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"When Palestinians say they don’t feel safe they mean they’re afraid of being killed by 2000-pound bombs. When Zionists say they don’t feel safe they mean they’re afraid of experiencing the psychological discomfort of encountering protests against a genocide that they support."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

News and Opinion

You Can Measure The Health Of A Society By How It Treats Its Warmongers And Its Peacemongers

You can tell a lot about the health of a society by how it treats its warmongers and how it treats its peacemongers.

When those who push for war are elevated to positions of prominence in government and media while those who push for peace are smeared as antisemites and Russian agents, you know you are living in a wildly dysfunctional civilization.

When politicians who promote the interests of empire managers and war profiteers rocket to the top echelons of government while those who promote the interests of war victims and ordinary people have their homes raided and their devices seized by police under counter-terrorism laws, you know you are living in a profoundly sick society.

When those who spend their lives promoting mass military slaughter at every opportunity are rewarded with esteemed and lucrative punditry careers while those who call for an end to mass military slaughter have their influence relegated to increasingly marginalized online platforms, you know you are living in dystopia.

War is the most insane thing humans do. The most destructive. The most traumatizing. The most destabilizing. The least sustainable. The least morally defensible. The least conducive to human thriving. It is promoted by the very worst among us, and it is opposed by the very best.

In a healthy society, those who dedicated themselves to the task of getting as many human beings ripped apart by military explosives as possible would be reviled as monsters and caged for the health of the collective. In our society this is seen as a perfectly legitimate career path, from which someone can earn a very comfortable living.

In a healthy society, only those who promote the interests of ordinary human beings and spurn the influence of malign manipulators would ever be elevated to positions of leadership. In our society, it’s the best way to make sure you spend your life in perpetual obscurity.

This is what powerful manipulators have successfully duped us into accepting as normal. This is the insanity that mass media propaganda and mainstream culture-manufacturing have convinced us to regard as okay. But it is not okay. It’s about as far from okay as anything could possibly be.

And now here we are, our eyes full of genocide in the foreground and a looming global conflict between nuclear-armed states in the background, with those who decry this being shouted down and silenced while those who support this become millionaires and presidents.

There is no part of this that is acceptable. Every aspect of this civilization is a freakish abomination. We’ve got to wake up to what’s going on, and we’ve got to find some way to remove the people who have placed us on this trajectory from power.

So long as any part of this nightmare looks fine and normal to most people, we’ve got no chance at a healthy world.

Campaigning Against Genocide (w/ Dr. Jill Stein & Butch Ware) | The Chris Hedges Report

Fmr. Israeli Hostage Negotiator Gershon Baskin Slams Netanyahu for Blocking Ceasefire Deal

Benjamin Netanyahu putting his own interests before Israel’s, says Gantz

Benjamin Netanyahu’s main political rival, Benny Gantz, has accused the Israeli prime minister of putting his personal interests before those of his country after he again insisted on the need for Israeli control of the Gaza-Egypt border on Monday, a position that has emerged as a key obstacle to a ceasefire deal.

Speaking in Tel Aviv at the Israel Bar Association’s annual conference on Tuesday, the centre-right National Unity party leader said Netanyahu had “lost his way” and “sees himself as the state … this is dangerous,” he said.

Netanyahu insisted on Monday night that Israel must retain control of the Philadelphi corridor along Gaza’s border with Egypt, a stance that he has been warned jeopardises efforts aimed at brokering a ceasefire and hostage release deal in the war with Hamas.

In a press conference on Tuesday evening, Gantz said that while the corridor was important to prevent Hamas and other Palestinian militants from smuggling weapons into Gaza, soldiers would be “sitting ducks” and would not stop tunnels.

He also rebutted Netanyahu’s assertion that if Israel were to withdraw from Philadelphi, international pressure would make it difficult to return. “We will be able to return to Philadelphi if and when we are required,” Gantz said, also calling for new elections. “If Netanyahu does not understand that after 7 October everything has changed … and if he is not strong enough to withstand the international pressure to return to Philadelphi, let him put down the keys and go home.”

Dire: Aid Workers Vaccinate Gaza Children During Pauses in Israeli Attacks, Urge Permanent Ceasefire

Israel Kills Another 48 Palestinians in Gaza

Gaza’s Health Ministry said Monday that Israeli forces killed at least 48 Palestinians in Gaza, bringing the recorded death toll to 40,786.

“Israeli forces killed 48 people and injured 70 others in three ‘massacres’ of families in the last 24 hours,” the ministry said, according to Turkey’s Anadolu Agency. “Many people are still trapped under the rubble and on the roads as rescuers are unable to reach them.” ...

Israeli strikes were reported across the Gaza Strip, including in Gaza City, where seven Palestinians were killed in two separate airstrikes. Two Palestinians, including a child, were reported killed in the Nuiserat camp in central Gaza.

Israel SIEGES Hospitals In West Bank Attack

Israeli forces continue devastating assault on West Bank's Jenin

Israeli forces continued their deadly assault on occupied West Bank cities on Monday, with the violent raids entering the sixth day and focused on Jenin. ...

Palestinians in the Jenin camp have been detained with nearby hospitals placed under siege and medical staff attacked. Homes have also been heavily damaged in the assault.

Volunteer crews trying to transport food and supplies to families in the camp, who have not had access to food or water for days, have been attacked or obstructed. Electricity has also been cut off throughout the Jenin camp since the start of the raids, with telecommunications services also affected.

The large-scale offensive has destroyed key infrastructure including roads and homes, with Israeli forces saying they are carrying out "counterterrorism operations". Palestinians maintain this is an attempt by Israel to push them out of their homes with civilian infrastructure deliberately targeted.

According to Jenin’s municipality, Israeli forces have bulldozed around 70 percent of the streets there, as well as its water and sewage networks.

Matt Hoh : Israel In Crisis

Is US Rethinking Arms Exports to Israel After UK Halt? Biden Official [Smirkula] Says 'No'

Palestine defenders hopeful that the United Kingdom's announcement of a partial suspension of arms export licenses to Israel were left disappointed on Tuesday after a U.S. State Department official said the Biden administration was not considering any similar move.

Asked by CBS News national security reporter Olivia Gazis during a daily press conference if the U.K.'s decision "changed the U.S.' position on whether international humanitarian rights have been violated" by Israel or if the U.S. is "rethinking any of its arms exports," Miller said "no."

"This is a decision that the United Kingdom made based on its assessments under its own laws," he said. "We have our assessments that are ongoing when it comes to looking at possible violations of international humanitarian law, and those continue to be ongoing."

Miller—who has admitted that the Gaza death toll could be even higher than the figure claimed by Palestinian authorities—added that there are "a number of incidents" committed by Israeli forces that "remain under review."

Pressed by Reuters foreign policy correspondent Hümeyra Pamuk how "two countries with pretty similar values" are "looking at the same battlefield and coming with very different conclusions," Miller said that "we have not reached conclusions."

"We have reviews that are ongoing, and we haven't made any final determinations or any final conclusions yet," he continued.

Miller said that the U.K. makes "their determinations based on the standard that is written in U.K. law. We will make our determinations based on the standard based in U.S. law, which I don't think is that hard to understand."

"We've said that it's reasonable to assess that there have been violations of international humanitarian law committed," Miller acknowledged. "What we are doing is going and looking at specific incidents to make specific judgments on those specific incidents to find if they have been remediated... what are the actions that Israel took, if any."

"You have to answer those two questions before you can make those determinations under United States law," he added. "That's what we're doing."

Asked when those assessments will be completed, Miller said, "As soon as possible."

Matthew Miller and the U.S. State Department’ spokespeople will be forever remembered as a face of this genocide. https://t.co/mqzrnUPPL1

— Xavier Abu Eid (@xabueid) September 3, 2024

In addition to providing Israel with tens of billions of dollars in armed aid, the Biden administration also shields the far-right government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at the United Nations by vetoing Security Council cease-fire resolutions. Experts argue this makes the United States complicit in what many jurists and scholars say is genocide. Israel is currently on trial for the crime of genocide at the International Court of Justice. Last week, Palestinians, Palestinian Americans, and rights groups asked the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco to revisit a lawsuit accusing senior Biden administration officials of complicity in genocide.

David Cameron sat on advice that there was breach of law in Gaza, officials say

David Cameron, the former foreign secretary, sat on advice from Foreign Office officials in Israel and London that there was clear evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law in Gaza for which the UK risked being complicit, a former Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office (FCDO) adviser said.

The source, who contributed to the drafting of the advice, was speaking after the Labour government banned 30 of about 350 arms export licences due to a clear risk cited in a government memorandum published on Monday that they might be used in serious breaches of international humanitarian law.

The source said what has emerged in the memorandum “is similar to what was being sent to the government from at least February onwards in various drafts by Foreign Office advisers, much of it linked to the deteriorating humanitarian position in Gaza. But what has been eventually published is in much less strident language.

“The tragedy has to be considered: how many lives might have been saved if the arms export licences had been stopped then and not in September, and what the potential ripple effect might have been on how other countries would have reacted in ceasing trade.”

The source added: “The advice being sent through to the Foreign Office was clear that the breaches of IHL by Israel as the occupying power were so obvious that there was a danger of UK complicity if the licences were not withdrawn.”

Ukraine blame game begins

At Least 51 Killed in Russian Missile Strike on Ukrainian Military School

Two Russian ballistic missiles hit a Ukrainian military institute in the central Ukrainian city of Poltava, killing at least 51 and wounding 235, Reuters reported on Tuesday.

The attack is being reported as the single deadliest strike in Ukraine of the year. Russia has stepped up its missile and drone attacks across Ukraine in response to the Ukrainian invasion of Kursk, which is being carried out with US weapons and Western intelligence. ...

Vladimir Rogov, chairman of a pro-Russia movement in Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia, said Russian forces delivered the missile strike. “It was this manpower [of the military school] that was hit by a missile strike. It happened at the moment when they all gathered for their daily routine, when initially there were over half a thousand servicemen. The enemy’s losses amount to hundreds of people,” Rogov said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

Jeffrey Sachs, Taibbi: How The West DESTROYED Russia

Canada turning away more foreigners amid rise in anti-immigration sentiment

Canada is taking steps, both official and unofficial, to curb the number of people coming to the country, highlighting the way in which immigration has become a political flashpoint ahead of a federal election.

According to figures obtained by Reuters, the ratio of refused visitor visa applications to approved ones was higher in recent months than at any point since the height of the pandemic. Immigration officials rejected more applications than they approved in January, February, May and June 2024.

At the same time, the number of approved study and work permits dropped. And in July, Canada refused entry to nearly 6,000 foreign travellers, including students, workers and tourists – the most since at least January 2019. Reuters reported the shift appears to be informal, and not dictated by a change in policy.

Recent polling has shown a sharp change in how Canadians perceive of immigration, amid a mounting cost of living crisis. One immigration lawyer in Nova Scotia said the firm has seen an increase in rejections – and mounting hostility towards the firm’s clients.

“These are things people have said to us – about barring people from coming here or kicking them out – they likely wouldn’t have felt comfortable saying a few years ago. But now they say it to us, knowing exactly what sort of work we do.”

Brazil’s TERRIFYING Censorship Of Elon Musk And X Is AUTHORITARIAN: Michael Shellenberger

US Drug Prices Still Far Higher Than Other Nations' Even After Medicare Talks

The Biden administration's Medicare drug price negotiations yielded lowered costs for 10 commonly used drugs, and the White House said last month that Americans would save an estimated $1.5 billion in out-of-pocket expenses thanks to the talks—but an analysis out Tuesday found that the U.S. will still be paying far more than other wealthy countries.

Reuters reviewed the maximum prices that Australia, Japan, Canada, and Sweden have agreed to pay for nine of the 10 drugs for which Medicare negotiated prices this year, and found that the U.S. will still be paying more than double the amount for the medications on average.

The new prices are set to go into effect on January 1, 2026, but two of the highest prices the U.S. will still pay are for Imbruvica, for blood cancers, and Stelara, for conditions including Crohn's disease and psoriasis.

Medicare will be charged $9,319 for a 30-day supply of the latter drug, compared to $4,607 in Sweden. For Stelara, the U.S. will pay $4,695 under the negotiated prices—more than four times the amount it costs in Sweden, Australia, and Canada.

For Enbrel, which treats conditions including arthritis, Medicare will pay $2,355 per month—far less than the list price of $7,106, but still more than $1,000 over what Sweden is charged: $709. Australia pays $573, while Canada pays $704, and Japan pays just over $300 for the drug.

Stacie Dusetzina, a professor of health policy at Vanderbilt University, told Reuters that the U.S. has "always accepted that we are the country that overpays relative to the rest of the world."

The analysis comes two weeks after the Brookings Institution published a review of the impact of the United States' first federal negotiations of prescription drug prices, finding that just three of the drugs which had little competition in the market accounted for more than half of the $6 billion the U.S. is expected to save in 2026.

"The government negotiations are especially significant for drugs where market forces were most limited and therefore had the least impact on producing price concessions," said Brookings.

Reuters noted that in other countries, prices generally come down over time, but U.S. drugmakers are able to raise prices annually and often extend patents by making small changes to medications, stopping less expensive generic versions from hitting the market and saving patients money.

Unlike in other wealthy countries, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health scientist Mariana Socal told Reuters, "the longer a drug is in the U.S. market, the more we pay."

With previous list prices well into the hundreds and thousands for the 10 drugs included in negotiations so far, Medicare agreed to pay close to $200 for a 30-day supply for drugs including Xarelto, Jardiance, and Farxiga—medications for which other governments examined by Reuters pay $78 or less, thanks to their longstanding negotiations.

The RAND Corporation found in a study in February that before the Medicare negotiations were included in the Inflation Reduction Act, U.S. health plans paid more than three times as much as other countries for brand-name drugs, even after discounts.

"A contributor to higher U.S. per capita drug spending is faster uptake of new and more expensive prescription drugs in the United States relative to other countries," wrote researchers at the London School of Economics in a study in 2013. "In contrast, the other OECD countries employed mechanisms such as health technology assessment and restrictions on patients' eligibility for new prescription drugs, and they required strict evidence of the value of new drugs."

The researchers suggested pharmaceutical companies in the U.S., like in other countries, should be required "to provide more evidence about the value of new drugs in relation to the cost" and negotiate prices accordingly.

As Merith Basey, executive director of Patients for Affordable Drugs, said in August after the results of the first round of negotiations were announced, advocates are still pushing for far more savings in upcoming talks between Medicare and drug manufacturers, which are expected to start next year.

"We remain committed to expanding the Medicare negotiation program to more drugs," said Basey last month, "and fighting for additional reforms to lower drug prices for all patients who need relief."

Supreme court allows US to withhold Oklahoma’s family planning fund

The US supreme court will allow the Biden administration to withhold millions of dollars in grant money from the state of Oklahoma over its refusal to provide information about abortion providers to patients who seek it. In an order released on Tuesday, the nine-member court said an injunction filed by the state had been denied in a 6-3 decision. Justices Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch were the three who would have granted Oklahoma’s application for relief. ...

The grant at the center of the legal battle – Title X family planning program – is distributed by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). In 2021, HHS created a new rule for grant recipients that required them to offer “non-directive”, neutral information about health and family planning options, including on abortion, and to offer people referrals to medical providers, including those who offer abortion services. ...

In March last year, Oklahoma accepted another Title X grant from the HHS. To satisfy the 2021 rule, the state promised to provide patients with a “national call-in” phone number that would provide them with neutral information. But by May, Oklahoma officials had removed the phone number, prompting HHS to give the state 30 days to come into compliance, which Oklahoma refused to do.

In September, HHS redirected the $4.5m in grant funding away from the state, and gave it to Missouri-based organizations. Oklahoma appealed the move, and in November the state attorney general sued the Biden administration, arguing that Biden officials had “overreached” by taking the funds away.

Re-emergence of Greece’s sunken village shows extent of rainfall crisis

No place is more indicative of plummeting rainfall levels in Greece than the Mornos reservoir. And no settlement is more indicative of how serious this year’s drought has been than Kallio, a village submerged by the artificial lake in the late 1970s.

Nearly five decades after Kallio was deliberately flooded as part of the construction of a dam to ensure water supply for Athens, people living nearby have watched in disbelief as reserves have receded to the point that the village has reappeared. “It’s a nightmarish situation,” said Apostolos Gerodimos, the head of the 60-strong community forced to move upland when the dam was built about 125 miles west of Athens. ...

Kostas Koutsoumbas, the village’s vice-mayor, thinks water levels “have fallen 40 metres” this year and are still heading south. “We haven’t seen anything like it since 1993,” he said. “It’ll be more acute than even then if things don’t improve.” ...

On the frontline of the climate emergency, Greece has been hammered by a succession of heatwaves exacerbated by years of erratic rain. The mercury hit record levels in June, July and August. As a result, across the Mediterranean country water shortages have become a major concern. Popular islands, many of which rely on wells and desalination plants, are especially affected at a time when unprecedented tourist arrivals are placing ever-greater pressure on climate-stressed resources.

Study Ties Climate Crisis to Spread of Valley Fever-Causing Fungus in California

Scientists at the University of California noticed that cases of Valley fever, a respiratory infection that is spread only through the inhalation of fungal spores, only peaked in certain parts of the state in recent years—and when they set out to discover why, they found that drought may play a major role in rising cases of the disease.

In a study published in The Lancet Regional Health - Americas on Tuesday, the researchers explained that increased droughts in the state have created conditions for a growing number of people to inhale coccidioides spores, which thrive in soil and can be inhaled through dust.

The scientists analyzed cases of Valley fever from 2000-22, and found that cases have risen dramatically since the turn of the century—particularly from 2014-18 and again from 2018-22, two periods when reported cases tripled.

Cases of the seasonal illness have long been known to occur mostly between September and November, but the researchers found "there were certain years during which few or no counties had a seasonal peak in Valley fever cases," said lead author Alexandra Heaney, an assistant professor at the UC San Diego Herbert Wertheim School of Public Health and Human Longevity Science. "This made us wonder what was driving these differences in seasonality between years, and based on the timing we observed, we hypothesized that drought might be playing a role."

During periods of drought, seasonal peaks of Valley fever were less severe, according to the study. It was after the dry periods, when heavy rains returned, that cases spiked.

The researchers suggested that the return of rainy weather could allow the heat-resistant coccidioides fungus to proliferate because of the newly moist soil and the influx of nutrients. Another hypothesis was that droughts cause a decline in the population of rodents that host the fungus.

"Because dead rodents are thought to be an important source of nutrients for the fungus, it may be able to survive and spread more easily in drought conditions," reported UC San Diego Today.

"This work is an important example of how infectious diseases are influenced by climate conditions," Heaney said. "Even though droughts appear to decrease Valley fever cases in the short term, the net effect is an increase in cases over time, particularly as we experience more frequent and severe droughts due to climate change."

The study comes a month after a music festival in the state's Central Valley was linked to 14 cases of Valley fever, which can cause joint pain and fatigue as well as respiratory symptoms and can spread to the bones or brain in rare, potentially fatal cases.

People who work outside, including farmworkers and construction workers, are most at risk for breathing in the fungus.

The scientists called for more thorough monitoring of the fungus, which can be difficult to detect and whose symptoms are often confused for other respiratory illnesses. They also called for people in the state to wear face coverings when coming into contact with soil and dust and to minimize time outdoors, if possible, during dry and dusty periods.

Heaney said the team is next looking at climate dynamics related to Valley fever in Arizona, where about two-thirds of cases occur in the United States.

"Understanding where, when, and in what conditions Valley fever is most prevalent is critical for public health officials, physicians, and the public to take precautions during periods of increased risk," said Heaney.

Also of Interest

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

Craig Murray: The End of Western Pluralist Democracy

US Politics Are The Whole World’s Business

Biden, Harris, and the Brutal Truth of Dead Hostages in Gaza

Patrick Lawrence: Gaza: Kamala Harris and the Disgrace of Denial

Canadian journalist outs himself as Canadian, Ukrainian intelligence collaborator

Ukraine - Russian Missile Strike Hits Swedish Instructors

How a natural gas project along the Gulf coast is upending residents’ lives

"Dynamite Nashville" Book Reveals KKK Behind Unsolved Civil Rights-Era Attacks, Prompts New Probe

Kyle Kulinski’s Transition To “Sh*t-Lib” 100% Complete w/Matt Taibbi!

A Little Night Music

Larry Johnson – Blood Red River

Larry Johnson - Ragged And Dirty

Larry Johnson - Frisco Blues

Larry Johnson – Midnight Hour Blues

Larry Johnson with Rob Fleder - Keep A Knockin' An' You Can't Come In

Larry Johnson - Charley Stone

Larry Johnson - Southern Carolina Boogie

Larry Johnson - Cookbook

Larry Johnson & John Hammond – Tell Me Mama