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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Peetie Wheatstraw

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features "The Devil's Son-In-Law" and "The High Sheriff Of Hell," Peetie Wheatstraw. Enjoy!

^{Peetie Wheatstraw - Devil's Son-In-Law}

“From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step.”

-- Denis Diderot

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News and Opinion

Calling Palestinians “barbaric animals,” US Secretary of State hails Israeli assault on Gaza City

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to hail what Netanyahu called the “concluding moves” in the US-Israeli onslaught on Gaza: the conquest and destruction of Gaza City. The Israeli onslaught against Gaza City will place the Gaza Strip under total military occupation, creating the conditions for the internment of the population in concentration camps for their extermination or forcible displacement. “We’re going to take over and destroy the Hamas stronghold,” Netanyahu bellowed.

But the Israeli prime minister, who has a warrant for his arrest by the International Criminal Court, was outdone in genocidal bloodlust by the American secretary of state, who publicly repeated the notorious declaration by former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant that the Palestinians are “animals.” Rubio ranted, “This happened because on October 7th these animals, these barbaric animals, conducted this operation ... against innocent people.” He concluded, “It needs to end. And how does it end? It ends by eliminating the people who did it, by ending them as a threat.”

As vast as the crimes of US imperialism have been in funding, arming and enabling the Gaza genocide, Rubio’s statement marks a new turning point. American imperialism, dropping its veil of promoting “democracy” and “human rights,” has adopted language that would not be out of place in a speech given by Adolf Hitler. Rubio’s use of this genocidal language was the starting gun for the full-scale Israeli onslaught on Gaza City, as tanks and warplanes moved in, displacing countless thousands at gunpoint over the choked coastal road to Gaza’s south.

This week’s assault was preceded by an unrelenting bombing campaign that leveled much of the city in preparation for a ground offensive aimed at either killing or driving out the 1 million people who have been sheltering there. Announcing the onslaught on Gaza City, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz wrote on X, “Gaza is burning. The IDF strikes with an iron fist. … We will not relent and we will not go back—until the completion of the mission.” The “mission” is the destruction and displacement of an entire people, before the eyes of the world, in a genocide committed shamelessly and in plain sight.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Definitely Genocide

"Perish or Leave": Hundreds of Thousands Flee as Israeli Military Invades Gaza City

Israel launches ground offensive deep inside Gaza City

Israel unleashed its long-threatened ground offensive in Gaza City on Tuesday, sending tanks and remote-controlled armoured cars packed with explosives into its streets, in defiance of international criticism and the findings of a UN commission that it was committing genocide in the Palestinian territory. “Gaza is burning. The IDF is striking terror infrastructure with an iron fist,” Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, wrote on X as the attack was launched in the early hours of the morning, adding: “We will not relent until the mission is completed.”

Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said the goals of the offensive were “defeating the enemy and evacuating the population”, omitting any mention of the freeing of the remaining Israeli hostages, which was been a constantly stated war aim until now. Hostage families and their supporters protested near Netanyahu’s Jerusalem residence on Tuesday, accusing him of abandoning their loved ones.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said it was clear that Israel had no interest in a peaceful outcome. “Israel is determined to go up to the end and [is] not open to a serious negotiation for a ceasefire, with dramatic consequences from Israel’s point of view,” Guterres said.

Officials from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said two divisions were involved in the ground advance towards the centre of Gaza City, with one division surrounding it. They estimated that the invading force would be met by up to 3,000 Hamas and allied fighters, and said the Israeli forces would advance cautiously. “It’s a gradual thing. It is not a black or white thing. But yesterday was a big step forward … in operations on the ground,” one IDF official said. “This phase is defined by a coordinated and gradual manoeuvre combining precise intelligence, air and ground forces targeting Hamas’s central stronghold and aimed at dismantling its grip in this area.”

Some of the principal weapons being used in the offensive are old model armoured personnel carriers, converted so that they are controlled remotely, and loaded with explosives. According to Israeli reports, they are being driven at suspected Hamas positions and detonated.

IDF ‘COWARDICE’: Bombing Civilians to Dodge Gaza's Fighters w/ Jon Elmer

Netanyahu’s ‘super-Sparta’ vision braces Israel for isolated economic future

Hours before unleashing a ground offensive against Gaza City on Tuesday, Benjamin Netanyahu braced his country for a future of mounting economic isolation, urging it to become a “super Sparta” of the Middle East. The future the prime minister laid out for Israel, of a more militarised society, a partial autarky – or economically self-sufficient country – with limited trade options and relying increasingly on homemade production, has stirred up a backlash among Israelis who are ever more uneasy at the prospect of following him down the path to a pariah state.

On Tuesday, Israel took a few more steps along that path. As its tanks lumbered through the streets towards the centre of Gaza City, a UN commission of inquiry published a detailed and damning report which concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. On the same day, the European Commission prepared to discuss the potential suspension of part of the Israel-EU trade agreement, while the list of countries pledging to recognise Palestine continued to grow – as did the number of states threatening to boycott the Eurovision song contest if Israel took part.

On the news, and on social media sites, there are daily stories of Israelis getting into scuffles or being assailed by hostile local people while on holiday abroad. For many Israelis, who have grown up thinking of themselves as an outpost of “the west” in the Middle East, all this is deeply troubling.

Stocks on the Tel Aviv stock market took an immediate dip after Netanyahu’s super-Sparta speech, and the shekel fell against the dollar. Those on the trading floors who knew their ancient history remembered that the Spartans fought hard – but lost disastrously. “How romantic to fantasise about the heroic and ascetic Spartans, a mere few hundred of whom successfully fought a powerful Persian army. The problem is that Sparta was annihilated,” the veteran columnist Ben Caspit wrote in the centre-right Maariv newspaper. “It lost and disappeared.”

"Single Shots to the Head": U.S. Veteran, Volunteer Surgeon Sees "Extermination of a People" in Gaza

16 Nations Warn Israel Against Attacking Gaza-Bound Global Sumud Flotilla

The foreign ministers of 16 nations on Tuesday implored Israel to not attack the Global Sumud Flotilla, a fleet of around 40 boats attempting to deliver desperately needed humanitarian aid to the embattled Gaza Strip, where Palestinians are suffering 22 months of US-backed genocidal war and forced famine.

“The Global Sumud Flotilla has informed about its objective of delivering humanitarian aid to the Gaza Strip and raising awareness about the urgent humanitarian needs of the Palestinian people and the need to stop the war in Gaza,” the foreign ministers of Bangladesh, Brazil, Colombia, Indonesia, Ireland, Libya, Malaysia, Maldives, Mexico, Pakistan, Qatar, Oman, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, and Türkiye said in a joint statement.

Many of those nations are supporting South Africa’s genocide case against Israel currently before the International Court of Justice.

“We therefore call on everyone to refrain from any unlawful or violent act against the flotilla” and “to respect international law and international humanitarian law,” the ministers continued. “We recall that any violation of international law and human rights of the participants in the flotilla, including attacks against the vessels in international waters or illegal detention, will lead to accountability.”

Hundreds of activists from dozens of nations participating in the Global Sumud Flotilla—“sumud” means perseverance in Arabic—have set sail toward Gaza from ports around the world since August. More than two dozen vessels arrived in Sicily on Tuesday after departing the Tunisian port of Bizerte following an 11-day delay caused in part by multiple drone attacks on flotilla boats.

Israel—which has attacked past flotillas, including in a 2010 raid that killed nine volunteers aboard the MV Mavi Marmara, among them Turkish-American teenager Furkan Doğan—has not claimed responsibility for the drone attacks.

“Pulling off the largest grassroots maritime mission to break Israel’s siege has posed many challenges, but through it all we remained determined, steadfast, and united,” Global Sumud Flotilla said Tuesday on Instagram.

'ChatGPT Response': UN SCOLDS Israel After Gaza Genocide Declaration

Nearly 100 (and Counting) Dead as Israel Launches Large-Scale Ground Invasion of Gaza City

The Jewish-led rights group IfNotNow was among those condemning Israel’s ground invasion of Gaza City on Tuesday, warning that the Israel Defense Forces have left more than 1 million people in the northern city and its surrounding towns with an “impossible choice”: “flee once more without anywhere safe to go or face indiscriminate bombs and bullets from Israeli forces.”

At least 91 people in Gaza City were killed by the latter on Tuesday as two divisions of the IDF launch ground attacks across the city, with a third expected to join them in the coming days.

Israeli forces have ordered people in the city to leave for the so-called “humanitarian zone” of al-Mawasi in the south, but the area has also been bombarded repeatedly—including an attack two weeks ago, when eight children as young as 3 years old were killed while lining up for water, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF).

The Israeli government last month approved the takeover of Gaza City, with the aim of taking control of all of Gaza and ethnically cleansing the entire exclave, and since then about 150,000 people have been forced to flee south while the IDF has stepped up aerial and artillery attacks, destroying whole neighborhoods.

At Al Jazeera on Tuesday, Tareq Abu Azzoum described “relentless bombardment from military operations that are leaving the landscape completely uninhabitable” in Gaza City.

“The Israeli military has deployed different military tactics to force people to leave Gaza City to the south—most notably excessive firepower, seen in the deliberate destruction of high-rise buildings,” said Abu Azzoum.

Israeli human rights groups including the Association for Civil Rights in Israel and Physicians for Human Rights called on officials to lift the mass evacuation order and said it constitutes ethnic cleansing and forced displacement.

Tess Ingram, a spokesperson for UNICEF, said the mass displacement of families is a “deadly threat for the most vulnerable.”

“It is inhumane to expect nearly half a million children battered and traumatized by over 700 days of unrelenting conflict to flee one hellscape to end up in another,” she said, adding that the IDF’s escalation in Gaza City forced nutrition centers in the city to shut down this week, “cutting off children from a third of the remaining treatment sites that can save their lives.”

Abu Azzoum described “tragically consistent” scenes of Palestinians—almost 70,000 in the past few days—loading whatever belongings they have left into vehicles and donkey carts to flee their homes:

Many people said in the initial days of the ground operation that they would not leave Gaza City. But, right now, Israel is burning the ground. They’re destroying every kind of civilian infrastructure and have cut off aid deliveries to the city, all for one clear purpose—to relocate them into the southern part of Gaza.

Some people are unable to afford the cost of transportation. We see exhausted faces, mothers carrying their babies, elderly people on foot.

What is so devastating to see is the vulnerability of children who have lost their parents and found themselves on the move again. They’re struggling to find any patch of land where they can stay in the absence of their parents and are completely reliant on strangers to survive.

At IfNotNow, executive director Morriah Kaplan called the ground assault on Gaza City “a chillul hashem, a desecration of God’s name.”

“With just days until Rosh Hashanah, we watch in horror as the Israeli military bombs and invades Gaza City, putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in mortal danger,” said Kaplan, adding that the invasion “spells almost certain death for the remaining hostages” who were kidnapped by Hamas from Israel on October 7, 2023.

“The Israeli government’s willingness to sacrifice their own citizens to continue its campaign of destruction is devastatingly clear,” said Kaplan. “It is critical that we say loudly and unequivocally: This invasion won’t make a single Jew anywhere in the world safer.”

She called on international funders of the Israeli military—including the largest, the United States—to take immediate action to stop Israel’s assault on Gaza, which a United Nations commission said Tuesday is a genocide.

“The only way to halt this devastation,” said Kaplan, “is to end the flow of weapons that Israel relies on to fuel its genocide.”

“Trump Is LYING About Not Knowing About Qatar Strike!” – Say Israeli Officials

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Is Ukraine Collapsing?

Judge dismisses two top charges against Luigi Mangione in UnitedHealthcare CEO shooting

Luigi Mangione scored a major legal victory on Tuesday as a judge dismissed the two top state charges against him: first-degree murder and second-degree murder, both of which prosecutors had argued were terrorism crimes. Mangione still faces an additional second-degree murder charge, as well as a federal murder charge, in the killing of United HealthCare executive Brian Thompson last December.

The judge overseeing Mangione’s state criminal case, Gregory Carro, said “the evidence put forth was legally insufficient” for the two terrorism-related charges, in a written decision that was posted during a 15-minute proceeding in Manhattan court on Tuesday. “Counts one and two, charging [the] defendant with murder in the first degree (in furtherance of an act of terrorism) and murder in the second degree as a crime of terrorism, are dismissed as legally insufficient,” Carro wrote. “The people presented legally sufficient evidence of all other counts, including murder in the second degree (intentional).”

Mangione also faces federal charges for allegedly gunning down Thompson outside a hotel, and weapons possession counts. ...

In response to Carro’s ruling, a spokesperson for the Manhattan district attorney’s office commented: “We respect the Court’s decision and will proceed on the remaining nine counts, including Murder in the Second Degree.”

University of California students and faculty sue the Trump administration

The Trump administration is using civil rights laws to wage a campaign against the University of California in an attempt to curtail academic freedom and undermine free speech, according to a lawsuit filed on Tuesday by faculty, staff, student organizations and every labor union representing UC workers.

The lawsuit comes weeks after the Trump administration fined the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) $1.2bn and froze research funding after accusing the school of allowing antisemitism on campus and other civil rights violations. It was the first public university to be targeted by a widespread funding freeze. The administration has frozen or paused federal funding over similar allegations against elite private colleges, including Harvard, Brown and Columbia.

According to the lawsuit, the Trump administration has made several demands in its proposed settlement offer to UCLA, including giving government access to faculty, student and staff data; releasing admissions and hiring data; ending diversity scholarships; banning overnight demonstrations on university property and cooperating with immigration enforcement.

The coalition is led by the American Association of University Professors union, or AAUP, and represented by Democracy Forward, a legal group that has brought other lawsuits against the Trump administration over frozen federal funds.

“The blunt cudgel the Trump administration has repeatedly employed in this attack on the independence of institutions of higher education has been the abrupt, unilateral, and unlawful termination of federal research funding on which those institutions and the public interest rely,” the lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco said.

GOP lawmaker pulls measure to allow Marco Rubio to revoke US passports

The chair of the House foreign affairs committee moved to cut a contentious provision from legislation that would have granted the secretary of state sweeping powers to revoke US citizens’ passports over allegations of supporting terrorism. Representative Brian Mast, a Florida Republican, filed an amendment to eliminate the measure from his department of state policy provisions act, a bill meant to reform the state department in the Trump administration’s image, after widespread criticism from civil liberties advocates, according to the Intercept.

The original language would have given Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, the power to deny or revoke passports for individuals the department determines have provided “material support” to terrorist organizations. Given similar language employed by the Trump administration in other contexts, it is believed to have been intended to target pro-Palestinian activists specifically.

Since Rubio became secretary of state, he has overseen efforts to deport pro-Palestinian international students and deploy an AI-powered “Catch and Revoke” system to target foreign nationals government authorities allege support Hamas. The US also recently announced it will look for “anti-American” views when assessing visa applications.

But the new measure would have significantly escalated these efforts by targeting US citizens. Mast had initially defended the broader legislation, saying it “ensures every dollar and every diplomat puts America First and is accountable to the president’s foreign policy” when the House foreign affairs committee introduced the package last week.

However, a committee spokesperson told the Intercept the committee would not allow the passport revocation amendment to “overshadow the bipartisan effort to restore command and control of the State Department to the Secretary”. ... The amendment to remove the passport provision still requires approval at a committee hearing scheduled for Wednesday. Even without it, the broader state department reform package faces uncertain prospects in the Senate.

JD Vance backs mass ‘doxing’ campaign to find and harass Charlie Kirk critics

A mass “doxing” effort to track down, intimidate and harass people perceived not to have sufficiently mourned the killing of the rightwing activist Charlie Kirk was endorsed on Monday by JD Vance.

The US vice-president guest-hosted Kirk’s podcast on Monday and said that people who “see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder” should “call them out”. He added: “Hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility, and there is no civility in the celebration of political assassination.”

In the past few days, numerous workers across various different fields ranging from colleges to an airplane pilot have been fired for their comments on Kirk’s death.

An anonymous website that began collecting reports of anti-Kirk “political extremism” said it had received more than 63,000 submissions. The website was originally named “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” but rebranded Monday to the “Charlie Kirk Data Foundation”. The group has previously said it had been targeted by hackers and “leftist attacks”. Its website was down on Tuesday.

Trump allies have sought to link Kirk’s killing – without evidence – to what they say is a coordinated leftwing “terror” movement that supports political violence, funded by progressive and liberal charities. This has led to fears of a draconian crackdown on free speech. In his podcast, Vance said the administration would “work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country”.

Alleged Charlie Kirk Shooter's Classmate Speaks Out

Utah prosecutors’ evidence indicates suspected motives of Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter

Evidence put forth by Utah prosecutors Tuesday offered the clearest indication yet of what they suspect motivated Tyler Robinson to kill far-right provocateur Charlie Kirk. In seized texts reproduced by prosecutors as they charged the 22-year-old with capital murder and other crimes after his arrest, Robinson is quoted talking to his partner – whom they described as “transitioning genders” – about having enough of Kirk’s “hatred”.

“Some hate can’t be negotiated out,” Robinson said to his partner of Kirk, who was killed during an event at Utah Valley University (UVU) within moments of asserting that “too many” people who are trans had committed mass shootings in the US. In reality, according to the nonpartisan Gun Violence Archive, only about 0.1% of such shootings over the previous decade had allegedly been carried out by people who are trans.

Prosecutors allege that, after Robinson’s arrest in Kirk’s killing, his mother told investigators that her son had spent the previous year or so becoming “more political and had started to lean more to the left – becoming more pro-gay and trans rights oriented”. Combined with his relationship with his roommate, “this resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views”, prosecutors added.

According to prosecutors, “in one conversation before the shooting, Robinson mentioned that Charlie Kirk would be holding an event at UVU, which Robinson said was a ‘stupid venue’ for the event”, his mother told investigators. Prosecutors recounted that the mother told investigators her son – during that conversation – also “accused Kirk of spreading hate”.

Tucker SCATHING REBUKE Of Bibi Over Charlie Kirk

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Young climate activists in court aim to stop Trump’s pro-fossil fuel executive orders

Youth climate activists are taking the Trump administration to court this week over its anti-environment agenda. In a two-day hearing in Missoula, Montana, starting Tuesday, the young activists, who are between seven and 25, will argue that a federal judge should block three of Donald Trump’s pro-fossil fuel executive orders. The hearing, which follows the filing of litigation in May, will mark the first time a federal court hears live testimony in a youth-led constitutional climate case.

The lawsuit specifically targets executive orders declaring a “national energy emergency” and aiming to “unleash American energy”, and another April order aimed at “reinvigorating” the domestic production of coal – the most polluting and costliest fossil fuel. Those actions, they will say, constitute unlawful executive overreach and violate the state-created danger doctrine, a legal principle meant to prevent government actors from inflicting injury upon their citizens.

“At a time when we need to reduce fossil fuel reliance, the federal government is actively setting us back with these executive orders designed to unleash fossil fuels,” Georgi Fischer, a plaintiff in the case, told the Guardian. “It’s incredibly important for us to fight back against these unconstitutional attacks on our rights to life and liberty.” ...

The litigation was filed by non-profit law firm Our Children’s Trust, which in 2023 notched a landmark win in the lawsuit Held v Montana, when a judge ruled that Montana’s pro-fossil fuel policies violated a group of youth plaintiffs’ rights under the state’s constitution. Some plaintiffs in the new federal litigation, including Fischer, were also challengers in the Montana case. ...

Last month, the federal government moved to dismiss the youth plaintiffs’ case. In an unusual move, Montana and a coalition of 18 other states plus Guam also called for the lawsuit’s dismissal. The lawsuit could face an uphill battle in court. A previous federal climate lawsuit filed by Our Children’s Trust ended in a denial from the supreme court this year after being filed a decade earlier.

Donkey recovering after latest arrow attack on wild burros in California

A wild burro dubbed Cupid is recovering from surgery after being shot with an arrow in what officials say is the latest in a series of a half-dozen attacks since June on donkeys that roam semirural areas of inland southern California. The two-year-old female burro was spotted last Wednesday with a blue arrow protruding from her right shoulder as she wandered with a herd in the foothills of Moreno Valley, about 65 miles (104km) east of Los Angeles.

Animal services and the Riverside county sheriff’s department responded and helped bring the wounded animal in for an emergency procedure to remove the arrowhead. The projectile had punctured the burro’s right lung, said Chad Cheatham, vice-president of DonkeyLand, a non-profit rescue organization.

“Right now she’s stable and is standing, which is a huge improvement,” Cheatham said Monday. When Cupid is fully recovered, she will join a group of rescued burros who meander DonkeyLand’s 2,000-acre (800-hectare) sanctuary and wildlife preserve.

The rescue group is offering a $24,000 reward, raised from donations, for information leading to the arrest and conviction of anyone involved in at least six bow attacks on burros over the past several months.

The Riverside county department of animal services said on Tuesday that the investigation is ongoing, and asked for the public’s help in identifying a suspect or suspects. Wild burros are protected under federal law. They are an iconic symbol of the US south-west, dating to their days as pack animals for people flocking to California during the Gold Rush.

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Also of Interest

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

Israeli Sniper Details Killing Palestinians, Including Children, Waiting for Aid

Israel wants us to evacuate al-Shifa Hospital again to kill hope

Hedges Report: Israel, Kirk, & the Coming Repression

Jews and Israel are not the same. Equating them is a propaganda technique

‘Running from death to death’: Gaza City residents face impossible choice

It Finally Happens: Spain Rebels Against Israel and Its Genocide in Gaza

On Free Speech Hypocrisy - by JD Vance

‘I’ve Never Seen Anything Like It’: Trump Policies Leave US Farmers in Dire Straits

This country’s gonna fall on its face. There’s nobody coming to save us’: Boston punks Dropkick Murphys take on Maga

Why one of the world’s most brilliant AI scientists left the US for China

Zelensky Sacks Generals As Front Lines Collapse Huge Russian Strike; Starmer Plots Mount, Modi Trump

U.S. & China Agree To Deal On TikTok Deal!

Phil Giraldi : AIPAC’s Hatred

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A Little Night Music

Peetie Wheatstraw - Crazy With The Blues

Peetie Wheatstraw - Police Station Blues

Peetie Wheatstraw - Coon Can Shorty

Peetie Wheatstraw - The Last Dime

Peetie Wheatstraw - Tennessee Peaches Blues

Peetie Wheatstraw - When I Get My Bonus

Peetie Wheatstraw - Long Lonesome Drive

Peetie Wheatstraw - Gangster's Blues

Peetie Wheatstraw - Stomp

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