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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Frank Frost

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features delta blues harmonica player Frank Frost. Enjoy!

^{Frank Frost - My Back Scratcher}

"Sociologists have frequently observed that governments use punishment primarily as a tool of social control, and thus the extent or severity of punishment is often unrelated to actual crime patterns."

-- Michelle Alexander

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News and Opinion

Julian Assange released from prison, WikiLeaks says, after striking deal with US justice department

Julian Assange has been released from British prison, according to WikiLeaks, the organisation he founded, which posted on social media a video of him boarding a flight that departed the UK at London’s Stansted airport on Monday evening. ... US prosecutors said in court papers that Assange, 52, has agreed to plead guilty to a single criminal count of conspiring to obtain and disclose classified US national defence documents, according to filings in the US district court for the Northern Mariana Islands.

Assange is due to be sentenced at a hearing on the island of Saipan at 9am local time on Wednesday (2300 GMT on Tuesday). Under the deal, which must be approved by a judge, he is likely to be credited for the five years he has already served and face no new jail time.

In a letter to a federal judge in the district court for the remote the Northern Mariana Islands, a senior justice department official said that he was being sent to Saipan because of its “proximity to the defendant’s country of citizenship”. The official added that once the sentencing hearing was completed, Assange was expected to travel on to Australia.

WikiLeaks said on X that Assange had left Belmarsh prison on Monday morning, after 1,901 days of captivity there. He had spent the time, the organisation said, “in a 2x3 metre cell, isolated 23 hours a day”. ...

As news of the plea deal spread on Monday night, there were widespread expressions of relief that Assange’s years-long captivity appeared to be coming to an end. But there were also concerns that a conviction, even on a single count, could have a devastating and prolonged impact on investigative and national security journalism. Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University which defends press freedom, said that the plea deal averted the worst-case scenario of a full-on prosecution. “But this deal contemplates that Assange will have served five years in prison for activities that journalists engage in every day.”

Julian Assange IS FREE — What this means for the rest of us

There's much more damning info at the link:

Israeli documents show expansive government effort to shape US discourse around Gaza war

Last November, just weeks into the war in Gaza, Amichai Chikli, a brash, 42-year-old Likud minister in the Israeli government, was called into the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, to brief lawmakers on what could be done about rising anti-war protests from young people across the United States, especially at elite universities. “I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again now, that I think we should, especially in the United States, be on the offensive,” argued Chikli.

Chikli has since led a targeted push to counter critics of Israel. The Guardian has uncovered evidence showing how Israel has relaunched a controversial entity as part of a broader public relations campaign to target US college campuses and redefine antisemitism in US law. Seconds after a smoke alarm subsided during the hearing, Chikli assured the lawmakers that there was new money in the budget for a pushback campaign, which was separate from more traditional public relations and paid advertising content produced by the government. It included 80 programs already under way for advocacy efforts “to be done in the ‘Concert’ way”, he said.

The “Concert” remark referred to a sprawling relaunch of a controversial Israeli government program initially known as Kela Shlomo, designed to carry out what Israel called “mass consciousness activities” targeted largely at the US and Europe. Concert, now known as Voices of Israel, previously worked with groups spearheading a campaign to pass so-called “anti-BDS” state laws that penalize Americans for engaging in boycotts or other non-violent protests of Israel.

Its latest incarnation is part of a hardline and sometimes covert operation by the Israeli government to strike back at student protests, human rights organizations and other voices of dissent. Voices’ latest activities were conducted through non-profits and other entities that often do not disclose donor information. From October through May, Chikli has overseen at least 32m shekels, or about $8.6m, spent on government advocacy to reframe the public debate.

It didn’t take long for one of the American advocacy groups closely coordinating with Chikli’s ministry, the Institute for the Study of Global Antisemitism and Policy, or ISGAP, to score a powerful victory. In a widely viewed December congressional hearing on alleged antisemitism among student anti-war protesters, several House GOP lawmakers explicitly cited ISGAP research in their interrogations of university presidents. The hearing concluded with Representative Elise Stefanik’s viral confrontation with the then president of Harvard University, Claudine Gay, who later retired from her role after a wave of negative news coverage.

The ISGAP, which reportedly received the majority of its funding in 2018 from the Israeli agency that was running Concert, touted its congressional public relations coup at a 7 April event at the Palm Beach Country Club. “All these hearings were the result of our report that all these universities, beginning from Harvard, are taking a lot of money from Qatar,” bragged Natan Sharansky, a former Israeli Knesset member (MK) who previously held Chikli’s role and now chairs the ISGAP. Sharansky told the assembled supporters that Stefanik’s remarks had been viewed by 1 billion people.

The ISGAP has continued to shape congressional investigations of universities over claims that protests over Israel’s human rights record are motivated by antisemitism, and the organization has been deeply involved in the campaign to enshrine new laws that redefine antisemitism to include certain forms of speech critical of the nation of Israel.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Netanyahu’s Troubles

If Gaza Opened Your Eyes To The Empire’s Depravity, Make Sure They Stay Open Forever

One of the most important things to understand about the US-backed atrocities in Gaza is that the US-centralized empire isn’t normally this obvious about its criminality. The relatively undisguised nature of the sadism and savagery in this particular case has been a gift to opponents of the US war machine, because the empire has made it much easier for us to open people’s eyes to its depravity.

Normally it’s a lot harder. Normally almost everyone is buying into the mainstream narrative about what’s going on in Empire-Targeted Nation X because of Evil Enemy Dictator Y, with the empire’s role in instigating and perpetuating the violence and suffering being swept under the carpet by the narrative-makers in western governments and their obsequious stenographers in the mainstream press.

It takes a lot of in-depth research and critical thinking to punch through the propaganda narratives and understand things like how western powers and their regional allies intentionally plunged Syria into violence and chaos using heavily-armed extremist proxy militias in an entirely premeditated campaign to topple Damascus and install a puppet regime. Or the fact that the starvation and suffering we heard so much about in Venezuela a few years ago was actually largely caused by US sanctions. Or the fact that the “famine” we heard about in Yemen was actually caused by a US-backed blockade and assault on civilian infrastructure. Or the fact that the Russian invasion of Ukraine was so deliberately and methodically provoked by NATO powers that a great many western strategists and academics spent years warning that those actions were going to get Ukraine wrecked.

Understanding what’s happening in Gaza is a lot easier. There’s nonstop footage of obvious war crimes pouring out of the enclave, and generations of opposition to Israel’s settler-colonialist apartheid abuse of the Palestinians had already succeeded in gaining a foothold in academia and in many fairly mainstream progressive political circles. They’re still saturating the airwaves with propaganda just like they do with all the empire’s other crimes, but because of how much light has already been shed on the situation, the obfuscations aren’t nearly as potent as they normally are, and the mainstream press are even being forced to report on a lot of inconvenient facts to avoid completely losing legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

I emphasize the fact that Gaza is one of the easy ones because it’s so important that people whose eyes were recently opened to the criminality of the empire keep those eyes open to that same criminality after this particular mass atrocity is done. There will with absolute certainty be more evil mass military atrocities performed and backed by the US war machine, and most of them will probably require a much closer look than Gaza.

It probably won’t be as obvious. The crimes of the empire will probably be a lot more carefully hidden. The victims and victimizers probably won’t be quite so easy to discern. The ones being targeted by the US-aligned side probably won’t be quite as reflexively sympathized with.

As a general guideline, if you ever find yourself thinking things like “This time the US is on the right side for once” or “Eh both sides are equally bad,” that’s a pretty good sign that they’ve suckered you.

The US empire is the most murderous and destructive power structure on earth by such an immense margin, and is on the wrong side of every conflict so consistently and reliably, that if you ever find yourself viewing a foreign conflict in ways that aren’t completely hostile to Washington, it’s almost certainly because you’ve swallowed the propaganda.

And there’s no shame in that, to be clear. The US empire has the most sophisticated and effective propaganda engine that has ever existed, and its pervasive narrative control and distortions make it very easy to get lost when navigating the complex information ecosystem of the modern world. If you get something wrong and have to change your position after research and reflection, doing so is just a sign of emotional and intellectual maturity on your part. Everyone makes mistakes.

All this to say, please please please don’t let Gaza be a one-off in terms of your opposition to the imperial machine. Keep your eyes fiercely trained on its actions after this is over, and help bring as much attention to its crimes as possible. If you’re not sure about a particular conflict that’s in the news there are many great resources available for helping you sort out fact from fiction with regard to the empire and its propaganda spin.

The empire didn’t just start getting crazy and evil with Gaza. It’s always doing things like this. It always lies about them. The mass media always help it lie. Gaza isn’t some aberration in its usual behavior, it’s just more obvious.

Hamas Won! How IDF FAILED In Gaza

Israeli far-right minister speaks of effort to annex West Bank

Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, has described in explicit terms his active effort to annex the West Bank to Israel, days after the Guardian revealed how the pro-settlement politician and his allies had quietly gained significant new legal powers to that end.

Speaking at a meeting of his Religious Zionism party, Smotrich told colleagues that he was “establish[ing] facts on the ground in order to make Judea and Samaria [an Israeli term for the occupied West Bank] an integral part of the state of Israel”.

“We will establish sovereignty … first on the ground and then through legislation. I intend to legalise the young settlements [illegal outposts],” Smotrich said in comments reported by Haaretz. “My life’s mission is to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state.”

Annexation and the acquisition of territory by military conquest is forbidden as one of the founding principles of international law including the UN charter. ...

Speaking about his acquisition of new legal powers, he said “[we] created a separate civilian system,” adding that to avoid international criticism the government had kept the defence ministry involved in the process, making it seem as if the military was still the main player in governing the West Bank.

“It will be easier to swallow in the international and legal context,” he said.

Intense phase of Israel’s war with Hamas nearing end, says Netanyahu

Israel’s prime minister has said the most intense phase of the assault against Hamas in Gaza is coming to an end, freeing up forces to move to the Lebanese border, where escalating exchanges of fire with the militant group Hezbollah have increased fears of a wider war.

In his first public interview with a Hebrew-language network outlet in more than eight months of conflict, broadcast on Sunday, Benjamin Netanyahu also walked back on his commitment to a US-backed ceasefire proposal with Hamas, instead suggesting a more limited offer. Later on Monday, however, Netanyahu insisted he was committed to the proposal.

Netanyahu made the remarks on Israel’s rightwing Channel 14 as the top US military officer warned of the risk that Iran would be drawn into a wider war with Hezbollah, threatening US forces in the region. “We will have the possibility of transferring some of our forces north, and we will do that,” Netanyahu said in the interview, which was frequently interrupted by applause from a studio audience. ...

The prime minister said the offensive in Gaza would have to continue with “mowing” operations – targeted strikes aimed at preventing Hamas from regrouping.

He suggested he was prepared “to make a partial deal [with Hamas] – this is no secret – that will return to us some of the people”, referring to the roughly 120 hostages still held in the Gaza Strip. “But we are committed to continuing the war after a pause, in order to complete the goal of eliminating Hamas. I’m not willing to give up on that,” he added. Hamas later issued a statement saying Netanyahu’s position confirmed his rejection of the ceasefire proposal put forward by the US president, Joe Biden.

Rus Summons US Envoy, Retaliate Crimea Beach Strike; FAB-3000s Pound Ukr, Zelensky Sacks Top General

Russia Warns US ‘Retaliatory Measures Will Follow’ Deadly Attack on Crimea

In response to a deadly strike on the Crimean Peninsula that killed four and wounded over 100, the Russian Foreign Ministry said that Washington had effectively become a party to the war, and Moscow would “certainly” retaliate. The Kremlin says American missiles were used in the attack. ...

According to a statement from the Russian Foreign Ministry, the US “has effectively become a party” to the war on Ukraine’s side, adding, “Retaliatory measures will certainly follow.”

Pepe Escobar : Putin’s Next Moves

US missiles massacre beachgoers in Crimea, as US says Ukraine can strike “anywhere” in Russia

Four people were killed and 144 were injured Sunday when a US-made long-range missile fired from Ukraine released cluster bomblets over a busy beach in Sevastopol, Crimea. Sevastopol Governor Mikhail Razvozhaev said 82 people were hospitalized and 27 children were injured.

The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the targeting of the beachgoers was “deliberate,” saying:

Responsibility for the deliberate missile attack on the civilians of Sevastopol is borne above all by Washington, which supplied these weapons to Ukraine, and by the Kyiv regime, from whose territory this strike was carried out.

Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that four US Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles were shot down mid-air over Crimea, and that one released its bomblets, killing and wounding the beachgoers. It claimed that the coordinates for the ATACMS missiles were transmitted by US spy satellites. “Fallen cluster munitions hit the beach. There is a high density of people there, hence there are so many victims,” one Russian think tank analyst told Sputnik News.

Sputnik reported: “At the moment when ATACMS were launched at Sevastopol, a US RQ-4 Global Hawk long-range surveillance drone was detected over the Black Sea.”

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev called for Russia to retaliate, saying he hopes the “USA” will “burn in hell ... in earthly fire.” Medvedev declared: “The bastards from the USA supply missiles with cluster charges to [Ukrainian fascist Stepan] Bandera’s supporters and help guide them to the target.” ...

The assault on Sevastopol is the latest in a series of escalatory moves by the US intended to open the entirety of Russia up for strikes by US-provided weapons launched from Ukraine. ... All these escalatory moves form the backdrop of the upcoming July 9-11 NATO summit in Washington, which is expected to announce a major expansion of direct US/NATO involvement and participation in the Ukraine war, including the possible deployment of ground troops.

Macron Faces BRUTAL Defeat As Neoliberals Implode

Of course nothing that Macron has done is divisive. Pffffftttt!!!

Emmanuel Macron: win for far left or far right ‘will spark civil war’

French President Emmanuel Macron has warned that the far right National Rally (RN) party and the leftwing New Popular Front coalition – both of which are frontrunners in the parliamentary election – risked bringing “civil war” to France.

Macron told the podcast Generation Do It Yourself that the manifesto of the RN party – which election pollsters put in first place – and their solutions to deal with fears over crime and immigration were based upon “stigmatisation or division”.

“I think that the solutions given by the far right are out of the question, because it is categorising people in terms of their religion or origins and that is why it leads to division and to civil war,” he told the podcast. Macron made the same criticism of the extreme leftwing La France Insoumise (LFI) party, which forms part of the New Popular Front coalition.

US social security will no longer deny disability claims based on ability to work outdated jobs

The US’s social security administration is no longer considering a number of outdated jobs as possible work opportunities to deny those applying for disability benefits.

Social security disability benefits are determined with a claimant’s medical records and ability to work in mind. If unable to perform their past job, the administration looks at the person’s age, education and work experience to see if they can do other kinds of work.

The administration’s list of unskilled jobs that people can allegedly perform with disabilities – some of which include pneumatic tube operator, microfilm processor, and nut sorter – has not been updated since 1991. So it lists occupations that are obsolete but which the government argues can be performed by people applying for disability while denying them benefits.

These jobs come from the so-called Dictionary of Occupational Titles (DOT), a publication developed in 1938 by the US government’s labor department. The department used the DOT to define tens of thousands of different types of work but abandoned volume more than thirty years ago to adopt a new system. However, “the DOT is still used in social security disability adjudications,” according to the labor department.

Louisiana families file lawsuit against Ten Commandments display in schools

Several Louisiana families backed by human rights groups have lodged a lawsuit in federal court seeking to block the state’s new law forcing public schools to display the Ten Commandments. The suit was filed with the US district court in Baton Rouge on Monday at the start of what is expected to be an epic legal battle that could end up before the US supreme court. Christian nationalists have been itching for this fight, hoping to destroy the country’s longstanding separation of church and state.

The new law, HB71, was signed by Louisiana’s hard right governor Jeff Landry last week, making the state the first in the nation to order the Ten Commandments to be displayed in all public school classrooms. The law stipulates that the text must be shown exactly as written in the legislation in a frame that is at least 11in by 14 in, and in “large, easily readable font”.

Plaintiffs in Monday’s lawsuit, who include rabbis and pastors, argue that the law is blatantly unconstitutional. It violates both binding precedent from the supreme court that has stood for almost half a century and the establishment and free exercise clauses of the first amendment, they claim. ...

The legal action points out that a central pillar of the new law – the claim that there is a long tradition linking the Ten Commandments to public education in the US – is based on a fabrication. HB71 quotes James Madison, the fourth president, as saying: “We have staked the whole future of our new nation … upon the capacity of each of ourselves to govern ourselves according to the moral principles of the 10 Commandments.”

That quote is fictitious; it is to be found in none of Madison’s writings or speeches. It appears to have been drawn from a conspiracy theory popularized by the late rightwing talk show host Rush Limbaugh.

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AIPAC DUMPS 15 MILLION To Defeat Jamaal Bowman

Judge scolds classified files prosecutor asking to rein in Trump’s attacks on FBI

The federal judge overseeing Donald Trump’s prosecution for retaining classified documents expressed deep reservations on Monday with modifying the former president’s bail conditions to prevent him from making statements that could endanger FBI agents, suggesting redacting their names in filings was enough.

Trump-appointed US district judge Aileen Cannon also repeatedly admonished David Harbach, the prosecutor arguing on behalf of the special counsel, saying at one point she did not appreciate his tone and suggesting if he could not check his frustration, another prosecutor on the team could make arguments instead.

The hearing in federal district court in Fort Pierce, Florida, was a particularly bruising day for prosecutors as the judge expressed skepticism at needing to change Trump’s bail conditions at this juncture – and then questioned the strength of their evidence.

Hunter BIDEN's Laptop and its Connection to the Upcoming CNN DEBATE

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Set more ambitious climate targets to save Great Barrier Reef, Unesco urges Australia

Unesco has urged Australia to set more ambitious climate targets for the Great Barrier Reef in a list of recommendations to preserve its status as a world heritage site. The report, published in Paris late on Monday, did not recommend the reef be placed on a list of sites “in danger” – a threat that has hung over the reef for years – when the 21-country world heritage committee meets next month.

But the report says Australia should be asked to submit a progress report by February 2025, after which the committee “could consider the inclusion of the property on the list of world heritage in danger” at its 2026 meeting. Unesco also said it had “high concern” that rates of land clearing in catchments that flow into the reef was “incompatible” with targets to cut sediments and nutrients running into the reef. ...

Unesco expressed “utmost concern” at the mass coral bleaching event that swept across the reef this summer, urging Australia to make public the extent of coral death “as soon as possible”. Unesco experts wrote: “The current bleaching occurs as part of the fourth global mass bleaching, which is likely impacting at least 30% of the world heritage-listed coral reef properties, and the implications across the world heritage system will also need to be considered further.”

The reef “remains under serious threat, and urgent and sustained action is of utmost priority in order to improve the resilience of the property in a rapidly changing climate”, the report said.

Climate crisis driving exponential rise in most extreme wildfires

The climate crisis is driving an exponential rise in the most extreme wildfires in key regions around the world, research has revealed.

The wildfires can cause catastrophic loss of human life, property and wildlife and cause billions of dollars of damage. Scientists say this is climate change “playing out in front of our eyes”.

The analysis of satellite data showed the number of extreme fires had risen by more than 10 times in the past 20 years in temperate conifer forests, such as in the western US and Mediterranean. It has increased by seven times in the vast boreal forests in northern Europe and Canada. Australia was also a hotspot for these devastating fires.

The scientists also found that the intensity of the worst wildfires had doubled since 2003, and that the six years with the biggest numbers of extreme fires had all occurred since 2017. On average across the globe, extreme wildfires have more than doubled in frequency and intensity over the past two decades.

The researchers also warned that the rise in the huge fires was threatening to create a “scary” feedback loop, in which the vast carbon emissions released by the fires cause more global heating, which causes more fires.

Clothes, cookware, floss: Colorado law to ban everyday products with PFAS

A new law coming into effect in Colorado in July is banning everyday products that intentionally contain toxic “forever chemicals”, including clothes, cookware, menstruation products, dental floss and ski wax – unless they can be made safer.

Under the legislation, which takes effect on 1 July, many products using per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances – or PFAS chemicals linked to cancer risk, lower fertility and developmental delays – will be prohibited starting in 2026.

By 2028, Colorado will also ban the sale of all PFAS-treated clothes, backpacks and waterproof outdoor apparel. The law will also require companies selling PFAS-coated clothing to attach disclosure labels. ...

Colorado has already passed a measure requiring companies to phase out PFAS in carpets, furniture, cosmetics, juvenile products, some food packaging and those used in oil and gas production.

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Also of Interest

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

The Treachery of the Nazi-Zionist Alliance

Toys, spices, sewing machines: the items Israel banned from entering Gaza

Silencing US Jewish Critics of Zionism

UK’S Reform Party Is Poised To Destroy the Consersvatives, and Deserves To

Pillaging by the Super-Rich Will Continue Until the Working Class Revolts

Journalist shot by Minneapolis police at George Floyd protest in hospice care

They took part in Apache ceremonies. Their schools expelled them for satanic activities

Julian Assange’s Brother Gabriel Shipton on End of Legal Saga

Media BLATANTLY LIES About LA Synagogue Protests

No One Shows Up For AOC & Bernie Rally!

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A Little Night Music

Frank Frost - Jelly Roll King

Frank Frost With The Nighthawks - Baby You're So Kind

Frank Frost - Harpin' On It

Frank Frost - Now What You Gonna Do

Frank Frost - Big Boss Man

Frank Frost - Crawlback

Frank Frost - Things You Do

Frank Frost - Feel Good Babe

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