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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Hadda Brooks

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features "Queen of the Boogie" Hadda Brooks. Enjoy!

^{Hadda Brooks w/ Count Basie Orch. - I Feel So Good}

"If one sins against the laws of proportion and gives something too big to something too small to carry it - too big sails to too small a ship, too big meals to too small a body, too big powers to too small a soul - the result is bound to be a complete upset. In an outburst of hubris the overfed body will rush into sickness, while the jack-in-office will rush into the unrighteousness that hubris always breeds."

-- Plato

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News and Opinion

But he's our headchopper-in-chief!

“Terrorist Organization” Means Whatever The US Wants It To Mean

The US government is simultaneously (A) justifying Israel’s land grab in Syria by saying the nation has been taken over by terrorists, and (B) talking about removing those same forces from its list of designated terrorist organizations.

The US podium people have pivoted seamlessly from celebrating the liberation of the Syrian people in the removal of Assad to citing the fact that the nation is now overrun with terrorist factions in defense of Israel’s rapid move to militarily occupy large swathes of Syrian land while hammering Syria with hundreds of airstrikes.

At a Monday press conference, State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said these moves by Israel “are temporary to defend its borders” and that Assad’s ouster “potentially creates a vacuum that could have been filled by terrorist organizations that would threaten the state of Israel and would threaten civilians inside Israel.”

“Every country has the right to take action against terrorist organizations,” Miller added.

US Government: It is great and wonderful that the dictator Assad has been deposed and the people of Syria have been freed!

Press gallery: Do you oppose Israel grabbing Syrian land?

US government: No way man, don't you know Syria's just been taken over by a bunch of terrorists? pic.twitter.com/zfilinDn4L

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) December 10, 2024

During a Tuesday press conference Miller further clarified the US position on Israel’s land grab, saying, “What precipitated their move into the buffer zone was the withdrawal of the Syrian armed forces, which, as I said yesterday, creates potentially a vacuum that could be filled by any one of the numerous terrorist organizations that continue to operate inside Syria that have sworn to the destruction of the state of Israel.”

During the same Tuesday press conference Miller also stated that “there is no legal barrier to us speaking to a designated terrorist group” such as HTS, the group which led the run on Damascus whose leader has been an official in both ISIS and al-Qaeda.

And as it happens the US government has now taken a sudden interest in removing HTS from its listing as a designated terrorist organization, with Politico reporting that there is now “a furious debate playing out in Washington” as to whether or not the group should be removed from the list immediately. Somehow I doubt the debate is actually all that “furious”.

So according to one narrative Syria has been liberated by brave freedom fighters and that’s wonderful, but according to another concurrent narrative Israel obviously needs to invade Syria because the nation has just been taken over by evil terrorists, and by yet another concurrent narrative those evil terrorists aren’t evil terrorists anymore because they’re going to be running a US puppet regime.

These are the kinds of contradictions you run into when your policies are guided by the blind pursuit of planetary domination instead of by truth and morality.

In reality, “terrorist organization” is a political designation, not a behavioral one. It has a lot less to do with how an organization acts and operates and a lot more to do with whether or not they advance the strategic interests of the US empire.

Pick any group of non-state actors who fight against the US and its allies and you’ll find them on the US government’s list of terrorist organizations. Hamas. Hezbollah. They’ll even put official state militaries on there like Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. They used to list the East Turkistan Islamic Movement as a terrorist faction back when the US was expanding its global military presence under the banner of the “war on terror”, but they were removed from this listing at the tail end of the Trump administration because the Uyghur Islamist group has been fighting Assad in Syria and may prove useful in the empire’s cold war aggressions against China.

Even now the US House of Representatives is moving to ban the US government from using the statistics of Gaza’s health ministry to calculate deaths from Israel’s genocidal atrocities in the enclave on the basis that the health ministry is run by Hamas, a designated terrorist organization. They need to do this because the Gaza health ministry’s death toll is considered so reliable that the US State Department has been using those stats in their own reports.

The group that is committing the genocide necessitating such analysis is of course not a designated terrorist organization.

This is because the label “terrorist organization” is nothing more than a tool of imperial narrative control. In empire language it just means “disobedient population who need bombs dropped on them”. If they are determined to no longer be disobedient then they no longer need bombs dropped on them, so they are no longer considered terrorists.

You can kill all the civilians you want using whatever methods you want without being considered a terrorist organization, so long as you are a friend of the US empire.

Syria power vacuum w/ Jeffrey Sachs

Israel strikes hundreds of military targets in Syria

Israeli warplanes have intensified an air offensive in Syria, striking hundreds of military targets and destroying entire squadrons of fighters, radar and missile systems, missile stores and much of the small Syrian navy. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said late on Tuesday that it carried out more than 350 strikes over the previous 48 hours, hitting “most of the strategic weapons stockpiles” in Syria to stop them from falling into the hands of extremists. ...

On Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu said Israeli forces were moving to control a roughly 155 sq mile (400 sq km) buffer zone in Syrian territory. Hours later, Israeli media reported that Israeli troops had established positions along the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, to the north of the Golan Heights. An Israeli military official admitted on Tuesday that Israel had advanced beyond the buffer zone, saying its troops had seized “some other points”, but he denied reports of Israeli troops heading deeper into Syria. ...

Israel occupied much of the Golan Heights during the 1967 war. The buffer zone was established in the aftermath of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, which started when Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel. The Times of Israel reported that Israeli officials now considered void the agreement establishing the buffer zone, and that Israeli soldiers may end up holding their new positions inside Syria “for a long time, depending on the developments in the country”.

Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia have condemned Israel’s incursion, accusing it of exploiting the disarray in Syria and violating international law. Turkey’s foreign ministry said in a statement: “We strongly condemn Israel’s violation of the 1974 separation of forces agreement, its entry into the separation zone between Israel and Syria and its advance into Syrian territory.”

The ministry accused Israel of “displaying a mentality of an occupier” at a time when the possibility of peace and stability had emerged in Syria. The statement also reiterated Turkey’s support for Syria’s “sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity”.

Scott Ritter: Syria TRUTH Exposed, Putin & Iran on HIGH ALERT as IDF BOMBS Damascus

Syrian rebels name new PM as outside powers move to shore up interests

Syria’s leading rebel group has named a new prime minister to head the country’s transitional government as outside powers move to shore up their interests in the wake of the Assad regime’s collapse. The new prime minister, Mohammad al-Bashir, previously ran an administration in Idlib under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the strongest of the rebel groups which have moved into Damascus and other cities.

Bashir said in a brief address on state television that he had been meeting members of the transitional government and the ousted regime, and that he would stay in his post until 1 March. “Now it is time for this people to enjoy stability and calm,” Bashir said in a separate interview with Al Jazeera. ...

In northern Syria, Turkish forces bombed Kurdish targets, and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army clashed with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which are backed by the US. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said at least 218 people had been killed in three days of fighting between the two forces in Manbij, north-east of Damascus.

The Turkish attacks on the SDF put into question the viability of the small US military presence in northern Syria as well as in SDF-run prison camps where Islamic State (IS) fighters and their families have been held. US troops there operate in partnership with the SDF. Early on Wednesday, SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said the SDF and the Turkey-backed rebels had reached a ceasefire agreement in Manbij through US mediation.

Charles Lister, the director of the Syria programme at the Middle East Institute in Washington, said: “The SDF have always made it clear that, if its existence was in danger, the prisons would not be the priority. “US troops can only stay on the ground if their SDF partners are viable.”

Prof. John Mearsheimer : "Russophobic " - Buzzword for MSM

UN Envoy Condemns Israel’s Military Advance on Syria

The United Nations’ special envoy to Syria said Tuesday the Israeli military’s rapid move to seize Syrian territory following the Assad government’s collapse is a grave violation of a decades-old agreement that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu claims is now dead.

“What we are seeing is a violation of the disengagement agreement from 1974, so we will obviously, with our colleagues in New York, follow this extremely closely in the hours and days ahead,” Geir Pedersen said at a media briefing in Geneva.

Hours earlier, Pedersen told Zeteo‘s Mehdi Hasan that “this needs to stop,” referring to Israel’s further encroachment on the occupied and illegally annexed Golan Heights.

“This is a very serious issue,” Pedersen said, rejecting Netanyahu’s assertion that the 1974 agreement is null. “Let’s not start playing with an extremely important part of the peace structure that has been in place.”

Netanyahu, who took the stand for the first time Tuesday in his long-running corruption trial, made clear in the wake of Assad’s fall that he views developments in Syria as advantageous for Israel, writing on social media that “the collapse of the Syrian regime is a direct result of the severe blows with which we have struck Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran.”

The prime minister also thanked U.S. President-elect Donald Trump for “acceding to my request to recognize Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, in 2019,” adding that the occupied territory “will be an inseparable part of the state of Israel forever.”

Phi Giraldi : Golan Heights on the Menu for Israel

Israel Says It Launched 480 Strikes in Syria Since Fall of Assad

The Israeli military said Tuesday that it launched 480 strikes in Syria over 48 hours following the overthrow of former Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which Israeli media said marked the heaviest Israeli bombing of Syria in history.

The IDF said it struck “most of the strategic weapons stockpiles in Syria” and estimated it destroyed between 70% to 80% of the former government’s weapons. Israeli strikes hit targets across Syria, including the port of Latakia, which destroyed naval vessels.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Israeli bombing campaign “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria, including Syrian airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and many weapons and ammunition depots in various locations in most Syrian governorates.”

Israel INVADES, BOMBS Syria After Assad FLEES

Netanyahu describes corruption charges against him as ‘ocean of absurdity’ at trial

A combative Benjamin Netanyahu has become the first Israeli prime minister to take the stand as the defendant in a criminal trial for corruption as he assailed the charges against him as an “ocean of absurdity”.

“I have waited eight years for this moment, to say the truth as I remember it, which is important for justice,” said Netanyahu, who was wearing a blue suit and white shirt, with a flag of Israel on one lapel and the yellow ribbon symbol of Israel’s hostages in Gaza on the other. ...

Criticising media and investigators, Netanyahu gave often tangential testimony, veering between self-aggrandising, as he emphasised his international importance, and painting himself and his family as victims. Netanyahu attacked the Israeli media for what he called its leftist stance and accused journalists of hounding him for years because his policies did not align with a push for a Palestinian state.

Charged with fraud, breach of trust and accepting bribes in three separate cases, Netanyahu is expected in the first instance to be questioned by his defence lawyer for several days.

The 75-year-old is accused of accepting tens of thousands of dollars’ worth of cigars and champagne from a billionaire Hollywood producer in exchange for assisting him with personal and business interests, and of promoting advantageous regulation for media moguls in exchange for favourable coverage of himself and his family.

Further South Korea martial law protests as ex-defence minister and senior police arrested

South Korea’s former defence minister has been formally arrested on insurrection charges related to President Yoon Suk Yeol’s brief declaration of martial law, a court spokesperson said early on Wednesday. Kim Yong-hyun, who had first been detained on Sunday, has now been arrested on charges including “engaging in critical duties during an insurrection” and “abuse of authority to obstruct the exercise of rights”. A spokesperson for the Seoul Central District Court told AFP that the formal arrest of Kim came amid concerns that evidence might be destroyed.

Two top police officials were also taken into custody in the early hours of Wednesday, as the investigation into the political turmoil caused by the martial law declaration gathered pace.

At least several hundred protesters rallied late on Tuesday outside the National Assembly, waving glow sticks and holding signs that read, “Impeach Yoon Suk Yeol, the insurrection criminal.” The offices of ruling party lawmakers were being vandalised, local media reported on Tuesday, with one image showing a door covered in what appeared to be ketchup, and eggs and flour scattered on the floor. ...

Earlier on Tuesday, Army Special Warfare Command chief Kwak Jong-geun told lawmakers that Yoon had ordered him to stop enough MPs from gathering at parliament to vote down the martial law decree. “The president called me directly through a secret line. He mentioned that it appears the quorum has not yet been met and instructed me to quickly break down the door and drag out the people [lawmakers] inside,” Kwak said.

Lawmakers passed a motion on Tuesday to appoint a special counsel to investigate the martial law case. Yoon’s ruling party said it is forging a “resignation roadmap” that reportedly could see him step down in February or March before fresh elections, while the opposition plans to organise an impeachment vote every Saturday.

US judge blocks nearly $25bn Kroger-Albertsons grocery chain merger

A US judge blocked the pending $25bn merger of US grocery chains Kroger and Albertsons on Tuesday, siding with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) in a win for the Biden administration.

The FTC argued at a three-week trial in Portland, Oregon, that the merger would eliminate head-to-head competition between the top two traditional grocery chains, leading to higher prices for shoppers and reduced bargaining leverage for unionized workers. ...

Nelson’s ruling essentially scuttles the merger, Kroger has said in court documents. Had the deal proceeded, Kroger would own approximately 5,000 stores across the US. The companies argued at trial that they needed to merge to compete with global conglomerates such as Walmart and Amazon.com.

United Healthcare CEO Killer Wrote "Whack the CEO" in Notebook, Argued Protest Got Us "Nowhere"

Amazon pulls merchandise seeming to support killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO

Amazon has removed merchandise featuring the words “deny”, “defend” and “depose”, which were reportedly written on bullet casings found at the site of the killing of the UnitedHealthcare CEO, Brian Thompson. Since last Wednesday’s fatal shooting, items such as T-shirts, hoodies, mugs, caps, pint glasses and more bearing the words “deny, defend, depose” have been available for purchase on online retail stores including eBay, Amazon, Etsy and other sites.

Reports citing law enforcement purport that the words “deny, defend, depose” were found written on the bullet casings at the site of the Thompson’s killing on 4 December in midtown Manhattan and may be a reference to the tactics critics say health insurance companies use to avoid paying claims. A New York Times report asserted the words on the bullet casings were “deny” and “delay”, calling to mind Delay, Defend, Deny: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What You Can Do About It, a 2010 book that was critical of the rapacious, largely privatized US healthcare system.

Whatever the case, Amazon on Monday told the Washington Post that it had removed merchandise with that phrase from its website after the newspaper contacted the online retailer for comment. ...

As of Tuesday morning, a search for the three-word phrase on Amazon now yields Delay, Defend, Deny by author and law professor Jay Feinman. It appeared to be sold out.

There are also several songs titled Deny, Defend, Depose available for purchase.

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Joe Biden's INSANE Pardon Plans?! Hunter Now, Fauci NEXT? Matt Taibbi Interview

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Arctic tundra is now emitting more carbon than it absorbs, US agency says

The Arctic tundra is undergoing a dramatic transformation, driven by frequent wildfires that are turning it into a net source of carbon dioxide emissions after millennia of acting as a carbon sink, the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) said on Tuesday.

This drastic shift is detailed in Noaa’s 2024 Arctic Report Card, which revealed that annual surface air temperatures in the Arctic this year were the second-warmest on record since 1900. “Our observations now show that the Arctic tundra, which is experiencing warming and increased wildfire, is now emitting more carbon than it stores, which will worsen climate change impacts,” said Rick Spinrad, a Noaa administrator.

The report, led by scientists from the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, found that the Arctic is warming faster than the global average for the 11th year in a row. Currently, it is warming at up to four times the global rate, the authors found.

Climate warming has dual effects on the Arctic. While it stimulates plant productivity and growth, which remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, it also leads to increased surface air temperatures that cause permafrost to thaw. When permafrost thaws, carbon trapped in the frozen soil is decomposed by microbes and released into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide and methane, two potent greenhouse gases.

Monarch butterflies to be added to threatened species list in the US

The US Fish and Wildlife Service announced a decision on Tuesday to extend federal protections to monarch butterflies after years of warnings from environmentalists that populations are shrinking and the beloved pollinator may not survive the climate crisis.

Officials plans to add the butterfly to the threatened species list by the end of next year following an extensive public comment period.

“The iconic monarch butterfly is cherished across North America, captivating children and adults throughout its fascinating life cycle,” the US Fish and Wildlife Service director, Martha Williams, said in a news release. “Despite its fragility, it is remarkably resilient, like many things in nature when we just give them a chance. Science shows that the monarch needs that chance, and this proposed listing invites and builds on unprecedented public participation in shaping monarch conservation efforts."

US supreme court hears oil railway case with environmental protections at stake

The future of environmental safeguards protecting communities, wildlife and waterways from harm will be considered by the US supreme court on Tuesday, in a case about a proposed oil train that threatens to upend five decades of legal precedent. The case brought by Utah’s Seven County Infrastructure Coalition and Uinta Basin Railway LLC is asking the supreme court to overturn a federal appeals court decision blocking the approval of an 88-mile railway through the Uinta Basin in north-eastern Utah. The railway’s backers want the court to narrow the scope of the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) – the country’s landmark environmental legislation passed by Congress and signed by Richard Nixon in 1970.

The proposed railway would transport up to 350,000 barrels of waxy crude oil a day from the Uinta Basin through the Colorado Rockies to refineries on the Gulf coast. If completed, the railway would more than quadruple oil production in the Uinta Basin, by linking the oilfields to national rail networks and a handful of refineries in Texas and Louisiana. The railway was approved despite widespread opposition from states led by Colorado, local governments, landowners, the tourism industry and environmental groups – who argued that the fossil fuel project would increase the risk of potentially devastating spillages in pristine landscapes, climate disaster and increase air pollution in the Gulf coast communities.

In August 2023, the US court of appeals for the DC circuit ruled that the Surface Transportation Board – the federal agency responsible for reviewing the proposed railway’s potential harms – violated numerous environmental laws, including Nepa, by failing to consider the risks of increased oil extraction in the Uinta Basin and the potential harm to Gulf communities – which are already overburdened with air pollution. The agency also failed to address downline threats such as derailments and wildfires to wildlife, the Colorado River, and public health and safety.

For decades, Nepa has required government agencies to engage with communities and analyze potential harms to clean air, water and wildlife habitats from proposed projects that are “reasonably foreseeable” – and disclose them to the public. The railway’s backers are arguing that the reasonably foreseeable standard is too broad and cumbersome, and instead want the court to narrow what environmental impacts federal agencies review and disclose. Nepa’s review requirements should be limited to “proximate cause” – a loosely defined standard currently used to determine civil legal liability for damages, according to the brief filed.

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Also of Interest

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

‘How many dead Palestinians are enough?’ The unbearable prescience of the late poet Refaat Alareer

BACKGROUNDER: What Russia Feared in Syrian Conflict

After Syria

War Propaganda and the Fall of Syria

Did Mangione Break The Law of Nature When He Killed the Health Insurance CEO?

Rob Urie: Politics by Other Means, Health Insurance Industry Edition

Pesticide Scorecard Exposes Which Food Retailers Are Failing Bees

Trump OUSTS Lina Khan As FTC Chair

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A Little Night Music

Hadda Brooks - Juke Box Boogie

Hadda Brooks - That's My Desire

Hadda Brooks - Blusen the Boogie

Hadda Brooks - Hip Shakin' Boogie (feat. Pete Johnson)

Hadda Brooks - Romance In The Dark

Hadda Brooks - Society Boogie

Hadda Brooks - Humoresque Boogie

Hadda Brooks - My Song

Hadda Brooks - Swingin' the Boogie

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