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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Son Seals

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Son Seals. Enjoy!

^{Son Seals Blues Band – Mother In Law Blues}

Joe Biden, on his deathbed: I… I hope we can send just one more arms shipment to Israel before my term ends.

Jill Biden: You’re not the president anymore, Joe. You haven’t been president for two years.

Joe Biden: Can… can you at least bring me a Palestinian baby to kick?

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News and Opinion

“children grow up to be arabs”

I saw a video clip the other day of an Israeli settler from New York responding to questions about the slaughter of children in Gaza by saying “Who gives a shit?” because those children “grow up to be Arabs”.

are we supposed to pretend that “children grow up to be arabs” isn’t one of the most evil sentences ever spoken https://t.co/tglIKsglco

— misstiano penaldo (@lauraw97_) January 2, 2025

You see a lot of this kind of genocidal rhetoric from Israel supporters. The argument is basically that because the Palestinians will never accept the existence of the Jewish state, then the Jews don’t have to accept the existence of the Palestinian people.

You can immediately see the flaw in this logic when it’s written out like this, though. A wildly unequal dynamic is being falsely framed as equal: Israel supporters want an end to the Palestinians as a people, while Palestinians just want an end to the tyrannical apartheid state which murders their children and has taken everything from them. Palestinians don’t seek the extermination of the Jewish people, but Israel’s supporters absolutely seek the extermination of the Palestinian people — or at least their perpetual subordination.

By falsely conflating a particular apartheid ethnostate continuing to exist in its present iteration with the existence of Jews as a people, Israel’s supporters can then claim “We have to kill them because they want to kill us,” because “us” here means the state of Israel. This dishonestly frames this as an “it’s us or them”, kill-or-be-killed situation, which is much more morally defensible than the truth, because everyone can sympathize with the act of killing in self-defense when you will be killed if you don’t kill your would-be killer first.

But of course that isn’t the reality of what is happening with Palestine. This isn’t two groups mutually opposed to one another’s existence, this is an apartheid settler colony backed by the most powerful empire in history getting dropped on top of a pre-existing civilization, with the people who had been living there being told that they must either submit to losing their rights, their property and their dignity, or face extermination.

These things are not equal. Clearly. Israel’s supporters just need to make them look equal to obfuscate the wildly unjust reality of what we are seeing today.

Tony Blinken's shocking final interview

45 House Dems Help GOP Pass ICC Sanctions Bill to 'Protect Genocidal Maniac'

Forty-five congressional Democrats on Thursday voted with the U.S. House of Representatives' Republican majority in favor of legislation to sanction International Criminal Court officials following the tribunal's issuance of arrest warrants for Israel's prime minister and his former defense chief for alleged crimes against humanity in Gaza.

House lawmakers voted 243-140 in favor of H.R. 23, the Illegitimate Court Counteraction Act. Introduced by Reps. Chip Roy (R-Texas) and Brian Mast (R-Fla.), the bill would "impose sanctions with respect to the International Criminal Court (ICC) engaged in any effort to investigate, arrest, detain, or prosecute any protected person of the United States and its allies."

As fires rage across Los Angeles, the priority of American officials is to sanction the ICC.

They care more about protecting Israel’s genocide than American people. https://t.co/SkkjLpfTA7

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) January 9, 2025

... Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-N.Y.)—who according to AIPAC Tracker is the top congressional recipient of campaign contributions from pro-Israel lobbyists including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee—said on social media ahead of Thursday's vote that "the ICC's decision to issue arrest warrants against the leadership of Israel represents the weaponization of international law at its most egregious."

What’s their top priority the first week of the new Congress? Lowering costs? Addressing the housing crisis? No, it's sanctioning the International Criminal Court to protect genocidal maniac Netanyahu so he can continue the genocide in Gaza.

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) January 9, 2025

... The United States—which supports Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid and diplomatic cover—reportedly worked with Israel to thwart the ICC's effort to arrest Israeli leaders. The U.S. also opposes the South African-led genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice.

The Zionists Kill Doctors in Gaza and Silence Them Here (w/ Rupa Marya) | The Chris Hedges Report

Gaza Journalists Demand End to Israel's Impunity for 'Genocide Against Us'​

Palestinian journalists gathered outside al-Aqsa Martyrs Hospital in Deir al-Balah this week to call attention to Israeli forces' genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, their slaughter of those reporting on the ground, and the global community's failure to hold Israel accountable for the bloodshed.

On Thursday, the day after the event, Abubaker Abed, a Palestinian sports journalist now covering Israel's war on Gaza, shared on social media a short video of his remarks in English, which he said were delivered on behalf of all the reporters in blue vests who surrounded him and the podium.

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Palestinian reporters across Gaza have covered what Abed called "the most well-documented and first livestreamed genocide in history," as Israel—armed by the United States—has launched airstrikes and ground raids, and stopped humanitarian aid and international media from entering the coastal enclave.

Abed said that "we've been reporting tirelessly, extensively, and thoroughly on this genocide. It's indeed a genocide against us, which we've been documenting in makeshift tented camps and workplaces... You've seen us shedding tears over our loved ones, colleagues, friends, and family members. You've seen us killed in every possible way. We've been immolated, incinerated, dismembered, and disemboweled—and recently, we've been freezing to death."

"What more ways should you be seeing us killed, then, so that you can move and act and stop the hell inflicted upon us? There are no words to describe what we've been going through, because you've seen our bodies, how they've become fragile, skinny, and fatigued, but we never stopped," he continued, highlighting how Palestinian journalists have worked "to help the population that has seen every sort of torture and tasted every type of death," while the world has refused to "stop Israel's impunity against us."

I had a word to say against the lack of international support for Palestinian journalists pic.twitter.com/9Rdj81bDT3

— Abubaker Abed (@AbubakerAbedW) January 9, 2025

"Our message is very clear: We are journalists, and we are Palestinian journalists. We have been let down by the international community, particularly the international media organizations," Abed declared. "We haven't seen any sort of support—a single word of support. Even the press vests we're wearing right now mark us as a target. They do not protect us at all, because we are Palestinians. Maybe if we were Ukrainians or of any other citizenship, with blond hair and blue eyes, the world would rage and rant for us. But because we are Palestinians, we have only one right, which is to die and be maimed."

"We are just documenting a genocide against us," he concluded. "After almost a year and a half, we want you to stand foot-by-foot with us, because we are like any other journalists, reporters, and media workers all across the globe—no matter the origin, the color, or the race. Journalism is not a crime. We are not a target."

Some journalists around the world reposted Abed's video and called out their colleagues for ignoring Israel's decimation of Gaza or reporting on it in ways favorable to the far-right Israeli government and its supporters, including the United States.

"The past 15+ months have been one of the most shameful periods in the history of Western journalism," said Jeremy Scahill, co-founder of Drop Site News, which has published Abed's reporting from Gaza. "The refusal of so many journalists to speak out in defense of our Palestinian colleagues in Gaza as they and their families have been hunted down and killed is a bloody stain."

The New Yorker editor Erin Overbey similarly said that "the staggering silence of Western journalists this past year as their Palestinian colleagues have been targeted, intimidated, and killed by Israeli forces during the genocide in Gaza will go down as one of the most shameful periods in media/journalism and human rights history."

British writer Owen Jones said: "How to describe the refusal of Western journalists to speak out about the biggest slaughter of journalists in the history of human civilization? Damning. Racist. Nauseating. You will never be forgiven. History will damn those who stayed silent—every last fucking one."

Hamza Yusuf, a London-based British Palestinian writer, said that "we will never forget that whilst Palestinian journalists in Gaza were being systematically slaughtered by Israel, their industry peers at best looked on with indifference and at worst used their positions and their coverage to whitewash Israel's crimes. Blood on their hands." ...

Figures for press deaths have varied. The International Federation of Journalists—which works with its affiliate, the Palestinian Journalists' Syndicate, to verify information—has documented the killings of 148 Palestinian media workers while the Committee to Protect Journalists has a list of 152 confirmed fatalities, at least 13 of which the group classifies as murders by Israeli forces.

US Launches More Strikes on Yemen, Claims To Target Underground Houthi Facilities

The US military said Wednesday that it launched more strikes on Yemen, claiming to target underground Houthi weapons storage facilities.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said its forces “conducted multiple precision strikes against two Iranian-backed Houthi underground Advanced Conventional Weapon (ACW) storage facilities within Houthi-controlled territories of Yemen.”

Yemeni media reported five airstrikes in the Amran province and two in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa. It’s unclear if there were any casualties in the attacks, which Yemeni media reported as “US-British airstrikes.” The UK has joined the US in several rounds of airstrikes on Yemen, but it’s unclear if British forces were involved in the latest bombing.

Media Downplay Israeli Violations of Hezbollah Ceasefire

Israel and Hezbollah signed a ceasefire agreement at the end of November that required both sides to refrain from attacks on each other. The terms also included a mutual pullback from southern Lebanon after 60 days.

Despite the deal, Israel has subsequently launched repeated strikes on Lebanon against targets it claimed were Hezbollah, killing hundreds of Lebanese civilians. The violations began immediately, with Israel attacking journalists and vehicles mere hours after the deal was signed.

Within a week of signing the deal, the UN Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) reported that Israel had violated the ceasefire around 100 times, killing 15 people. Shortly after these initial strikes, Hezbollah launched two strikes into the disputed border zone that it called an “initial defensive and warning response” to Israel against continued ceasefire violations. These strikes did not kill or injure any Israelis. Despite this, Israel responded by continuing its ceasefire violations, killing more and more, bringing the post-ceasefire death toll to more than 30.

Despite the overwhelming number of Israeli attacks in the post-ceasefire period, news audiences have heard that a “tense ceasefire holds” (AP, 12/1/24). Media repeatedly reported on these violations as both sides “trading” or “exchanging” fire (New York Times, 12/2/24; AP, 12/3/24; NBC, 12/3/24; Semafor, 12/4/24; Financial Times, 12/3/24; Wall Street Journal, 12/3/24). While technically accurate, such reporting frames both sides as equally culpable in violating the ceasefire, allowing media to avoid acknowledging that Israel that Israel is by far the primary and more consistent violator.

Other media went further, fully defending rather than just downplaying Israel’s ceasefire violations. CBS (12/3/24) uncritically reported Israel’s justification for its part of the “back-and-forth violence,” telling audiences that the strikes were on “sites that had been used to smuggle weapons from Syria into Lebanon after the ceasefire agreement.” CBS said Israel’s claims about weapon smuggling “rais[ed] questions about whether the reprieve is really an opportunity for Hezbollah and its allies to regroup,” implying that Israel was justified in preventing such a possibility.

CBS‘s guest was Matthew Levitt, a fellow at the hawkish, pro-Israel Washington Institute. He framed the ceasefire as entirely one-sided, suggesting that Hezbollah was unlikely to abide by the ceasefire agreement and that therefore Israel “would enforce this in their own way,” again implying that that would be justified, rather than being itself a violation of the ceasefire.

“This is the post–October 7 world for Israel,” Matthew Levitt told CBS. “They’re not waiting for anybody else to do what has to get done.”

The New York Times (12/3/24) explained away the one-sided violations in a story headlined “Why Israel and Hezbollah Are Still Firing Amid a Ceasefire.” The subtitle read:

Some violations of the truce, and some amount of violence, are to be expected, analysts say, and do not necessarily mean the deal will collapse and war will resume anytime soon.

The Times stumbled over itself to justify Israel’s attacks, writing that “the Israeli military said it had carried out strikes to enforce ceasefire violations.” It did not attempt to explain what it means to “enforce” a “violation.”

Since these initial reports, the “both sides” framing has continued. A month into the truce, the subhead of a New York Times article (12/27/24) read, “Israel and Hezbollah have exchanged strikes and accusations of breaches,” despite the body of the text overwhelmingly detailing Israeli, not Hezbollah, attacks. The Times described Israel’s “series of strikes” and “extensive operations in dozens of villages.”

The Times implicitly justified the airstrikes by saying that “most of them” were on “Hezbollah’s stronghold in south Lebanon.” As FAIR (11/9/24) has written, referring to urban neighborhoods as “strongholds” is an effective way to prepare audiences for attacks on civilians.

The Times also justified Israeli attacks on Lebanese villages during the ceasefire by uncritically repeating Israel’s stated justification that the IDF “was dismantling tunnels, confiscating weapons and surveillance systems and demolishing a Hezbollah command center.”

Israel’s continued aggression despite the ceasefire is not surprising. The country has a long history of violating ceasefires while playing the victim. In this conflict, Israel’s violation was anticipated by all sides. Before the deal was inked, Israel signaled its intention to violate the ceasefire by demanding the “right to strike” freedom of action in the event of a ceasefire. The Jerusalem Post (12/1/24) reported that “sources hinted that under certain conditions, the IDF’s presence in southern Lebanon might extend beyond 60 days.” The US assured Israel that they would support Israel in this scenario (Antiwar.com, 11/27/24).

Maryam Jamishidi, an international law expert at Colorado Law School, told Drop Site (12/4/24): 

It basically gives Israel very wide latitude to do what it wants, while completely restricting Hezbollah’s ability to act…. Israel likes to use negotiations, likes to use diplomacy, as cover for continued aggression and continued violations of law. And I think this is probably one of the most egregious, because it is framed as a ceasefire agreement.

The media silence makes it easier for US officials to deny reality while continuing to pay for Israel’s military aggression. Despite Israel’s continued violations, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has claimed that the ceasefire is holding. State Department spokesperson Vedant Patel affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself under the ceasefire, but when asked about that same right for Lebanon, he demurred, saying he would not go “down a slippery slope of hypotheticals,” and that “these situations are not totally comparable.”

Israelis are exploiting the lopsided ceasefire to create facts on the ground that will be difficult to reverse. As the IDF continues to raze villages and advance into the buffer zone, Israelis are setting up camps in preparation for future settlement.

Israeli Magazine +972 (12/12/24) reviewed the Whatsapp chats of an Israeli group founded to advocate settlement in Southern Lebanon. One member of the group made their goals clear: “We have to conquer and destroy. As much as possible, and as quickly as possible.”

A member of the Israeli settler movement for Lebanon explained to Haaretz (1/2/25) that this has been a longstanding goal for the movement: “Everything we know now we also knew before the war—that this is our land…. We don’t need to apologize.” Such sentiments rarely appear in media aimed at US audiences.

The “both sides” framing is allowing Israel to muddy the waters, and justify its presence in southern Lebanon. Israel is now openly threatening to stay past its 60-day deadline, claiming that Israel will be “forced to act” against Hezbollah for supposedly not fulfilling the ceasefire’s requirements. Despite overwhelming Israeli violations, the pro-Israel media bias obscures who is responsible for continued fighting.

Neocons demand Ukraine escalation. Trump signals talks with Putin

Biden's last big give-away of taxpayer funds?

Biden administration gives $500m to Ukraine in final military aid package

The Biden administration has given its final injection of military support to Ukraine, unveiling a $500m weapons package just days before Donald Trump’s return to the White House threatens to upend western backing for Kyiv.

The aid bundle – including air defense missiles and F-16 fighter jet equipment – was announced on Thursday by outgoing US defense secretary Lloyd Austin during a summit at Germany’s Ramstein air base. ...

The announcement came as the White House scrambles to impose 11th-hour sanctions on Russia reportedly by week’s end, with Trump’s incoming Ukraine envoy, Keith Kellogg, already promising a swift resolution to the conflict within his first 100 days in office.

The package forms part of a broader White House strategy, revealed last month, to shore up Ukraine’s position before the presidential transition. That plan, which includes training for new Ukrainian troops outside the country’s borders and a proposed $20bn loan backed by frozen Russian assets, represents a final push to strengthen Kyiv’s hand.

With only days remaining before Trump’s inauguration on 20 January, the latest package taps into $3.8bn of remaining Pentagon funds. The incoming president has repeatedly criticized America’s world-leading $65bn support for Ukraine since Russia’s 2022 invasion.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Can Russia and the US Sustain Peace?

Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado ‘kidnapped’, allies say

Allies of Venezuela’s most influential opposition leader, María Corina Machado, said she had been “kidnapped” from the streets of Caracas by regime officials after sneaking out of her hideout to lead a major protest against the authoritarian president, Nicolás Maduro.

About three hours after the announcement, Machado supporters said she had been released having been knocked off a motorbike and “taken away by force” while leaving the rally and had been compelled to record a number of videos.

Maduro is set to be sworn in for his third presidential term on Friday.

Elon Musk heaps praise on AfD’s Alice Weidel during live talk on X

Elon Musk has praised the co-leader of Germany’s far-right Alternative für Deutschland party, as he repeated his claim that “only the AfD can save Germany” during a controversial live talk on his social media platform X.

The virtual encounter between Musk and Alice Weidel on Thursday took place amid growing criticism over the US billionaire’s vocal support of far-right, anti-establishment parties across Europe, and accusations he is meddling in the campaign for Germany’s 23 February election.

In a conversation that was at times wooden and at times almost flirtatious, Musk heaped praise on the anti-immigrant, pro-Kremlin AfD, which is second in the polls with 21.5%, behind only the conservative CDU/CSU. He mispronounced the party leader’s name as “Weedel” throughout the encounter.

The almost 75-minute conversation covered everything from energy policy and education to their joint wish to slash German bureaucracy and prevent illegal immigration. Douglas Adams, Schopenhauer, the meaning of life, whether Adolf Hitler was a socialist or a far-right extremist and how to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict were also mulled over at length.

Musk and Weidel took swipes at “woke” views, and appeared to agree on everything – including the need to end the war in Ukraine.

Greenland’s prime minister calls for calm after Trump comments

Greenland’s prime minister has called for unity, urging citizens not to panic, after being thrown into a geopolitical battle between the US and Denmark by Donald Trump’s interest in taking control of the territory.

Múte Egede said he understood people may be concerned after the incoming US president declined to rule out using military and economic force to gain control of Greenland, but called on his fellow citizens to “put aside differences and stand together”.

His government released a statement on Wednesday night reiterating Greenland’s right to self-determination, adding that it “looks forward to establishing contact” with the Trump administration.

The statement, issued by the minister for statehood and foreign affairs, Vivian Motzfeldt, said the government recognised Greenland’s “decisive and important role for the US’s national security interests”, which is why, it said, it houses a US military base.

It added: “Greenland looks forward to working with the incoming US administration and other Nato allies to ensure security and stability in the Arctic region.”

Trudeau: Trump threatened to annex Canada to distract from tariffs impact

The Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has described Donald Trump’s talk of possibly annexing Canada as a tactic designed to distract people from the impact of his proposed tariffs. ...

“Oil and gas and electricity and steel and aluminium and lumber and concrete and everything the American consumers buy from Canada [are] suddenly going to get a lot more expensive if he moves forward on these tariffs,” he said.

Trudeau, who this week said there was not “a snowball’s chance in hell” that Canada would become part of the US, reiterated to CNN that Ottawa would impose countermeasures if Trump made good on this threat.

Gunman in ‘Pizzagate’ conspiracy attack fatally shot by North Carolina police

The gunman involved in the 2016 “Pizzagate” conspiracy theory attack on a Washington DC pizza restaurant that was mistakenly thought to be at the center of a pedophile ring has died after being shot by police in North Carolina during a traffic stop.

In a news release issued on Thursday, North Carolina’s Kannapolis police department announced that Edgar Maddison Welch died from his wounds caused by two police officers who fired at him after he pulled out a handgun during a traffic stop on Saturday.

In 2016, Welch made headlines when he drove from his North Carolina home and stormed into the Washington DC-based Comet Ping Pong restaurant, where he fired an assault rifle inside. Although no injuries were reported, two weapons were found inside the restaurant and another one was recovered from Welch’s vehicle, police said at the time.

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US supreme court rejects Trump bid to call off sentencing in hush-money case

The US supreme court on Thursday declined to delay Donald Trump’s upcoming sentencing in his hush-money case. Trump had asked the US’s highest legal body to call off Friday’s sentencing after New York courts refused to postpone it.

Judge Juan Merchan presided over Trump’s trial and conviction last May on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in the criminal hush-money scheme designed to influence the outcome of the 2016 presidential election, which Trump won by beating the Democrats’ Hillary Clinton.

The supreme court’s nine justices on Thursday voted by five to four to deny the president-elect’s last-minute bid to prevent his sentencing, which is scheduled for Friday at 9.30am local time in New York state court in Manhattan.

The chief justice, John Roberts, and fellow conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court’s three liberal-leaning justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, in the court’s majority in denying Trump’s request.

Trump had originally pleaded not guilty in the case, where the court heard that he paid off adult film actor Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election to stop her revealing an alleged affair with him years before, and then tried to disguise the payment.

Merchan has indicated he will not impose jail time, fines or probation, but Trump’s lawyers argued a felony conviction would still have intolerable side-effects, including distracting him as he prepares to take office in just over a week’s time.

HISTORIC SENTENCE: President-Elect TRUMP Is A Convicted Felon, But NO JAIL Time

Samuel Alito spoke to Trump hours before sentencing delay request

The conservative US supreme court justice Samuel Alito spoke to Donald Trump hours before the president-elect’s lawyers asked the court to delay Friday’s sentencing hearing in his felony conviction for falsifying business records. The pair talked on the phone to discuss the credentials of one of Alito’s former law clerks, who has been recommended for a job in Trump’s incoming administration.

“William Levi, one of my former law clerks, asked me to take a call from president-elect Trump regarding his qualifications to serve in a government position,” Alito told ABC News, which broke the story. “I agreed to discuss this matter with president-elect Trump, and he called me yesterday [Wednesday] afternoon.”

Alito said they did not discuss the sentencing application or any other past or pending matter coming before the court that might involve Trump.

But advocacy groups said the conversation revived ongoing ethics concerns surrounding several court justices, including Alito himself. Routine job references for a prospective administration officials are usually dealt with by lower-level aides, rather than the president himself.

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Six big US banks quit net zero alliance before Trump inauguration

The six biggest banks in the US have all quit the global banking industry’s net zero target-setting group, with the imminent inauguration of Donald Trump as president expected to bring political backlash against climate action.

JP Morgan is the latest to withdraw from the UN-sponsored net zero banking alliance (NZBA), following Citigroup, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley, Wells Fargo and Goldman Sachs. All six have left since the start of December.

Analysts have said the withdrawals are an attempt to head off “anti-woke” attacks from rightwing US politicians, which are expected to escalate when Trump is sworn in as the country’s 47th president in just under a fortnight.

Trump’s vows to deregulate the energy sector, dismantle environmental rules and “drill, baby, drill”, were a big part of his campaign platform and are expected to form a key part of his blueprint for governing the US, the world’s biggest oil and gas producer.

Paddy McCully, a senior analyst at the campaign group Reclaim Finance, said: “The sudden exodus of these big US banks out of the NZBA is a lily-livered effort to avoid criticism from Trump and his climate denialist cronies.

Climate Scientist Peter Kalmus Fled L.A. Fearing Wildfires. His Old Neighborhood Is Now a Hellscape

Critics Say Trump Got 'Nothing Right' About Causes of LA Wildfires

Progressive critics were left shaking their heads this week as Republican U.S. President-elect Donald Trump and his MAGA allies absurdly blamed the Los Angeles County wildfires on everything from an ichthyophile governor to diversity policies—while ignoring what experts say is the true cause of the deadly infernos.

On Wednesday, Trump took to his Truth social media platform to falsely accuse Democratic California Gov. Gavin Newsom—whom he repeatedly called "Newscum"—of refusing "to sign the water restoration declaration put before him that would have allowed millions of gallons of water... to flow daily into many parts of California, including the areas that are currently burning in a virtually apocalyptic way."

Newsom's office responded to Trump's accusation by correctly noting that "there is no such document as the water restoration declaration."

Trump also accused Newsom of wanting "to protect an essentially worthless fish called a smelt, by giving it less water," a red herring and false statement given that the state's plan to protect the endangered delta smelt actually involved increasing the amount of fresh water flowing into its habitat.

Jeffrey Mount, a water policy expert at the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California, toldMSNBC newsletter editor Ryan Teague Beckwith on Thursday that Trump got "nothing right" in his post.

Summarizing his interview with Mount, Teague Beckwith wrote:

Without getting into too much detail, here's what did happen... During Trump's first term, his administration sought to divert some of the water coming into a river delta near San Francisco to farmers in the San Joaquin Valley, among others. They came up with a plan for the water, which Newsom challenged in court. The Biden administration later negotiated a new plan with California on how to divvy up the water.

This is basic stuff, so the fact that Trump describes this as Newsom refusing to sign some kind of document that never existed should give you a sense of how disengaged he is with his own policy.

Meanwhile, MAGA acolyte and soon-to-be Department of Government Efficiency co-leader Elon Musk used his X social media network—formerly Twitter—to amplify racist posts disparaging Democratic Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, an antisemitic diatribe by defamatory conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, implicitly sexist and homophobic attacks on Los Angeles' fire chief, and his own frequent aspersions of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.

I knew it! Those “DEI Hires,” upon being employed by the county, turned off the LA rain machine and cranked up the wind machine to turn LA into a tinderbox. LA never had drought, wind or fire issues before these “DEI” hires. Only a true genius could see that.

— Biz Mikey (@mikey_biz) January 9, 2025

Slate web editor Nitish Pahwa condemned MAGA's "conflagration of lies and disinformation."

"Just one day after Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook and Instagram would no longer be fact-checking informational posts, and mere months after nonstop online hoaxes obstructed federal efforts to assist North Carolinians in the recovery from Hurricane Helene, we're getting an early-year preview of how the United States is going to experience and respond to these rampaging climate disasters throughout the near future," Pahwa said.

"In the vacuum left by mainstream TV networks that did not at all mention climate change in their fire coverage, bad-faith digital actors swooped in with their own takes," Pahwa added. "Climate change doesn't just boost record weather events—it boosts the snake-oil salesmen, too."

Climate experts and defenders weighed in with science-based explanations for the increase in extreme weather events like the Los Angeles County wildfires.

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, Aaron Regunberg, Public Citizen's Climate Program senior policy counsel, noted that "a recent study found that nearly all of the observed increase in wildfire-burned area in California over the past half-century is attributable to anthropogenic climate change."

"This devastation is the direct result of Big Oil's conduct," Regunberg asserted.

[https://www.commondreams.org/news/trump-california-wildfires As Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn said, "This is exactly the sort of disaster that Exxon's own scientists predicted more than 50 years ago, but they spent billions to keep us hooked on fossil fuels."]

According to the U.S. National Park Service, the area burned annually by California wildfires has increased fivefold since the 1970s.

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Also of Interest

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

Why the Right Calls Mangione the ‘Ivy League’ Killer

Jonathan Cook: Billionaires Dangle Free Speech Like a Bauble. We Gawp Like Open-Mouthed Babies

Grey seals, minke whales and bluefin tuna: is the North Sea bouncing back to its glory days?

Before and after the California fires: satellite pictures show devastation

Luigi Mangione SUPPORTED By HALF of College Students, MAJOR Healthcare Conference Protests

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A Little Night Music

Son Seals - Going Home Where Women Got Meat On Their Bones

Son Seals – Buzzard Luck

Son Seals – Hot Sauce

Son Seals - I Can Count On My Blues

Son Seals Blues Band – All Your Love

Son Seals – She's Fine

Son Seals – Landlord At My Door

Son Seals – Sadie

Son Seals Live at Staches, Columbus, Ohio - 1982

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