crackling wildfires that burn homes to a crisp, and triggers silent waves of mass mortality that spill through hospital wards and retirement homes.

Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist who works on the Berkeley Earth data project, said the record was “certainly a worrying sign” on the back of 13 record-setting months and that it should show up in datasets from other research groups. “It also makes it even more likely that 2024 will beat 2023 as the warmest year on record.”

The rapid baking of the planet is expected to slow later this year, at least briefly, if a powerful weather pattern shifts from its neutral state into a cooler phase known as La Niña. But the underlying trend of global heating will persist as long as people pump gases into the atmosphere that act like a greenhouse.

PFAS widely added to US pesticides despite EPA denial

Toxic PFAS “forever chemicals” are widely added to pesticides, and are increasingly used in the products in recent years, new research finds, a practice that creates a health threat by spreading the dangerous compounds directly into the US’s food and water supply.

The analysis of active and inert ingredients that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has approved for use in pesticides proves recent agency claims that the chemicals aren’t used in pesticides are false. The researchers also obtained documents that suggest the EPA hid some findings that show PFAS in pesticides.

About 14% of all active ingredients in the country’s pesticides are PFAS, a figure that has doubled to more than 30% of all ingredients approved during the last 10 years. The increased PFAS use in pesticides is “disturbing”, said Kyla Bennett, a former EPA official now with the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility non-profit, and a study co-author.

“We should be eliminating PFAS from all products, but particularly pesticides because you’re spraying them on crops, and there’s not a more direct way to expose the population than that,” Bennett said. “We should not be going in this direction.”

Wild sharks off Brazil coast test positive for cocaine, scientists say

Wild sharks off the coast of Brazil have tested positive for cocaine, according to new study by Brazilian scientists, in the latest research to demonstrate how illegal drug consumption by humans is harming marine life.

According to a study entitled Cocaine Shark and published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, scientists dissected the bodies of 13 sharpnose sharks (Rhizoprionodon lalandii) caught in fishermen’s nets off a beach in Rio de Janeiro. All 13 tested positive for the drug.

Previous studies have found cocaine in river, sea and sewage water, and traces of the drug have been found in other sea creatures such as shrimps. A separate study recently revealed that high levels of cocaine residue were causing “serious toxicological effects” in animals such as brown mussels, oysters and eels in Santos Bay, in the Brazilian state of São Paulo.

But the concentration found in the Rio sharks was 100 times higher than had been found in other marine animals, the researchers said. How the cocaine ended up in the sharks remains a mystery.

Also of Interest

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

Vote For Six-Headed Zombie Hitler To Stop Seven-Headed Zombie Hitler

Genocidaire Netanhayu Should Not Address Congress

Middle East Heating Up: Increased Hezbollah, Houthi Attacks on Israel after Israel Strike on Yemen Port

Pro-Palestine campaigners to stage protest against Israel team inside stadium at Olympics

China Brokers Unity In Palestine

Looking at Kamala Harris’s Record on Israel

UK Covers Up Gaza Spy Footage From Day of Aid Worker Massacre

The Absurdity of “Trump Is Worse” Arguments Aimed At American Palestinians

FTC Applauded for Launching Inquiry Into Surveillance Pricing

Don Lemon “Kamala Is NOT African-American!” w/ Nick Cruse

A Little Night Music

Jimmy Lee Robinson - Twist It Baby

Jimmy Lee Robinson - All My Life

Jimmie Lee Robinson - Got To Have Some

Jimmie Lee Robinson - Rosa Lee

Jimmie Lee Robinson ~ 'Drifting Blues'

Jimmy Lee - Chicago Jump

Jimmie Lee Robinson - Ah'w baby

Jimmie Lee Robinson - Times is Hard

Jimmie Lee Robinson - Lonely Traveller

Jimmie Lee Robinson - Cry over Me