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"Hypocrisy: prejudice with a halo."

-- Ambrose Bierce

News and Opinion

Liberal Zionists Are Evil Shitbags

In a recent appearance at the Hampton Institute, Hillary Clinton stated that Benjamin Netanyahu’s “first and foremost” offense is the damage he has done to Israel and its reputation.

“There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind how seriously Netanyahu has damaged, first and foremost, Israel,” Clinton said. “And second, the perception that people not just in the United States, but around the world, have of Israel, and that has to be repaired.”

She hit that “first and foremost” part especially hard while speaking. Really leaned her ovaries into it.

Hillary Clinton: "there should be no doubt in anyone's mind how seriously netanyahu has damaged, first and foremost, Israel... and second, the perception that people, not just in the United States, but around the world, have of Israel. And that has to be repaired."

To rephrase,… pic.twitter.com/fJAv7gBnj5

— Zachary Foster (@_ZachFoster) September 4, 2026

This is liberal Zionism in a nutshell. The problem isn’t Israel damaging Palestinian lives, the problem is Benjamin Netanyahu damaging Israel’s public image. The problem isn’t the genocide itself, the problem is that the genocide harms Israeli PR interests.

They don’t care about human suffering. They don’t care about human rights. All they care about is controlling the narrative.

We saw this illustrated a couple of years ago in a rant by then-secretary of state Antony Blinken complaining of the way videos of Israeli atrocities circulating online have “dominated the narrative” and are having “a very, very challenging effect on the narrative.” The problem isn’t what’s happening, the problem is people’s STORY about what’s happening. All the genocide, ethnic cleansing, apartheid and abuse would be fine if the Zionists could control what narratives people were telling about it. Benjamin Netanyahu is disliked not because he’s a genocidal monster, but because his genocidal monstrousness makes it hard to administer effective empire propaganda.

DNC attendees cover their ears as the names of dead Palestinian children are read as they leave the convention pic.twitter.com/9bueCbFeEr

— BreakThrough News (@BTnewsroom) August 22, 2024

Amid the savagery of the Trump administration it’s easy to forget that the lion’s share of the killing in Gaza actually happened under Joe Biden. It’s easy to forget Biden’s lies about seeing pictures of beheaded babies and his false claims that the Gaza health ministry’s death counts were untrustworthy. It’s easy to forget the way State Department spokesman Matthew Miller always weaseled his way out of press gallery questions about the genocide with an obnoxious smirk on his face. It’s easy to forget all the DNC attendees who covered their ears as anti-genocide demonstrators listed names of Palestinian children who’d been butchered by Biden in Gaza.

They fully embraced Israel’s genocide. They reveled in it.

And now, just in time for midterms, former senior Biden officials have been telling the press that they regret not doing more to rein in Netanyahu’s mass military slaughter.

This was always the plan. They always knew they could just give Israel whatever it wants and then go “Oopsie! We made a mistake!” to cover their legacy after their crime was committed. And now that’s exactly what they’re doing. They planned this while the bombs were being shipped out.

This bill effectively prohibits divestment from Israel. Worse yet, it creates a condition where any university not invested in Israel ultimately risks having their funding revoked on grounds of discrimination against a foreign country.

Land of the free, by the way. https://t.co/MFDiUBTfVo

— Kyle Blomquist (@BlomquistForMI) September 3, 2026

This happens as House Democrats help Republicans pass a bipartisan bill which essentially forces American universities into partnerships with the state of Israel, stripping them of federal funding if they move toward divestment from the Zionist entity.

And now top Israeli officials are openly saying that it is time to complete the ethnic cleansing project in Gaza, with Defense Minister Israel Katz and National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir both promoting a plan for a mass purge in recent days. All made possible by the deliberate demolition of Gaza with the full-throated support of the Democratic Party.

This is who they are. Never let them forget it.

Liberal Zionists are just Israel supporters who want Israel to have more public approval. They desire an attractive, charming, Obama-style Israel which murders and abuses Palestinians discreetly while peddling the “two-state solution” myth and uttering flowery prose about equality and peace. They dislike the Trump-style Israel of today which makes no effort to conceal its sadistic nature.

Liberal Zionism: when you draw the line at killing "large numbers of" Palestinians. https://t.co/aZPGFLnVL2

— 99% Johnny Graz (@jvgraz) August 31, 2026

Unfortunately for them, today’s Israel is the only Israel on the menu. Turns out you can’t set up a racist state built on a racist ideology without that state coming to be dominated by overt and vocal racists. The Trump-style Israel which has given rise to Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir and Smotrich is the natural culmination of everything that Israel is and has always been.

There is no going back. Your liberal nice guy mask will never fit over the face of Israel again. The world will forevermore see the Zionist project for what it is. That toothpaste is never going back in the tube.

Now it’s just a matter of the world coming together to dismantle a genocidal apartheid state. Because we all know that’s what needs to be done.

Trump Careening Towards the Point of No Return w/Iran Col Doug Macgregor

UK accuses Israeli ‘terrorists’ of ethnic cleansing in West Bank with government backing

Settler terrorists supported by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government are committing ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, Ed Miliband has said, in the UK’s starkest condemnation since the foundation of the Israeli state. Andy Burnham, the prime minister, said he would “not stand by” as horrific suffering continued, writing in the Guardian that for too long the UK had been hesitant to act, “fearful of being accused of being anti-Israel”.

In the Commons, the foreign secretary said the government would now take the official position that Israel’s occupation of the West Bank was unlawful in its entirety, as he announced sweeping sanctions on trade with Israeli settlements. The dramatic shift in the UK’s position comes after a summer of intense diplomacy against a backdrop of increasing settler violence in the West Bank, which has resulted in 12 nations – including France and Canada – announcing they would impose sanctions.

In a joint statement Burnham, Emmanuel Macron and Mark Carney said: “The time has come to take further action to uphold our commitment to protect the two-state solution, our interests and to stand up for our values, before it is too late.” In response, the Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, announced the closure of the UK consulate in Jerusalem and that 12 British MPs and activists – including Jeremy Corbyn and Labour MP Diane Abbott – would be banned from entering Israel.

Saar accused Miliband of “outrageous lies” and said the UK government was “systematically working against the state of Israel”. Washington’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, warned that the US could take retaliatory action over trade. However, the US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said Washington would “obviously” not follow the UK’s course of action, and did not want to see the West Bank destabilised, but declined to comment further. Burnham had briefed Donald Trump on the plan in advance.

Bibi WARNED Of 10/7 Attack & DID NOTHING

Netanyahu was warned of 7 October Hamas attacks, book claims

Benjamin Netanyahu was personally alerted by the president of the United Arab Emirates that Hamas was planning a large-scale offensive against Israel a week before its 7 October 2023 attack, but did not act on the warning, according to a book by Haaretz reporters. The claim, which comes amid a crucial election campaign, prompted Israeli opposition leaders to describe the prime minister as “unfit” for office, even as Netanyahu denounced the report as an “absolute lie” and denied he spoke to the Emirati leader at that time.

Haaretz said the Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, later killed by Israel, had warned a former Palestinian official that the militants were preparing “a terrifying operation” which he described as an “earthquake”. According to the report, the UAE president, Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, spoke to Netanyahu a week and a half before the attack, and told him Hamas was planning a major operation.

The allegations, published in Haaretz on Tuesday, pile more pressure on the Israeli prime minister who has already faced heavy criticism for his handling of events before the 7 October attacks. The claims are contained in the book Hostages: 843 Days of Abandonment, which, its authors say, is based on dozens of sources in Israel and worldwide, including very senior officials.

Private Chats From Israeli Guards Detail ‘Horrifying’ Abuse, Killings of Palestinian Prisoners

Newly uncovered text messages sent by guards at Israel’s Ketziot Prison reveal a pattern of appalling abuse against Palestinian prisoners, with some guards boasting of beating detainees to death.

As reported by Haaretz on Tuesday, WhatsApp messages sent in November 2023 showed guards at the prison gleefully recounting violent assaults on prisoners, openly hoping their actions would deliver fatal injuries.

“They’re doing CPR in the clinic right now, baby!” wrote one guard after describing the beating delivered to a detainee. “God willing, that son of a thousand whores will die.”

Another guard excitedly wrote that “they’re doing CPR on a prisoner because we beat him,” then relayed news that the prisoner had passed away.

“He’s dead,” wrote the guard. “Listen, it’s funny how it all happened in an instant: Boom, count. Boom, dead prisoner.”

A third guard gloated in a message that “we fucked them up so bad.”

The texts were uncovered by Israeli prosecutors as part of an indictment filed last week against a dozen prison guards for their alleged roles in the deaths of nine Palestinian prisoners.

Haaretz noted that prosecuting guards for alleged abuses against Palestinians is normally difficult due to guards’ unwillingness to speak out, which is why prosecutors’ ability to obtain the text messages was so crucial.

“The investigation files now coming to light offer a rare glimpse into the guards’ routine use of severe violence against Palestinian prisoners,” Haaretz explained. “They also reveal evidence of senior officials suppressing accounts and turning a blind eye, if not taking part themselves. At least one witness alleged that Ketziot Prison commander Yosef Knipes was involved. He denied it.”

New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who earlier this year published interviews with Palestinian prisoners detailing the sexual abuse they allegedly suffered at the hands of Israeli forces, wrote in a

social media post that the unearthed texts offer a “horrifying account” of “how Israeli prison guards brutalized Palestinian prisoners, sometimes killing them, even as the US supplied endless weapons and diplomatic support.”

Israeli rights group Breaking the Silence argued that the texts uncovered by investigators represent only a small part of the total abuse carried out in Israeli prisons.

“Since October 2023, more than 100 Palestinians have entered Israeli custody alive and later left in body bags,” the organization wrote. “Israeli detention centers have essentially become torture camps. Torture is Israel’s policy.”

Scott Ritter: Iran Fires 'Unstoppable' Missile – US Navy & Jordan Under Dual Attack

Oil Price Soars as Wars on Yemen and Iran Escalate

US says Iranian tankers ‘destroyed’ after missile attacks on American warship

The US military on Tuesday said it “destroyed” multiple Iranian tankers, after Iran attempted to strike a US navy warship with ballistic missiles, as violence once again surged across the region, pushing the price of oil close to $100 a barrel. American forces struck the tankers in the Gulf of Oman and near Iran’s Kharg Island, US central command (Centcom) said in a statement, adding that American forces “directed the crews to abandon ship before the vessels were struck”.

Centom said the strikes came after the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) targeted a US Navy warship with ballistic missiles twice over the past two days. “The US warship successfully evaded the attempted Iranian attacks and continued to patrol regional waters. No American personnel were harmed,” it said in a statement.

Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said they had struck a US military base in Jordan with in retaliation. Air-defence systems destroyed 18 ⁠of the ⁠20 ​ballistic missiles originating ⁠from Iranian territory, Jordan’s state ⁠news ​agency ‌reported, citing the ‌armed forces, adding that two missiles fell in unpopulated areas ‌and there were no casualties. The Revolutionary Guards Navy also warned crews of oil tankers near ports in Kuwait and Bahrain to immediately leave their vessels, saying the ships could be targeted in retaliation for the US attacks.

After a month of relative calm in August, Iran and the US have resumed exchanges of fire, sending ‌global oil prices back up to levels last seen in July. Oil prices climbed on Wednesday to near $100 a barrel in early Asia trading.

Iran SEIZES US Sub, HITS TWO Warships as Trump LOSES IT | Col Larry Wilkerson & Patrick Henningsen

Houthis strike Saudi Arabian cities in significant expansion of Middle East war

Yemen’s Iran-backed Houthis have attacked four cities in Saudi Arabia, wounding more than 70 people and setting oil installations ablaze in what appeared to be a significant expansion of the Middle East war. Saudi Arabia said it would retaliate after the overnight strikes – reportedly involving dozens of drones and missiles – that targeted several oil facilities in the country’s south.

The country would “take all necessary measures to defend its sovereignty”, a foreign ministry statement said, demanding a halt to the Houthi strikes on Saudi territory and oil tankers in the Red Sea. Maj Gen Turki al-Malki, a spokesperson for the Saudi-led coalition fighting in Yemen, said pro-government forces “will take all necessary operational measures to deter the terrorist Houthi militia with utmost resolve”.

The Houthis, who control most ⁠of Yemen’s populated areas including the capital, said ⁠they had launched a broad operation deep ​into Saudi territory using drones and missiles to strike an airbase in the southern city of Khamis Mushait, and targets belonging to Saudi Arabia’s state oil company in nearby Abha, Najran on the Yemeni border, and the Aramco facility at Jizan. Jizan, which is home to one of Saudi Arabia’s biggest refineries, is close to the border with Yemen and was damaged in an attack weeks ago.

Saudi authorities said women and children were among the 73 people hurt. The large numbers of people reportedly wounded suggested the attacks were among the biggest carried out against Saudi Arabia since the US and Israel began their war against Iran in February.

Amnesty Says US-Israeli Attacks With Indiscriminate Weapons in Tehran May Have Been War Crimes

The recent resumption of US airstrikes in Iran, including on a wedding party where at least 25 civilians were killed last week, made Amnesty International’s Tuesday report on previous suspected US-Israeli attacks in Tehran in the early days of the war all the more urgent, said the organization as it pointed to new evidence of potential war crimes by the American and Israeli militaries in the densely populated Iranian capital.

Amnesty analyzed US-Israeli airstrikes on three residential neighborhoods—Resalat, Niloufar, and Javadieh—between March 1-13, in which the coalition used “explosive weapons with wide-area effects,” killing at least 41 civilians and damaging multiple homes, a school, businesses, and other civilian infrastructure.

“Amid the resumption of US strikes in Iran and renewed threats by US President Donald Trump to target civilian infrastructure, it is imperative that the US and Israel end all unlawful attacks and strictly comply with international humanitarian law, including by taking all feasible precautions to avoid, and in any event minimize, incidental loss of civilian life, injury to civilians, and damage to civilian objects during the planning and execution of military operations,” said Agnès Callamard, secretary general of Amnesty International.

The group noted that military infrastructure and police stations—which could be considered legitimate military targets in Iran, as the police forces are part of the broader armed forces there—were struck in the attacks in question. Israel and the US have not publicly claimed responsibility for the three specific attacks, but they announced strikes against Iranian “regime” targets in Tehran at the time of the airstrikes.

Amnesty emphasized that even if military and police buildings were the primary targets, “a large presence of civilians was clearly foreseeable” when the US and Israel evidently carried out the attacks in the three neighborhoods, which “resulted in devastating and yet entirely predictable consequences for civilians.”

International law demands that warring parties do not carry out “indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks” that could harm civilians across the surrounding area, said the group.

Military leaders, said Amnesty, are also obligated to “choose weapon types and attack methods that reduce the risk of harming civilians and destroying civilian objects.”

“The use of explosive weapons with wide-area effects in the vicinity of concentrations of civilians has foreseeably indiscriminate effects and as such is prohibited under international humanitarian law,” the group stated. “Additionally, an attacking party remains at all times bound by the principle of proportionality, weighing the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated from an attack against the expected harm to civilians and civilian objects, including the reverberating humanitarian consequences resulting from the attack.”

“Launching indiscriminate attacks that kill or injure civilians and disproportionate attacks are war crimes,” said Amnesty.

USA/Israel/Iran: Investigation into US-Israeli strikes on Tehran neighbourhoods reveals devastating civilian harm. The incidents must urgently be independently and impartially investigated to determine whether they constitute war crimes. https://t.co/ifmDGk7UIO

— Amnesty Iran (@AmnestyIran) September 8, 2026

The group analyzed satellite imagery and verified 60 videos of the three attacks, as well as reviewing public statements from officials in the US, Israel, and Iran to reach the determination that US and Israeli forces had potentially committed war crimes in the Tehran neighborhoods—a possibility the group said must be independently investigation.

In Niloufar, where at least 20 civilians were killed on March 1, eyewitness accounts described two explosions at around 9:00 pm local time, when restaurants and other businesses were open in the bustling neighborhood.

The attack directly struck a police station, but residential buildings and businesses were also struck.

A shop owner told Etemad Online that “before the attack… dozens of people were sitting in front of the cafés in the square. All the shops were open... When the police station was struck, those who were sitting on the pavement in front of the cafés were killed.”

“The whole street was full of blood,” they added. “I saw one person whose chest had been pierced by broken glass. Many children, women, and young people were killed here that night.”

Callamard said that “the civilian death toll, the scale of destruction, the timing of the attacks, the impact on nearby civilian structures, and the lack of effective advance warnings point to alarming failures by the US-Israeli coalition to abide by the obligations to take all feasible precautions to minimize civilian harm and spare civilian objects.”

At least 16 people were killed in Resalat on March 9, in an attack that heavily damaged a building belonging to the Basij battalion of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), as well as three buildings adjacent to the facility. Amnesty International confirmed that at least one of the buildings, known as Number 12, was a residence.

Twelve members of the same family were killed when Number 12 was struck, and an informed source identified as Payam told Amnesty that “there were no military people, no special individuals, no one connected to the government, no important person” in the building.

“Everyone living [in Number 12] was ordinary civilians,” he said. “The whole building was families.”

The husband of a 26-year-old woman who was killed in the attack told Etemad Online that the scene of the bombing was “so horrific that they will never leave my mind. Body parts were found separately... A hand had been thrown to the entrance of the road or onto the roof of a house.”

The attack in Javadieh, a densely populated low-income neighborhood in Tehran, took place on March 13 and killed at least five civilians, with a police station on Ghorbani Street a possible target.

“The destruction and damage extended well beyond the police station, and affected homes, businesses, and other civilian structures across the surrounding neighborhood,” said Amnesty. “State media reported that several nearby residential buildings were also destroyed and many others severely damaged.”

Videos verified by Amnesty show the impact of the blast extending up to more than 50 meters (164 feet) away from the police station. A restaurant, bakery, and motorcycle shop were all damaged, as well as a number of residential buildings.

Amnesty called on the US, Israel, and Iran to coordinate inquiries by the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission regarding allegations of “serious violations of international humanitarian law by all parties.”

Tens of thousands of US and Israeli attacks on Iran have killed at least 1,469 civilians, including hundreds of children. Israel has also killed at least 4,333 people in Lebanon since early March, in retaliation for Hezbollah’s strikes in response to the assault on Iran. In retaliatory strikes across the region, Iran has killed at least 50 people civilians, according to Amnesty.

“The US/Israeli strikes in Tehran investigated by Amnesty International may constitute indiscriminate attacks and amount to war crimes,” said Callamard. “They must be the object of independent, impartial, effective, and transparent investigations.”

Secret Plan to Destroy BRICS and Crash China w/ Ryan Perkins

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US bans Canadian dairy, alcohol and motorcycles as trade war with longtime ally escalates

The US is banning dairy products, most alcoholic beverages and motorcycles from Canada, the White House said Tuesday, as the trade war between the two neighbors and longtime allies escalates. The ban will take effect in three weeks and comes after Canada imposed retaliatory tariffs on $20bn in US imports earlier Tuesday.

Donald Trump also moved Tuesday to shut Canadian products out of large, long-term US government contracts as Canada’s retaliatory tariffs took effect and prime minister Mark Carney vowed to speed efforts to reduce the country’s dependence on the United States. The US president directed the General Services Administration to declare Canadian products ineligible for those contracts until Canada allows “full and fair reciprocity″ for American products.

Carney said Tuesday that Canada’s strategy was about becoming more independent. “It’s about ensuring that no country can hold us hostage. And that we can live how we want to live.”

The rupture has upended one of the world’s closest relationships. On 22 August, the US imposed 50% tariffs on about 5% of Canadian imports, charging that Canada had unfairly treated the American dairy, alcoholic beverage and auto industries.

Under Trump, US-Canada relations have deteriorated rapidly. In addition to imposing tariffs on Canadian products, Trump has repeatedly made inflammatory comments about making Canada the 51st US state. Carney came to power in a come-from-behind political victory last year by promising to stand up to him.

Missouri congressional maps thrown into chaos after conflicting court rulings

A federal judge in Missouri on Tuesday temporarily prevented the state from using its old congressional maps in the November midterm elections, hours after the supreme court declined to intervene, the latest twist in a legal back-and-forth playing out less than two months before the midterms.

On Tuesday the conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh denied the emergency request from Missouri officials to use a congressional map in November that was redrawn with Donald Trump’s support to give Republicans an edge in the midterm elections. The supreme court action came after the Missouri supreme court ruled that the map must go before voters to approve or reject the new districts, meaning it cannot be used in the November election.

The state utilized the new map in its primary elections in August.

But last week the state supreme court, which includes five Republican-appointed judges, ‌unanimously ruled voters must approve the map in November before it can be utilized. The state’s attorney general argued the decision thrust Missouri into a “full‑fledged constitutional crisis”.

US datacenters face further backlash over wastewater pollution

When officials in Wyoming conducted a routine test on the water that was being discharged from a massive under-construction Meta datacenter, it was a shock to find it contained a rare and potentially hazardous bacterium. While the wastewater flushed into sewers in Cheyenne, Wyoming, was never destined for the public drinking supply, the presence of Cupriavidus gilardii bacterium in 801,000 gallons of water ejected by a contractor for the datacenter earlier this year was still unnerving. Concerned that residents could be exposed to the bacteria if they inhaled evaporating droplets of the water used for irrigation, Cheyenne officials took until July before deciding to stop taking wastewater from Meta’s contractor, Goat Systems – a decision that is now being appealed.

However, the bacteria-laden water in Wyoming is just the latest in a series of alarms raised across the US about datacenters and water – not just how much of it they are sucking up, but also what’s in the water when it is funneled back into rivers, streams and public water systems.

In Virginia, authorities have brought enforcement actions against several datacenters for wastewater and wetland permit violations, in West Virginia stormwater runoff from an incomplete datacenter has twice flooded surrounding houses, all while locals and activists have campaigned against the discharge of heated water from an upcoming datacenter into Lake Seneca, in New York.

The Waterkeeper Alliance, a network of environmental organizations, said 55 of its affiliated groups across the US were working on datacenter-related issues, with 80% of these campaigns centered on concerns that pollutants may be leaching into the environment via discharged water. Some of this backlash is now set to play out in the courts. In Georgia, Flint Riverkeeper has said it will sue the QTS datacenter in Fayetteville for allegedly ejecting “massive amounts of dirt [and] massive concentrations of metals” into the Flint River over the past two years.

“Datacenters are a critical concern for Waterkeeper groups around the globe, in part due to their wastewater concerns,” said a Waterkeeper Alliance spokeswoman. “Datacenters have been documented as sources of a wide range of toxic pollutants, including Pfas, heavy metals and antibiotic-resistant bacteria.” Datacenters require large amounts of water for their construction and operation, including for cooling the power-hungry computers at their heart, although the industry points out its water use is a fraction of that of other thirsty sectors, such as agriculture. A mid-sized datacenter can consume about 300,000 gallons of water a day.

Heatwaves and wildfires are setting back air quality improvements, UN finds

Big increases in wildfires and heatwaves supercharged by the climate crisis are hindering improvements to air quality around the world, UN experts have said. Regions that had recorded a fall in pollution emitted by cars and industrial sites are facing new threats to air quality because of exposure to smoke from wildfires, according to a new report, while rising temperatures caused by intense heatwaves are causing a surge in ground-level ozone.

In turn, the pollution generated by these climate-linked events is itself contributing to climate breakdown, creating a feedback loop that risks dragging the world deeper into environmental catastrophe. “Air quality and climate cannot be treated as separate subjects; they are deeply intertwined and have to be treated together,” said Lorenzo Labrador, a scientific officer of the World Meteorological Organization (WMO), which issued the report.

The WMO publishes its air quality and climate bulletin annually, to coincide with the UN’s international day for clean air. Among its key findings was that extreme wildfires are increasing, leading to serious health consequences because of the toxicity of the smoke they are emitting. This trend, “driven by a feedback loop between climate change and fire-conducive weather conditions”, was leading to an “urgent and growing public health threat”. As well as carrying high concentrations of fine particulate matter, smoke from wildfires causes oxidative stress in people’s bodies.

“Systematic reviews and experimental studies consistently link wildfire smoke exposure to increased asthma attacks, hospitalisations for chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), spiked respiratory medication use, as well as impacts on mental health and birth outcomes,” the report said. According to one study cited, a tripling of wildfires since the 1990s had contributed to almost 100,000 deaths a year between 2010 and 2018.

The report also raises the alarm about ground-level ozone pollution, which is exacerbated by the kinds of intense and prolonged heatwaves that have affected Europe over this past summer. “Ozone is a very powerful oxidant,” Labradorsaid. “So once it gets to the lung, it essentially oxidises lung tissue and causes inflammation and circulatory problems, and eventually heart problems.” In heavily polluted regions, roughly one in five deaths from COPD is now attributed to long-term exposure to ozone, the report said.

US federal court says no constitutional right to clean water in Mississippi case

A US appellate court has decided that the federal constitution does not guarantee a right to clean water. That legal opinion came in the form of a decision on Friday from the fifth circuit court of appeals to uphold a lower court’s dismissal of a 2022 lawsuit from several Jackson, Mississippi, residents claiming that tainted drinking water violated their constitutional rights.

Those residents of Mississippi’s capital city contended that their local drinking water was unsafe to drink because of high lead levels and other contaminants. The New Orleans-based fifth circuit’s majority opinion held that the residents wanted “recognition of two new constitutional rights lacking any foundation in the history and tradition of our nation” – those being “the right to be free from exposure to contaminated water and the right to accurate information from public officials”.

In the majority’s view, residents should have gone about their legal fight for clean water another way, such as pursuing “tort claims” or by “electing representatives who will better manage the public-water system, and petitioning their representatives for other remedies”. Tort claims allege “harms caused by others” while seeking “to impose liability on parties responsible for the harm, and to deter others from committing harmful acts”, according to Cornell University’s law school.

Friday’s decision also said that state and federal officials were working hard to improve the majority-Black city’s drinking water. The residents who filed suit alleged that public authorities had for years failed to mitigate lead levels and failed to inform them about an increase. “Plaintiffs have not been left to go at it alone,” the court said. “The State of Mississippi and federal government have worked for years, and continue today, to improve the city of Jackson’s drinking water quality through regulations, investigations, and compliance plans.”

Meanwhile, the opinion also said: “It is undisputed that the Constitution does not guarantee clean water.” The opinion also held that a state does not have a constitutional duty “to provide substantive services for those within its border absent a special relationship”. And municipalities are not constitutionally obligated to provide sewerage, water treatment or waste management services “in a reasonably competent fashion”, the decision said. The decision nonetheless said that the majority of the court recognized the allegations of “serious government misfeasance” and was “sympathetic to the injuries [the plaintiffs] may suffer as a result”. But, the court’s ruling said “our sympathies cannot be the basis” for converting tort claims into constitutional issues. “These deprivations, while grievous, do not infringe upon any deeply rooted constitutional right,” the fifth circuit’s opinion said.

Also of Interest

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

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War On Iran: Crude Price Nears $100 Barrel While Trump Still Hopes To Win

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Elon Musk told ex-girlfriend he needed ‘a legion of children before the civil war’

Trump renames places and poses as superhero in bizarre social media blitz

South Park changes name to South America in response to Trump changes

A Little Night Music

Little Son Joe - Just Had To Holler

Little Son Joe (Ernest Lawlars) - Black Rat Swing

Memphis Minnie with Little Son Joe - Key To The World

Little Son Joe - A Little Too Late (I'd Write A Letter)

Memphis Minnie with Little Son Joe - My Black Buffalo

Little Son Joe - Ethel Bea

Memphis Minnie with Little Son Joe - I'm So Glad

Little Son Joe - Tuff Luck Blues

Little Son Joe (Ernest Lawlars) - Diggin' My Potatoes

Memphis Minnie with Little Son Joe - Kidman Blues