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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Hank Ballard

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Hank Ballard. Enjoy!

^{Hank Ballard and The Midnighters - Finger Poppin' Time}

"Zionism is showing us what it truly is right now. This is what it looks like when the Zionists are allowed to do exactly what they want to do."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

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News and Opinion

It’s A Genocide, But It’s Also So Much More Than That

The mass atrocity in Gaza is a genocide, obviously, and is an undisguised ethnic cleansing operation.

But it’s also a lot more than that.

It’s an experiment — to see what kinds of abuses the public will accept without causing significant disruption to the imperial status quo.

It’s a psychological operation — to push out the boundaries of what’s normal and acceptable in our minds so that we will consent to even more horrific abuses in the future.

It’s a symptom — of Zionism, of colonialism, of militarism, of capitalism, of western supremacism, of empire-building, of propaganda, of ignorance, of apathy, of delusion, of ego.

It’s a manifestation — of violent racist, supremacist and xenophobic belief systems that have always been there but were previously restrained, meeting with the unwholesome nature of alliances that have long been in place but have been aggressively normalized.

It’s a mirror — showing us accurately and impartially who we currently are as a civilization.

It’s a disclosure — showing us what the western empire we live under really is underneath its fake plastic mask of liberal democracy and righteous humanitarianism.

It’s a revelation — showing us who among us really stands for truth and justice and who has been deceiving us about themselves and their motives this entire time.

It’s a catalyst — a galvanizing force and a rallying cry for all who realize that the murderous power structures we live under can no longer be allowed to stand, and a blaring alarm clock opening more and more snoozing eyes to the need for revolutionary change.

It’s a test — of who we are as a species and what we are made of, and of whether we can transcend the destructive patterning that is driving humanity to its doom.

It’s a question — asking us what kind of world we want to live in going forward, and what kind of people we want to be.

It’s an invitation — to become something better than what we are now.

Pope Leo, Catholic Church Have HARSHEST WORDS YET For Israel

Cardinal calls Israel’s policy in Gaza ‘morally unjustifiable’ after visit

Israel’s government is pursuing an “unacceptable and morally unjustifiable” policy in Gaza, the Catholic Latin patriarch of Jerusalem has said after visiting a church in the territory that was attacked by Israeli forces last week and meeting survivors. Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa said he had witnessed extreme hunger on the brief trip, his first into Gaza this year, and described Israeli blocks on food and medical shipments as a “sentence” for starving Palestinians. “Humanitarian aid is not only necessary, it is a matter of life and death,” he told journalists in Jerusalem after the visit. “Every hour without food, water, medicine and shelter causes deep harm.”

Pizzaballa travelled to Gaza with the Greek Orthodox patriarch Theophilos III, in a show of cross-denominational solidarity after the attack on the Holy Family church that killed three people and injured nine others including the priest, Gabriel Romanelli, who used to receive daily calls from the late Pope Francis. The cardinal accused Israel’s government of pursuing a war without justification, and warned against plans to force Palestinians to leave the territory, which are backed by much of the Israeli cabinet.

“We need to say with frankness and clarity that this policy of the Israeli government in Gaza is unacceptable and morally we cannot justify it,” he said. “There can be no future based on captivity, displacement of Palestinians or revenge.”

After international pressure over the attack on the church, including from Donald Trump, Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, called the pope to express “regret” for the attack, which he said was caused by “stray ammunition”. Some Catholic leaders have questioned that explanation, and the Vatican’s top diplomat, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, said in an interview with Italy’s state broadcaster that it “can legitimately be doubted”. Asked whether he thought Israeli forces had targeted the church, Pizzaballa said he did not have the military expertise to assess the damage, but that regardless of intention, Christians had repeatedly been attacked and killed by Israeli forces.

“Gaza is almost totally destroyed, and nobody is exempted,” he said. “This is not the first time it happened. There was also [attacks on] the Holy Family and St Porphyrius in the first weeks of the war. And every time it was a mistake.”

Israel Waging “Fastest Starvation Campaign” in Modern History: U.N. Special Rapporteur on Food

Alex de Waal is one of the world's foremost experts on famine. Listen to every word he says about Israel's forced starvation of the people of Gaza:

"There is no case since WW2 of starvation that has been so minutely designed and controlled" pic.twitter.com/MylTCW31xj

— Trita Parsi (@tparsi) July 21, 2025

Global outcry grows over Israel’s killing of starving civilians in Gaza

Israel is facing intensifying international condemnation for its killing of starving Palestinian civilians in Gaza, and its attacks on humanitarian efforts, as the UN secretary general, António Guterres, said the “last lifelines keeping people alive [in the strip] are collapsing”. An angry chorus of senior figures, among them the UK foreign secretary, David Lammy, and a senior Catholic cleric, expressed on Tuesday a growing sense of global horror over Israel’s actions.

“I spoke again with [the Israeli foreign minister] Gideon Saar to recall our understanding on aid flow and made clear that IDF [Israel Defense Forces] must stop killing people at distribution points,” the EU’s foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, wrote on X. “The killing of civilians seeking aid in Gaza is indefensible.” She said “all options were on the table” if Israel does not deliver on aid pledges, but did not say what those options included.

According to UN officials on Tuesday, more than 1,000 desperate Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces since the end of May trying to reach food distributions run by the controversial US- and Israel-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) amid widening conditions of starvation in the Palestinian territory. The comments came as Israeli forces attacked warehousing and staff accommodation in Deir al-Balah – Gaza’s main aid hub – belonging to the World Health Organization. ...

Philippe Lazzarini said Unrwa’s own staff, as well as doctors and humanitarian workers, were fainting on duty owing to hunger and exhaustion as Israel limited access to life-saving humanitarian aid, and that many were surviving on a single small meal a day. “Caretakers, including Unrwa colleagues in Gaza, are also in need of care now – doctors, nurses, journalists, humanitarians, among them Unrwa staff, are hungry. Many are now fainting due to hunger and exhaustion while performing their duties,” he said in a statement at a media briefing in Geneva. ...

Despite the high-profile criticism in recent days, aid agencies have criticised the lack of meaningful action by the governments who signed the joint statement, including the UK, against Israel. Kristyan Benedict, of Amnesty International UK, said the British government’s “failure to take robust measures to prevent genocide is no accident”, adding that “as a state party to the genocide convention, the UK has a legal duty to prevent and punish genocide – a duty it is failing miserably to uphold”.

Fifteen More Palestinians Starve to Death in Gaza Due to US-Backed Israeli Blockade

Gaza’s Health Ministry reported on Tuesday that 15 more Palestinians starved to death in Gaza over 24 hours due to the US-backed Israeli blockade on the besieged territory.

Among the dead were four children, including six-week-old Yousef al-Safadi. Babies are especially vulnerable since malnourished mothers cannot produce breast milk, and Israel is impeding the import of baby formula.

Yousef’s family told Reuters that he died due to the lack of baby formula. “You can’t get milk anywhere, and if you do find any, it’s $100 for a tub,” Yousef’s uncle, Adham al-Safadi, said while looking at his dead nephew at the al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

Three other children were also starved to death by Israel over the past 24 hours, including 13-year-old Abdulhamid al-Ghalban, who died in a hospital in Khan Younis. Raheel Rosros, a 32-year-old woman with special needs, also died of starvation. ...

Gaza’s Health Ministry said that a total of 101 Palestinians, including 80 children, have starved to death throughout the genocidal war. The rate of starvation deaths has significantly spiked over the past week.

Microsoft Workers REBEL, REFUSE To Work With IDF

Israeli cruise ship turned away from Greek island by Gaza war protest

A cruise liner carrying Israeli tourists has been forced to reroute to Cyprus after being turned away from the Greek island of Syros after a quayside protest over the Gaza war.

Around 1,600 Israeli passengers on board the Crown Iris were prevented from disembarking amid safety concerns when more than 300 demonstrators on the Cycladic isle made clear they were unwelcome over Israel’s conduct of the war and treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. A large banner emblazoned with the words Stop the Genocide was held aloft alongside Palestinian flags.

A statement from the protesters also took issue with Greece’s increasingly close “economic, technological and military” relationship with Israel. “As residents of Syros but more so as human beings, we are taking action that we hope will contribute to stopping this destruction from the genocidal war that is taking place in our neighbourhood,” it said.

Some passengers on the vessel reacted by raising Israeli flags and chanting patriotic slogans, eyewitnesses said.

Palestinian American Student & Dad: 200 Relatives Killed in Gaza; VCU Withholds Diploma for Protest

Columbia disciplines dozens of students for pro-Palestinian library protest in May

Columbia University said on Tuesday that it was disciplining dozens of pro-Palestinian student protesters who seized part of the school’s main library during a demonstration in early May that led to multiple arrests.

Following the protest, the university began an investigation into rules violations, banned participants from the campus and placed them on interim suspension, it said. It issued its final determinations on Tuesday.

Columbia said in a statement that the sanctions included probation, suspensions ranging from one year to three years, the revocation of degrees, and expulsions. It did not specify how it disciplined any individuals.

“Disruptions to academic activities are in violation of University policies and Rules, and such violations will necessarily generate consequences,” the university said in the statement announcing the actions. Donald Trump has targeted universities including Columbia since returning to the White House in January over the pro-Palestinian student protest movement that roiled campuses last year.

Columbia for Palestine, a pro-Palestinian group at the school, said on Tuesday that 80 students were informed on Monday about their punishments. It said the disciplinary action marked “the most suspensions for a single political protest in Columbia campus history” and exceeded past disciplinary actions announced against people over other protests.

Columbia University is officially a pro-genocide, right-wing hedge fund that has masqueraded as an educational institution https://t.co/k0Cr58Z2vo

— Nora Barrows-Friedman (@norabf) July 22, 2025

Trump announces Japan trade deal after weeks of fraught negotiations

Donald Trump has announced a trade deal with Japan, potentially resolving weeks of fraught negotiations between the two allies which had caused political uproar and economic uncertainty in Tokyo. “We just completed a massive Deal with Japan,” the US president announced in a post online, adding “Japan will invest, at my direction, $550 Billion Dollars into the United States.”

There was no immediate comment from Japan and the much of the detail of the deal remained unclear. In the post on Tuesday evening, Trump said Japanese imports would face a 15% tariff, an improvement on the 25% he threatened to impose from 1 August earlier this month.

He also claimed that Japan would open its market to US products including cars, trucks, rice and certain agricultural products – many of which had proved to be a sticking point in negotiations. It was unclear what tariff rate US imports to Japan would be charge at under the deal. ...

Japan’s prime minister Shigeru Ishiba had reportedly tied his fate to the success of tariff negotiations, after his coalition lost its upper house majority in elections last weekend. Ishiba told a news conference on Monday he would remain in office to oversee tariff talks with the US, as well as other pressing matters, such as rising consumer prices that are straining the world’s fourth-largest economy.

China DUMPS US Bonds, Dollar CRASHES as BRICS Steps In w/ Richard Wolf & Sean Foo

Manufacturing Activity Sinks 'Sharply' as GM Blames Trump Tariffs for Profit Drop

A key manufacturing activity indicator unexpectedly plunged over the last month amid warnings from American automobile giant General Motors that U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs are swallowing its profits.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Fifth District Survey of Manufacturing Activity's index "sank sharply" in July and fell to -20, which was a drop from the -8 number posted by the index in June. Experts surveyed by the Journal had actually expected the index number to tick upward to -6, which makes the massive drop in July a significant and unpleasant surprise.

The index is a survey of more than five dozen manufacturing firms located in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States that asks them to report activities including shipments, new orders, and employment. A monthly number below zero indicates that activity in these realms has shrunk rather than grown over the last month, and the Journal notes that the index has been registering negative numbers for five months straight.

And the month-over-month dive in manufacturing activity isn't the only signal of trouble ahead for domestic manufacturing. General Motors revealed on Tuesday that its profits took a significant dent in the past quarter thanks in part to the Trump tariffs on vital components such as steel.

In all, GM's core profits fell by $3 billion on the quarter and it projected that its third-quarter profits could drop by as much as $5 billion as more tariffs take effect. Although GM is expanding some of its manufacturing in the U.S. to mitigate some of the impact of Trump's tariffs, that likely can only go so far when big tariffs are still being levied on the imported raw materials that the company needs to build cars.

GM's warning about tariffs comes just a day after Jeep manufacturer Stellantis projected that the Trump tariffs would directly lead to $350 million in losses in the first half of 2025.

Trump made raising tariffs on foreign products a key plank of his 2024 election campaign despite the fact that he also ran on lowering inflation, as tariffs historically have led to higher, rather than lower, prices.

Andrei Martyanov: Has Zelensky’s Final Hour Arrived? | Shocking Shifts in Ukraine’s War Game

Congress to subpoena Maxwell amid political firestorm over Epstein files

Congress will subpoena Ghislaine Maxwell, the imprisoned sex trafficker who was a close associate of the notorious pedophile Jeffrey Epstein, to testify amid a political firestorm over the Trump administration’s decision not to release its remaining Epstein files.

The Tennessee Republican Tim Burchett introduced a motion to compel Maxwell, who is serving a 20-year sentence in a Florida prison for crimes related to the Epstein case, to testify before the House oversight committee.

The move appears to skirt an announcement early on Tuesday that officials from the Department of Justice are also planning to meet with Maxwell.

“We got to send a message to these dirt bags,” Burchett said in a statement posted on X, referring to the list of clients and other Epstein enablers who are assumed to be included in the remaining Epstein files, the details of which are not publicly known. “We’ve just got to get to the bottom of this thing, folks. It’s four years and we don’t need to tolerate this stuff any more.”

Soon after Burchett’s announcement, Mike Johnson, the Republican House speaker, said he was shutting down operations in the chamber early, sending lawmakers home before a five-week summer recess.

They cannot possibly survive another prison s*icide

US House calls early summer recess to block voting on release of Epstein files

Republicans announced Tuesday that the House of Representatives will call it quits a day early and head home in the face of persistent Democratic efforts to force Republicans into voting on the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

The chamber was scheduled be in session through Thursday ahead of the annual five-week summer recess, but on Tuesday, the Republican majority announced that the last votes of the week would take place the following day. Democrats in turn accused the GOP of leaving town rather than dealing with the outcry over Donald Trump’s handling of the investigation into the alleged sex trafficker.

“They are actually ending this week early because they’re afraid to cast votes on the Jeffrey Epstein issue,” said Ted Lieu, the vice-chair of the House Democratic caucus.

Republicans downplayed the decision to cut short the workweek, while arguing that the White House has already moved to resolve questions about the case. Last week, Trump asked the attorney general, Pam Bondi, to release grand jury testimony, although that is expected to be only a fraction of the case’s documents.

“We’re going to have committee meetings through Thursday, and there’s still a lot of work being done,” said the majority leader, Steve Scalise. “The heavy work is done in committee and there is a lot of work being done this week before we head out.” He declined to answer a question about whether votes were cut short over the Epstein files. At a press conference, the House speaker, Mike Johnson, insisted that Congress must be careful in calling for the release of documents related to the case, for fear of retraumatizing his victims.

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MAGA Influencers Go ALL IN on Tulsi's Russiagate Ploy

AOC’s office vandalized after recent House vote involving US aid to Israel

A Bronx office of the US House member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was vandalized early on Monday, according to New York City police, who say they are investigating.

The vandalism occurred as the progressive Democratic congresswoman grapples with “threats on [her] life”, as her campaign manager put it, after a recent US House of Representatives vote involving American aid to Israel.

Officers called out to Ocasio-Cortez’s campaign office in Westchester Square at about 12.45am found its front covered in red paint, police said. Images circulating online and on local news media outlets showed someone had left a sign which alleged that Ocasio-Cortez “funds genocide in Gaza”, though she has repeatedly criticized the Israeli military’s strikes there.

The vandalism occurred after Ocasio-Cortez on Friday voted against a defense spending bill amendment authored by the Republican congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia that would have eliminated funding for the system protecting Israel from missiles. Ocasio-Cortez voted “no” on the defense spending bill itself, which passed the House and included more than $600m in aid for Israel, as she alluded to on an X post hours after the office’s vandalism.

Her vote on Greene’s amendment prompted the Democratic Socialists of America to issue a statement accusing Ocasio-Cortez of backing Israel’s “eliminationist campaign against the Palestinian people”.

Israel’s Depravity Will Always Find New Ways To Shock You

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been having a public tantrum on Bluesky because of the leftist backlash from her vote against an amendment which would have blocked funding for Israel’s missile defense system and her garbage justification of that move, angrily proclaiming that her “record on Palestine speaks for itself” and claiming that the opposition has created a “threat environment” that is “scary”.

That AOC chose to throw this fit on Bluesky rather than Twitter is telling; she got so mad that she ran to the liberal echo chamber where she’s adored in order to complain about how the left won’t even let her support just a little bit of genocide as a treat.

This is just her yelling at people for not loving her when she does gross swamp monster things. But it doesn’t work that way. You don’t get to be the beloved leftist people’s champion and also be the person who votes against an amendment to withhold $500 million of military funding for a genocidal state and then justifies it with obnoxious lies. You don’t get to do the darling of the left thing and also do the weird Zionist swamp creature thing. You have to pick one, because you can’t be both. No amount of yelling at ordinary people is going to change that.

AOC and her supporters wouldn’t have to spend days frantically justifying her refusal to support Palestine and oppose genocide at every opportunity if she would simply support Palestine and oppose genocide at every opportunity. That’s normal. Just be normal. Do the normal thing.

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Clearing Gaza rubble could yield 90,000 tonnes of planet-heating emissions

Millions of tonnes of rubble left by Israel’s bombardment of Gaza could generate more than 90,000 tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions – and take as long as four decades to remove and process, a study has found.

Israel’s destruction of Palestinian homes, schools and hospitals in Gaza generated at least 39m tonnes of concrete debris between October 2023 and December 2024, which will require at least 2.1m dump trucks driving 18m miles (29.5m km) to transport to disposal sites, researchers said.

Just clearing the rubble is on par with driving 737 times the Earth’s circumference, and would generate almost 66,000 tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), according to researchers at the universities of Edinburgh and Oxford, who used evolving open-source tools in remote sensing to detect and analyse conflict-related emissions.

The study, published in the journal Environmental Research: Infrastructure and Sustainability, is part of a growing movement to account for the climate and environmental costs of war and occupation, including the long-term damage to land, food and water sources, as well as post-conflict cleanup and reconstruction. It is the most detailed examination so far of the carbon and logistical toll of dealing with debris – which in Gaza conceals thousands of unidentified human remains, toxins such as asbestos and unexploded ordnance. ...

Commenting on the study, Ben Neimark, senior lecturer at Queen Mary University of London who leads a team researching the total climate cost of Israel’s recent conflicts, said: “The methodological focus on debris is cutting-edge work, highlighting often-missed environmental damage left by militaries after the war is over. It provides a fresh look at the daily images of bombed-out buildings and rubble from Gaza, rather than seeing them as longer-term climate impacts of war.”

World on brink of climate breakthrough as fossil fuels ‘run out of road’, UN chief says

The world is on the brink of a breakthrough in the climate fight and fossil fuels are running out of road, the UN chief said on Tuesday, as he urged countries to funnel support into low-carbon energy. More than nine in 10 renewable power projects globally are now cheaper than fossil fuel alternatives. Solar power is about 41% cheaper than the lowest-cost fossil fuel alternative, and onshore wind generation is less than half the price of fossil fuels, according to a report from the International Renewable Energy Agency.

Costs have been driven down by the increasingly widespread use of the technologies, a huge focus on low-carbon manufacturing in China, and burgeoning investment in the sector, reaching $2tn last year – which was $800bn more than went into fossil fuels, and an increase of 70% in the last decade.

The UN secretary general, António Guterres, said: “We are on the cusp of a new era. Fossil fuels are running out of road. The sun is rising on a clean energy age.” Guterres said countries seeking energy security against geopolitical threats and lower costs for consumers amid a global cost-of-living crisis must choose renewables. “The greatest threat to energy security today is fossil fuels. They leave economies and people at the mercy of price shocks, supply disruptions and geopolitical turmoil,” he said. “There are no price spikes for sunlight. No embargos on wind.”

Energy demand is still rising, however, driven by the demand for cooling as temperatures rise beyond bearable levels in many countries, and by the soaring demand for power for IT datacentres, including for AI. If even a proportion of this increase is devoted to fossil fuels it will become impossible to limit global temperature rises to 1.5C above preindustrial levels, as countries have vowed to do. The secretary general called on big technology companies to commit to sourcing 100% of their electricity demands from low-carbon generation by 2030.

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Also of Interest

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

Nuclear Missile Diplomacy

AFP news agency calls on Israel to allow evacuation of its freelance contributors

Israeli Army Admits Troop Shortages amid Ongoing Assault on Gaza

Patrick Lawrence: Washington Takes on the BRICS

Ukraine - Zelenski Ends Independence Of Anti-Corruption Institutions

USDA ends support for Black farmers, saying it ‘sufficiently’ handled discrimination

Atlanta reporter detained by Ice punished for his journalism

Bibi BLACKMAILED Bill Clinton With Lewinsky Tapes

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A Little Night Music

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters – The Hoochie Coochie Coo

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters – Tore Up Over You

The Midnighters - Sexy Ways

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters – Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters - The Twist

Hank Ballard & Midnighters - Work With Me Annie

Midnighters - Annie Had A Baby

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters - Teardrops On Your Letter

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters - The Switch-A-Roo

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