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This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer songwriter Larry Williams. Enjoy!

"Liberal supporters of Israel ultimately do more damage than Israel’s supporters on the far right, because they pollute the information ecosystem a lot more. The overt fascists who back Israel lie constantly, but their lies are easier to see through because they don’t hold positions that can draw sympathy from kind-hearted people who care about human rights and justice. Liberal Israel supporters ultimately promote the same horrors of genocide, ethnic cleansing and apartheid as far right Israel supporters, but they do so while paying lip service to human rights and a two-state solution. They deceive people into thinking it’s possible to support the Israeli state without supporting the murderousness and criminality that the entire state is made out of."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

Republicans Are Morons

One reason westerners are so clueless about communism is because every four years the most influential western nation launches a massive months-long disinformation campaign about what communism is. People like Donald Trump, Elon Musk, Lauren Boebert and Tim Pool have been claiming Kamala Harris is a Marxist for proposing price controls, a measure that was also put forward by noted communist Richard M Nixon.

Republicans are so fucking stupid that every few years they start shrieking that they’re under attack from “communism”, and by “communism” they mean the opposing US party which supports the exact same capitalist status quo they support but with tampons in the boys’ bathroom.

God I wish Democrats were as cool as right wing idiots make them sound.

Trump: You're all going to be thrown into a communist system. You will be thrown into a system where everybody gets health care. pic.twitter.com/nfimx3aAgs

— Acyn (@Acyn) August 15, 2024

They got Americans to move from arguing that the US-backed genocide needs to end to arguing over which US politician should be elected to oversee the genocide. Sometimes all you can do is stop and stare in awe of the power of imperial mind control.

When you find yourself debating which openly genocidal presidential candidate will do a better job managing inflation, you know you have been duped into having the wrong conversations about the system you are living under.

Silly headline. Of course there will be no change.

Kamala Harris Is Reaching Out to Arab American Leaders, But Will There Be Any Change in Gaza Policy?

Tony Blinken wastes jet fuel so he can look busy.

Blinken arrives in Israel for 11th-hour talks on Gaza ceasefire deal

The US secretary of state has arrived in Israel for 11th-hour talks aimed at shoring up a deal for a lasting ceasefire in the war in Gaza, amid signals from Israeli and Hamas officials that a breakthrough may not be as close as international mediators had suggested.

Antony Blinken flew into Tel Aviv on Sunday as part of Washington’s renewed efforts to broker a ceasefire in the 10-month-old conflict, negotiations seen as even more urgent after last month’s back-to-back assassinations of a top Hezbollah commander and the Hamas political chief, Ismail Haniyeh. ...

The US’s top diplomat will seek to “conclude the agreement for a ceasefire and release of hostages and detainees” during his 10th visit to the region since the war broke out following Hamas’s 7 October attack, the state department said. Blinken is expected to meet senior leaders including Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, on Monday before travelling on to Egypt.

International mediators the US, Qatar and Egypt struck an optimistic tone after two days of talks in the Qatari capital, Doha, last week, announcing that a “bridging proposal” had been agreed. Negotiations to close remaining gaps are expected to resume in Cairo on Wednesday or Thursday.

The US is keen to be able to announce that a deal has been agreed during the Cairo summit, as focus in Washington begins to turn to November’s US elections. However, Hamas, which is not directly participating in this round of negotiations, has said the idea that a deal is getting closer is “an illusion”

European leaders escalate war rhetoric with Iran

Fighting intensifies between Israel and Hezbollah despite diplomatic drive

Fighting between Hezbollah and Israel has intensified over the weekend despite diplomatic efforts to de-escalate tensions between the two and prevent an expected Hezbollah and Iranian attack against Israel.

An Israeli attack on Saturday was one of the bloodiest for civilians since fighting began in October, killing 10 Syrian workers and their family members in what Israel said was a strike on a Hezbollah weapons depot in Nabatieh, south Lebanon. In response, Hezbollah launched a 55-missile barrage at the town of Ayelet HaShahar, in north Israel.

Three Unifil peacekeepers were also lightly injured in an explosion on Sunday while on patrol in the Lebanese border town of Yarin. A source within Unifil said they believed the soldiers were injured by a nearby Israeli airstrike, but that they were still investigating the incident. ...

Hezbollah released a video on Friday showcasing missile-laden trucks driving through an allegedly city-sized tunnel network, the first time the group had revealed its widely reputed tunnel network on camera. A source in Hezbollah said: “The enemy [Israel] wants a war and is always attempting to pressure us, so we are ready for all possibilities.” They added that that the group’s rocket capabilities were “very large” and what was displayed in Friday’s video was just “a drop in the ocean of what Hezbollah possesses”. ...

But western diplomats in Beirut say they have been left in the dark about Hezbollah’s promised retaliation against Israel and that the group has given no clue “where or when” the attack would take place.

Eighteen members of same family killed in Israeli strike on Gaza

An Israel airstrike in Gaza has killed at least 18 people from the same family, even as mediators expressed optimism for an imminent ceasefire deal between Israel and Hamas after 10 months of war.

The airstrike on Saturday hit a house and adjacent warehouse sheltering displaced people at the entrance to the town of Zawaida, according to al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, to where casualties were taken. An Associated Press reporter there counted the dead.

Among those killed was Sami Jawad al-Ejlah, a wholesaler who coordinated with the Israeli military to bring meat and fish to Gaza. The dead also included his two wives, 11 of their children aged two to 22, a grandmother to the children, and three other relatives, according to a list provided by the hospital.

Omar al-Dreemli, a relative, said: “We are in the morgue seeing indescribable scenes of limbs and severed heads and children who are dismembered.” Abu Ahmed, a neighbour, said of Ejlah: “He was a peaceful man.” He said more than 40 civilians had been sheltering in the house and warehouse at the time.

The Israeli military, which rarely comments on individual strikes, said it had struck “terrorist infrastructure” in central Gaza from where rockets had been fired toward Israel in recent weeks. “Reports were received that as a result of the strike, civilians in an adjacent structure were killed. The incident is under review,” it said.

Disconnect between what US voters want and what the Biden administration does seems to widen daily

Rarely has a head of state received a more hostile welcome than that which met the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, when he arrived in Washington DC to speak before a joint session of Congress last month. While no senior US officials turned up to greet him on the tarmac, thousands of demonstrators marched in protest of his speech, including 200 from the group Jewish Voice for Peace who were arrested during an occupation on Capitol Hill, and others who burned him in effigy and replaced the American flag flying in front of Union Station with a Palestinian flag. ...

Polling shows that some 70% of Democrats and 35% of Republicans favor conditions on military aid to Israel, but with each day, the disconnect between what voters want and what the Biden administration does seems to widen. One consequence is that citizens’ already flagging trust in their government is steadily eroded. “It’s a battle for the soul of the political system on this issue,” Frey said. “And it’s playing out in real time in front of us. It is not healthy. It’s not good for Israel.” And to the extent that Americans care about foreign policy, he added, “I think it does in the long run maybe undermine confidence in the political system.” ...

That disconnect will be on display next week at the Democratic national convention, where supporters of Palestinian human rights plan to pressure the party to include the call for an immediate ceasefire and a weapons embargo of Israel as planks of its platform. ... The protest vote provided another piece of evidence that, at least among liberals, a longstanding affinity for Israel was quickly eroding, one more casualty of a brutal 10-month conflict that shows no sign of ending and may well escalate into a full-on regional war. In addition to killing more than 40,000 Palestinians (and probably many more indirectly), displacing millions and destroying more than half the area’s buildings, the Gaza war appears to have damaged, perhaps irreparably, Israel’s “special relationship” with its most important champion.

Meanwhile, Biden’s stubborn support for the onslaught, despite its apparent failure to meet its stated goals of destroying Hamas and freeing the hostages, has done more than threaten the Democratic coalition. It has stoked a sharp generational divide, with younger Americans nearly twice as likely to express support for the Palestinian cause as their parents – fomenting wrenching generational disagreements, especially within Jewish families. It has riven campuses, leading venerable institutions supposedly dedicated to free inquiry and critical thinking to respond with police violence to the mostly peaceful activism of their own students. And perhaps most alarmingly, it has given many Americans cause to doubt our nation’s commitment to free speech, human rights and the rule of law – to wonder, in short, just what America stands for. ...

While conservatives seem untroubled by the devastation in Gaza (Trump has advised Israel to “finish it up”), many Americans remain deeply attached to a national self-conception as a beacon of freedom and human dignity. What so troubles a younger generation is not only US support for the Gaza offensive but what it says about the country’s role in the world, said Michael Barnett, a professor of international affairs and political science at George Washington University. “It’s the idea of an immoral US foreign policy – that there’s just something that is too cutthroat, too wrong, too unethical,” he said. Denouncing Russian aggression in Ukraine while giving Israel an apparent blank check to obliterate Palestine simply doesn’t compute. “The hypocrisy is ripe,” Barnett explained, “and they’re picking up on it.”

‘A police state’: US universities impose rules to avoid repeat of Gaza protests

Universities across the US are planning tougher rules to restrict protests when students return from summer vacation, an effort to avoid the chaos of last semester when demonstrations against Israel’s war in Gaza led to police crackdowns on campuses nationwide.

Columbia University students, who were at the vanguard of the movement, may encounter the most changes. The university president, Minouche Shafik, resigned this week in the wake of criticism for her handling of the protests, but not before overseeing the installation of fencing around the lawns of the school’s quad – the heart of campus life and the site of large protest encampments.

The barriers are not the only novelty the university introduced as it seeks to avoid a repeat of last spring’s showdown with protesters, which culminated in 109 arrests when Shafik called in the NYPD for a second time in April. In an email sent to students last month, the administration also announced a “color-coded campus status” system, with varying levels of access restrictions “based upon the potential disruption to our academic mission and/or campus operations”. University administrators are also considering bringing in “peace officers” with the authority to arrest students – something Columbia’s current 290 security personnel cannot do, according to the Wall Street Journal. ...

Columbia is not unique in its preparations. As they plan for a new academic year and the prospect of more protests, university administrations nationwide have issued a flurry of new policies and proposals seeking to limit protests. Students, faculty and advocates warn that the policies endanger free speech, run counter to educational institutions’ mission to foster debate, risk deepening tensions on campuses, and – in the case of public universities – may run foul of schools’ constitutional obligations.

The American Association of University Professors issued a statement this week condemning the wave of anti-protest measures. The policies “impose severe limits on speech and assembly that discourage or shut down freedom of expression”, wrote the group, which represents more than 44,000 faculty members nationwide. “Those who care about higher education and democracy should be alarmed.”

Russia Analyst Glenn Diesen Predicts "Massive Escalation" After Ukraine's Incursion Into Russia

Ukrainian troops trained in UK before attacking Kursk

The UK’s Sun reported Friday that Ukrainian troops who participated in the attack on the Russian province of Kursk had trained in the United Kingdom, adding to the growing evidence of NATO’s leading role in preparing and coordinating the attack. “A month before they were dispatched to Kursk, some of the unit were sent to England where they underwent a few days of training alongside British soldiers,” the Sun reported. A major focus of the training was raids on high-rise buildings.

The UK, US, France and Germany have trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops on their own territory, teaching them how to operate the advanced weapons systems that have been provided to Ukraine and are now flowing into Russian territory. The list of NATO-provided military hardware confirmed to be deployed in the Kursk offensive is growing. On Thursday, Sky News reported that Challenger 2 main battle tanks from the UK were being deployed as part of the offensive. This follows confirmation from Voice of America that HIMARS long-range missiles had been used in the offensive.

Vladislav Seleznyov, a former spokesman for the Ukrainian armed forces’ general staff, told Voice of America that HIMARS were “critical to the stunning advance. “The real scourge of the Russian army is the HIMARS, which turns into ashes a huge amount of weapons, equipment and personnel of the Russian army,” Seleznyov said.

Nikolay Patrushev, an adviser to Russian President Vladimir Putin, told Izvestia that the attack on Kursk was “planned with the involvement of NATO and Western special services.” He added, “NATO countries have supplied Kiev with weapons, military instructors, and continuous intelligence while controlling the actions of neo-Nazis.”

The US media, citing unnamed American officials, have claimed that the US and NATO were not informed of the attack beforehand. However, this claim is entirely unbelievable, given the high-level coordination required to wage such a large-scale offensive using sophisticated NATO hardware. The Guardian reported on Friday that “Western armor was at the heart of the assault, with no apparent restrictions on their use, including US Stryker and German Marder armored vehicles ... and even reportedly some of Britain’s donated squadron of 13 remaining Challenger 2 tanks.”

What's behind WaPo Russia-Ukraine energy ceasefire?

Biden Considering Sending Long-Range Cruise Missiles to Ukraine

The Biden administration is “open” to sending Ukraine long-range air-to-surface cruise missiles amid Ukraine’s offensive in Russia’s Kursk Oblast, POLITICO reported on Thursday.

The Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missile (JASSM) has a range of over 230 miles and would become the longest-range weapon the US sends Ukraine if it goes ahead with the delivery.

Sources told POLITICO that no final decision had been made as the Pentagon is trying to figure out if Ukraine’s Soviet-era fighter jets could carry the powerful missile, which weighs 2,400 pounds and has a 1,000-pound warhead.

Guilty verdict for white Florida woman who fatally shot Black mother

A jury on Friday convicted a white Florida woman for shooting and killing a Black mother of four through her front door in a case that provoked outrage from civil rights advocates and the victim’s family. Susan Lorincz denied the manslaughter of Ajike “AJ” Owens, who came to her house to remonstrate after the defendant assaulted two of Owens’ children on 2 June last year. Lorincz could receive a prison sentence of up to 30 years in prison at a hearing on a date to be determined. ...

The case has been mired in controversy since the moment Lorincz, 60, fired a single shot from inside her Ocala home that killed Owens, whom she admitted she could not see on the other side of the closed and locked door. She then insisted she acted in self-defense.

The defendant was arrested only several days later, after growing community unrest and initial comments from the Marion county sheriff, Billy Woods, that his hands were tied by Florida’s stand-your-ground law, which allows a person to use deadly force if they feel their life is in imminent danger. Woods later conceded that the killing was not justified. But further anger was provoked by the state attorney Bill Gladson’s decision to charge Lorincz with manslaughter, not the second-degree murder charge Owens’ family was expecting.

“Her act of shooting through a door where she couldn’t see who was on the other side was a reckless and wanton disregard for human life, which are literally the words that come from the statute of second-degree murder in Florida,” said Melba Pearson, a civil rights attorney and director of prosecution projects at Florida International University’s Jack D Gordon Institute for Public Policy.

Silence Is Complicity: Rev. Dr. Munther Isaac Calls Upon U.S. Churches

Trump taps Tulsi Gabbard for help preparing for debate with Kamala Harris

Donald Trump has tapped Tulsi Gabbard, the former Democratic Hawaii representative, to help prepare him for next month’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris.

The selection of Gabbard as rehearsal stand-in for the vice president, first reported by the New York Times, suggests that despite denials, the former president may be planning to prepare for the 10 September clash with greater-than-usual diligence.

Gabbard, an Iraq war veteran, had been floated as a potential Trump vice-presidential pick. The former Democrat fell out with her party after standing in the 2020 presidential primaries after being smeared by Hillary Clinton as a “Russian asset”.

That generated a lawsuit in which Gabbard alleged that Clinton’s suggestion she was the Democratic candidate favored by Russia was “retribution” for Gabbard backing Clinton’s rival Bernie Sanders in the 2016 primary.

But Gabbard’s selection for Harris debate prep carries a potent history: during the 2020 Democratic primaries, Gabbard proved a formidable opponent to Harris when she excoriated the then California senator for jailing hundreds of Californians for marijuana violations while she was the state’s attorney general and then bragged about her own use of the drug. “Kamala Harris is an empty suit,” Gabbard told Fox News last week. “In 2019, I confronted her with her hypocrisy – that what she said was very different from what she actually did.”

"It's the Democratic Party's War": Gaza Protests Planned Throughout Week as DNC Begins in Chicago

'Turning Into the Super PAC Election': Outside Spending Tops $1 Billion for 2024

Empowered by the U.S. Supreme Court's 2010 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission ruling allowing unlimited independent financial contributions to support political campaigns, outside spending during the current election cycle has hit a record $1 billion, according to a report published Thursday by the watchdog group OpenSecrets.

"Super PACs and other outside groups that can raise and spend unlimited sums of money have poured about $1.1 billion into 2024 federal elections as of August 15—nearly twice what similar groups spent over the same period in the 2020 presidential election cycle when independent expenditures hit an all-time record," OpenSecrets said.

"More than half of all outside spending during the 2024 cycle—about $585.8 million—has gone into the presidential election, which saw an especially expensive Republican presidential nominating contest," the group added.

"The largest spender, by far, is former President Donald Trump's flagship super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc.," the report notes. "To date, MAGA Inc. has spent about $125.1 million boosting Trump in the presidential election, including nearly $33.2 million attacking his GOP rivals and more than $65.6 million opposing President Joe Biden."

Former President Donald Trump’s main super PAC, MAGA Inc., is the biggest outside spender with $125.1 million pouring into the 2024 presidential election since the start of the cycle. https://t.co/TXH1YPcivZ pic.twitter.com/bd9CZRSw2F— OpenSecrets.org (@OpenSecretsDC) August 16, 2024

"Future Forward and American Bridge 21st Century, the first and second-largest Democratic hybrid PACs, have spent a combined $74.7 million on the presidential race as of August 15," the publication adds. "Both super PACs pivoted to supporting Vice President Kamala Harris after Biden suspended his campaign last month."

Other key findings in the report include:

• Americans for Prosperity (AFP) Action, a super PAC at the center of a network of conservative donors and activists led by billionaire Charles Koch, spent more than $31.2 million supporting former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley's failed GOP presidential run;
• After Haley's loss, AFP Action pivoted to congressional races, spending nearly $28 million on Republican candidates;
• The pro-cryptocurrency super PAC Fairshake and affiliated groups spent nearly $46 million in the 2024 electoral cycle, more than any other industry-affiliated organization; and
• United Democracy Project, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee's super PAC, has spent more than $35 million on congressional races, most of it toward efforts to oust progressive lawmakers the group deems insufficiently supportive of Israel.

AIPAC—which vowed to spend $100 million on 2024 elections—played a key role in defeating Democratic Reps. Jamaal Bowman (N.Y.) and Cori Bush (Mo.) in recent primaries. The group has come under fire for attacking Black and brown members of Congress and for supporting Republicans who took part in Trump's attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Kamala Harris’ Economics Platform Is Being Written By BLACKROCK!

How methane emissions are pushing the Amazon towards environmental catastrophe

Controlling methane provides our best, and perhaps only, lever for shaving peak global temperatures over the next few decades. This is because it’s cleansed from the air naturally only a decade or so after release. Therefore if we could eliminate all methane emissions from human activities, methane’s concentration would quickly return to pre-industrial levels. Essentially, humans have released in excess of 3bn tonnes of methane into the atmosphere in the past 20 years. Quashing those emissions within a decade or two would save us 0.5C of warming. No other greenhouse gas gives us this much power to slow the climate crisis.

If the Earth keeps warming, though, reducing emissions from human activities may not be enough. We may also need to counter higher methane emissions in nature, including from warming tropical wetlands and thawing Arctic permafrost. The highest natural methane emissions come from wetlands and seasonally flooded forests in the tropics – such as the Brazilian Amazon forest I recently visited at the Mamirauá sustainable development reserve – and they are expected to rise with warming. Tropical wetlands yield so much methane because they are warm, wet (by definition) and low-oxygen environments perfect for growing methane-emitting microbes.

On my most recent trip there a year ago in July, El Niño [warming of sea surface temperatures] was strengthening and the tropical Atlantic was baking. Ocean temperatures off the coast of Florida approached hot-tub levels of 40C (104F) – close to temperatures suggested for cooking salmon and the highest surface ocean temperatures measured. Warm ocean waters in the tropical Atlantic often bring drought to the Amazon. I sat in a boat in the Mamirauá reserve with my Brazilian host, hydrologist Ayan Fleischmann, who directs climate research there. “Drought may be coming,” he said and added: “Water levels several hundred kilometres upriver at a monitoring station in Tabatinga, Brazil, are already as low as they’ve ever been.” It was hard to envision drought as we floated past trees during the seasonal floods.

“The worst Amazon droughts happen in El Niño years with warm Atlantic waters,” Fleischmann said. The key ocean region is roughly the belt from the equator to Cuba and southern Florida. The extreme drought triggered by the 2015–16 El Niño featured record high temperatures, killed billions of trees and turned the Amazon from a global carbon sponge to a vast carbon source. Amazon fires raged in 2015 and 2016. Fleischmann’s warning was prescient. In late September, just two months after I left, the region baked in unprecedented drought. Water levels in the Amazon system were lower than at any time since record-keeping began more than a century ago. Brazil’s minister for the environment, Marina Silva, said: “We are seeing a collision of two phenomena; one natural, which is El Niño, and the other a phenomenon produced by humans, which is the change in the Earth’s temperature.”

Why do whales beach themselves? A vial of parasites in a Tasmanian museum may hold the answer

A vial of white parasitic worms left for decades in a Tasmanian museum may help solve a timeless mystery: why do whales strand themselves on beaches? The worms were collected from the blowhole of a pilot whale that beached itself in 1973 and then stored in Launceston’s Queen Victoria Museum and Art Gallery. The vial attracted little attention until Australian researchers discovered it and identified the thin, long worms as rare parasitic nematodes.

A study from Charles Sturt University and the Czech Academy of Sciences has now raised questions about the role of parasites in whale strandings, a recurring phenomenon that often kills dozens of whales around Australia each year. “We already know that parasites cause suicide in many other animals,” co-author and parasite expert Dr Shokoofeh Shamsi told Guardian Australia. “Why shouldn’t they do in whales?” ...

Shamsi said the parasite infestation could have limited the whale’s ability to navigate, leading it to accidentally swim to the beach.

Scientists have no conclusive understanding of why whales maroon themselves on the sand but suggestions include agedness, illness, injury, severe weather, escaping predators or disorientation due to loud sounds.

While Shamsi said it was likely the worms played a role in the whale’s death, other experts emphasised the need for further research.

Also of Interest

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

Don't Buy the Lie That Israeli Settler Violence Is the Exception. It's the Rule

Gaza ex-detainee describes 40 days of horror as 'Israeli army human shield'

Chris Hedges: Thou Shalt Not Commit Genocide

Mali and Niger Breaks Diplomatic Relations with Ukraine Accusing NATO Ally of Involvement in Terrorist Attacks

When Presidents Kill

Accused financier of Haitian President assassination apparently advised by US intelligence

Scott Ritter: The FBI’s Raid on Peace

The US Strategy in the Black Sea Region Is Falling Apart

Ukraine SitRep: Kursk Attack Derailed Partial Ceasefire Deal

‘Monument to history’ battle between US and China over future of Mao’s secretary’s diary

Scott Ritter: A Farewell to Truth

Danny Haiphong: Pepe Escobar - Russia Readies For War With Nato, Putin's Devastating Revenge For Kursk Invasion Is Next

Biden Staffer THREATENED By DOJ For CRITICIZING Gaza Policy FINALLY CLEARED

Security At The Chicago DNC Is NUTS!

A Little Night Music

Larry Williams - Let Me tell You, Baby

Larry Williams - She Said Yeah

Larry Williams - Slow Down

Larry Williams - You Bug Me, Baby

Larry Williams - Jelly Belly Nellie

Larry Williams - Hootchy-Koo

Larry Williams - Heeby Jeebies

Larry Williams - Bad Boy

Larry Williams - Bony Maronie

Larry Williams - Dizzy Miss Lizzy