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"The decline and fall of a civilization is barely noticed by most of its citizens."

-- James Cook

News and Opinion

Happy New Year. Our Society Is Every Bit As Diseased As You Suspect It Is.

Everyone kind of knows that our society is profoundly sick. You can sense it. There are raging disagreements about what exactly it is that’s wrong, but everyone can feel that something freakish and unnatural is happening here.

The source of this sickness isn’t clear at first glance, so you’ll hear countless explanations for what specifically is giving rise to this sense of dis-ease within us. Some say it’s because we don’t have enough religion in our lives. Others say it’s because we have too much. Some say it’s because half the country has the wrong political ideology. Others say it’s because there are too many trans people or immigrants. Some say it’s because humanity itself is innately rotten. Others say it’s because our society is enslaved in a sinister conspiracy by Jews or Freemasons or neo-Marxist technocrats.

Everyone disagrees on the nature of our dilemma, but we can pretty much all agree that something is very wrong.

The reason it’s so hard to nail down the source of our problem is because every part of it is designed to be hidden. We are ruled by unelected plutocrats and empire managers who actively avoid being recognized as our rulers. These oligarchs work continuously to manipulate our minds using propaganda that’s disguised to look like news and trustworthy sources of information. This propaganda places ideas in our heads which we are tricked into believing we came up with on our own. These tricks work because they hook onto egoic tendencies within our psyches whose nature we are largely unconscious of.

This all works together to manufacture consent for a system which does not serve the interests of ordinary human beings, and most of it is hidden from immediate view. We find ourselves in a mind-controlled dystopia where we think, speak, vote, work, shop, spend and behave in more or less exactly the ways the rich and powerful want us to, all while believing we are free — because the mechanisms of control are hidden from us.

As soon as we are old enough to think and understand, our thoughts and understanding are shaped by the powerful using the most sophisticated system of mass-scale psychological manipulation that has ever been devised. We live our whole lives marinating in power-serving narratives about the world and our place in it. It’s all we’ve ever known, so we think it’s normal. It almost never occurs to anyone to question how their worldview got into their heads in the first place; to most of us it just looks like truth and common sense.

But because we live under a system that’s designed to benefit the rich and powerful at the expense of ordinary people, we’re all acutely aware that the way things are isn’t really working. As the abuses and injustices inherent in capitalism become more and more egregious, this sense that something is wrong gets more and more widespread and acute. This discontentment is currently being funneled by the powerful into faux populist movements designed to herd the public into supporting the status quo while allowing them to feel as though they are waging a brave revolution against the establishment.

The public is becoming more and more restless and agitated because they can sense that something’s wrong but can’t say what it is, like a dementia patient with a urinary tract infection. This agitation is erupting in ways which range from the crazy to the very lucid, from hate crimes and racist movements to mass protests against genocide and an expanding awareness that a better world is possible.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Is the UN Toothless?

Biden Was Presented With Options To Bomb Iran’s Nuclear Facilities

National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan presented President Biden with options to bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities during a secret meeting held a few weeks ago, Axios reported on Thursday.

The report said the US was considering bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities if Tehran moves toward making a nuclear weapon, but there’s no evidence Iran has decided to take that step, a fact recently acknowledged by the CIA.

Sources told Axios that Biden did not greenlight a strike on Iran during the meeting and did not make any final decision. The report said the purpose of the meeting was only to discuss how they would respond if Iran began enriching uranium at 90%, the level needed to produce a weapon.

One source said there are no “active discussions” about bombing Iran before President-elect Donald Trump is inaugurated on January 20.

U.S./Israeli Yemen Strikes Won't End Houthi Resistance. Ending Gaza Genocide Will: Shireen Al-Adeimi

‘Safe zone’ among areas targeted as Israeli airstrikes kill at least 43 in Gaza

Israeli airstrikes killed at least 43 Palestinians across the Gaza Strip on Thursday, including 11 people in the sprawling al-Mawasi tent encampment designated as a humanitarian safe zone for civilians. Among those killed in the al-Mawasi strike was the director general of Gaza’s police department, Mahmoud Salah, and his deputy, Hussam Shahwan, according to the Hamas-run Gaza interior ministry.

“By committing the crime of assassinating the director general of police in the Gaza Strip, the occupation is insisting on spreading chaos … and deepening the human suffering of citizens,” Hamas added in a statement.

The Israeli military said it had conducted the strike on the al-Mawasi encampment, just west of the city of Khan Younis, and eliminated Shahwan, calling him the head of Hamas security forces in southern Gaza, but made no mention of Salah’s death.

Medics said the 11 people killed included women and children. ...

“As the year begins, we got reports of yet another attack on Al-Mawasi with dozens of people killed, another reminder that there is no humanitarian zone let alone a safe zone,” Philippe Lazzarini, the head of the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, said in a post on X. “Every day without a ceasefire will bring more tragedy.”

Rights Group Finds Israel Uses Gaza 'Safe Zones' to 'Hide a Genocide'

A report published on Wednesday details how Israel forcibly expels Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in order to facilitate—and hide—genocidal attacks in evacuated areas, while forcing refugees into alleged humanitarian "safe zones" that are "intentionally designed to ensure the destruction of all life sheltering there."

The Palestinian human rights group Al-Haq published the report, titled How to Hide a Genocide, which examines "the role of evacuation orders and safe zones in Israel's genocidal campaign in Gaza."

In #2025, Israel’s genocidal violence against #Palestinians in Gaza continues to increase.
Our new report ‘How to Hide a Genocide’ examines the use of so-called ‘evacuation orders’ & ‘safe zones’, which constitute war crimes & crimes against humanity. https://t.co/nt6UukE3RY

— Al-Haq (@alhaq_org) January 2, 2025

According to the report:

Since the very first week of its genocide, Israel has methodically cleared vast stretches of the Gaza Strip of its inhabitants through its unlawful issuance of evacuation orders. Israel presents these evacuation orders to the public as proof of its efforts to minimize civilian casualties and to support its alleged compliance with fundamental principles of international humanitarian law. However, they achieve the direct opposite. Over 90% of Gaza's population... has been forcibly displaced from their homes and temporary shelters, the majority of them multiple times, to alleged safe zones.

Contrary to their label, these zones are anything but safe. With insufficient space, shelter, sanitation facilities, food, or water sources, and medical care, these safe zones are intentionally designed to ensure the destruction of all life sheltering there. What's more, the safe zones—despite their unilateral establishment by Israel—are routinely targeted by Israeli occupying forces (IOF) by air, land, and sea. Crowded together with nowhere to flee, Palestinians in Gaza are either killed by Israeli strikes, severely physically and mentally injured by the IOF's physical and psychological warfare, or subject to a slow death as a result of starvation, dehydration, a complete lack of crucial medical care, or the rampant spread of infectious diseases in the densely populated, unsanitary zones.

Al-Haq said: "As shown throughout the report, by applying humanitarian terms to its practice of forcibly transferring Palestinians, without any legal basis and in a manner that breaches international law, and labeling areas as safe zones despite being constantly attacked and lacking in all essentials for survival, Israel argues that it is acting in accordance with its legal obligations when in fact it is providing further evidence of its genocidal intent as it uses these measures to commit and contribute to the genocidal acts of killing, causing serious bodily and mental harm, and creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza."

The Al-Haq report was published shortly after Sila Mahmoud Al-Faseeh, a 3-week-old baby girl, died from hypothermia in the al-Mawasi safe zone in southern Gaza. She is one of at least eight people—seven of them infants or children—who have reportedly frozen to death in Gaza in recent weeks.

The report was also published a day before Israeli forces bombed a tent encampment in al-Mawasi, killing at least 12 Palestinians including three children and wounding at least 15 others.

It was one of numerous Israeli strikes on the al-Mawasi safe zone, which have killed or wounded at least hundreds of Palestinians. In the deadliest of these, at least 90 Palestinians including many women and children were killed—some of them burned alive in their tents—and hundreds of others were injured when eight 2,000-pound bombs, at least one of which was supplied by the United States, were dropped on the humanitarian zone on July 13, 2024 in order to assassinate Hamas leader Mohammed Deif. Israeli forces then attacked and killed rescue workers arriving at the site of the strike.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken called the death toll from the strike "unacceptably high." However, just weeks later, the Biden administration approved approximately $20 billion worth of new U.S. weapons for Israel.

The International Court of Justice in The Hague, Netherlands is currently weighing whether Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Scott Ritter : The Bitter Lessons of 2024

Outrage Over Global 'Silence' as Israel Continues Ethnic Cleansing in Gaza

A pediatrician working in Gaza was among those on Thursday who condemned "how deaf the world has become to repeated cries" from people in the enclave as Israel continues its assault and humanitarian aid blockade, which has plunged parts of Gaza into famine conditions, according to experts.

"I'm watching children die in every possible way whether it's violence, cold, hunger, disease—all directly as a consequence of a carefully orchestrated Israeli military campaign that has been enabled by the United States and other countries that are turning a deaf ear and blind eye," Dr. Tanya Haj-Hassan toldAl Jazeera.

At least seven infants have died of hypothermia in the enclave in recent days, their families among 1.9 million people who have been forcibly displaced by Israel's bombardment of Gaza. With 92% of housing units destroyed or damaged, people across Gaza have resorted to living in makeshift tents that don't protect them from wind, heavy rain, and cold nighttime temperatures.

"I struggle for words to describe how horrific the situation has become and how deaf the world has become to repeated cries from humanitarian workers, and mostly from Gazans themselves," said Haj-Hassan. "They have documented on a daily basis their own genocide and have been killed for doing so."

Paula Gil, president of the Spanish chapter of Doctors Without Borders or Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), said Israel's U.S.-backed assault has reduced Gaza to "a death trap."

"Families are surviving in makeshift shelters made of wood, plastic, and mattresses," she told Al Jazeera. "Now the cold and the storms have arrived. How will they face the winter in these conditions?" ...

"As the world watches in silence, the far-right government of indicted war criminal [Israeli Prime Minister] Benjamin Netanyahu is carrying out its intentional campaign of slaughter, mass destruction, forced starvation, and ethnic cleansing in Gaza," said the Council on American Islamic Relations. "History will reveal those who spoke out against this genocide, and those who did not."

The U.S. government—the largest international funder of the Israel Defense Forces, has continued to give political and material support to Israel as it has bombarded and blockaded Gaza, making more than 100 weapons transfers to the Israeli government.

"This does not happen in a vacuum," said Gil. "The hypocrisy and complicity of Israel's allies is allowing the social fabric of Gaza to be destroyed with impunity... There is no future. There is no hope. In Gaza, humanity is being destroyed and we cannot look away."

Israeli army bombs Damascus outskirts, seizes control of Syrian water sources

The Israeli air force launched a violent attack near the Syrian capital of Damascus on 2 January, coming as Israel’s military continues to expand its occupation in the country, reaching a key dam in the southern Quneitra area. ...

Al Mayadeen reported on 2 January that Israeli troops have now reached the Al-Mantara Dam in the Quneitra countryside, the largest dam in southern Syria, adding that Israel has seized control of the six most strategic bodies of water in the south.

Israel's recent expansion in Syria, which began immediately after the fall of the Assad government, has seen invading troops seize precious water sources such as the Al-Wahda Dam on the Yarmouk River Basin and others. Syrian and Israeli sources, as well as Carmel News citing an Iranian source, reported last month that Israel now controls 30 percent of Syria's water supply and 40 percent of Jordan's.

“The occupation's control over the Al-Wahda Dam, which is located on the Jordanian border, is a threat to Jordan, because it was the biggest beneficiary of this dam,” Al Mayadeen’s correspondent said on Thursday.

Alice Weidel surges. Trudeau Wizard of Oz moment

Russian gas shutdown forces closure of almost all industry in Transnistria

The shutdown of Russian gas supplies to Moldova’s breakaway Transnistria region has forced the closure of all industrial companies except food producers. The mainly Russian-speaking territory of about 450,000 people, which split from Moldova in the 1990s as the Soviet Union collapsed, has suffered a painful and immediate hit from Wednesday’s cut-off of Russian gas supplies to central and eastern Europe via Ukraine.

“All industrial enterprises are idle, with the exception of those engaged in food production – that is, directly ensuring food security for Transdnistria,” Sergei Obolonik, first deputy prime minister of the region, told a local news channel. “It is too early to judge how the situation will develop ... The problem is so extensive that if it is not resolved for a long time, we will already have irreversible changes – that is, enterprises will lose their ability to start up.“

European gas buyers such as Slovakia and Austria had prepared for the cut-off by securing alternative supplies. But Transnistria – despite its ties to Moscow and the presence of 1,500 Russian troops there – has been crippled. ... The pro-Russian leader of Transnistria, Vadim Krasnoselsky, said the region had gas reserves that could last for 10 days of limited usage in northern parts and twice as long in the south. He said the main power plant had switched from gas to coal and should be able to supply electricity to residents in January and February.

Investigators attempt to arrest South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol

South Korea’s political crisis took a dramatic turn on Friday when investigators attempting to arrest the impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, were involved in a tense standoff with his security forces. The confrontation unfolded on a freezing winter’s day in Seoul, as an estimated 1,200 Yoon supporters gathered outside his official residence while police and other officials inside attempted to execute an arrest warrant – the first for a sitting South Korean president.

Local media reports said officials from the Corruption Investigation Office – which is leading a joint team of police and prosecutors – entered the compound to find themselves blocked by troops under the control of the presidential security service.

The Yonhap news agency said the team comprised 30 people from the anti-corruption office and 120 police, 70 of whom were initially waiting outside the residence compound.

Having managed to find a way past the troops, officials were confronted by other security service staff, raising doubts over whether Yoon, who was impeached in mid-December over his short-lived declaration of martial law, would be arrested on Friday. The warrant was issued on Tuesday after Yoon again ignored a court order to submit himself for questioning over allegations that his martial law edict had amounted to an insurrection.

Exposing Big Tech’s Complicity in Genocide | The Chris Hedges Report

US agency does not have authority to reinstate net neutrality laws, court rules

A US appeals court ruled on Thursday the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) did not have legal authority to reinstate landmark net neutrality rules. The decision is a blow to the outgoing Biden administration that had made restoring the open internet rules a priority. Joe Biden signed a 2021 executive order encouraging the FCC to reinstate the rules.

A three-judge panel of the Cincinnati-based sixth US circuit court of appeals said the FCC lacked authority to reinstate the rules initially implemented in 2015 by the agency under the Democratic former president Barack Obama, but then repealed by the commission in 2017 under the Republican former president Donald Trump.

Net-neutrality rules require internet service providers to treat internet data and users equally rather than restricting access, slowing speeds or blocking content for certain users. The rules also forbid special arrangements in which ISPs give improved network speeds or access to favored users.

The court cited the supreme court’s June decision in a case known as Loper Bright to overturn a 1984 precedent that had given deference to government agencies in interpreting laws they administer, in the latest decision to curb the authority of federal agencies. “Applying Loper Bright means we can end the FCC’s vacillations,” the court ruled.

The decision leaves in place state neutrality rules adopted by California and others but may end more than 20 years of efforts to give federal regulators sweeping oversight over the internet.

US judicial body rejects request to refer Clarence Thomas to justice department

A judicial policymaking body on Thursday rejected a request by Democratic lawmakers to refer the conservative US supreme court Justice Clarence Thomas to the Department of Justice to examine claims that he failed to disclose gifts and travel provided by a wealthy benefactor.

The secretary to the US judicial conference, the federal judiciary’s top policymaking body, pointed at amendments Thomas had made to his annual financial disclosure reports for the decision.

In a separate letter, the conference declined to refer liberal Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson to the justice department based on claims by a conservative group that she failed to disclose the source of her husband’s consulting income. Jackson has since amended her disclosures, that letter noted.

Democratic lawmakers Sheldon Whitehouse, a senator from Rhode Island, and Hank Johnson, a congressman from Georgia, had asked the conference to refer Thomas to the department after reporting from ProPublica in April 2023 revealed that Thomas had not reported being treated to luxury trips by wealthy Texas businessman and Republican donor Harlan Crow.

Their letter argued that a referral to the justice department was warranted because Thomas had willfully failed to comply with the financial disclosure requirements of the Ethics in Government Act of 1978.

US police killed record number of people in 2024

End of the year statistics released by Mapping Police Violence, a non-profit research group that has been tracking police killings in the US since 2013, found that police in the United States killed over 1,250 people in 2024. This grim figure marks the deadliest year ever recorded by the organization, which tracks police killings by government records and news reports. Overall the research group found that there were only 13 days in 2024 in which police did not kill someone. On average, Mapping Police Violence found that someone in the US succumbs to police violence roughly every 7 hours. While the vast majority of those deaths were the results of police shootings, cops also deployed tasers, batons and their vehicles with deadly force.

Notably only 31 percent of police killings, 387 people, began with an alleged violent crime taking place. On the other hand, 18 percent of those killed by police—over 200 people—were killed after being pulled over for an alleged traffic violation or after police were called to conduct a welfare check. Another 8 percent were killed in situations in which the victim was not alleged to have committed any crime, while 17 percent were killed in situations in which police alleged the victims were perpetrating “other non-violent offenses.”

Mapping Police Violence noted that even as the rate of police killings continues to increase, where police are killing people is changing, with more deaths recorded in rural and suburban zipcodes as opposed to large cities. The top five states with the highest rate of people killed by police in 2024 include New Mexico, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and North Dakota. Local police departments constituted the bulk of killings in 2024 at 58 percent, with county sheriff’s departments accounting for 31 percent of deaths. ...

Keeping track of the number of people killed by police in the United States is difficult, as there is no federal government agency charged with compiling data from local police departments. Not every department keeps records and many, with the support of local press and capitalist politicians from both parties, obfuscate the lethal character of police interactions. Furthermore, Mapping Police Violence’s figures do not take into account the many unreported killings across the United States’ sprawling prisons and jail gulag that incarcerates nearly 2 million people.

It is highly significant that police killings increased across the United States every single year under the Democratic administration of President Joe Biden. In the wake of massive anti-police violence protests following the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020, Biden and the Democrats campaigned on “reforming” the police, but, as the data shows, they have instead overseen a massive expansion in deaths with no accountability. Mapping Police Violence notes in their report that over 98 percent of cops involved in police killings between 2013 and 2023 have not been convicted of a crime.

Jill Biden received $20,000 diamond from Indian PM in 2023, among other gifts

Joe Biden and his family were given tens of thousands of dollars in gifts from foreign leaders in 2023, according to an annual accounting published by the state department on Thursday, with the first lady, Jill Biden, receiving the single most expensive present: a $20,000 diamond from India’s leader.

The 7.5-carat diamond from the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, was easily the most costly gift presented to any member of the first family in 2023, although she also received a brooch valued at $14,063 from the Ukrainian ambassador to the US and a bracelet, brooch and photograph album worth $4,510 from the president and first lady of Egypt.

The US president himself received a number of valuable presents, including a commemorative photo album valued at $7,100 from South Korea’s recently impeached president, Yoon Suk Yeol, a $3,495 statue of Mongolian warriors from the Mongolian prime minister, a $3,300 silver bowl from the sultan of Brunei, a $3,160 sterling silver tray from the president of Israel and a collage worth $2,400 from the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

Federal law requires executive branch officials to declare gifts they receive from foreign leaders and counterparts that have an estimated value of more than $480. Many of the gifts that meet that threshold are relatively modest, and the more expensive ones are typically – but not always – transferred to the National Archives or put on official displays.

The $20,000 diamond was retained for official use in the White House East Wing, according to a state department document, while the other gifts to the president and first lady were sent to the archives. Recipients also have the option to buy the gifts from the US government at their market value, although that is rare, particularly with high-end items.

James Carville BLASTS Democrats' Use of 'NPR LANGUAGE,' Explains Why Kamala Harris LOST Election

House speaker Mike Johnson faces crucial Friday vote as support in doubt

Mike Johnson’s grip on the House speakership faces a crucial test on Friday, as mounting opposition from within his own Republican party threatens to derail his re-election bid, despite receiving an endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump.

With Republicans holding a razor-thin 219-215 majority in the House, Johnson can only afford to lose one vote – a threshold already reached after the Kentucky representative Thomas Massie publicly declared his intention to vote against the incumbent speaker.

The 52-year-old Johnson, who ascended to the speakership weeks after the historic ousting of the California Republican Kevin McCarthy last year, finds himself caught between appeasing hardline conservatives and maintaining functional governance. His decisions to work with Democrats across the aisle for billions in Ukraine aid in the spring and on recent short-term government funding in December have simultaneously bothered both the party’s libertarian and right flank.

“I don’t know how to say this without cussing,” Massie told reporters when asked about supporting Johnson. “If they thought I had no Fs to give before, I definitely have no Fs to give now.”

Johnson had been able to secure and hold on to his position because Democrats backed him following McCarthy’s ouster. But should Johnson fail to secure a majority on the first ballot this time around, the House would again be thrown into a state of paralysis until a speaker is elected, as no other business can proceed without one.

Trump aims to crush legal curbs on his climate rollback – but it may not be easy

Donald Trump has promised to deregulate the energy sector, boost fossil fuels, dismantle environmental rules and otherwise attack climate progress. However, experts and advocates say that lawsuits that aim to hold the fossil fuel sector responsible for deceiving the public about the climate crisis still “have a clear path forward”.

“The overwhelming evidence of the industry’s lies and ongoing deception does not change with administrations,” said Richard Wiles, president of the non-profit Center for Climate Integrity, which tracks and supports the litigation. There are more than 30 accountability lawsuits active around the US brought by states and municipalities accusing fossil fuel interests of covering up the climate risks of their products or seeking damages for impacts. “Climate deception lawsuits against big oil have a clear path forward no matter who is in the White House.”

On the campaign trail, Trump pledged to “stop the wave of frivolous litigation from environmental extremists”. But the administration’s ability to block the suits will be limited, Wiles said.

Since the federal government is neither plaintiff nor defendant in any of the suits, Trump’s election will not directly affect their outcome. And since each case was filed in state court, the president cannot appoint judges who will oversee them. However, if any of the cases are sent to the federal courts – something oil companies have long pushed for but have not achieved – Trump’s rightwing appointees could rule in favor of fossil fuel companies.

UK needs to ban full hybrid cars by 2030 or face net zero ‘catastrophe’, says motoring body

Britain needs to press ahead with a ban on the sale of new hybrid cars with no plug from 2030 or risk taking “a catastrophic misstep” on the road to net zero, ministers have been warned.

Cars such as the Toyota Prius, which charge a battery from an internal combustion engine, need to be excluded from the list of vehicles sold in the UK from 2030 or there will be a “profound” fall in confidence in the government’s commitment to electric motoring, according to the representative body Electric Vehicles UK (EVUK).

The Department for Transport (DfT) will ban the sale of new cars powered solely by internal combustion engines from 1 January 2030.

It is consulting on what other types of new cars – such as full hybrids – can be sold between that date and the end of 2034, after which all non-zero-emission new cars will be prohibited.

Ministers have come under huge pressure to delay the date when a full ban on non-electric cars takes place.

Also of Interest

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

Tracking the Signs of Decline in America

Israeli general's 'contempt for human life' led to widespread deaths in Gaza

What Do We Hope to Achieve by Filing Suit Against US Lawmakers Over Gaza Genocide?

An Ignored US Diplomat’s Warning on Russia

The Truth About H-1B Visas

Office Pool 2025

Florida’s manatees are actually relative newcomers, historical research suggests

Trump DRAGGED By His OWN Supporters Over H-1B Visa Support!

A Little Night Music

The Legendary Blues Band - Life Of Ease

Legendary Blues Band - Another Mule

The Legendary Blues Band - Money

The Legendary Blues Band - Eye To Eye

The Legendary Blues Band - Crazy Bout That Thing

The Legendary Blues Band - Cook Me

The Legendary Blues Band - In the Rain

Legendary Blues Band - Don't Throw Your Love On Me So Strong

The legendary blues band - Going too fast

The Legendary Blues Band - Lucille

Legendary Blues Band at The Roxy - Wash DC 11-10-88