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"The care of human life and happiness, and not their destruction, is the first and only object of good government."

-- Thomas Jefferson

News and Opinion

Worth a click and a full read:

Chris Hedges: The Western Way of Genocide

Gaza is a wasteland of 50 million tons of rubble and debris. Rats and dogs scavenge amid the ruins and fetid pools of raw sewage. The putrid stench and contamination of decaying corpses rises from beneath the mountains of shattered concrete. There is no clean water. Little food. A severe shortage of medical services and hardly any habitable shelters. Palestinians risk death from unexploded ordnance, left behind after over 15 months of air strikes, artillery barrages, missile strikes and blasts from tank shells, and a variety of toxic substances, including pools of raw sewage and asbestos.

Hepatitis A, caused by drinking contaminated water, is rampant, as are respiratory ailments, scabies, malnutrition, starvation and the widespread nausea and vomiting caused by eating rancid food. The vulnerable, including infants and the elderly, along with the sick, face a death sentence. Some 1.9 million people have been displaced, amounting to 90 percent of the population. They live in makeshift tents, encamped amid slabs of concrete or the open air. Many have been forced to move over a dozen times. Nine in 10 homes have been destroyed or damaged. Apartment blocks, schools, hospitals, bakeries, mosques, universities — Israel blew up Israa University in Gaza City in a controlled demolition — cemeteries, shops and offices have been obliterated. The unemployment rate is 80 percent and the gross domestic product has been reduced by almost 85 percent, according to an October 2024 report issued by the International Labor Organization.

Israel’s banning of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East — which estimates that clearing Gaza of the rubble left behind will take 15 years — ensures that Palestinians in Gaza will never have access to basic humanitarian supplies, adequate food and services. The United Nations Development Programme estimates that it will cost between $40 billion and $50 billion to rebuild Gaza and will take, if the funds are made available, until 2040. It would be the largest post-war reconstruction effort since the end of World War Two.

Israel, supplied with billions of dollars of weapons from the U.S. Germany, Italy and the U.K., created this hell. It intends to maintain it. Gaza is to remain under siege. After an initial burst of aid deliveries at the start of the ceasefire, Israel has once again severely cut back the trucked-in assistance. Gaza’s infrastructure will not be restored. Its basic services, including water treatment plants, electricity and sewer lines, will not be repaired. Its destroyed roads, bridges and farms will not be rebuilt. Desperate Palestinians will be forced to choose between living like cave dwellers, camped out amid jagged chunks of concrete, dying from disease, famine, bombs and bullets, or permanent exile. These are the only options Israel offers.

Israel is convinced, probably correctly, that eventually life in the coastal strip will become so onerous and difficult, especially as Israel finds excuses to violate the ceasefire and resume armed assaults on the Palestinian population, a mass exodus will be inevitable. It has refused, even with the ceasefire in place, to permit foreign press into Gaza, a ban designed to blunt coverage of the horrendous suffering and death. ... Washington and its allies in Europe do nothing to halt the live-streamed mass slaughter. They will do nothing to halt the wasting away of Palestinians in Gaza from hunger and disease and their eventual depopulation. They are partners in this genocide. They will remain partners until the genocide reaches its grim conclusion.

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Can Trump Control Netanyahu?

Trump Asks Congress To Approve $1 Billion Arms Transfer to Israel

The Trump administration has asked congressional leaders to approve a new $1 billion weapons transfer to Israel that will be funded by US military aid, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.

The deal includes 4,700 1,000-pound bombs worth more than $700 million and $300 million worth of armored bulldozers, which the Israeli military uses to demolish homes and infrastructure in Gaza and the West Bank.

The request for the new arms transfer comes as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is in Washington and set to meet with President Trump at the White House on Tuesday. He’s expected to push for US support for Israel to restart its genocidal war in Gaza instead of fully implementing the ceasefire deal.

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Trump and His Oligarchs

Official Gaza Death Toll Soars to Nearly 62,000 as Thousands of Missing Now Presumed Dead

Authorities in Gaza and human rights advocates have warned for months that because of the decimation of the enclave's healthcare system and civil services, the official death toll was likely a significant undercount—and on Monday, officials said thousands more Palestinians had been confirmed killed by Israel's U.S.-backed onslaught since October 2023.

Salama Maarouf, head of Gaza's government media office, told the press gathered at the mostly destroyed al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City that the death toll currently stands at 61,709, with thousands of Palestinians who had previously been listed as missing now presumed dead.

The death toll was previously reported to be 47,487 on Saturday. Journalist Jeremy Scahill of Drop Site News said Monday that the number is rapidly going up as "people returning to their neighborhoods discover mass graves and people buried under the rubble or killed and their bodies left at the scene."

Maarouf said officials now believe the bodies of about 76% of those killed have been recovered, but noted that 14,222 people are still believed to be trapped under rubble or inaccessible to rescue and recovery crews.

The death toll from Israel’s war on Gaza has been revised to more than 61,700 people according to government officials, after reclassifying thousands of people who had been missing in the rubble. pic.twitter.com/Two02hqPz5

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 3, 2025

Those confirmed to have been killed include 17,881 children, including 214 newborn babies. More than 200 journalists were also killed by Israeli forces before a cease-fire deal was reached in mid-January.

Days after the cease-fire agreement, journalist Prem Thakker of Zeteo News noted that the death toll was expected to explode due to the bodies "recovered."

"The horrors we are about to discover if a cease-fire actually holds will underscore why Israel didn't want international journalists inside—and why they kept targeting Palestinian journalists," said Thakker.

The updated death toll was publicized as mediators from the U.S., Qatar, and Egypt began talks on the second phase of the three-part cease-fire agreement. In the first phase, nearly 2,000 Palestinian prisoners are set to be freed from Israeli prisons by March, and 33 Israeli hostages are scheduled to be released by Hamas as Palestinians return to their neighborhoods—many of which have been reduced to rubble—and hundreds of aid trucks are allowed into the enclave.

The talks that began Monday aim to establish a permanent cease-fire, with Israeli forces making a complete exit from Gaza.

Fighting could begin again in March if a long-term deal isn't reached in the coming weeks.

British Member of Parliament Jeremy Corbyn said that as the "true scale of Israel's atrocities" emerges, "officials must face justice for every single life lost."

"So should those who continued to send weapons," said Corbyn, "knowing full well they were enabling genocide."

As humanitarian and medical workers continued recovery missions in Gaza, the death toll in the West Bank on Monday rose to 70 since the beginning of 2025, according to the Palestinian Ministry of Health.

Israeli forces and settlers have waged attacks in several West Bank towns and refugee camps in recent weeks, and the Trump administration said late last month that it would continue providing military aid to Israel as it froze nearly all foreign assistance.

"Fascism Is at the Door": Trump Threatens to Deport Pro-Palestinian International Student Protesters

Students Sue Columbia Over Suspensions for Pro-Palestine Activism

Three Columbia University students on Monday filed a lawsuit against the school administration challenging their suspensions related to pro-Palestine activism, according to an exclusive from the outlet Drop Site.

The students, Aidan Parisi, Brandon Murphy, and Catherine Curran-Groome, were all set to graduate this coming spring prior to their suspensions. After "a monthslong convoluted, and often intimidating, disciplinary process," Parisi and Murphy were given one-year suspensions and Curran-Groome was given a two-year suspension.

According to Drop Site, the complaint alleges that "the university violated its own policies during the disciplinary process, that the university targeted the students for their views, and that it violated New York's landlord tenant laws when it evicted the students from university housing."

"They singled out a few of us to try to make an example out of us," Curran-Groome told Drop Site. "None of us, absolutely none of us, deserved what we've experienced this year at Columbia in terms of the targeting and the discrimination and the violence and the repression."

The university was also sued back in March 2024 by the New York Civil Liberties Union and Palestine Legal, a legal advice and advocacy group, over its suspension of the school's chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voice for Peace. ...

Curran-Groome and Parisi were first suspended on an interim basis prior the launch of the first encampment for their involvement in a March 2024 event that featured speakers who discussed the history of different strategies for confronting occupation and colonialism, including armed resistance, according to Drop Site. Curran-Groome helped organize the event in her capacity as co-president of the Palestine Working Group, an official student organization.

According to the legal complaint, Curran-Groome sought approval to hold the event on campus. However, after sharing biographies of the speakers with the administration, a university official told her that the group would need approval for the event to be held on campus, per the complaint. The university officials allegedly said that the group could have the event on zoom, hold it on another date, or move it off campus. The Palestine Working Group chose the third option, according to Drop Site.

After the event, Columbia issued a statement calling it "unsanctioned" and "unapproved." Later, the school told Parisi and Curran-Groome they had been interim suspended for violating university policy and compromising the "well-being and safety of the university community," according to Drop Site, quoting the email that the students received.

"After the encampment was established, the students received an additional interim suspension, alleging they violated the first order by being on campus," according to Drop Site.

The school "used that suspension to then levy additional disciplinary actions, alleging that the plaintiffs had violated that first illegitimate interim suspension by then returning to campus," James Carlson, an attorney representing the students, told Drop Site.

The outlet did not give the specific circumstances around Murphy's suspension.

Prof. Glenn Diesen : How NATO Provoked Russia

Moscow bombing kills pro-Russia paramilitary leader from Ukraine

A bomb has exploded in the lobby of a luxury apartment block in Moscow, killing a pro-Russia paramilitary leader from eastern Ukraine alongside his bodyguard.

The bomb detonated just as a man with bodyguards entered the lobby of the Scarlet Sails residential complex on the banks of the Moscow River on Monday, Russian media reported.

Russia’s Tass news agency, citing security services, reported that the blast was an attack on Armen Sarkisyan, the head of the boxing federation in Russian-occupied Donetsk and the founder of a battalion fighting against Ukraine. Sarkisyan, who is wanted in Ukraine, has a long history of aiding pro-Russia forces in Ukraine.

The bomb was likely to have been hidden in a couch at the building’s entrance, according to Russian media. Russian security services stated that it was detonated remotely, with the attacker waiting for Sarkisyan to enter the lobby.

Sarkisyan was taken to hospital in critical condition and he later succumbed to his injuries, while his bodyguard was killed instantly, Tass said. No group has claimed responsibility for the blast, which Russian security services described as a targeted and “well-planned” assassination.

Greenland plans to ban foreign political funding over Trump-led election fears

Greenland plans to ban foreign political donations over fears about potential interference in its forthcoming elections after attracting Donald Trump’s interest.

The government of the autonomous territory, which is a former Danish colony and remains part of the kingdom of Denmark, announced details of a bill on Monday intended to “safeguard the political integrity of Greenland”.

It is scheduled be considered on Tuesday and if it becomes law, which it is likely to do because the government holds a majority in parliament, it could come into force straight away.

Despite Greenland and Denmark saying the Arctic island is not for sale, Trump has repeatedly said he plans to acquire it and has threatened to use tariffs and military force to get his way.

After weeks in the global spotlight as a result of the repeated threats, Greenland is scheduled to hold an election before 6 April.

Trump agrees to postpone Canada and Mexico tariffs by one month

Donald Trump has pulled back from the brink of a trade war with Canada and Mexico, postponing sweeping new US tariffs on goods from its two closest economic partners by one month. It is the third time in two weeks the US president has delayed his threatened 25% tariffs on the two countries. China is still set to face additional 10% levy on its exports to the US from Tuesday.

Following talks with the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau, and the Mexican president, Claudia Sheinbaum, on Monday, Trump agreed at the last minute to hold off from imposing new duties on the two countries. The agreements came on a day of extreme volatility in global financial markets as rattled investors reacted to the prospect of a dramatically escalating dispute involving the world’s largest economies.

The US president had upended US-Mexico ties over the weekend when he announced 25% tariffs and accused Sheinbaum’s administration of engaging in an “intolerable alliance” with Mexican crime groups. Sheinbaum rejected that “slanderous” accusation, but on Monday morning struck a softer note as she announced “a series of agreements” with Trump after a conversation between the two leaders during which they agreed to pause US tariffs for a month to allow for fresh negotiations.

Mexico had agreed to send 10,000 members of its national guard “to prevent drug trafficking from Mexico to the US, in particular of fentanyl”, Sheinbaum said. In return, the US had agreed to work to prevent high-powered weapons crossing the border into Mexico.

Dismantling regime change machinery

Dem Senator ACCIDENTALLY ADMITS USAID Is CIA Front

Marco Rubio declares himself head of USAid as workers locked out of office

The secretary of state, Marco Rubio, declared himself the acting administrator of the besieged United States Agency for International Development (USAid) on Monday as staffers were locked out of its Washington DC headquarters and the White House confirmed plans to merge it into the state department.

The agency has become a touchpoint for the Trump administration’s efforts to seize control of federal spending in recent days through Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge). ...

Talking to reporters on Monday in El Salvador, where he is on an official visit, Rubio told reporters he had assumed control of USAid to “align” it with Trump’s priorities. “Our goal was to go in and align our foreign aid to the national interest,” he said. “If you go from mission after mission and embassy after embassy around the world you will often find, in many cases, that USAid is involved in programs that run counter to what we’re trying to do in our national strategy with that country or region. That cannot continue.”

The agency manages almost $43bn in food, humanitarian and other aid, including clean water programs and the provision of medicines, to about 130 countries. Staffers were told in a late-night email on Sunday not to report for work on Monday morning.

Trump advisers weigh actions to dismantle education department

The Trump administration is weighing executive actions to dismantle the US education department as part of efforts by Elon Musk’s so-called “department of government efficiency” (Doge) to seize control of federal spending and slash the size of the government workforce, the Wall Street Journal reported.

US officials have discussed an executive order that would shut down all functions of the education department that are not written explicitly into statute, or move certain functions to other departments, according to the paper, citing sources.

The order would call for developing a legislative proposal to abolish the department, it said, adding that advisers to Donald Trump are still debating the specifics and timing of such an order. ...

During his election campaign, Trump promised to eliminate the education department – which he described as being infiltrated by “radicals, zealots and Marxists” – and give states all power to control.

A US president alone cannot eliminate a department, as Congress is required to approve the creation or demise of an agency. But Trump officials can alter key parts of the department’s budget and policies, or replicate the approach they used with the US agency for international development (USAid) this past week.

Young DOGE Engineers REVEALED: Redditors Call For Their DEATH?!

Progressive Democrats accuse Trump and Musk of ‘a plutocratic coup’

Progressive lawmakers condemned Donald Trump and Elon Musk on Monday, pointing to the attempted shuttering of the foreign aid agency USAid and the accessing of the treasury department’s federal payment system as the markings of a “constitutional crisis”.

After Musk declared that he was working to shut down USAid, Democratic members of Congress tried to enter the agency’s Washington headquarters but said they were turned away on the orders of Musk’s “department of government efficiency” (Doge). USAid staffers were also locked out of the building on Monday, as the White House confirmed plans to merge the agency with the state department.

Addressing reporters outside the USAid headquarters, Representative Ilhan Omar, a Democrat of Minnesota, accused Trump and Musk of attempting to “take away the constitutional power of Congress”, which has the authority to allocate federal funds. “We are witnessing a constitutional crisis,” Omar said. “We talked about Trump wanting to be a dictator on day one, and here we are. This is what the beginning of dictatorship looks like. When you gut the constitution and you install yourself as the sole power, that is how dictators are made.”

The clash at USAid came one day after news broke that Musk’s associates had received access to the treasury department’s federal payment system, potentially exposing the sensitive personal data of millions of Americans. Democratic lawmakers reported receiving a deluge of calls from constituents expressing alarm over the possibility that their personal information might have been jeopardized.

“Donald Trump has given unprecedented power over the federal government to an unelected, unaccountable billionaire,” Representative Greg Casar, a Democrat of Texas and chair of the congressional progressive caucus, said in a statement. “Progressives will fight this in the courts, on the House floor, and with every tool at our disposal until Elon Musk is out of our government and no longer putting taxpayers, the sick, and the elderly at risk.”

Sen Susan Collins BACKING Tulsi Gabbard For DNI Pushes Her Forward; RFK Jr Passes Committee Vote

Lung cancer diagnoses on the rise among never-smokers worldwide

The proportion of people being diagnosed with lung cancer who have never smoked is increasing, with air pollution an “important factor”, the World Health Organization’s cancer agency has said.

Lung cancer in people who have never smoked cigarettes or tobacco is now estimated to be the fifth highest cause of cancer deaths worldwide, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC).

Lung cancer in never-smokers is also occurring almost exclusively as adenocarcinoma, which has become the most dominant of the four main subtypes of the disease in both men and women globally, the IARC said.

About 200,000 cases of adenocarcinoma were associated with exposure to air pollution in 2022, according to the IARC study published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine journal.

The largest burden of adenocarcinoma attributable to air pollution was found in east Asia, particularly China, the study found.

State Farm seeks emergency 22% rate hike in California after LA wildfires

State Farm General, California’s largest home insurer, is seeking an emergency rate increase for homeowners following the Los Angeles wildfires last month. If approved, the hike would average a 22% increase for policyholders.

The insurance giant claims that the fires have put the company under increased financial strain. The company has already received at least 8,700 claims and paid more than $1bn to customers and expects to pay out “significantly more”, according to a press release.

“Insurance will cost more for customers in California going forward because the risk is greater in California,” the statement reads. “That is foundational to how insurance works. Higher risks should pay more for insurance than lower risks.”

The recent wildfires have been one of the most expensive natural disasters the insurance has faced in its history. They go on to warn that further “capital deterioration” as a result of the wildfires could harm their ability to pay out insurance across the board, including customers with a mortgage possibly losing the ability to “use State Farm General insurance on the collateral backing for their mortgage”. ...

Consumer Watchdog, a LA-based advocacy group, disputed that State Farm General was in financial trouble. They claim that the insurers made underwriting profits of $1.4bin between 2020 and 2023, and that parent company State Farm Mutual had “$134 billion in the bank”.

Levels of microplastics in human brains may be rapidly rising, study suggests

The exponential rise in microplastic pollution over the past 50 years may be reflected in increasing contamination in human brains, according to a new study.

It found a rising trend in micro- and nanoplastics in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024. The researchers also found the tiny particles in liver and kidney samples.

The human body is widely contaminated by microplastics. They have also been found in blood, semen, breast milk, placentas and bone marrow. The impact on human health is largely unknown, but they have been linked to strokes and heart attacks.

The scientists also found that the concentration of microplastics was about six times higher in brain samples from people who had dementia. However, the damage dementia causes in the brain would be expected to increase concentrations, the researchers said, meaning no causal link should be assumed.

“Given the exponentially rising environmental presence of micro- and nanoplastics, this data compels a much larger effort to understand whether they have a role in neurological disorders or other human health effects,” said the researchers, who were led by Prof Matthew Campen at the University of New Mexico in the US.

Also of Interest

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

End Of Empire: Effects & Theory Of Trump’s Tariffs

As part of West Bank offensive, Israel conducts largest demolition in years

Trump Declares Economic War on Just About Everyone That Matters. Is a Smash-Up a Feature and Not a Bug? Update: Mexico One Month Pause. Who Blinked?

Thoughts On Musk's Raid Of USAID

Tankus and Kelton on Musk’s DOGE Seizing Treasury’s Payments Chokepoint. But Where Are The Lawyers?

Watchdog Says Impeach Bessent for Handing Treasury Payment System Over to Musk 'Wrecking Crew' at DOGE

Panama Tries Compromise; US Says It’s Not Enough

Trump says he will cut off funding to South Africa over land ‘confiscations’

Trump has brought much-needed attention to a site of great tragedy: the Gulf of Mexico

A Little Night Music

The Tams – Be Young Be Foolish Be Happy

The Tams – Hey Girl Don't Bother Me!

The Tams - Laugh It Off

The Tams - You Might As Well Forget Him

The Tams - Riding For A Fall

The Tams - Close To Me

The Tams - Standing In

The Tams - Untie Me

The Tams- It's All Right (You're Just In Love)

The Tams - Dancing Mood