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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Sam Moore

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features soul singer Sam Moore. Enjoy!

^{Sam & Dave - When Something Is Wrong With My Baby}

"An explanation of cause is not a justification by reason."

-- C. S. Lewis

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News and Opinion

If October 7 Justifies The Gaza Genocide, What Acts Of Violence Will The Gaza Genocide Justify?

If you believe that all the violence and destruction in Gaza is the fault of Hamas, then by your own logic you must also accept that the coming wave of violent extremism and antisemitism which is going to ensue from the incineration of Gaza will exclusively be the fault of Israel.

I said this on Twitter the other day and Israel supporters got outraged and shared screenshots of my post shrieking with indignation that anyone would say such a thing, which is funny because I’m just reading their own line of reasoning back to them.

I’m not the one who says an act of violence excuses any violence done in response to it. I’m not the one who says history automatically restarts at the most recent act of aggression, thereby making any amount of retaliatory violence against civilians a justified response to an unprovoked attack for which the vengeful bear no responsibility. This isn’t my position. It’s theirs.

I personally think it would be terrible if the backlash for the Gaza holocaust leads to attacks on civilians. I personally do not believe any amount of violence no matter how horrific would excuse acts of collective punishment targeting civilians in the way Israel has been targeting civilian populations with deadly force in Gaza. But we all know such attacks are probably going to happen at some point, and it isn’t my reasoning which says that the perpetrators would bear no culpability for their actions. This is the reasoning of the Israel apologists.

If you believe Hamas is to blame for Israel’s actions in Gaza, then by your own logic you must necessarily accept that Israel is to blame for any backlash against those actions. If you don’t accept this then you are admitting your position isn’t guided by reasoning at all, and that you simply believe Israel should magically be able to inflict as much butchery and suffering on civilians as it likes without ever creating any natural consequences or backlash of any kind. Your mind exists in a fantasy world wherein Israel has some kind of divinely ordained exclusive right to violent force.

In the early months of the Gaza genocide, Palestine supporters began pointing out the contradictory logic which holds that nothing Israel did could justify October 7, but October 7 justifies anything Israel might do. At no time have Israel apologists ever deviated from this line of reasoning. This self-contradictory position has now become the official line at the White House, where all questions from the press about Israel’s atrocities in Gaza are met by assertions from Trump’s podium people that all blame for those atrocities rests exclusively at the feet of Hamas.

By that exact same logic, any blame for the violent extremism and antisemitism which is going to ensue from Israel’s actions in Gaza rests exclusively at the feet of Israel. This isn’t my reasoning. It’s theirs.

We have arrived at an absurd rule: Nothing justifies October 7, but in the name of October 7 everything is justifiable. There's no security justification for such massive bombing. No military action can justify bombing helpless human beings / @Ahmad_tibi https://t.co/oJsQc8NIXY

— Haaretz.com (@haaretzcom) December 22, 2024

In reality it has always been baby-brained thinking to begin the historical record at the moment of the most recent aggression and pretend Hamas attacked an innocent Israel completely unprovoked. It’s a narrative promoted by predatory manipulators and believed by weak-minded human livestock;
Israel was horrifically abusive to the people of Gaza prior to October 7, and had been
routinely attacking and killing Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank in the months prior.

Israel apologists yell “Blame Hamas!” whenever people decry the genocidal atrocities taking place in Gaza in order to excuse Israel from its obvious culpability in those crimes. But it’s a paper-thin argument which can’t withstand the slightest amount of critical thought. You can’t whatabout your way into genocide being morally defensible. That is not a thing.

Transcript at link:

The Chris Hedges Report: On Emptying Gaza

Israel ends mention of humanitarian zones as Gaza war grinds on

Israel has quietly stopped designating areas of Gaza as humanitarian zones since it resumed its strikes on the Palestinian territory last month. The move has heightened fears among aid workers for the safety of civilians sheltering in places previously deemed protected.

A small strip of land in south Gaza was assigned by Israel in December 2023 as a “humanitarian zone” where civilians were told they could safely gather. The area was expanded last May to cover a larger area in south-west Gaza, including Khan Younis, Deir al-Balah and al-Mawasi. Up to January, the humanitarian zone had been marked on maps that were posted online and dropped from the air by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF). More than a million people had flocked to the areas as a result.

The humanitarian zones were not entirely safe. Official figures showed they were hit by at least 28 Israeli strikes before January and an investigation by the BBC put the number as high as 97, with 550 people killed. The IDF accused Hamas militants of using the zones as protection and as a launchpad for attacks on Israeli troops.

Mention of the humanitarian zones has disappeared from maps since Israel’s ceasefire with Hamas collapsed in March. The IDF has resumed its airstrikes and seized swathes of land as a “security buffer zone” and the UN estimates that 70% of Gaza is now under either an evacuation order or is a “no-go zone”.

In meetings with aid agencies, the IDF and Cogat – the Israeli government unit coordinating policy in Gaza – have sidestepped questions about humanitarian zones, according to a senior international official who asked not to be named in order to speak freely. The source added: “[The Israeli authorities] have not indicated if they will reinstate some of the humanitarian zone designations. There’s a logic there: if they don’t reinstate the humanitarian zones, they therefore can’t guarantee security of movement within that zone for aid workers or civilians.”

How much longer until hollow words of condemnation will translate into action to lift the siege, resume a ceasefire & save whatever is left of humanity?

It’s been days of siege on #Gaza imposed by the Israeli authorities.

Hunger is spreading & deepening, deliberate &…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) April 22, 2025

Max Blumenthal : Netanyahu Plotting

Israeli strikes kill 17 in Gaza and destroy heavy equipment needed to clear rubble

Israeli strikes on the Gaza Strip killed at least 17 Palestinians, mostly women and children, and destroyed bulldozers and other heavy equipment that had been supplied by mediators to clear rubble. Separate strikes killed two people in Lebanon. ...

Israel’s 18-month offensive against Hamas has destroyed vast areas of Gaza, raising fears that much of it may never be rebuilt. The territory already had a shortage of heavy equipment, which is also needed to rescue people from the rubble after Israeli strikes and to clear vital roads.

The Israeli military said it struck and destroyed around 40 pieces of heavy machinery. Israel said Hamas used the vehicles, including bulldozers, for planting explosives, digging tunnels, and breaching fences, including during the Oct. 7, 2023 attack.

A municipality in the Jabaliya area of northern Gaza said a strike on its parking garage destroyed nine bulldozers provided by Egypt and Qatar, which helped broker the ceasefire that took hold in January. Israel ended the truce last month, renewing its bombardment and ground operations and sealing the territory’s 2 million Palestinians off from all imports, including food, fuel and medical supplies.

The strikes also destroyed a water tanker and a mobile generator provided by aid groups, and a truck used to pump sewage, the Jabaliya al-Nazla municipality said.

US-Iran talks, Russia positioned to be guarantor

Israel's LIES About Iran's Nuclear Program DEBUNKED

Over 150 US university presidents sign letter decrying Trump administration

More than 150 presidents of US colleges and universities have signed a statement denouncing the Trump administration’s “unprecedented government overreach and political interference” with higher education – the strongest sign yet that US educational institutions are forming a unified front against the government’s extraordinary attack on their independence.

The statement, published early on Tuesday by the American Association of Colleges and Universities, comes weeks into the administration’s mounting campaign against higher education, and hours after Harvard University became the first school to sue the government over threats to its funding. Harvard is one of several institutions hit in recent weeks with huge funding cuts and demands they relinquish significant institutional autonomy.

The signatories come from large state schools, small liberal arts colleges and Ivy League institutions, including the presidents of Harvard, Princeton and Brown.

“We are open to constructive reform and do not oppose legitimate government oversight,” they write. “However, we must oppose undue government intrusion in the lives of those who learn, live, and work on our campuses.”

Harvard’s lawsuit comes after the administration announced it would freeze $2.3bn in federal funds, and Donald Trump threatened to revoke its tax-exempt status, over claims the university failed to protect Jewish students from pro-Palestinian protests. The suit and the statement, taken together, mark an increasingly muscular response from universities following what initially appeared to be a tepid approach.

Trump says he is 'entitled' to deport people without trials

Following an emergency order from the supreme court on Saturday blocking his administration from deporting suspected Venezuelan gang members without affording them due process, Donald Trump just told reporters that it is not possible to have trials for all of the people he wants to deport.

Asked by a reporter for the Daily Caller if he is happy with the rate of deportations, Trump thanked her for the question and repeated the baseless claim he has made in the past that foreign nations, including Venezuela and “the Congo”, have “emptied their prisons into the United States” and created an emergency that can only be dealt with by the emergency powers he claims the 1798 Alien Enemies Act affords him.

“We’re getting them out, and I hope we get cooperation from the courts because you know, we have thousands of people that are ready to go out, and you can’s have a trial for all of these people” the president said.

“It wasn’t meant, the system wasn’t meant- and we don’t think there is anything that says … Look, we are getting some very bad people, killers, murderers, drug dealers, really bad people, the mentally ill, the mentally insane, they emptied out insane asylums into our country, we’re getting them out. And a judge can’t say: ‘No, you have to have a trial,’” he continued.

This hasn't gotten enough attention! Over 1,500 students have had their visas revoked on mostly nonsense reasons, with ICE often telling them to leave immediately or be arrested. But then when sued, ICE suddenly started saying they don't have to leave, actually. It IS Kafkaesque! https://t.co/DzKTkJ75c0 pic.twitter.com/FTCoHC8C67

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) April 21, 2025

‘National disgrace’: US lawmakers decry student detentions on visit to Ice jails

Congressional lawmakers denounced the treatment of Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk, the students being detained by US immigration authorities for their pro-Palestinian activism, as a “national disgrace” during a visit to the two facilities in Louisiana where each are being held.

“We stand firm with them in support of free speech,” the Louisiana congressman Troy Carter, who led the delegation, said during a press conference after the visits on Tuesday. “They are frightened, they’re concerned, they want to go home.”

Öztürk, a Tufts University PhD student, and Khalil, a graduate of Columbia, have been detained for more than a month since US immigration authorities took them into custody. Neither have been accused of criminal conduct and are being held in violation of their constitutional rights, members of the delegation said.

The delegation included representatives Carter, Bennie Thompson, Ayanna Pressley, Jim McGovern, Senator Ed Markey, and Alanah Odoms, the executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana. They visited the South Louisiana Ice processing center in Basile, where Öztürk is being held, and traveled to the Central Louisiana Ice processing center in Jena to see Khalil. They met with Öztürk and Khalil and others in Ice custody to conduct “real-time oversight” of a “rogue and lawless” administration, Pressley said. ...

“It’s a national disgrace what is taking place,” Markey said. “We stand right now at a turning point in American history. The constitution is being eroded by the Trump administration. We saw today here in these detention centers in Louisiana examples of how far [it] is willing to go.” McGovern described those being held as political prisoners. He said: “This is not about enforcing the law. This is moving us toward an authoritarian state.”

Hat tip to Linda W.:

Trump SURRENDERS To China In Trade War

Trump says China tariffs will drop ‘substantially – but it won’t be zero’

Donald Trump said during a White House news conference that high tariffs on goods from China will “come down substantially, but it won’t be zero”. Trump’s remarks were in response to earlier comments on Tuesday by treasury secretary Scott Bessent, who said that the high tariffs were unsustainable and that he expects a “de-escalation” in the trade war between the world’s two largest economies. ...

Details of Bessent’s remarks were confirmed by two people familiar with the remarks who insisted on anonymity to discuss them. “I do say China is going to be a slog in terms of the negotiations,” Bessent said, according to a transcript obtained by the Associated Press. “Neither side thinks the status quo is sustainable.”

The S&P 500 stock index rose 2.5% after Bloomberg News initially reported Bessent’s remarks. Trump acknowledged the increase in the stock market in comments to reporters after the ceremonial swearing-in of Paul Atkins as the Securities and Exchange Commission chair on Tuesday. However, Trump avoided confirming if he, too, thought the situation with China was unsustainable, as Bessent had said behind closed doors. “We’re doing fine with China,” Trump said. ...

The Trump administration has met for talks with counterparts from Japan, India, South Korea, the European Union, Canada and Mexico, among other nations. But Trump has shown no public indications that he plans to pullback his baseline 10% tariff, even as he has insisted he’s looking for other nations to cut their own import taxes and remove any non-tariff barriers that the administration says have hindered exports from the US.

IMF warns of ‘major negative shock’ from Trump’s tariffs

Donald Trump’s tariffs have unleashed a “major negative shock” into the world economy, the International Monetary Fund has said, as it cut its forecasts for US, UK and global growth. In a stark assessment of the impact of the US president’s policies, as global finance ministers prepare to meet in Washington, the IMF said: “We expect that the sharp increase on 2 April in both tariffs and uncertainty will lead to a significant slowdown in global growth in the near term.” ...

Publishing the latest edition of its World Economic Outlook, the Washington-based IMF cut its forecast for global GDP growth to 2.8% for this year – 0.5% weaker than it was expecting as recently as January.

The IMF said that while its forecasts had been prepared on the basis of current trade policy, “intensifying downside risks dominate the outlook”. Its forecasts show every major economy being hit, with the UK expected to grow by 1.1% this year, down from 1.6% predicted in January. The IMF expects a sharper deterioration for the US, from 2.7% to 1.8%. ...

As its spring meetings kick off, the IMF said that even after Trump’s “pause”, which suspended punitive “reciprocal tariffs” on a string of countries, trade barriers were at the highest level in a century. Given the lack of clarity about the future direction of the policy, it predicted that companies throughout the global economy were likely to respond by cutting spending.

“Faced with increased uncertainty about access to markets – their own but also those of their suppliers and customers – many firms’ initial reaction will be to pause, reduce investment, and cut purchases. Likewise, financial institutions will re-evaluate their credit supply to businesses,” it said. “The combined increased uncertainty and resulting tightening of financial conditions are a global negative demand shock and will weigh on activity.”

Gold climbs above $3,500 for first time as Wall Street rallies after slide

Gold has climbed above $3,500 an ounce for the first time while stocks on Wall Street and the dollar rose following Monday’s sell-off prompted by Donald Trump’s blistering attack on the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell.

Spot gold reached the record price of $3,500.01 (£2,620) on Tuesday, extending a rally that has pushed bullion up from $2,623 an ounce at the start of this year.

Analysts now predict the metal could even reach $4,000 only a matter of weeks after the price moved through $3,000 for the first time.

The US currency and its government debt are usually seen as a safe haven during times of market turmoil, but as the US itself has caused much of the recent volatility investors have been turning to another “port in the storm”, gold, in large numbers.

Canada election sees record high early voting

A record 7.3 million people have cast their ballots over four days of advanced voting in Canada’s election, official figures showed on Tuesday, in a possible sign of elevated interest in the 28 April poll.

Elections Canada said its estimated tally for voting from Friday through Monday marked a 25% increase over the 5.8m advanced ballots cast in the 2021 vote.

Canada, a country with a population of 41 million, has 28.9 million eligible voters, Elections Canada said in November.

There are further indications the election campaign dominated by threats from Donald Trump has galvanized voters, including unusually high ratings for two debates last week. ...

As of Tuesday, the public broadcaster CBC’s poll aggregator gives the Liberals 43.1% support, with the Tories at 38.4%. The Conservatives have gained one point in the last two weeks, according to the CBC data.

Elon Musk to pull back in Doge role starting May amid 71% dip in Tesla profits

The Tesla chief executive, Elon Musk, said he will start pulling back from his role at the so-called “department of government efficiency” starting in May. Musk’s remarks came as the company reported a massive dip in both profits and revenues in the first quarter of 2025 amid backlash against his role in the White House. ...

Tesla saw a 9% drop in revenue year over year in the first quarter of 2025. The company brought in $19.3bn in revenue, well below Wall Street expectations of $21.45bn. The company reported an earnings per share of 27 cents, also well under investor expectations of 43 cents in earnings per share.

Tesla profits also slid 71% to $409m compared with $1.39bn in net income the previous year.

The company suffered a 13% drop in vehicle deliveries, making it the company’s worst quarter since 2022. Tesla closed the quarter with 336,681 vehicles delivered.

Though Musk has acknowledged there have been “rocky moments” of late, he remained optimistic about the company’s future.

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Al Gore draws parallels between Trump 2.0 and early Nazi Germany in speech

Al Gore said there were “important lessons” to be learned from similarities between the early rise of Nazi Germany and the recent actions of the Trump administration, in scathing comments made Monday during remarks about climate change.

During a speech at an event to mark the beginning of San Francisco’s Climate Week, the former vice-president and established climate advocate, said that the Trump administration was “trying to create their own preferred version of reality”, akin to the Nazi party during the 1930s in Germany, Politico reported.

“I understand very well why it is wrong to compare Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich to any other movement,” said Gore during his speech at the city’s Exploratorium museum. “It was uniquely evil, full stop. I get it. But there are important lessons from the history of that emergent evil.”

Gore also slammed Trump for preventing the transition to green energy, as the global climate emergency reaches new heights. “It is abundantly clear that after only three months and one day, that the new Trump administration is attempting to do anything it possibly can to try to halt the transition to a clean future and a deep reduction in the burning of fossil fuels,” Gore said.

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : Does the US Have a Functioning Democracy?

Sarah Palin loses retrial of defamation case against New York Times

Sarah Palin on Tuesday lost in the retrial of her defamation case against the New York Times – a second defeat in the efforts by the former Republican vice-presidential candidate. A federal jury in New York deliberated for two hours then found the newspaper not liable for allegedly defaming Palin in a 2017 editorial about gun control. Palin appeared dejected as she left the courthouse in Manhattan.

The case garnered much attention not just because Palin and the Times are household names across the US but because it raised broader issues about free speech in the era of the return of Donald Trump, who relishes repeatedly calling the mainstream media versions of the “enemy of the people”.

It also highlighted the issue of malice as a legal standard that requires the plaintiff in such a case to prove that false information was published about them either knowingly or with reckless disregard for the truth.

The verdict came in the retrial of Palin’s case, after a federal appeals court threw out a 2022 verdict that came down in favor of the New York Times.

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US to impose tariffs of up to 3,521% on south-east Asia solar panels

US trade officials are preparing to impose tariffs of up to 3,521% on imports of solar panels from four south-east Asian countries, while the International Energy Agency has said lessons from the energy crisis following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had not been fully learned.

The US commerce department has announced the new tariffs, targeting companies in Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam, after an investigation begun a year ago when American manufacturers of solar panels accused Chinese companies of flooding the market with subsidised, cheap goods.

Products from Cambodia would face the highest tariffs, of 3,521%, because its companies did not cooperate with the US investigation, while products made in Malaysia by the Chinese manufacturer Jinko Solar face duties of just over 41%; rival Trina Solar’s products from Thailand will incur tariffs of 375%. A separate US government agency, the International Trade Commission, is due to make a final decision on the tariffs in June.

The case was brought last year by the Korean company Hanwha Qcells, Arizona-based First Solar and several smaller solar panel makers in the US. They accused Chinese companies with factories in Malaysia, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam of shipping panels priced below their cost of production, owing to unfair state subsidies.

However, critics, including the Solar Energy Industries Association trade group, have said tariffs would harm US solar producers because they would raise prices on the imported cells that are assembled into panels at American factories.

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Also of Interest

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

Trump Told Congress He Was Building Up US Forces in Mideast To Protect Israel

Jeffrey Sachs: Close the US Military Bases in Asia

As Appetite for War and Repression Rise in the New Western (Dis-)Order, Palantir Is Making a Killingquotes

Several Hundred Workers Who Keep Invasive Pests Out of the US Accept Trump’s Buyouts

Tariffs will raise prices. But the climate crisis is the real inflation risk

"America, América": Greg Grandin on Latin American History, from Colonization to CECOT to Pope

World Economic Forum INVESTIGATING Klaus Schwab After WHISTLEBLOWER Complaint

Shocking Poll: Americans Have Turned AGAINST Israel! w/ Norman Finkelstein

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A Little Night Music

Sam & Dave - I Thank You

Mavis Staples and Sam Moore - Take Me To the River

Sam Moore - I Can't Stand Up

Sam Moore & Sting - None of Us Are Free

Sam Moore - Shop Around

David Sanborn & Sam Moore - I've Got News for You

Sam Moore - Wrap It Up, I'll Take It

Sam Moore - John The Revelator

The Swanky Modes (Sam Moore & Jr. Walker) - Ordinary Man

Sam Moore - Get Out My Life Woman

Bruce Springsteen w. Sam Moore - Hold On I'm Comin' / Soul Man

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