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“People who call themselves supporters of Israel are actually supporters of its moral degeneration and ultimate destruction.”

-- Noam Chomsky

News and Opinion

Christian Zionism

It’s nuts how a huge segment of the Christian religion has been revised and restructured to now completely revolve around giving military support to a nation that’s younger than Dolly Parton.

Christian Zionism didn’t become a mainstream political force until the 1970s. For two millennia Christianity trotted along without any modern state called “Israel” to pay attention to, and even after that state’s whole-cloth creation in 1948 most Christians went decades without taking much notice. It wasn’t until freaks like Jerry Falwell and Billy Graham began herding Christians into the belief that God commands them to vote for politicians who’ll send Apache helicopters to Tel Aviv that this psychotic worldview achieved meaningful purchase in public consciousness.

And at that point it actually transformed into an entirely different religion. For those branches of Christianity, the central figure was no longer Jesus, the Bible or the Church, but this brand new ethnostate run by western immigrants which cannot exist without nonstop military violence. They torched two thousand years of theology and tradition and burnt the whole thing to the ground, and in its place they built up a late-20th century religion which revolves around sending US war machinery to west Asia.

I’m not saying Christianity was a wonderful religion that did nothing wrong prior to the advent of Christian Zionism, but it was undeniably a completely different faith from one which places military support for the modern state of Israel as its central and foremost value. And it’s just plain bizarre how rarely people notice this and talk about it.

Scott Ritter : Could US Officials Face War Crime Charges?

Alastair Crooke: Iran Was Ready for This War… And It Could Change the Middle East Forever

European countries reject Trump’s call for help to reopen strait of Hormuz

European countries have ruled out sending warships to the strait of Hormuz, despite threats from Donald Trump that Nato faces “a very bad future” if members fail to help reopen the vital waterway.

Germany ruled out participation in any military activity, including efforts to reopen the strait. “There was never a joint decision on whether to intervene. That is why the question of how Germany might contribute militarily does not arise. We will not do so,” the chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said. He added: “This Iranian regime must come to an end,” but that “based on all the experience we have gained in previous years and decades, bombing it into submission is, in all likelihood, not the right approach.”

The country’s defence minister, Boris Pistorius, said: “This is not our war, we have not started it. What does Donald Trump expect from a handful of European frigates in the strait of Hormuz that the mighty US navy cannot manage alone? This is the question I find myself asking.”

Keir Starmer said the UK would not be “drawn into the wider war” but was working on “a viable plan”. “Ultimately, we have to reopen the strait of Hormuz to ensure stability in the [oil] market. That is not a simple task,” said the prime minister. He did not rule out any form of action but said it would have to be agreed by as “many partners as possible”. European politicians have emphasised diplomatic efforts to reopen the strait.

The position taken by the three major European countries was striking because they had avoided criticising Trump over his decision, alongside Israel, to attack Iran 16 days ago. Australia, France and Japan have said they had no plans to send warships.

Yanis Varoufakis: 'NOTHING CAN SAVE' Trump From Iran War Disaster

Maybe?

Trump draws backlash for comment on Iran war: ‘Maybe we shouldn’t even be there’

Donald Trump drew a backlash on Sunday for suggesting US efforts to protect the strait of Hormuz were unnecessary – and that “maybe we shouldn’t even be there at all” because his country has plenty of oil of its own. The president made the contradictory comment to reporters on Air Force One after pleading with European and Nato allies to enter the war against Iran to help the US secure the strait amid the largest oil supply disruption in history.

“Really, I’m demanding that these countries come in and protect their own territory – because it is their territory,” he said. “They should come and they should help us protect it. You could make the case that maybe we shouldn’t even be there at all, because we don’t need it. We have a lot of oil. We’re the number one producer anywhere in the world times two.”

Trump received criticism in the early stages of the US and Israel’s three-week war in Iran for failing to convey clear reasons for launching military strikes. He has made a number of antithetical statements since, including telling the UK, which he called a “once great ally”, that its help was not needed in Operation Epic Fury. His comment on Sunday was similarly questioned in an immediate backlash on social media from critics who accused him of starting an unnecessary war – then demanding others step in to help him end it.

Relative of US airman killed in Middle East crash calls war on Iran ‘uncalled for’

A relative of an Ohio airman who was killed recently in a military airplane crash in Iraq amid the US and Israel’s war in nearby Iran has said the conflict is “uncalled for”.

“This could have been prevented,” Stephan Douglas said of the death of his cousin Tech Sgt Tyler Simmons, 28, in an interview with the Ohio news outlet WCMH. “We didn’t need to be in this war. This is uncalled for – and this is what we get.”

Simmons’s family urged US citizens to register to vote as a means of advocating for political change. “Families are suffering right now,” Simmons’s grandmother, Bernice Smith, told WCMH. Without explicitly mentioning Donald Trump’s presidential administration, she added: “Just to create a war because you want to create a war is not right.” ...

At a news conference on Friday, the US defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, said: “War is hell – war is chaos. And as we saw … with the tragic crash of our KC-135 tanker, bad things can happen.” Hegseth said those killed in Thursday’s crash were “American heroes, all of them”.

White House PANICS After SHOCK Dropsite Report

Gulf states may be covertly encouraging attacks by US, Iran foreign minister says

Some Gulf states hosting US forces may be covertly encouraging the slaughter of Iranians, Iran’s foreign minister has claimed in a thinly-veiled attack on Saudi Arabia. Abbas Araghchi demanded clarification on reports that Mohammed bin Salman was in regular private conversations with Donald Trump, urging the US president “to continue hitting the Iranians hard”.

Araghchi was responding to the second US media report in a week claiming the Saudi crown prince’s public opposition to the US attacks on Iran did not reflect his private position. “Stances should be promptly clarified,” he said in a post on X after stating that hundreds of civilians had been killed in US-Israeli attacks, including more than 200 children.

Ali Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s supreme national security council, issued an appeal directed at Muslim populations in the Gulf states urging them to ask themselves which side they were on in the war and why no Islamic country had stood by the Iranian people. Defending Iran’s attacks on Gulf states, he said: “Are we being asked to stand idly by while US bases in your countries are being used to attack us? The confrontation today is between America and Israel on the one hand, and the Muslim Iran and the forces of resistance on the other.”

The warnings came as Iranian attacks escalated on Monday, with drone strikes in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates, in one of its most comprehensive sets of assaults since the war started. Iran also vowed to keep the strait of Hormuz closed indefinitely to “enemies and those supporting their aggression”, amid signs that the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (ICRG) were tightening their grip inside the country after the appointment of an uncompromising hardliner, Mohsen Rezaee, as military adviser to the supreme leader, Mojtaba Khamenei.

Rezaee, a former commander of the IRGC for 16 years, played a key role during the bloody Iran-Iraq war. He said at the weekend there should be no ceasefire until the US agreed to vacate its military bases in the Middle East. His appointment consolidates the grip that the IRGC achieved with the recent appointment of Khamenei. The Iranian death toll headed towards 1,500 after neighbourhoods across Tehran suffered one of the most intense bombardments since the start of the war, with electricity grid infrastructure being hit and power being temporarily lost in eastern parts of the capital.

Aaron Maté : Is Kushner Netanyahu’s Agent?

Israel Invades Lebanon Again: The Greater Israel Project That Keeps Failing

Israel’s plan to expand Lebanon ground campaign fuels fears of prolonged occupation

Israel’s announcement on Monday of a ground campaign in new areas of southern Lebanon is fuelling fears of a prolonged occupation among hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese. Concerns intensified after Israel’s defence minister, Israel Katz, drawing comparisons with Gaza, warned displaced Lebanese forced from their homes would not be allowed to return until the safety of Israelis near the border was guaranteed, remarks that appeared to suggest the presence of Israeli troops could become prolonged.

“Hundreds of thousands of Shi’ite residents of southern Lebanon who have evacuated or are evacuating their homes in southern Lebanon and Beirut will not return to areas south of the Litani line until the safety of northern residents is ensured,” Katz said in a statement. ‘‘Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and I have instructed the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] to destroy the terror infrastructure in the contact villages near the border in Lebanon,” he added, “just as was done against Hamas in Rafah, Beit Hanoun and the terror tunnels in Gaza”....

Israel has displaced about 1 million people from wide swathes of the country. Reports indicate more than 800 people have been killed, with some reports citing 826 to more than 850 deaths since the escalation began. Ramzi Kaiss, a Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch, said Katz’s statement raised the risk of forced displacement, a war crime. “Preventing civilians from returning to their homes in an area that is nearly 10% of Lebanon’s territory, until some vague ‘safety’ standard is secured, would be unlawful and further raises the risk of forced displacement, which would be a war crime,” said Kaiss. ...

Far-right figures within Israel’s governing coalition have increasingly called for harsher military action against Hezbollah, with some advocating the creation of a security buffer inside southern Lebanon. The finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, warned earlier this month that Beirut’s southern suburbs could be reduced to something resembling Khan Younis in Gaza, a reference to the widespread destruction caused during Israel’s war with Hamas.

“The ground operation in southern Lebanon is an expression of Israel’s new security doctrine in the aftermath of October 7,” said Prof Yagil Levy, the head of the Open University Institute for the Study of Civil-Military Relations in Israel. ... “Israel regards this new security doctrine as feasible because the world, above all the United States, effectively accepts the principle of Israel’s right to absolute security, and thus implicitly accepts the principle that an Arab civilian population constitutes a form of risk,” he added. “This doctrine is also taking shape in the West Bank, as reflected in the more flexible rules of engagement and the authority given to settler militias to remove Palestinian civilian communities.”

IRAN WAR, point of no return. Larijani, Hormuz Siege, China Blockade

Cuba’s electrical grid collapses amid US oil blockade

Cuba’s national electric grid has collapsed, the country’s grid operator has said, leaving approximately 10 million people without power amid a US-imposed oil blockade that has crippled the island’s already obsolete generation system.

The grid operator, UNE, said on social media on Monday that it was investigating the causes of the blackout, the latest in a series of widespread outages that last for hours or days and that last weekend sparked a rare violent protest in the communist-run country.

The US has ratcheted up pressure this year on its longtime foe Cuba since capturing the Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro – Cuba’s most important foreign benefactor – in January. The US president, Donald Trump, cut off Venezuelan oil shipments to Cuba and threatened to put tariffs on any country that sold oil to Cuba, strangling the Caribbean island’s already antiquated grid.

Cuba said on Friday that it was in talks with the US with the hope of defusing the crisis. Trump has said in recent weeks that Cuba is on the verge of collapse and is eager to make a deal with the US. Cuba has received only two small vessels carrying oil imports this year, according to LSEG ship-tracking data seen by Reuters on Monday. ...

Trump said on Monday that he thought he would have the “honour of taking Cuba”, in his latest threat to the communist-run island after military operations in Venezuela and Iran. “I do believe I’ll be ... having the honour of taking Cuba,” Trump told reporters at the White House. “Whether I free it, take it – think I could do anything I want with it, you want to know the truth. They’re a very weakened nation right now.”

Glenn Diesen: US Hegemonic World Order Is OVER

Afghan asylum seeker dies in ICE custody, US advocacy group says

An Afghan immigrant who previously worked with the United States military in Afghanistan and later sought asylum in the US died over the weekend in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) custody less than 24 hours after being detained in Texas, an advocacy group said on Sunday.

Mohommad Nazeer Paktyawal, who was living in a Dallas suburb with his wife and six children while his asylum case remained pending, was arrested by federal agents outside his apartment on Friday morning while taking his children to school, said a statement from Shawn VanDiver, president of the military veteran-led group AfghanEvac. Paktyawal, 41, died of unknown causes on Saturday, VanDiver said. ...

In a statement on Sunday, ICE said Paktyawal was eating breakfast when medical staff noted that his tongue had become swollen, prompting a medical response. He was declared dead only after multiple attempts at resuscitation, the agency said. According to VanDiver, Paktyawal’s family was told that he was taken to a hospital in Dallas on the night of his arrest, was still alive the following morning – but then died shortly after. AfghanEvac called for an immediate investigation.

“It is highly unusual for an otherwise healthy 41-year-old man to die less than a day after being taken into government custody,” VanDiver said.

Leqaa Kordia, a pro-Palestinian activist, released after a year in ICE custody

A New Jersey woman who had been arrested at a pro-Palestine protest and booked into a US immigration detention center in Texas last March has been released on bond, after a year in custody. Leqaa Kordia, 33, originally from the West Bank, was arrested in April 2024 at a protest against Israel’s war on Gaza outside of Columbia University. Nearly a year later, she was taken into custody after reporting for a check-in at a Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) office in New Jersey.

Kordia was released Monday from the Prairieland detention center in Alvarado, Texas, on $100,000 bond. She had remained detained despite a judge thrice ruling she poses no threat and could be released on bond.

“Since her detention over one year ago, the government has taken every effort to deny her basic rights and freedom, blocking her release not once but twice,” said Travis Fife, staff attorney with the Texas Civil Rights Project, and one of Kordia’s attorneys. “Leqaa going home today is the bare minimum. We must continue to assert the fundamental first amendment principle that the government cannot abuse power to punish people for using their voice.”

She and her lawyers had repeatedly raised alarm about filthy and dangerous conditions inside the detention center. In February, she was hospitalized after suffering a seizure, and said in a statement through her attorney she had been shackled at the hands and legs throughout her 72 hour hospital stay. “ICE detention facilities are built to break people and destroy their health and hope,” she said. “I want everyone to know what happened to me because the same things are happening to other women who are locked up here.”

According to her lawyers, Kordia had a pending asylum application at the time of her detention and is currently in the process of obtaining permanent residency via her mother, who is a US citizen.

Bovino's retirement package should include a jail cell.

Gregory Bovino, who led Minnesota operation, says he’s retiring end of March

Gregory Bovino of the US border patrol, who was demoted in late January as the public face of the controversial and deadly immigration crackdown in Minneapolis, says he is retiring at the end of March. Bovino announced his retirement in an interview with Breitbart on Monday, weeks after federal immigration agents fatally shot 37-year-old US citizens Alex Pretti and Renee Good to death in separate cases in January.

Bovino said: “The greatest honor of my entire life was to work alongside border patrol agents on the border and in the interior of the United States in some of the most challenging conditions the agency has ever faced.” Bovino joined the border patrol in 1996 and spent most of his career in California’s El Centro sector before being tapped by the Trump administration to lead its sweeping Operation Metro Surge in Minnesota.

The Trump administration removed Bovino from his commander-at-large role, sent him back to California and replaced him with border czar Tom Homan after the shooting deaths of Good and Pretti, each of which remain under investigation. A homeland security spokesperson at the time, Tricia McLaughlin, said Bovino had “NOT been relieved of his duties” entirely and remained “a key part of the president’s team and a great American”.

Shortly before Operation Metro Surge, Bovino had led a team of border patrol agents in Los Angeles where they conducted immigration arrests. The agents were then deployed to Chicago, Charlotte and New Orleans. At each stop, local residents and leaders protested that agents’ enforcement actions were heavy-handed.

But it was Bovino’s comments after Pretti’s death that may have precipitated his transfer out of Minneapolis. He said Pretti, who had been disarmed by agents before they shot him, intended to “massacre law enforcement” without any evidence to back up the assertion. He also said “the suspect put himself in that situation” and that “the victims are the border patrol agents there”.

Texas lawmakers spar over DHS funding as long lines loom at US airports

Republican senator John Cornyn and Democratic congressman Greg Casar of Texas squabbled outside Austin’s international airport on Monday over funding for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), as the shutdown of the agency enters its second month. Cornyn, the longtime Texas senator who is locked in a tough primary battle against attorney general, Ken Paxton, went to Austin-Bergstrom international airport to bring Transportation Security Administration (TSA) employees lunch. As he pulled up outside the terminal, he encountered Casar, whose district includes Austin and who a spokesperson said was there to catch a flight back to Washington DC.

“Why don’t you tell your Democrats to vote to pay these poor people?” Cornyn told Casar in a crowd of reporters. “Let’s do it,” Casar replied, prompting Cornyn to shoot back: “No, you do it!” The two then talked over each other, with Casar, who chairs the congressional progressive caucus, saying that Democrats had proposed legislation to fund only TSA while working out the broader questions around immigration enforcement.

“Not acceptable,” Cornyn replied, before bringing up a recent mass shooting in downtown Austin. “These people are keeping us safe,” he said. “Tell the Democrats to vote for funding the DHS.”

The two then parted ways, with Casar later saying that Cornyn was refusing to compromise over immigration reforms in order to secure the president’s backing in the Senate race, which could help him fend off Paxton’s primary challenge. “He’s bootlicking so hard to get Donald Trump’s endorsement that he’s willing to go to any length, no matter how degrading it is,” Casar said. “And to me, that is really sad from the senator who we used to think of as a little more independent, a little bit more Texas tough.”

The department has been without funding since mid-February, after Democrats said they would not vote to authorize its operations unless Republicans agreed to new restrictions on federal agents conducting immigration enforcement, including that they show identification, stop wearing masks and cease detaining people on the street. The shutdown has meant that employees of TSA, which is under the homeland security department, have gone weeks without pay, leading to lengthy security lines at some airports and public pleas from airline CEOs to end the standoff.

Oldest-known whale song recording provides new insight into ocean sounds

A haunting whale song discovered on decades-old audio equipment could open up a new understanding of how the huge animals communicate, according to researchers who say it is the oldest such recording known. The song is that of a humpback whale, a marine giant beloved by whale watchers for its docile nature and spectacular leaps from the water, and was recorded by scientists in March 1949 in Bermuda, said researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Falmouth, Massachusetts.

Just as significant is the sound of the surrounding ocean itself, said Peter Tyack, a marine bioacoustician and emeritus research scholar at Woods Hole. The ocean of the late 1940s was much quieter than the ocean of today, providing a different backdrop than scientists are used to hearing for whale song, he said.

The recovered recordings “not only allow us to follow whale sounds, but they also tell us what the ocean soundscape was like in the late 1940s”, Tyack said. “That’s very difficult to reconstruct otherwise.”

A preserved recording from the 1940s can also help scientists better understand how new human-made sounds, such as increased shipping noise, affect the way whales communicate, Tyack said. Research published by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) states that whales can vary their calling behavior depending on noises in their environment. ...

The discovery of long-lost whale song from a quieter ocean could be a jumping-off point to better understanding the sounds the animals make today, said Hansen Johnson, a research scientist at the Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life at the New England Aquarium.

Reduced physical activity due to global heating will lead to rise in health issues, study says

Rising temperatures are making physical activity undesirable and even dangerous in many parts of the world, and as global heating worsens, it will further affect how much people are able to move. Researchers analysed data from 156 countries between 2000 and 2022 and modelled how rising temperatures may affect physical activity globally by 2050.

They found that each additional month with an average temperature above 27.8C would increase physical inactivity by an average of 1.5 percentage points globally, with an even higher increase of 1.85 points in low and middle-income countries. Physical inactivity increases the risk of cardiovascular disease, type 2 diabetes, certain cancers and mental health disorders, all of which shorten life expectancy, said the study’s lead author, Christian García-Witulski, a research fellow at the Lancet Countdown Latin America and a professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina.

Reduced physical activity is already a big global health problem and is responsible for an estimated 5% of all adult deaths, according to the study, which was published in the Lancet Global Health journal. About a third of the world’s population fails to meet World Health Organization guidelines for weekly exercise.

The study projects that the increase in physical inactivity could contribute to about half a million additional premature deaths annually and $2.4bn – $3.68bn in productivity losses by 2050. The biggest increases in inactivity are projected to be in hotter regions such as Central America, the Caribbean, eastern sub-Saharan Africa, and equatorial south-east Asia, where inactivity could rise by more than four percentage points a month.

Also of Interest

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

Trump's ill-fated attempt to copy Israel's 'mowing the grass' strategy

Iran War: Trump Administration Attempts to Deny Long Conflict Risk; Trump Threatens NATO Over Hormuz Scheme; Kinetic and Economic Situation More Desperate Than Acknowledged

DAYS 15-16: WAR ON IRAN

War On Iran: – (Not-) Destroyed Missile Launchers – Seeking Ground War Allies

Trump’s threats to Nato reveal glaring absence of any strategy on Iran

US citizens: Trump had no ‘backup’ plan to help them leave Middle East after Iran strike

After Helping Convince Trump to Attack Iran, Kushner Solicits Billions for His Private Equity Firm

AP finds an Israeli group discreetly organized the mystery flights evacuating Palestinians from Gaza

Belgian PM condemned over call to repair relations with Russia to ease energy costs

Trump backs FCC chair’s threat to pull licenses of news outlets over Iran war coverage

Aipac: toxicity of pro-Israel Super Pac’s money to be tested in US primaries

‘100% Completely Unsustainable’: Billionaire Wealth Manager Issues New Warning About US Inequality

‘A molten, mushy state’: scientists may have found a new type of liquid planet

A Little Night Music

Schoolboy Cleve - She's Gone

Lightnin' Slim (Feat. Schoolboy Cleve) - West Texas

School Boy Cleve - Here I Go Again

Lightnin' Slim (Feat. Schoolboy Cleve) - Sugar Plum

Lightnin' Slim (Feat. Schoolboy Cleve) - Wonderin' And Goin'

Schoolboy Cleve - Strange Letter Blues

Schoolboy Cleve - My Baby Done Gone

Schoolboy Cleve - My Heart is Crying / If It's Love You Want Come To Me

Schoolboy Cleve - I'm Him