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"Once admit that we have the right to inflict unnecessary suffering and you destroy the very basis of human society."

-- John Galsworthy

News and Opinion

Yemen War De-Escalates While India Bombs Pakistan

As if there’s not enough terrible shit going on in the world right now, India has just bombed Pakistan. Both India and Pakistan are nuclear-armed states.

Missile strikes from India reportedly struck nine locations in Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, which India claims were “known terror camps”. The strikes follow a terror attack in Indian Kashmir which India has blamed on Pakistan, while Islamabad has denied any involvement.

Pakistan has called the strikes “an act of war” and vowed to retaliate, claiming Indian planes were shot down during the attack. As of this writing there is some online footage which seems to corroborate claims of downed planes.

Nuclear states getting into tit-for-tat bombing exchanges with each other is a threat to everybody. This is a conflict that’s been going on a long time, but as nuclear standoffs go this one is still relatively young (Pakistan tested its first nukes in 1998), so there are still a lot of uncharted waters here, and a lot that could go wrong if things continue to escalate. Hopefully this cools down as soon as possible.

In some positive news, the Trump administration has announced that it will stop bombing Yemen, finally accepting the longstanding offer from Ansar Allah to cease attacking US ships if the US ends its bombing campaign.

This is being framed as a victory for the US by Trump and his supporters, with Trump claiming the Houthis “capitulated”, but if anything it’s actually a win for Yemen. Yemeni forces have made it clear that they will continue attacking Israel until it halts its genocidal atrocities in Gaza, which was the only reason the US started bombing Yemen in the first place, and those attacks were the only reason Yemen was attacking American ships. After losing two fighter jets and more than twenty MQ-9 Reaper drones to Houthi attacks, the US is now retreating with its tail between its legs without having gained anything.

Gaza will be entirely destroyed, Israeli minister says

An Israeli government minister has vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed” as a result of an Israeli military victory, and that its Palestinian population will “leave in great numbers to third countries”, raising fears of ethnic cleansing in the occupied territory. The declaration on Tuesday by the finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, came a day after Israel’s security cabinet approved a plan for Operation Gideon’s Chariots, which an Israeli official said would entail “the conquest of the Gaza Strip and the holding of the territories”.

The Israeli threats to seize control of the territory permanently has stirred global outrage. “We strongly oppose the expansion of Israel’s operations,” the UK’s Middle East minister, Hamish Falconer, said. “Any attempt to annex land in Gaza would be unacceptable.”

After the intensified offensive was announced, Hamas said it was no longer interested in truce talks with Israel and urged the international community to halt Israel’s “hunger war” against Gaza, a reference to the total blockade on aid deliveries to Gaza, which has been in place for more than two months. “There is no sense in engaging in talks or considering new ceasefire proposals as long as the hunger war and extermination war continue in the Gaza Strip,” Basem Naim, a senior Hamas official, told AFP.

Effie Defrin, Israel’s chief military spokesperson, said the planned offensive would include “moving most of the population of the Gaza Strip … to protect them”. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said the “population will be moved, for its own protection” in a video posted on social media, but gave no further details.

Smotrich, speaking to a conference on Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank, went further, making clear that many Palestinians would be driven out of the territory altogether, as part of a scorched earth offensive. “Gaza will be entirely destroyed, civilians will be sent to … the south to a humanitarian zone without Hamas or terrorism, and from there they will start to leave in great numbers to third countries,” the minister said.

Phil Giraldi [FMR CIA] : The Israel First Administration

How Trump’s walkaway diplomacy enabled Israel’s worst impulses

The Israeli plan to occupy and depopulate Gaza may not be identical to Donald Trump’s vision of a new riviera, but his inspiration and the US’s walkaway diplomacy have ushered Benjamin Netanyahu to the precipice of a dire new chapter in the Israel-Gaza war. The common perception in both Washington and Israel is that Trump has largely moved on, leaving an emboldened Netanyahu to his own devices, while his offhand proposals for turning Gaza into a “Riviera of the Middle East” have provided cover for rightwing Israeli politicians to enthusiastically support the forced resettlement of the Palestinian population.

“Part of the tragedy is that the only one who can actually save us, Trump, is not even seriously interested in that,” said Amos Harel, a prominent military and defense correspondent for the Haaretz newspaper. “Our only hope to get out of this crazy situation is that Trump would force Netanyahu to reach a hostage deal. But [Trump] seems disinterested. He was enthusiastic when the Riviera [idea] was proposed, but now he has moved on to Greenland, Canada and Mexico instead.”

Trump’s interventions – specifically envoy Steve Witkoff’s threats to Netanyahu during a tense Shabbat meeting – were instrumental in achieving a temporary ceasefire to the conflict in January. His influence on Netanyahu appeared to be greater than that of previous US presidents, including his rival Joe Biden. But since then the ceasefire has broken down, a two-month Israeli blockade on aid has sparked an even worse humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and, with few opportunities for a quick peace, the White House now appears uninterested and overstretched as Israel signals an offensive and occupation that critics have said will amount to a state policy of ethnic cleansing.

It is a trend that has repeated with this White House: broad designs for a grand deal followed by frustration when diplomacy fails to yield instant results. Recently, the White House announced that it was also ready to walk away from negotiations over the Russia-Ukraine conflict if a quick deal was not achieved. That has incentivized Russia to wait out the Trump administration, observers have said, and bank on a policy of US non-engagement in the longer term. Netanyahu similarly appears to have been unleashed by the White House’s growing disinterest.

Senior Tory MPs and peers break ranks to call for recognition of Palestine

More than a dozen senior Conservative MPs and peers have written to the prime minister calling for the UK to immediately recognise Palestine as a state, breaking ranks with their own party to do so. Seven MPs and six members of the House of Lords have signed the letter to Keir Starmer urging him to defy the Israeli government and give formal recognition to Palestine in advance of key UN talks next month.

The letter, which has been seen by the Guardian, was written in late March soon after Israel broke its peace agreement with Hamas, diminishing hopes of an eventual two-state solution. On Monday, the Israeli cabinet went one step further, approving a plan to “conquer” the Gaza Strip and occupy most if not all of it.

In the letter, which was organised by the former minister Kit Malthouse, the group writes: “For decades, the Palestinian people have endured occupation, displacement and systemic restrictions on their basic freedoms. Recognising Palestine would affirm our nation’s commitment to upholding the principles of justice, self-determination and equal rights. It would send a clear message that Britain stands against indefinite occupation and supports the Palestinian people’s legitimate aspirations.”

The letter continues: “Recognition should not be treated as a distant bargaining chip but as a necessary step to reinforce international law and diplomacy. Prime minister, we stand ready to offer our public support for this decision. This is an opportunity for Britain to show leadership, to be on the right side of history and to uphold the principles we claim to champion. More than 140 UN member states have already recognised Palestine – it is time for the United Kingdom to do the same.”

The prime minister is understood not to have replied.

Waltz, Neocons pushed for war with Iran

Israel SHOOK After Trump ENDS Houthi Bombings

UK sent Israel thousands of military items despite export ban

UK firms have exported thousands of military items including munitions to Israel despite the government suspending key arms export licences to the country in September, new analysis of trade data shows. The research also raises questions over whether the UK continued to sell F-35 parts directly to Israel in breach of an undertaking only to sell them to the US manufacturers Lockheed Martin as a way of ensuring the fighter jet’s global supply chain was not disrupted, something the government said was essential for national security and Nato.

The findings have led the former Labour shadow chancellor John McDonnell to call for a full investigation, adding it was a resigning matter if the foreign secretary, David Lammy, was shown to have misled parliament in breach of the ministerial code when he told MPs in September that much of what the UK sends to Israel was “defensive in nature”. McDonnell said “The government has shrouded its arms supplies to Israel in secrecy. They must finally come clean in response to this extremely concerning evidence and halt all British arms exports to Israel to ensure no British-made weapons are used in Netanyahu’s new and terrifying plans to annex the Gaza Strip and ethnically cleanse the land.”

The research – conducted jointly by the Palestinian Youth Movement, Progressive International and Workers for a Free Palestine – uses Israeli tax authority import data to try to uncover what the continuance of the 200 arms export licences has allowed Israel to import. It covers the first seven months of the Labour ban to March. In September, the Labour government suspended 29 arms export licences for offensive use in Gaza, leaving 200 arms licences in place. It also gave a carve-out for equipment used in the F-35 programme, saying national security required that the F-35 supply chain remained intact.

The suspensions were due to a clear risk that Israel might use the arms to commit serious breaches of international humanitarian law. Ministers have repeatedly assured MPs that the arms export licences remaining in place did not cover goods for use by the Israeli military in the conflict with Hamas. Lammy, for instance, told parliament in September the continuing licences covered items such as “goggles and helmets for use by one of the UK’s closest allies”.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Can the Kremlin Trust Trump?

Aaron Maté : NATO and Ukraine

Ukrainian drones target Moscow for second night as foreign leaders arrive

Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow on Tuesday as the first foreign leaders landed in the capital ahead of a major military parade marking the end of the second world war. Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, said Russian air defences shot down two drones en route to the capital on Tuesday evening. It was the second consecutive day of Ukrainian drone attacks, following two waves that temporarily shut several Moscow airports.

Ukraine’s drone campaign in Moscow appeared aimed at unnerving the Kremlin before the 9 May parade, which about three dozen foreign leaders – including China’s Xi Jinping – are expected to attend.

Vladimir Putin has proposed a three-day ceasefire to coincide with the 8-10 May second world war commemorations, which this year mark the 80th anniversary of the victory over Nazi Germany by the Soviet Union and the allied forces. But the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, described the offer as self-serving and meaningless unless extended to 30 days, in line with a US-backed proposal that Putin has so far dismissed. ...

Zelenskyy earlier warned that Ukraine “cannot bear responsibility for what happens” to foreign leaders attending the commemoration parade in Moscow. ... The Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, Maria Zakharova, previously accused Zelenskyy of directly threatening the 9 May events, while the former president Dmitry Medvedev said “10 May may not come for Kyiv” if there were any “Victory Day provocations”.

“A Dangerous Escalation”: India Bombs Pakistan in Intensification of “Forever War” over Kashmir

Pakistan vows to retaliate after wave of Indian missiles hits country

At least eight people, including a child, have been killed and 35 injured after India launched attacks on what it claimed were nine sites of “terrorist infrastructure” inside Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, in a sharp escalation of hostilities between the two nuclear-armed neighbours. Loud explosions were heard early on Wednesday, and power was knocked out in Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistani Kashmir, witnesses said.

In response, Pakistani military spokesperson Lt Gen Ahmed Sharif Chaudhry said at least two Indian air force jets had been shot down, calling India’s strikes a “heinous provocation”. No further detail was immediately available. Residents in the Kupwara district of Indian-administered Kashmir reported exchanges of fire between Indian and Pakistani troops on the line of control.

Pakistan’s prime minister, Shehbaz Sharif, said : “Pakistan has every right to respond forcefully to this act of war imposed by India, and a forceful response is being given.”

“The Pakistani nation and the Pakistan armed forces know very well how to deal with the enemy,” he said. “We will never let the enemy succeed in its nefarious objectives.” He was to hold a meeting of the national security committee on Wednesday morning.

The missiles struck at least two locations in Pakistan-administered Kashmir and five in the country’s eastern Punjab province, Pakistan’s defence minister, Khawaja Asif, told the Guardian. “We can confirm at least seven civilian areas have been targeted by Indian missiles fired from Indian airspace. We are in the process of retaliating. You will see Pakistan’s response before the morning,” Asif said.

Canada PM’s ‘elbows-up’ defense keeps Trump at bay as both parties play it cool at summit

There were two main tensions during Donald Trump’s meeting in the Oval Office with Canada’s new prime minister, Mark Carney, the first beneficiary of a growing electoral phenomenon: the anti-Trump bump. For the first time this term, Trump was meeting with a prime minister elected in opposition to him, and try as the two leaders might, the tensions simmered just beneath the surface. Both sought to play it cool.

Trump congratulated Carney on his victory. “I have a lot of respect for this man … He ran a really great campaign,” Trump said, joking that he may have contributed to the historic 30% swing in the Canadian elections. Carney in turn sought not to provoke Trump and called him a “transformational” president. Flattery is appreciated in the Oval Office these days.

But the first hangup was, as they so often are, a partner’s bad habit. When a reporter brought up Trump’s remarks that Canada could become the 51st state, the US president said coyly: “I still believe that. But it takes two to tango, right?” Carney replied as he only could: “It’s not for sale. It won’t be for sale. Ever.” To which, Trump responded: “I say: never say never.” ...

The second difference may be irreconcilable. Asked whether he would lift new tariffs on Canada, Trump responded bluntly: “No. Because that’s the way it is.” Carney sought to recast the relationship between the two countries in business terms, calling Canada the United States’ “biggest client”. But Trump signaled he would take a hard line on trade deals with foreign countries. “They have to sign deals with us,” Trump said.

There was no quick fix. Carney gave the negotiations an interesting spin: the beginning of the end of “redefining the relationship” of the two country’s long-term partnership. It hardly looks like the “wonderful marriage” that Trump suggested an annexation of Canada could produce. The question is whether it is headed for a messy breakup instead.

Columbia University to cut 180 jobs due to federal grant revocations

New York’s Columbia University is slated to cut 180 staffers whose work was supported by federal grants that have now been revoked by the Trump administration, the college’s acting president, Claire Shipman, announced on Tuesday. “We have had to make difficult choices and unfortunately, today, nearly 180 of our colleagues who have been working, in whole or in part, on impacted federal grants, will receive notices of non-renewal or termination,” Shipman said in a lengthy notice posted on Columbia’s website.

Staff cuts follow the cancellation of $400m in federal grants and contracts to Columbia University because of what the Trump administration alleges is the college’s failure to protect students from antisemitic harassment. The university later yielded to a series of changes demanded by the administration, including setting up a new disciplinary committee and initiating investigations into students critical of Israel and the war in Gaza.

Shipman said elsewhere in the notice that the university was continuing discussions with the federal government on funding to resume research activity.

Kristi Noem CAUGHT LYING On US Citizen Deportations

'They Just Made Sh*t Up': Declassified Spy Memo Undercuts Trump Pretext for Deportations to El Salvador

A memo released Monday by the Trump administration in response to a Freedom of Information Act request confirmed that U.S. intelligence agencies never agreed with President Donald Trump's claim in March that Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro controls the criminal gang Tren de Aragua—an assertion that was used to justify sending hundreds of migrants to a notorious Salvadoran prison.

The document said that "while Venezuela's permissive environment enables TDA to operate, the Maduro regime probably does not have a policy of cooperating with TDA and is not directing TDA movement to and operations in the United States."

Trump's claim about Maduro's connection to the group had been called into question by The New York Times in March, after Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act for only the fourth time in U.S. history. The law empowers the federal government to summarily expel citizens of a country that is at war with or invading the United States.

The Times reported at the time, based on interviews with officials, that the intelligence community's findings about Tren de Aragua were "starkly at odds" with Trump's claims. The anonymous officials said the gang was not taking orders from Maduro's government.

That reporting prompted the U.S. Justice Department to open a criminal investigation into the "selective leak of inaccurate" information to the Times, with the Trump administration criticizing the Times for its "misleading" report.

Attorney General Pam Bondi also said in an April memo that the department would roll back press freedom protections in leak investigations after The Washington Post reported on the memo that was declassified Monday. The Post reported on the document from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence in mid-April when it was still classified.

"The declassification proves that the material should have been public from the start—not used as an excuse to suppress sharing information with the press," Lauren Harper, the Daniel Ellsberg chair on government secrecy at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told the Times. The group filed the FOIA request for the memo, dated April 7, to be released.

Trump is trying to pay his way into a US baby boom. Experts say it won’t work

One of Donald Trump’s priorities for his second term is getting Americans to have more babies – and the White House has a new proposal to encourage them to do so: a $5,000 “baby bonus”. The plan to give cash payments to mothers after delivery shows the growing influence of the “pronatalist” movement in the US, which, citing falling US birthrates, calls for “traditional” family values and for women – particularly white women – to have more children.

But experts say $5,000 checks won’t lead to a baby boom. Between unaffordable healthcare, soaring housing costs, inaccessible childcare and a lack of federal parental leave mandates, Americans face a swath of expensive hurdles that disincentivize them from having large families – or families at all – and that will require a much larger government investment to overcome. ...

In the US, the modest decline in fertility can be attributed to a drop in teen pregnancy rates, as well as more families with two working parents and delaying having children. But these elements alone do not explain the trends we’re seeing, says Paula Lantz, a social demographer and professor of health policy at the University of Michigan. While the number of people who don’t have any children isn’t changing, demographers are seeing the percentage of families who have two kids drop, and the percentage of those who have just one increase. “There is something else going on,” she said.

That “something else”, Lantz and her colleagues say, is how challenging it is to raise a family in the US from a financial perspective. For many Americans, having a larger family means sacrificing quality of life. Between the costs of healthcare, including the thousands on average that Americans pay just to give birth in a hospital, childcare, housing and basics such as formula and diapers, having a baby in the US is a huge expense – one that experts say a single $5,000 payment would barely make a dent in. ...

But experts emphasize that other actions taken by the administration to dismantle programs that already support American families and children belie any honorable intentions. To date, the Trump administration has proposed eliminating Head Start, a program that supports families with very low incomes in accessing childcare, as well as cutting funds to Medicaid, which provides healthcare coverage for low-income Americans. (Congress also let the child tax credit – which expanded eligibility for pay outs of up to $3,600 for American families – expire in 2021, even though it’s been credited with lifting millions of children out of poverty.)

Democrats make long-shot effort to stop Trump cuts to Medicaid and Snap

House Democrats are making a long-shot attempt to stop Republicans from downsizing federal safety net programs including Medicaid to offset the costs of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown and tax cuts.

The Democratic House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries, on Tuesday announced that his lawmakers are circulating a petition which, should a majority of the chamber sign on to it, would force a vote on legislation preventing cuts to the Medicaid health insurance program and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap).

Known as a discharge petition, the effort faces long odds in the GOP-led chamber. Republican leaders have recently moved to stop such petitions, and while several Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns about some of the cuts being considered to pay for Trump’s agenda, they still generally support it.

“House Republicans are determined to jam a reckless and extreme budget down the throats of the American people that will enact the largest cut to Medicaid and the largest cut to Snap in American history,” Jeffries told reporters. “All we need are four Republicans to do the right thing. Stand up for Medicaid and stand up for Snap, so they can stand up for the American people and we can stop the devastating cuts that Republicans are proposing.”

Trump has called on Congress’s Republican majorities to send him what he has dubbed “one big, beautiful bill”, which is expected to extend tax cuts enacted during his first term, pay for the mass deportation of undocumented immigrants and potentially address other campaign promises, such as ending the taxation of tips, overtime and social security payments.

Americans’ health at risk as Trump cuts EPA staff to 1980s levels

Americans’ health is being put at risk after new cuts were announced by Donald Trump’s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce staffing to 1980s levels and gut its scientific research arm, experts and advocacy groups warned. The EPA’s administrator, Lee Zeldin, announced on Friday that the agency would slash its budget by $300m in the fiscal year 2026 as part of a broad overhaul that he said was designed to cut it to levels resembling those in the Reagan administration.

“With these organizational improvements, we can assure the American people that we are dedicated to EPA’s core mission of protecting human health and the environment,” Zeldin said, adding the agency would be better positioned to match Trump’s goals to “unleash American energy, revitalize domestic manufacturing, cut costs for families and pursue permitting reform”.

The 1,500 staff at the office of research and development (ORD), would need to apply for about 400 of the newly created positions in other offices, employees were told in an all-hands meeting at EPA on Friday. It was not clear what would happen to those employees that do not get new positions. Researchers have warned that dissolving the research unit would undermine scientific independence.

Laura Kate Bender, assistant vice-president of nationwide healthy air at the American Lung Association, said: “Gutting the … [ORD] is a loss for health. “EPA’s air pollution rules work because they’re based on science. This is the office that makes that possible. ORD compiles and analyzes research to understand questions like how much ozone is dangerous to breathe and how much toxic air pollutants increase your risk of cancer.

“Having a standalone office to do this work isn’t a bug, it’s a feature. Housing this work in an independent office is important because it has ensured that the science is impartial and objective. If ORD can’t do this analysis, there’s a grave risk that future EPA standards won’t be based on sound science or require meaningful cleanup.”

Aviation industry is ‘failing dramatically’ on climate

The aviation industry is “failing dramatically” in its efforts to tackle its role in the climate crisis, according to a newly formed group of aviation professionals. They say they are torn between their passion for flying and their concern for the planet and are calling for a fundamental transition of the industry, including controlling flight numbers.

The group, Call Aviation to Action, says the industry is overly optimistic about emissions-cutting technology and trapped in a business model that demands ever-growing flight numbers. The lack of significant climate action from the industry risks it being destroyed, the group says, as heavy regulation from outside will become necessary as the climate crisis intensifies.

Karel Bockstael, a co-founder of the group, and a vice-president of sustainability at KLM Royal Dutch Airlines until 2022, said: “We see the good that aviation can do but we also see that we must reinvent our industry to restore its positive contribution to the world.”

Due to their international nature, carbon dioxide emissions from aviation are excluded from the national plans that countries submit to the UN’s climate body. Instead, the UN’s aviation body, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), is tasked with tackling the planet-heating gases.

Bockstael said: “My view is ICAO have been failing dramatically on that responsibility, because the only thing it came up with after eight years of discussion is the Corsia scheme, which is nothing more than carbon offsets for the growth of aviation above a certain threshold, exporting your problem to another industry.” The scheme has been criticised as “unambitious and problematic” and has yet to require any airline to use a carbon credit. He said: “If we do not act, by 2050 aviation emissions will be about a quarter of all human-caused emissions.

Also of Interest

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

Israel Attacks Refugee Housing in Southern Lebanon, Many Wounded

Yemen vows 'unimaginable' response to Israel's bombing campaign of Hodeidah

India Fires Missiles Into Pakistan and Pakistan-Administered Kashmir

Jewish faculty decry Republican panel members ahead of antisemitism hearing

Yes, If You’re American There Will Be Serious Shortages Starting In About A Month

Germany - Merz Fails To Become Chancellor In Shocking First-Round Vote

Lobby Horse: Trump’s ‘trillion dollar' visit to Saudi Arabia

Top US, China officials to meet in Switzerland to discuss trade, Washington says

Senate GOP Greenlights 'DOGE Destruction of Social Security'

Not just Alcatraz: the notorious US prisons Trump is already reopening

‘Blood timber’: western firms fuel conflict and ‘slavery’ in Colombia

A Little Night Music

SugarPie DeSanto - Do The Whoopie

SugarPie DeSanto - Going Back To Where I Belong

Sugar Pie de Santo..w Etta James -.I don't feel sorry

Sugarpie Desanto - I want to know

Sugar Pie de Santo..w Etta James -.In The Basement (Part 1& 2 )

Sugarpie Desanto - Use What You Got

Sugar Pie DeSanto - Go Go Power

Etta James & Sugar Pie DeSanto - Do I Make Myself Clear

Sugar Pie De Santo - Slip in mules