---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Louisiana Red

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues slide guitarist Iverson "Louisiana Red" Minter. Enjoy!

^{Louisiana Red - Freight Train to Ride}

"The escalation to attack undefended civilian targets is just a classic illustration of terrorism."

-- Noam Chomsky

---

News and Opinion

Escalation With Iran Seemingly Over; Now We Have To Worry About Rafah

The imperial media are reporting that Israel launched a missile attack against Iran early Friday morning, with explosions also seen in Syria and Iraq. Tehran is denying there was any missile attack on Iran at all, with Iranian media reporting that the blasts were actually from drones that were successfully shot down over Iran. It doesn’t appear that any nuclear sites were struck.

A senior Iranian official has reportedly told Reuters that Iran has no plans for any immediate response to Israel, which is good because Tehran has previously stated that if Israel makes another “mistake” it will result in immediate retaliation. Israel’s extremist national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir tweeted a word in Hebrew which roughly translates to “feeble” in an apparent reference to the Israeli attack, signaling his disapproval at Israel’s failure to ignite World War Three.

So as things stand right now it looks like the cycle of escalation between Iran and Israel has thankfully ended or at least paused, which means now all we have to worry about is a horrific massacre in southern Gaza. The Times of Israel reports that Washington has agreed to go along with Israel’s planned assault on the city of Rafah so long as Israel doesn’t launch a large attack against Iran in response to its unprecedented retaliatory drone and missile attack on Saturday, according to an Egyptian source speaking to a Qatari outlet. A White House spokesperson has denied this, but you’d expect them to.

Israel had reportedly notified the US earlier on Thursday that an attack on Iran was coming, and that nuclear sites would not be damaged. If all Israel did was launch a small attack on Iran that did no significant damage, that would certainly fit the bill for the kind of strike that was alleged by the aforementioned Egyptian source.

As Dr Assal Rad said on Twitter regarding this report, “If this is true, Biden is green lighting a massacre so that Israel doesn’t start a wider war with Iran.”

Iran’s retaliatory strike for Israel’s attack on the Iranian consulate in Damascus reportedly delayed Israel’s planned assault on Rafah, where according to CNN the IDF was ready to begin dropping leaflets on Monday. Israel has spent the last six months kettling the population of the Gaza Strip southward into Rafah, so now it’s extremely densely populated and a full-on attack could be deadlier than anything we’ve seen in Gaza so far.

"Collective Punishment": As Gaza Assault Continues, Israel Ramps Up Violence in Occupied West Bank

Netanyahu vows to fight US sanctions on IDF unit accused of violations in West Bank

Benjamin Netanyahu has said he will fight against any efforts to impose sanctions on Israeli military units, amid reports that an Israel Defense Forces battalion is facing US sanctions over its treatment of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank.

According to reports in the Israeli media, US state department officials have confirmed they are preparing to impose sanctions on the IDF’s Netzah Yehuda battalion, which has been accused of serious human rights violations against Palestinians. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Sunday that the US was also considering similar moves against other police and military units. The highly significant move, which would be the first time the US government has targeted an IDF unit, comes as the US Congress voted for $26bn in new emergency aid to Israel.

“If anyone thinks they can impose sanctions on a unit of the IDF – I will fight it with all my strength,” the Israeli prime minister said in a statement. “I’ve been working in recent weeks against the sanctioning of Israeli citizens, including in my conversations with the American administration,” Netanyahu wrote on X. “At a time when our soldiers are fighting terrorist monsters, the intention to issue sanctions against a unit in the IDF is the height of absurdity and a moral low,” he added.

The IDF said it was unaware of any sanctions in force against any of its units and added: “If a decision is made on the matter, it will be reviewed.” The sanctions, which would be imposed under the 1997 Leahy law, would prohibit the transfer of US military aid to the unit and prevent soldiers and officers participating in training either with the US military or in programmes that receive US funding.

Netanyahu IGNORES Biden Red Line as Israeli Strikes More WOMEN AND CHILDREN In Rafah

'Obvious Evidence of Genocide': Mass Grave Discovered in Gaza's Nasser Hospital

Palestinian civil defense discovered hundreds of bodies buried by Israeli forces in a mass grave inside the complex of Khan Younis' Nasser Medical Complex on Saturday.

Rescue workers said they had removed at least 200 bodies as of 12:00 pm local time on Sunday, and they estimated that at least another 200 remained, Middle East Eye reported.

"We found corpses without heads, bodies without skins, and some had their organs stolen," the director-general of the Government Media Office said in a statement shared by Quds News Network.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) withdrew from Khan Younis on April 7. While they occupied the city, they stormed the Nasser Medical Complex in February, arresting several doctors, damaging the structure with shelling, and rendering it unable to function as a hospital.

Al Jazeera reporter Hani Mahmoud said the bodies found in the Nasser grave included children, young men, and older women. Rescues said that some of the bodies they found had been buried with their hands tied behind their backs, according to Middle East Eye.

"Our teams continue their search and retrieval operations for the remaining martyrs in the coming days as there are still a significant number of them," Palestinian emergency services said in a statement shared with Al Jazeera.

The news came as the U.S. House of Representatives voted on Saturday to send another $26 billion to Israel, including for military aid.

"These mass graves are obvious evidence of genocide and the most unthinkable war crimes. And yet, the House just signed off on $26 billion in weapons to fuel the genocidal Israeli military, while Israel threatens a full scale ground invasion to massacre Palestinians in Rafah," the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights said on social media.

This is not the first mass grave that has been discovered near a Gaza Strip hospital since Israel began its devastating bombardment and invasion following Hamas' deadly October 7 attack on southern Israel. When the IDF withdrew from the al-Shifa hospital earlier this month, Palestinian journalist Hossam Shabat reported seeing hundreds of dead bodies outside the hospital, many that had had their hands and legs bound and their bodies run-over by bulldozers. Al Jazeera reported that several mass graves were found near al-Shifa.

"Following the mass graves at Al-Shifa hospital, it looks like Israel is a voracious death machine turning hospitals in Gaza into graveyards. Wake up world!" Palestinian politician and activist Hanan Ashrawi wrote on social media.

Muhammad Shehada, the communications chief for Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, expressed shock that there was not more media coverage of the Nasser grave.

"I CANNOT find a single headline in any mainstream media about this!" Shehada wrote on social media. "Imagine it was Ukraine? or Israel?"

Over the weekend, the the Gaza Health Ministry reported that the death toll from Israel's war on Gaza surpassed 34,000, though this is likely an undercount since several people remain trapped beneath rubble.

Many victims have been executed, shot at close range. Horrific scenes of carnage with numbers expected to reach 700. Following the mass graves at Al—Shifa hospital, it looks like Israel is a voracious death machine turning hospitals in Gaza into graveyards. Wake up world! https://t.co/GQuCSG3P5o

— Hanan Ashrawi (@DrHananAshrawi) April 21, 2024

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs: Congress Funding Death in Gaza and Ukraine

Erdogan urges Palestinian unity after meeting Hamas chief

Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Palestinians to unite amid Israel’s war in Gaza following hours-long talks with Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Istanbul on Saturday, his office said. ... “The strongest response to Israel and the path to victory lie in unity and integrity,” Erdogan said, according to a Turkish presidency statement.

As fears of a wider regional war grow, Erdogan said recent events between Iran and Israel should not allow Israel to “gain ground and that it is important to act in a way that keeps attention on Gaza”.

Israeli foreign minister Israel Katz condemned the meeting, writing on Twitter: “Muslim Brotherhood alliance: rape, murder, desecration of corpses and the burning of babies. Erdogan, shame on you!” Hamas was founded by members of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1987.

In response, Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli wrote on Twitter: “It is the Israeli authorities who should be ashamed. They have massacred nearly 35,000 Palestinians, most of them women and children.”

Alastair Crooke: Will Zionism Self-Destruct?

Rockets launched from Iraq town toward US base in Syria, Iraqi security sources say

At least five rockets were launched from Iraq’s town of Zummar towards a US military base in north-eastern Syria on Sunday, two Iraqi security sources told Reuters.

The attack against US forces is the first since early February, when Iranian-backed groups in Iraq stopped their attacks against US troops.

It comes one day after Iraq’s prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, returned from a visit to the United States and met with Joe Biden at the White House.

Two security sources and a senior army officer said a rocket launcher fixed on the back of a small truck had been parked in Zummar, a town on the border with Syria.

The military official said the truck caught fire with an explosion from unfired rockets at the same time as warplanes were in the sky.

‘It’s very personal’: could Abdullah Hammoud, a Michigan mayor, hold the key to the 2024 elections?

Since the war in Gaza erupted six months ago, Abdullah Hammoud, the mayor of Dearborn, Michigan, has contended with death threats, toxic media coverage of his city and family members overseas driven from their homes by Israeli airstrikes. Today, he stands at the head of a community that could hold the key to the 2024 presidential election. Two months after the state primary, which saw unprecedented numbers of Michiganders casting a protest vote as a warning to Joe Biden, Hammoud doesn’t seem to think Biden got the message.

“I think there is an immediate and direct implication come November,” he says. “There’s a segment of the [Dearborn] population who will never vote for Biden again.” ...

“It’s very personal. We had a resident come to a council meeting who lost over 80 family members. That’s somebody whose entire life has been altered,” he says. “What people are trying to grapple with is: ‘How is it that my family was obliterated in Gaza with American-manufactured weapons? How does that happen?’”

Hammoud supported a campaign calling on Dearborn residents to send the president a warning by voting “uncommitted” in Michigan’s Democratic party primary in February, to make clear how precarious his standing in the critical state is ahead of the November election. ... Two months later, Hammoud will not say if he’ll vote for Biden in November. But he hasn’t seen any meaningful changes in US policy. “The temperature among the community is that we are so fed up of [the narrative that] ‘Biden criticized Benjamin Netanyahu in private.’ We are really looking for action to be taken,” he says. ...

Hammoud says that while Trump back in the White House is “the last thing people want to see”, many Dearborn residents have more pressing things to think about. “I think that you cannot make the argument to them that somehow under Trump things would be worse. What is worse than losing 80 family members? I think that’s extremely disrespectful.”

Speaker: BIBLE Told Me To Fund Israel, Ukraine War

Marjorie Taylor Greene renews attacks on speaker as House passes Ukraine aid

Republican infighting over the US House finally approving $61bn in military aid for Ukraine continued to roil the party on Sunday as the far-right representative Marjorie Taylor Greene renewed attacks on the Republican speaker, Mike Johnson.

Johnson had betrayed his party and was working for the Democrats, and his speakership was “over”, the Georgia representative said, although it was not clear if and when Greene would file a motion to try to remove him, which she has threatened to do in recent weeks.

The fresh criticism from Greene came after Johnson ended months of stalling on the aid package for Ukraine’s desperate defence against Russia – as well as billions for allies including Israel and Taiwan – and finally forced a vote on it in the House of Representatives on Saturday, defying the far right of his party.

In a bipartisan vote, 210 Democrats and 101 Republicans joined to support Ukraine, with 112 Republicans – a majority of the GOP members – voting against.

“He is absolutely working for the Democrats. He’s passing the Biden administration’s agenda,” Greene said of Johnson on Fox News’ Sunday Morning Futures With Maria Bartiromo. “Mike Johnson’s speakership is over. He needs to do the right thing to resign and allow us to move forward in a controlled process. If he doesn’t do so, he will be vacated.”

Preventing Ukraine collapse during US election

“Progressives” and Democratic Socialist of America members vote to fund imperialist war against Russia, China

In a highly revealing vote Saturday in Washington, not a single Democratic member in the House of Representatives registered opposition to a $60.8 billion Ukrainian weapons package, the largest of three global war bills demanded by President Joe Biden. The House, in bipartisan fashion, also passed a military bill appropriating $24 billion to Israel and “humanitarian” causes in Ukraine, Gaza and elsewhere, while a separate $8.1 billion weapons package focusing on preparing for war against China also received bipartisan support. A fourth bill that combined economic sanctions on Iran, and Russia with the banning of the social media app TikTok unless its China-based parent company, Bytedance LLC. divests within a year, also passed with bipartisan support.

While the passage of all the bills by wide margins was significant, the fact that all of the 210 Democrats present for Saturday’s vote supported H.R. 8035 the “Ukraine Security Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2024,” deserves special attention. The bill will provide billions of dollars worth of artillery shells, advanced long-range missiles, and other military equipment to the far-right government in Kiev. Following the passage of the legislation in the House, Democrats in the gallery erupted into cheers of “Ukraine! Ukraine! Ukraine!” while waving blue and yellow Ukraine flags. ...

Notably, every single member of “The Squad” voted to continue the US/NATO war in Ukraine against Russia. ... As Saturday’s vote shows, the elevation of DSA members and “progressives” to Congress has not altered the social character of the Democratic Party, which has shed any pretense of being “anti-war” and has instead, become the preferred party of the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency. A small contingent of Democrats voted against Israeli funding while supporting the Ukraine/Taiwan military package. There was not a single Democrat who voted against all the military bills.

Colonel Douglas Macgregor: MOATS TV 4/21/2024

If only I had a "spy balloon" in my phone that didn't do anything but harmlessly float around off course. Can we all have some of what Rep McCaul is apparently smoking?

US House passes bill that could lead to total TikTok ban

The House of Representatives voted 360 to 58 on the updated divest-or-ban bill that could lead to the first time ever that the US government has passed a law to shut down an entire social media platform.

The Senate is expected to vote on the bill next week and Joe Biden has said he will sign the legislation.

“This bill protects Americans and especially America’s children from the malign influence of Chinese propaganda on the app TikTok. This app is a spy balloon in Americans’ phones,” said Texas Republican representative Michael McCaul, author of the bill, Bloomberg reports.

The updated TikTok bill comes as part of House Republican speaker Mike Johnson’s foreign aid package for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan.

"Enormous Expansion of the Law": James Bamford on FISA Extension, U.S.-Israel Data Sharing

Internment camps can't be far off ...

Chinese students in US tell of ‘chilling’ interrogations and deportations

Stopped at the border, interrogated on national security grounds, laptops and mobile phones checked, held for several hours, plans for future research shattered.

Many western scholars are nervous about travelling to China in the current political climate. But lately it is Chinese researchers working at US universities who are increasingly reporting interrogations – and in several cases deportations – at US airports, despite holding valid work or study visas for scientific research.

Earlier this month the Chinese embassy in Washington said more than 70 students “with legal and valid materials” had been deported from the US since July 2021, with more than 10 cases since November 2023. The embassy said it had complained to the US authorities about each case.

The exact number of incidents is difficult to verify, as the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) agency does not provide detailed statistics about refusals at airports. A spokesperson said that “all international travellers attempting to enter the United States, including all US citizens, are subject to examination”.

But testimonies have circulated on Chinese social media, and academics are becoming increasingly outspoken about what they say is the unfair treatment of their colleagues and students. “The impact is huge,” says Qin Yan, a professor of pathology at Yale School of Medicine in Connecticut, who says that he is aware of more than a dozen Chinese students from Yale and other universities who have been rejected by the US in recent months, despite holding valid visas. Experiments have stalled, and there is a “chilling effect” for the next generation of Chinese scientists.

Supreme Court To Decide If Being HOMELESS Is A CRIME

UAW secures historic union election win at Tennessee Volkswagen plant

Volkswagen workers at the carmaker’s Chattanooga plant in Tennessee have voted to unionize with the United Auto Workers, a historic victory for the union and the labor movement’s efforts to expand to the southern United States. The vote was the first union election to be held as part of the UAW’s ambitious organizing drive aimed at unionizing 150,000 workers at non-union auto plants around the US.

The win makes the Chattanooga factory the first auto plant in the south to unionize via election since the 1940s.

The victory is a milestone toward expanding union efforts in the southern US, where labor unions have historically faced aggressive opposition and union density has lagged far behind other parts of the US. Workers at a Mercedes plant in Vance, Alabama, are set to vote on whether to join the UAW in mid-May. Shawn Fain, the UAW president, is also targeting Tesla, whose boss, Elon Musk, has vigorously fought unionization efforts.

Workers at the plant in Chattanooga voted against the union in 2014 and 2019 in closely contested elections. In 2014, the UAW tried to partner with Volkswagen management to push for a works council similar to ones the company has in Germany, where Volkswagen is headquartered. But the plans faced significant backlash from anti-union groups and Bob Corker, the Republican US senator whose staff was in contact with anti-union groups over messaging before the election.

The UAW had been expected to win its latest vote given the firm support of workers beforehand, a quick turnaround from filing for the election to holding it, and a changing culture and landscape that has seen the US labor movement and the UAW surge in popularity after the UAW’s successful strike against the US’s domestic automakers last year.

---

---

Why The Democratic National Committee SQUELCHED All Challengers To BIDEN: David Sirota

---

---

California the culprit for spike in little-known greenhouse gas more potent than CO2

Levels of a potent greenhouse gas are quietly spiking in the atmosphere and increasingly worrying environmental groups that say its use needs to be reined in if the US is to avoid climate catastrophe. Furthermore, recent research has found the vast majority of the little-known gas, known as sulfuryl fluoride, is attributable to a state typically known for its climate-forward policies: California.

About 85% of US emissions of sulfuryl fluoride were traced by a recent peer-reviewed study to southern California, where the state’s $4.2bn pest-control industry uses it for drywood termite control. Sulfuryl fluoride is estimated to be up to 7,500 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its greenhouse-gas potential.

The gas, which is also highly toxic, “has slipped under the radar”, said the Johns Hopkins University study co-author Dylan Gaeta, in large part because it only started to be widely used in recent years. State regulators in 2023 rejected a petition calling for a sulfuryl fluoride phaseout, and Gaeta and others say the findings highlight the need for urgent regulatory action. “Without some form of intervention, sulfuryl fluoride is going to keep accumulating in our atmosphere,” he added.

The US Environmental Protection Agency first approved sulfuryl fluoride in about 1960, but it was not used widely until methyl bromide, a common pesticide and powerful greenhouse gas previously utilized in termite treatment, was phased out about 20 years ago.

Sulfuryl fluoride is primarily used in structural fumigation in which a home is covered with a material the study’s authors likened to a circus tent. When the fumigation is complete, the gas trapped under the tent is simply released into the atmosphere. Sulfuryl fluoride is also used to kill pests in agricultural commodities that are shipped abroad to try to prevent the spread of invasive species. But research has increasingly found the gas is not as safe as once thought, in large part because it stays in the atmosphere for about 40 years.

Biden administration moves to restrict oil and gas leases on 13m acres in Alaska

The Biden administration said on Friday it will restrict new oil and gas leasing on 13m acres (5.3m hectares) of a federal petroleum reserve in Alaska to help protect wildlife such as caribou and polar bears as the Arctic continues to warm.

The decision – part of an ongoing, years-long fight over whether and how to develop the vast oil resources in the state – finalizes protections first proposed last year as the Biden administration prepared to approve the controversial Willow oil project.

The approval of Willow drew fury from environmentalists, who said the large oil project violated Biden’s pledge to combat the climate crisis. Friday’s decision also cements an earlier plan that called for closing nearly half the reserve to oil and gas leasing.

The rules announced on Friday would place restrictions on future leasing and industrial development in areas designated as special for their wildlife, subsistence or other values and call for the Bureau of Land Management to evaluate regularly whether to designate new special areas or bolster protections in those areas. The agency cited as a rationale the rapidly changing conditions in the Arctic due to the climate crisis, including melting permafrost and changes in plant life and wildlife corridors.

Louisiana’s flagship university lets oil firms influence research – for a price

For $5m, Louisiana’s flagship university will let an oil company weigh in on faculty research activities. Or, for $100,000, a corporation can participate in a research study, with “robust” reviewing powers and access to all resulting intellectual property.

Those are the conditions outlined in a boilerplate document that Louisiana State University’s fundraising arm circulated to oil majors and chemical companies affiliated with the Louisiana Chemical Association, an industry lobbying group, according to emails disclosed in response to a public records request by the Lens.

Records show that after Shell donated $25m in 2022 to LSU to create the Institute for Energy Innovation, the university gave the fossil fuel corporation license to influence research and coursework for the university’s new concentration in carbon capture, use and storage. Afterward, LSU’s fundraising entity, the LSU Foundation, used this partnership as a model to shop around to members of the Louisiana Chemical Association, such as ExxonMobil, Air Products and CF Industries, which have proposed carbon capture projects in Louisiana.

For $2m, Exxon became the institute’s first “strategic partner-level donor”, a position that came with robust review of academic study output and with the ability to focus research activities. Another eight companies have discussed similar deals with LSU, according to a partnership update that LSU sent to Shell last summer. ...

Asked to comment, the Institute for Energy Innovation’s director, Brad Ives, defended the partnerships, as did the oil majors. Two more companies have since entered into partnerships with the Institute for Energy Innovation, said Ives. But Shell is the only company to have donated at the level that gave the company a seat on the advisory board that chooses the institute’s research. The head of the Louisiana Chemical Association and the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association also sit on the advisory board, which can vote to stop a research project from moving forward.

---

Also of Interest

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

In Gaza The Sniper Drones Are Crying Like Babies

The US Doesn’t Support A Two-State Solution, It Just Supports Saying It Does

US Vetoes Palestine UN Membership as Russia Walks Out

The US House Just Gave Israel $26 Billion for Its War on Gaza’s Children

Historic Number of Democratic Reps (A paltry 37!?!) Vote Against Unconditional Aid to Israel

RAF’s Support for Israel Stretches Concept of Self Defence

Israel Quietly 'Retaliates' For Iran's Retaliation Attack

‘We’re not like the Nazis’, Netanyahu says to German foreign minister over Gaza famine disagreement

Don’t Let Them Numb You To What’s Happening In Gaza

Freedom Flotilla activists determined to set sail to Gaza despite Israeli threats

War & Genocide on Earth Day

US Agrees To Withdraw From Niger

Manure Digesters: Another False Solution That Makes Climate Injustice Worse

"No Due Process": Columbia Prof. Mamdani Slams Arrests & Suspension of Students at Gaza Protests

Historic Gaza Protests at Columbia U. Enter Day 6; Campus Protests Spread Across Country

US Spox FLAILS After VETOING Palestine Statehood

Tucker Carlson CALLS OUT Bari Weiss: 'Neocon, Liar'

Israel burns American tax dollars in the sky

Sahra Wagenknecht and the new left in Germany

---

A Little Night Music

Louisiana Red - I´m Louisiana Red

Louisiana Red - Alabama Train

Louisiana Red - Red's Dream

Louisiana Red - Bring It on Home to Me (Live)

Louisiana Red - I'm a Roaming Stranger

Louisiana Red - Thirty Dirty Women

Louisiana Red - Too Poor to Die

Louisiana Red - Valerie

Louisiana Red ~ Sugar Hips

Louisiana Red - Driftin

---