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"Everything American liberals are worried will be done to them by the Trump administration are things that were done to people in other countries by the Biden administration."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

​'Big Day... for Justice': US Jury Finds Contractor CACI Liable for Abu Ghraib Torture

In a landmark verdict cheered by human rights defenders around the world, a federal jury in Virginia found a U.S. military contractor liable for the torture of three prisoners at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison during the invasion and occupation of Iraq in the early 2000s.

The jury ordered CACI Premier Technology to pay each of the three Iraqi plaintiffs $3 million in compensatory damages and $11 million in punitive damages, for a total of $42 million. It is the first time that a civilian contractor has been found legally responsible for abusing Abu Ghraib detainees.

The lawsuit against CACI—filed in 2008 by the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) on behalf of Suhail Al Shimari, Asa'ad Al Zuba'e, and Salah Al-Ejaili—alleged that company officials conspired with U.S. military personnel in subjecting the plaintiffs to torture and other crimes.

As CCR noted Tuesday:

The plaintiffs brought their case under the Alien Tort Statute, a 1789 federal law that allows foreign nationals to seek redress in U.S. courts for certain violations of international law. This historic outcome follows 16 years of litigation, more than 20 attempts by CACI to have the case dismissed, and a previous trial in which the jury was unable to reach a verdict. Never before this case had survivors of U.S. post-9/11 torture testified in a U.S. courtroom. It also featured testimony from U.S. generals, CACI employees, and former [military police officers] involved in the torture.

"Today is a big day for me and for justice," said Al-Ejaili. "I've waited a long time for this day."

"This victory isn't only for the three plaintiffs in this case against a corporation," he added. "This victory is a shining light for everyone who has been oppressed and a strong warning to any company or contractor practicing different forms of torture and abuse."

For Abu Ghraib torture victims, the arc of justice has taken 20yrs, but finally a US court has ordered a military contractor, CACI, to pay them millions of dollars in damages for the torture inflicted on them. Excellent news! https://t.co/bRu7x4EQAs

— Andy Worthington (@GuantanamoAndy) November 12, 2024

CCR legal director Baher Azmy said that "our clients have fought bravely for 16 years in search of justice for the horrors they endured at Abu Ghraib, against all of the challenges this massive private military contractor threw in their way over the years to avoid basic accountability for its role in this shameful episode in American history."

"We are awed by our clients' courage and by the power of their testimony in court, and we are grateful that this jury knew enough to credit their story over the deflections of CACI," Azmy added. "We thank the jury for affording our clients the measure of justice they came to a United States court to seek."

Like Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib became a byword for U.S. torture during the Bush administration as it waged a worldwide war on terrorism following the September 11, 2001 attacks. The prison's worldwide notoriety stems from the leak and publication in 2004 of photos showing U.S. troops torturing and abusing Abu Ghraib detainees, both living and dead, often with smiles on their faces.

A 2004 investigation by U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Anthony Jones and Maj. Gen. George Fay found that CACI employees participated in and encouraged the torture of Abu Ghraib prisoners.

Investigators found that employees of CACI and Titan Corporation (now L3 Technologies) tortured Abu Ghraib detainees and encouraged U.S. troops to do likewise. Dozens of Abu Ghraib detainees died in U.S. custody, some of them as a result of being tortured to death. Abu Ghraib prisoners endured torture ranging from rape and being attacked with dogs to being forced to eat pork and renounce Islam.

A separate U.S. Army report concluded that most Abu Ghraib prisoners were innocent, with the Red Cross estimating that between 70-90% of inmates there were wrongfully detained. These include women who were held as bargaining chips to induce suspected militants to surrender.

Eleven low-ranking U.S. soldiers were convicted and jailed for their roles in Abu Ghraib torture. Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, the prison's commanding officer, was demoted. No other high-ranking military officer faced accountability for the abuse. Senior Bush administration officials—who had authorized many of the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used at prisons including Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay—lied about their knowledge of the torture. None of them were ever held accountable.

Cattle, crops and ancient olive groves: Lebanon’s farmers ‘lose everything’ to Israeli bombs

The house is gone but the land is still at the forefront of his mind. “We were supposed to harvest the ashta now. They’re hanging on the trees just waiting for us,” says Munif Zein, sitting on the terrace of a relative’s house in Hammana, in the Lebanese mountains. The ashta, or custard apples, he is talking about – light green with creamy flesh – grow in his fields in Mansouri, a village on Lebanon’s southern coast. His family had to leave Mansouri abruptly when the Israeli army started intense bombing on 23 September. ...

Across south Lebanon and the Bekaa valley, important agricultural regions, fields and crops are being hit in the attacks. “The damage we see from this destruction is much more than destroying buildings. You can rebuild a house, but as a farmer, when you lose your yields over many seasons, you lose everything,” says George Mitri, director of the Land and Natural Resources programme at Lebanon’s University of Balamand.

Mitri has been assessing the land destruction. “We are using satellite data, since field visits are not possible at the moment,” he says. “Until the beginning of October, 4,500 hectares [11,100 acres] of land had been burned as a direct result of the bombings. And we’re now in November, so I estimate that we are way above 5,000 hectares.” This includes forests, grasslands and fields with crops such as tobacco (a major cash crop for villages on the border), citrus and olives. As much as 80% of GDP in the south comes from agriculture, and 22% of all citrus grown in the country and 38% of olives come from the south. ...

Mitri says at least 22% of the olive production was lost this year. Olives are an important crop, a tenth of agricultural output in a country of more than 12m olive trees. ...

Before the large-scale attacks began on 23 September, more than 50,000 homes had been partly or fully destroyed in Lebanon. Now, according to a Washington Post analysis of satellite footage, nearly a quarter of all the south’s buildings have been destroyed. Many are family homes built on ancestral land, passed down through generations. Balakrishnan Rajagopal, the UN special rapporteur on housing, said on social media that Israel was committing domicide in Lebanon.
Mitri says tests need to be conducted to see the impact of the destruction on water, air and soil. Several bodies, including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the UN’s Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (Escwa), last year documented Israel’s use of white phosphorus, a substance prohibited in civilian areas by UN convention. Besides severely wounding people by sticking to skin and clothing, it has long-term effects on the environment, including soil contamination, which causes diminished fertility.

AMB. Chas Freeman : Can Netanyahu Afford a Ceasefire?

Global Fury After State Dept Claims Israel Not Violating US Law by Blocking Gaza Aid

Human rights advocates around the world reacted angrily to Tuesday's U.S. State Department determination that Israel is not violating humanitarian law—even as its forces annihilate Gaza and block aid from entering the embattled Palestinian enclave.

Last month, the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars in military aid for Israel and provided nearly unconditional diplomatic support since October 2023—sent a letter to the Israeli government threatening to cut off U.S. arms transfers if it failed to take "urgent and sustained actions" to improve humanitarian conditions in Gaza within 30 days.

Asked during a Tuesday press conference if the Israeli government has met the letter's demands, State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel said that "we have not made an assessment that they are in violation of U.S. law."

Predictable, pathetic, and blatantly illegal. https://t.co/RWglDrMLvR

— Matt Duss (@mattduss) November 12, 2024

"The overall humanitarian situation in Gaza continues to be unsatisfactory," Patel continued. "But in the context of the letter, it's not about whether we find something satisfactory or not; it's what are the actions that we're seeing."

"These actions that we have seen, we think that these are steps in the right direction," he added, citing the limited reopening of the Erez border crossing between Gaza and Israel. "We want to see more steps. We want to see these steps sustained over a significant period of time, and ultimately, we want to see these steps have a result on the situation."

Patel insisted that the Biden administration is "not giving Israel a pass."

State Department: “We have not made an assessment that Israel is violating U.S. law.”

This comes as eight major international humanitarian organizations published a letter today, stating Israel has failed to meet U.S.-set aid requirements by the deadline.

(Reporter… pic.twitter.com/ZnpovfuYzU

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) November 12, 2024

However, humanitarian aid groups accuse Israel of causing "apocalyptic" conditions in northern Gaza, where thousands of civilians including many women and children have been killed or wounded while others face imminent famine under a plan to starve out the population in order to ethnically cleanse the area.

On Tuesday, a coalition of eight international humanitarian groups including Oxfam International, CARE, Norwegian Refugee Council, Save the Children, and others published a report titled The Gaza Scorecard: Israel Fails to Comply With U.S. Humanitarian Access Demands in Gaza, which found that Israel has failed to fully comply with any of the 19 specific demands in the Biden administration's letter.

The scorecard noted:

The principals of the Inter-Agency Standing Committee now assess that "the entire Palestinian population in North Gaza is at imminent risk of dying from disease, famine, and violence." The findings of this scorecard underscore Israel's failure to comply with U.S. demands and international obligations. Israel should be held accountable for the end result of failing to ensure the adequate provision of food, medical, and other supplies to reach people in need.

"While Israel manipulates the U.S. by allowing some aid trucks into other parts of Gaza in the days leading up to the deadline, the performative act did not bring any humanitarian aid to the besieged northern neighborhoods of Gaza," said Raed Jarrar, advocacy director at Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN). "Even more concerning, no forcibly displaced Palestinian from the northern neighborhoods of Gaza has been allowed to return home."

Indeed, the IDF said it has "no intention of allowing the residents of the northern Gaza Strip to return to their homes."

At the same time, relief workers describe deadly dangers faced by Palestinians who try to flee besieged areas including the Jabalia refugee camp, site of some of the war's worst massacres, including indiscriminate Israeli targeting of refugees without regard for age or gender.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague is in the lengthy process of determining if Israel's atrocities amount to violations of the Genocide Convention. While it is weighing the evidence in the South Africa-led case, the ICJ has issued a series of provisional orders directing Israel to prevent genocidal acts, halt its assault on Rafah, and stop blocking humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. Critics accuse Israel of flouting all three orders.

"As a signatory to the Genocide Convention, the U.S. is obligated to prevent acts of genocide and to avoid complicity in them," DAWN stressed on Tuesday. "The U.S. should halt its military support for Israel to comply with its convention obligations and uphold international legal norms."

This is not the first time that the Biden administration has officially denied that Israel has violated humanitarian law during the Gaza war. In March, the State Department accepted Israel's assertion that the country is using U.S.-supplied arms in compliance with international law, even as more than 100,000 Palestinians had been killed or wounded in Gaza up to that date. The casualty figure has since increased by about 50%.

Congressional progressives and human rights groups pushed back on the Biden administration's claim. In April, a leaked memo revealed that officials at the United States Agency for International Development warned Secretary of State Antony Blinken that Israel was indeed breaking the law by blocking aid from entering Gaza. Another leaked State Department memo raised "serious concern" over Israeli noncompliance with humanitarian law and slammed Israel's claims of legal U.S. weapons use as "neither credible nor reliable."

Palestine advocates fear the Biden administration's refusal to suspend arms shipments to Israel—as experts argue is required under the Foreign Assistance Act of 1961 and Leahy Laws—will open the door for Republican President-elect Donald Trump to back Israeli crimes such as the annexation of Palestinian territories including the West Bank.

This sums up the failures of the Democratic Party—repeatedly refusing to fulfill promises to its own voters.

Whether it's refusing to end weapons sales to Israel or refusing to stand up to billionaires & corporate power, the Democratic Party brand right now is bait-and-switch. https://t.co/3V9LQAhWDR

— Justice Democrats (@justicedems) November 12, 2024

"By spending over a year ignoring U.S. law on supplying arms, the Biden administration has handed Trump an excuse to ignore any law he wants," Center for International Policy executive vice president Matt Duss said Tuesday on social media. "And they will have nothing to say about it."

Lights GO OUT Mid-Interview As Gaza Journo Describes FAMINE

Emboldened by Trump Win, Israeli Minister Vows West Bank Annexation in 2025

Anticipating even greater U.S. support following Republican President-elect Donald Trump's White House return in January, far-right Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich on Monday ordered officials to prepare to illegally annex the occupied West Bank of Palestine in 2025.

"The year 2025 will be, with God's help, the year of sovereignty in Judea and Samaria," Smotrich told members of his Religious Zionist Party. "The only way to remove the threat of a Palestinian state from the agenda is to apply Israeli sovereignty over the settlements in Judea and Samaria."

Judea and Samaria is the biblical name for the West Bank and is used by proponents of annexation and the creation of a Greater Israel, which would include all of Palestine, Jordan, and Lebanon and parts of Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq, and Turkey.

"I have no doubt that President Trump, who showed courage and determination in his decisions during his first term, will support the state of Israel in this move," Smotrich said.

On Tuesday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu—who has repeatedly denied annexationist ambitions during the tenure of U.S. President Joe Biden—signaled that annexation would be back on the agenda in light of Trump's victory, according to Israeli state broadcaster Kan.

Smotrich said Monday that he has directed officials in the Ministry of Defense and Civil Administration "to actually prepare the necessary infrastructure for applying sovereignty" to the lands Israel has occupied and colonized after invading and conquering the West Bank and other Palestinian territories in 1967.

Israel's occupation and settlements are illegal under international law including the Fourth Geneva Convention. The International Court of Justice in The Hague—which is also weighing a Gaza genocide case against Israel—in July issued an advisory opinion affirming that the 57-year occupation is illegal and a form of apartheid.

Smotrich declared his intention to work "with the new administration of President Trump and with the international community to implement Israeli sovereignty in Judea and Samaria."

In a swipe at the Biden administration—which has approved tens of billions of dollars in U.S. military aid for Israel and provided diplomatic cover for its war on Gaza and against Palestinian statehood—Smotrich said Monday that "we were on the verge of applying sovereignty over settlements in Judea and Samaria" during Trump's first term. "Now, it's time to act," he asserted.

While Netanyahu's government may find a willing partner in Trump—who calls himself "the best friend Israel has ever had"—most of the rest of the world is staunchly opposed to Israeli annexation. Nearly 150 nations recognize Palestinian statehood; in May, the United Nations General Assembly voted 143-9 to upgrade Palestine's U.N. status to observer state.

In September, European Union foreign affairs chief Josep Borrell warned that "not only is there no pause in the war in Gaza, but what looms on the horizon is the extension of the conflict to the West Bank, where radical members of the Israeli government—Netanyahu's government—try to make it impossible to create a future Palestinian state."

Israel has already unilaterally annexed East Jerusalem and the Syrian Golan Heights. While the U.N. and most countries' governments consider these moves—and Israeli settlements in the annexed territories—unlawful, the first Trump administration recognized them as legal. In February, the Biden administration reversed the so-called "Pompeo doctrine" and reverted to the State Department's legal opinion from 1978-2019: that settlements are inconsistent with international law.

Netanyahu has openly boasted about thwarting the so-called "two-state solution" and has repeatedly advocated full Israeli control of Palestine.

"From every area we evacuate we have received terrible terror against us. It happened in southern Lebanon, it happened in Gaza, and also in Judea and Samaria," the prime minister said earlier this year. "The state of Israel needs security control over all territory west of the Jordan River. Israel has to control the entire area from the river to the sea."

More than 700,000 Jewish settlers have colonized the West Bank since 1967, according to Israeli estimates.

Settlers often destroy property and attack Palestinians, sometimes in mobs that carry out deadly pogroms, in order to terrorize them into fleeing so their land can be stolen. As the world's attention is focused on Gaza, Israeli soldiers and settlers have killed more than 900 Palestinians including over 200 children in the West Bank since January 2023, according to the most recent figures from the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.

Last month, Smotrich and other far-right senior Israeli officials including National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir spoke at a conference advocating for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza—which numerous critics say is already underway—to make way for Jewish recolonization of the embattled coastal enclave.

Proponents pointed to West Bank settlements as the example to emulate. But Smotrich has even greater ambitions.

"It is written," he said in a recent interiew, "that the future of Jerusalem is to expand to Damascus."

Phil Giraldi : Donald and Bibi: Who Will Have the Free Hand?

Saudi Crown Prince Condemns Israel Attacks on Palestinians as ‘Genocide’

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince and de facto ruler condemned what he called the “genocide” committed by Israel against Palestinians during a speech at a summit of leaders of Muslim and Arab countries in Riyadh on Monday, Reuters reports.

“The Kingdom renews its condemnation and categorical rejection of the genocide committed by Israel against the brotherly Palestinian people,” Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said at an Arab Islamic summit, echoing comments by Saudi Foreign Minister, Faisal Bin Farhan Al Saud, late last month.

He urged the international community to stop Israel from attacking Iran and to respect Iran’s sovereignty.

More than 100 staff accuse BBC of pro-Israel bias over Gaza genocide

More than 100 of the British Broadcasting Corporation’s (BBC) staff have accused the state broadcaster of pro-Israel bias in its coverage of the Gaza war, in an open letter first seen by the Independent newspaper.

The letter, signed by more than 230 figures in the UK’s media industry, writers and academia, said the public broadcaster had failed to provide “fair and accurate” coverage of the conflict and demanded it “recommit to fairness, accuracy and impartiality”. It was sent to the BBC’s director general, Tim Davie. The 101 BBC staff who signed the letter did so anonymously, with one telling the Independent that “so many of us feel paralysed by levels of fear.” They added: “Colleagues have left the BBC in recent months because they just don’t believe our reporting on Israel and Palestine is honest.”

Signatories included Baroness Sayeeda Warsi, a Muslim member of the House of Lords and member of the Conservative Party; historian William Dalrymple; actress Juliet Stevenson; Dr. Catherine Happer, a senior lecturer in sociology and director of media at the University of Glasgow; Rizwana Hamid, director at the Centre for Media Monitoring; broadcaster John Nicolson; and Guardian columnist Owen Jones.

They said that the BBC must “robustly challenge Israeli government and military representatives in all interviews,” called on the BBC to report “without fear or favour” and to make new editorial commitments, including “reiterating that Israel does not give external journalists access to Gaza; making it clear when there is insufficient evidence to back up Israeli claims; making clear where Israel is the perpetrator in article headlines; and including regular historical context predating October 2023.”

“The consequences of inadequate coverage are significant. Every television report, article and radio interview that has failed to robustly challenge Israeli claims has systematically dehumanised Palestinians,” they said. The signatories gave the example of a “dehumanizing and misleading headline” relating to Israel’s killing of 6-year-old Hind Rajab last January. The BBC headline read, “Hind Rajab, 6, found dead in Gaza days after phone calls for help.” But as the letter explained, “This was not an act of God. The perpetrator, Israel, should have been in the headline, and it should have been clear that she was killed.” Another anonymous BBC staff member told the Independent, “Palestinians are always treated as an unreliable source and we constantly give Israel’s version of events primacy despite the IDF’s (Israel Defense Forces) well-documented track record of lying.

Zelensky forgets Donbass, focus on North Korea

Jack Teixeira sentenced to 15 years after pleading guilty to Pentagon leaks

A federal judge on Tuesday sentenced a Massachusetts air national guard member to 15 years in prison after he pleaded guilty to leaking highly classified military documents about the war in Ukraine.

Jack Teixeira pleaded guilty earlier this year to six counts of willful retention and transmission of national defense information under the Espionage Act following his arrest in the most consequential national security case in years. He was brought into court in an orange jumpsuit and showed no visible reaction as he was sentenced by the US district judge Indira Talwani. Earlier in the hearing he apologized before the judge.

Prosecutors had originally requested a 17-year sentence for Teixeira, saying he “perpetrated one of the most significant and consequential violations of the Espionage Act in American history”. Defense attorneys had sought an 11-year sentence. In their sentence memorandum, they acknowledged that their client “made a terrible decision which he repeated over 14 months”. But they argued that Teixeira’s actions, though criminal, were never meant to “harm the United States”. He also had no previous criminal record.

The security breach raised alarm over the US’s ability to protect its most closely guarded secrets and forced the Biden administration to scramble to try to contain the diplomatic and military fallout. The leaks embarrassed the Pentagon, which tightened controls to safeguard classified information and disciplined members found to have intentionally failed to take required action about Teixeira’s suspicious behavior.

Kentucky woman seeking abortion files lawsuit challenging state’s bans

A pregnant woman in Kentucky seeking an abortion filed a lawsuit on Tuesday asking a court to strike down the state’s abortion bans. The woman, who is known in court records as Mary Poe and is about seven or eight weeks pregnant, is challenging Kentucky’s near-total abortion ban and the six-week ban simultaneously in effect. These bans, Poe argues, violate the Kentucky constitution’s rights to privacy and self-determination and should not be enforced.

“For many individuals, the bans altogether foreclose the ability to access abortion, thus forcing them to carry their pregnancies to term and give birth, which carries a risk of death up to 14 times higher than that associated with abortion,” the lawsuit alleges. “Others, pushed by the bans to travel out of state for legal care, bear the burdens both of increased health risks from being pushed later into pregnancy and of the cost and logistical difficulties of long-distance travel.”

The lawsuit also requests class-action status for all people who may be pregnant or can become so but are unable to get a abortion in Kentucky.

“I feel overwhelmed and frustrated that I cannot access abortion care here in my own state, and I have started the difficult process of arranging to get care in another state where it’s legal,” Poe said in a statement. “This involves trying to take time off work and securing child care, all of which place an enormous burden on me. This is my personal decision, a decision I believe should be mine alone, not one made by anyone else.”

The American Civil Liberties Union, the ACLU of Kentucky, and the law firm Kaplan, Johnson, Abate & Bird are representing Poe.

Judge blocks Louisiana law requiring schools to display Ten Commandments

A new Louisiana law that requires the Ten Commandments to be displayed in every public classroom by the beginning of 2025 has been temporarily blocked after a federal judge granted a preliminary injunction on Tuesday.

The judge said the law was “unconstitutional on its face” – and plaintiffs were likely to win their case with claims that the law violates the US constitution’s first amendment, which bars the government from establishing a religion and guarantees the right to religious freedom. ...

The US district judge John W deGravelles in Baton Rouge, who was appointed by the Barack Obama White House, issued the order in an ongoing lawsuit filed by a group of parents of Louisiana public school children after hearing arguments over the law in late October.

The state’s attorney general, Liz Murrill, released a statement on Tuesday saying she and her colleagues “strongly disagree with the court’s decision and will immediately appeal”, according to the New Orleans CBS affiliate, WWL Louisiana.

Any appeals in the case are going to be heard by the US fifth circuit, which is widely seen as perhaps the most conservative court. For now, 12 of the 17 active judges at the New Orleans-based court were named by Republican presidents.

Max Blumenthal : Trump’s Neocons

Trump planning flurry of executive orders for first day, top aide says

Donald Trump will mark the first day of his return to the White House by signing a spate of executive orders to reinstate signature policies from his first presidency that were revoked by Joe Biden, according to his incoming chief of staff. Susie Wiles’s disclosure came in a closed-door meeting in Las Vegas of the Rockbridge Network, a group of conservative donors co-founded by Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, the New York Times reported.

She did not specify which policies were likely to be reintroduced in the flurry of signing that is expected on Trump’s first day back in the Oval Office. But several of Trump’s higher-profile executive orders that Biden revoked include leaving the Paris climate agreement, withdrawing from the World Health Organization (WHO) and banning entry to citizens from a list of predominantly Muslim countries.

All three policies were reversed by executive orders signed by Biden after he took office in January 2021. Also cancelled by Biden but expected to be revived immediately is the Schedule F initiative, which would remove job security from about 50,000 civil servants and enable them to be fired and replaced with rightwing loyalists. Such a move would be in line with the Heritage Foundation thinktank’s controversial Project 2025 agenda, which envisions a radical overhaul of American government.

Schedule F was introduced late in Trump’s first term, after he railed against a “deep state” dedicated to stymying his agenda. It was cancelled immediately by Biden when he entered the White House.

The time frame for Trump’s goal of radically transforming government would be two years rather than four, Wiles said, in comments that appeared to anticipate more political resistance in the second half of the president-elect’s four-year term should the Democrats do well in the 2026 congressional midterm elections.

Marco Rubio Dossier REVEALED: Neocons DELIGHTED With Secretary Of State Pick—Ken Klippenstein

MAGA REVOLT Over 'Neocon' Marco Rubio Sec Of State

Trump picks hardliner Mike Huckabee as US ambassador to Israel

Donald Trump has chosen the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as the next US ambassador to Israel. Huckabee has a track record of hardline, occasionally provocative, pro-Israel rhetoric and previously said Israel has a rightful claim to the West Bank, which he refers to by its Hebrew and biblical name of Judea and Samaria.

The territory is claimed by Palestinians as part of a putative future state but is dotted multiple Israeli settlements that are not recognised under international law. Huckabee has refused to call the settlements by that name, insisting that they be called “communities” or neighbourhoods. He has also denied that the West Bank, seized by Israel from Jordan in the 1967 six-day war, is under military occupation. ...

Also announced on Tuesday was Trump’s pick of former director of national intelligence John Ratcliffe as director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Ratcliffe, a close ally of Trump, served as director of national intelligence at the end of his first term.

Ratcliffe was confirmed as the country’s top spy in May 2020, eight months before Trump left office. A former member of the House of Representatives and US attorney for Texas, he received no support from Senate Democrats during his confirmation. ...

Late on Tuesday, Trump said he is nominating Fox News host, army veteran Pete Hegseth to be defense secretary.

Democrat Ruben Gallego beats far-right Kari Lake to win Arizona Senate seat

The Democratic congressman Ruben Gallego has won the race for US Senate in Arizona, becoming the first Latino to represent the state in the Senate, beating out the far-right firebrand Kari Lake.

Gallego will replace the Democrat turned independent senator Kyrsten Sinema, who ran for office as a centrist and charted a way for Democrats to win statewide elections in the right-leaning state, but then consistently stood in the way of her party’s priorities in the Senate. She did not seek re-election.

While the presidential race polled neck and neck throughout the election, Gallego polled ahead of Lake by several points the entire campaign, an unlikely position for a progressive congressman trying to win a battleground state. Gallego also outperformed Lake in fundraising, giving him more local airtime and mailbox presence.

In the end, he edged out Lake with 50% of the vote to her 48%, while Trump easily beat Harris in the state. ...

After Gallego’s win, Democrats will have 47 seats in the 100-member Senate, versus the Republicans’ 53, erasing Democrats’ previous majority in the chamber.

Here’s Why Trump WON The Young Men Vote! w/ Lee Fang

‘No sign’ of promised fossil fuel transition as emissions hit new high

There is “no sign” of the transition away from burning fossil fuels that was pledged by the world’s nations a year ago, with 2024 on track to set another new record for global carbon emissions. The new data, released at the UN’s Cop29 climate conference in Azerbaijan, indicates that the planet-heating emissions from coal, oil and gas will rise by 0.8% in 2024. In stark contrast, emissions have to fall by 43% by 2030 for the world to have any chance of keeping to the 1.5C temperature target and limiting “increasingly dramatic” climate impacts on people around the globe.

The world’s nations agreed at Cop28 in Dubai in 2023 to “transition away” from fossil fuels, a decision hailed as a landmark given that none of the previous 27 summits had called for restrictions on the primary cause of global heating. On Monday, the Cop28 president, Sultan Al Jaber, told the summit in Baku: “History will judge us by our actions, not by our words.”

The rate of increase of carbon emissions has slowed over the last decade or so, as the rollout of renewable energy and electric vehicles has accelerated. But after a year when global heating has fuelled deadly heatwaves, floods and storms, the pressure is on the negotiators meeting in Baku to finally reach the peak of fossil fuel burning and start a rapid decline.

Cop29 will focus on mobilising the trillion dollars a year needed for developing nations to curb their emissions as they improve the lives of their citizens and to protect them against the now inevitable climate chaos to come. The summit also aims to increase the ambition of the next round of countries’ emission-cutting pledges, due in February.

The new data comes from the Global Carbon Budget project, a collaboration of more than 100 experts led by Prof Pierre Friedlingstein, at the University of Exeter, UK.

This year has been masterclass in human destruction, UN chief tells Cop29

This year has been “a masterclass in human destruction”, the UN secretary general has said as he reflected on extreme weather and record temperatures around the world fuelled by climate breakdown.

António Guterres painted a stark portrait of the consequences of climate breakdown that had arisen in recent months. “Families running for their lives before the next hurricane strikes; workers and pilgrims collapsing in insufferable heat; floods tearing through communities and tearing down infrastructure; children going to bed hungry as droughts ravage crops,” he said. “All these disasters, and more, are being supercharged by human-made climate change.”

Guterres was addressing scores of world leaders and high-ranking government officials from nearly 200 countries gathered in Azerbaijan for the Cop29 UN climate summit. Over a fortnight of talks, nations will try to find ways to raise the vast sums of money needed to tackle the climate crisis. Developing countries want guarantees of $1tn a year in funds by 2035 to help them cut greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to the impacts of extreme weather.

The talks have been overshadowed by the re-election of Donald Trump, an avowed climate denier, to the US presidency. Although leaders including the UK’s Keir Starmer, Barbados’s Mia Mottley and Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan addressed the summit, the heads of government of most of the world’s biggest economies stayed away.

Trump Taps Fossil Fuel Ally Lee Zeldin to Head EPA, Push "Anti-Environmental Agenda"

Florida threatened by another major late-season tropical storm

Florida is at risk of being hit by yet another major tropical storm only weeks after Hurricanes Helene and Milton devastated towns across the state. Meteorologists are currently tracking a new disturbance predicted to evolve into a storm in the Caribbean Sea. The storm, to be named Sara, will form in the western Caribbean later this week and may make a turn towards south Florida as a powerful hurricane next week if wind patterns change, according to the Hurricane Tracker App.

“North of the Caribbean, there will be a zone of wind shear that will initially tend to prevent the northward movement of any budding feature in the Caribbean,” AccuWeather wrote in an update. “However, the natural blocking mechanism could dissolve during the third week of the month and allow any tropical storm to move northward, in which case interests in South Florida and the Keys may need to stay vigilant.” ...

“Should the feature become a hurricane, it would be the 12th of the season, which is a testament to the supercharged nature of the season, where the historical average is seven hurricanes,” Alex DaSilva, AccuWeather’s head hurricane expert, said.

Also of Interest

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

Liberal Arrogance and Hatred on Display After Trump Victory

To Be Pro-Israel Is To Be Pro-War

Israel’s true objective in northern Gaza? Removing Palestinians – and annexing the territory

Chris Hedges: Genocidal Scorecard

Saudi-Iranian Relations Warm as Middle East Braces for Trump’s Return

Jonathan Cook: A Year Late, The Guardian Finally Permits Us To Use the Term ‘Genocide’

Elections Have Consequences - We Just Don't Know Which

Trump’s cabinet picks and likely contenders – so far

Consolidation Threatens US Postal Service

Propaganda: 100 years of fear, manipulation and persuasion – in pictures

Voters Are RACIST & SEXIST! – Say Democrat Strategists w/ Lee Fang

A Little Night Music

Dossie Terry - Twenty-Four Years

Dossie Terry - She's Alright

Dossie Terry - When I Hit The Number

Dossie Terry - I Got A Watch Dog

Dossie Terry w/ Howard Biggs' Orch. - Didn't Satisfy You

Dossie Terry - Lost My Head

Dossie Terry - Railroad Section Man

Dossie Terry - You Will Be Mine

Dossie Terry (& Grp.) - Come On / No Other Love

Dossie Terry - Soul Food

Dossie Terry - Skinny Ginny