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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Earl Gaines

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features r&b singer Earl Gaines. Enjoy!

^{Earl Gaines - It's Love Baby (24 Hours A Day)}

"There is no denying that Hitler and Stalin are alive today... they are waiting for us to forget, because this is what makes possible the resurrection of these two monsters."

-- Simon Wiesenthal

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News and Opinion

Biden Leaves a Global Trail of Destruction

There is no ambiguity about President Joe Biden’s foreign policy record: it was bloody, and it was disastrous. On the domestic front, Joe Biden’s record has been such a hodgepodge of contradictions that it’s difficult to properly rate it. There is no such ambiguity when it comes to his foreign policy, which was an abject disaster, both by the standards of any peace-loving person who wants a world with less war and chaos and on its own terms.

In theory, Biden and his team were trying to bring diplomacy “back at the center of our foreign policy” and to run a “foreign policy for the middle class,” one where US decisions on the world stage would revolve around whether or not they benefited ordinary working Americans, and not around the obscure priorities of Washington staffers and think-tankers pushing toy soldiers around a map. But old habits are hard to break.

Biden leaves office having mired the United States in two wars that didn’t exist when he entered, both of which have, several times, nearly escalated into wider conflagrations (one of them a nuclear-tinged one) where regime change has been the sometimes explicit goal, and both of which the United States avoided being pulled directly in by the closest of margins. His only innovation to this neocon-redux strategy has been to wage the wars indirectly, trying to dodge the political fallout of putting boots on the ground by feeding weapons and logistical and operational assistance to local client states to fight instead — and even then, not always, as in the case of Yemen, where the US-backed Saudi war ended only for the United States to start bombing the country directly, which it has been illegally doing for a year now.

Far from resuscitating diplomacy, this has been an administration shockingly hostile to it. ...

Gaza has been the nadir, where Biden and his team spent fifteen months putting on a public show of backing cease-fire negotiations while in reality giving the far-right Israeli government full military, diplomatic, and rhetorical cover to keep rejecting a deal and continue indefinitely slaughtering Gazan civilians.

How any of this benefits the middle class is unclear. In fact, it manifestly hasn’t. Both wars sent US gas prices spiking at various times, with Ukraine in particular a major contributor to the peak inflation of 2022 that helped sow the seeds of the Democrats’ election loss. Americans weren’t shy about their resentment at watching Biden do speeches in far-off places important to his foreign policy before visiting their communities or sending billions out the door for foreign wars while they languished, something that Biden’s insistence that he was funneling record amounts of taxpayer money to US weapons makers didn’t smooth over. ...

Biden’s war on Gaza is far more gruesome than almost every other obscene war we’ve seen this century and many we saw in the last — not just in terms of its civilian body count but of the demographic profile of the dead, as well as its scale of physical destruction, the rate of killing, its objective level of cruelty, and all of these metrics combined. You have to go back to World War II to find a comparable example of a place that has been so thoroughly bombed to rubble; other features, like the wiping out of entire families, five- and nine-year-olds making up the largest age cohort of those killed, or the creation of the new victim category of “wounded child, no surviving family” simply have no precedent.

Israel Continues Deadly Attack on Jenin; Trump Lifts Sanctions on Extremist West Bank Settlers

Israel tightens its grip on Jenin and the wider West Bank

Israel is using the first phase of the ceasefire in Gaza as an opportunity to step up its war on the West Bank. Given the green light by the Trump administration, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) soldiers and security forces have launched a massive operation centred on Jenin which Foreign Minister Israel Katz declared “will mark a shift in the IDF’s security strategy in Judea and Samaria [the Biblical name used by far-right Zionists to refer to the West Bank].”

Making clear the government’s intentions, fascist finance minister Bezalel Smotrich said, “After Gaza and Lebanon, today, with God’s help, we have begun to change the security concept in Judea and Samaria”. Several reports suggest Smotrich secured a commitment to include “security” in the West Bank as one of Israel’s official war goals in exchange for his backing the Gaza ceasefire agreement. ...

Meanwhile, the residents of Gaza continue to sift through the 50 million tons of rubble that is all that remains of their levelled cities, with 80 percent of the buildings in northern Gaza destroyed, leaving 300,000 homeless. Relatives and civil agencies are searching for an estimated 10,000 bodies trapped underneath the wreckage. More than 200 have been found since the ceasefire came into effect four days ago. Frequently all that can be found are bones.

The work is slow going, in part because the IDF has killed roughly 100 staff members of the civil defence agency and destroyed many of its vehicles. It also takes place under fire. On Wednesday, 28-year-old Akram Atef Zanoun was shot and killed, and four others wounded, by an Israeli quadcopter while removing rubble from their mostly destroyed homes in Rafah city’s Shaboura camp. ...

British Dr. James Smith, who volunteered at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa Hospital, told Al Jazeera, “One of the most important things to remember is a genocide doesn’t end with a ceasefire, particularly a ceasefire as fragile as this.”

“It’s simply ongoing now by other means,” he said, pointing to the Strip’s ruined healthcare system.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Can there be Peace with Netanyahu?

Israeli forces surround Palestinian hospital and refugee camp in West Bank

Israeli forces have besieged a Palestinian government hospital in Jenin and a nearby refugee camp in the heart of the city, as the Israeli defence minister, Israel Katz, said the assault marked “a shift in … security strategy” in the West Bank. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said on Wednesday they had carried out airstrikes in Jenin as well as detonating roadside explosive devices. The Palestinian health ministry said at least 10 people had been killed in Jenin, and more than 40 wounded.

The Palestinian Red Crescent said its ambulances had been prevented from reaching many of the dead and wounded who lay in the streets of neighbourhoods around the Jenin refugee camp. “No one can break the siege on the refugee camp and the surrounding area,” said Nebal Farsakh, a spokesperson for the Palestinian Red Crescent. Their medics had treated seven fatalities and 17 wounded people, all injured with live ammunition, she added.

Wissam Bakr, the head of Khalil Suleiman governmental hospital in Jenin, said: “The current situation is awful. Israeli forces destroyed the roads in front of the hospital. They put the rubble from the destroyed streets in front of hospital exits to prevent ambulances from entering or leaving.”

He estimated that 600 medical staff and patients were sheltering inside the hospital, fearfully crammed on any beds, chairs or spaces they could find. Supplies of food and water in the hospital would only last a few days. An Israeli drone had been audible, he said, terrifying the people huddled in the hospital. Two nurses and three doctors had been shot on the main road leading to the hospital on Tuesday, he added.

Saagar EXCLUSIVE: Neocon WAR On America First Trump Appointees

'Haunting' Footage as Gazans Return to Homes in Ruin

Palestinians living in the Gaza Strip are returning home after a cease-fire deal between Hamas and Israel went into effect Sunday, halting 15 months of war that local health officials say killed over 46,000 people. But for many, there are no homes to return to.

Footage of Gaza shows what once were houses, shops, and other buildings severely damaged or completely reduced to gray rubble.

One Gaza resident, Islam Dahliz, told The New York Times that he and his brother and father set out to find their family home—a once spacious two-story dwelling in Rafah—almost as soon as the cease-fire went into effect. What they found instead was unrecognizable.

"It took us a few minutes to accept that this pile of rubble was our home," said Dahliz. The house had been built by Dahliz's father, Abed Dahliz, in the 1970s.

"I was shocked when I saw my entire life—everything I worked for—flattened to the ground," said Abed Dahliz, according to the Times. "The home I spent so many years building, pouring my savings into, is gone."

After more than 15 months of bombardments & suffering in Gaza, the ceasefire is a glimmer of hope.

But for many families, there is nothing to return to but rubble.

The UN’s priority is to ease the tremendous suffering caused by this conflict.

via @UNRWA pic.twitter.com/uuUG6SotJ7

— United Nations (@UN) January 20, 2025

Versions of this story are playing out all around Gaza. All told, roughly 90% of the population across Gaza was displaced from their homes, many multiple times, according to the United Nations.

"The images emerging from Gaza are haunting. This is a site where Palestinian captives were forced to strip, their clothes left behind among the ruins as a reminder of what Israeli soldiers did," wrote Assal Rad, a scholar of modern Iran, on X. Rad's post is accompanied by a video of a man showing a strip of land covered in clothes. In the video, the man says that the clothes are from Palestinians who were arrested by Israeli forces after they stormed areas in northern Gaza, like the Kamal Adwan Hospital.

The images emerging from Gaza are haunting.

This is a site where Palestinian captives were forced to strip, their clothes left behind among the ruins as a reminder of what Israeli soldiers did.
pic.twitter.com/zJdpXFahU1

— Assal Rad (@AssalRad) January 22, 2025

In response to reporting of Gazans returning home to destruction, Kenneth Roth, the former executive director of Human Rights Watch, wrote: "This wasn't an accident. The far-right members of the Israeli government wanted to render Gaza unlivable with the aim of forcing two million Palestinians to flee (forever), "

Human Rights Watch, which late last year issued a report accusing Israel of committing "acts of genocide" by depriving Palestinians of water access in Gaza, wrote in November 2024 that "the destruction [in Gaza] is so substantial that it indicates the intention to permanently displace many people."

A preliminary U.N. satellite imagery analysis found that as of December 1, 2024, 60,000 structures in Gaza have been destroyed. The total number of damaged or destroyed structures constitutes roughly 69% of the total structures in the enclave, according to the analysis. A separate U.N. estimate published in January found that 92% of homes have been destroyed or damaged.

The footage coming out of Gaza underscores how long it will take for Palestinians to reconstruct their communities. The cease-fire deal that went into effect Sunday includes three phrases, the third of which is supposed to entail reconstruction of Gaza. Dima Toukan, a nonresident scholar at the Middle East Institute, toldNPR that it's important to note the last phase could be a long way off, and could possibly never happen at all.

It's about depopulation, numpty

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Can Trump Tame the State Dept?

Top Iranian politician appeals to Trump to restart nuclear deal negotiations

A senior Iranian politician has appealed to Donald Trump to begin new negotiations with Tehran over its civil nuclear programme, saying: “I hope that this time around, [Trump 2.0] will be more serious, more focused, more realistic.”

Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran’s vice-president for strategic affairs, pointed out that the returning US president had not reappointed figures from his first term such as the former secretary of state Mike Pompeo and national security adviser John Bolton, who persuaded him in 2018 to quit the nuclear deal on the basis that withdrawal would lead to the regime’s collapse.

Instead, Zarif said, withdrawal had left Iran closer to obtaining a nuclear bomb, with the components including highly enriched uranium, although he claimed Tehran was not interested in actually making such a weapon.

Zarif, probably the best known Iranian diplomat in the west, was speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos in his first remarks outside Iran since his country’s election of a reformist government.

He said the continuation of US sanctions was hitting the most vulnerable in Iran hardest and insisted Iran did not want to become a nuclear power. “If we wanted to build a nuclear weapon we could have done so a long time ago,” Zarif said.

Harvard's INSANE Speech Crackdowns To Shield Israel

Trump threatens 10% tariff on China and considers EU levy

Donald Trump has threatened to impose a 10% tariff on Chinese-made goods arriving in the US from as early as 1 February, adding that he was also considering levies on imports from the EU.

Ordering an investigation into US-China trade on his second day in office, Trump said any penalties on Chinese goods would be “based on the fact that they’re sending fentanyl to Mexico and Canada”.

“Other countries are big abusers also, you know it’s not just China,” Trump said during an event at the White House on Tuesday, adding that he was also looking at trade with the EU.

“We have a $350bn [£283bn] deficit with the European Union. They treat us very, very badly, so they’re going to be in for tariffs,” he said.

The warning came a day after the new US president told reporters he was thinking about introducing 25% tariffs on imports from Mexico and Canada, America’s largest trading partners, from February.

Trump to deploy troops to US-Mexico border in hardline immigration strategy

The Pentagon is set to deploy up to 1,500 active-duty troops to the US-Mexico border as part of Donald Trump’s aggressive new immigration enforcement strategy, marking a significant militarisation of the southern border.

The controversial move, defence officials told the New York Times, comes amid a flurry of executive actions targeting immigration in the early days of Trump’s presidency. The Washington Post on Wednesday reported that the number could be much higher, with military officials preparing to send as many as 10,000 troops to the border.

The acting defense secretary, Robert Salesses, is expected to authorise the deployment, though specific units have not yet been identified. These troops will join the 2,500 army reserve and national guard soldiers who were previously called to active duty in recent months to support federal law enforcement officials at the border. As the Times notes, it remains unclear what role the 4,000 troops will play under the Trump administration. ...

When questioned about specific operational details in a call with reporters first announcing the executive actions on inauguration day, which included potential military actions targeting drug cartels, White House officials said such decisions would be left to the secretary of defense.

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FCC reinstates complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC for 2024 election coverage

The Federal Communications Commission on Wednesday reinstated complaints about how ABC News moderated the pre-election TV debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump, and appearances of Kamala Harris on CBS’s 60 Minutes and NBC’s Saturday Night Live.

Last week, then FCC chair Jessica Rosenworcel said the commission was rejecting complaints that “seek to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment”. Then, on Wednesday, the FCC said in a series of orders the complaints had been dismissed “prematurely based on an insufficient investigatory record”.

The FCC, an independent federal agency, issues eight-year licenses to individual broadcast stations, not networks. The complaints name specific stations of the three broadcasters. NBC, Walt Disney-owned ABC and Paramount’s CBS did not immediately comment.

Brendan Carr, who was designated by Trump as FCC chair on Monday, declined to comment, but he told Fox News Business on Wednesday one key focus would be “taking a look at media and making sure they live up to their public interest obligation”.

Carr previously criticized Comcast-owned NBC for letting Harris appear on Saturday Night Live just before the election. Rosenworcel noted NBC had made available equivalent time and audience for Trump during two sports events.

Mike Johnson: ‘Biden CRIME FAMILY’ Will Be PROBED After PARDONS; Axelrod BLASTS Fmr President

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US homeowners in disaster-prone states face soaring insurance costs

Homeowners in the United States are facing an enormous financial crunch due to the climate crisis, with many struggling to find insurance or even dropping premiums that are soaring due to a mounting toll of wildfires, hurricanes and other disasters, new federal government data shows.

The figures, the most comprehensive numbers ever released by the US treasury department on the issue, show insurance premiums are increasing quickly across the country, with people living amid the greatest climate-driven risks experiencing the steepest rises of all. In the four years to 2022, people living in the top 20% riskiest places for such perils paid, on average, 82% more than those in the 20% lowest climate risk zip codes.

The climate crisis is making it harder for insurance companies to operate, with many pausing or completely withdrawing from disaster-prone states such as Florida and California, which is currently being roiled by wildfires in the Los Angeles region.

More homeowners are now failing to pay their ballooning premiums, risking ruin if disaster hits, with insurers canceling at least 10% of policies in more than 150 risky zip codes in 2022, the report found. ...

“We are marching towards an uninsurable future,” said David Jones, the former insurance commissioner of California. “The climate crisis is driving an insurance crisis. This is the first such comprehensive report by government and it shows that wherever climate change is landing as more severe weather events it is causing greater insurance unavailability, higher insurance pricing and greater insurance losses.”

New California fire spurs evacuations as residents endure dangerous winds

Additional evacuations were ordered for residents near a large fast-moving wildfire north of Los Angeles, as parched southern California endured another round of dangerous winds ahead of possible rain over the weekend.

The Hughes fire broke out late on Wednesday morning and quickly ripped through nearly 5,000 acres of trees and brush, sending up an enormous plume of dark smoke near Castaic Lake, a popular recreation area about 40 miles (64 km) from the devastating Eaton and Palisades fires that are burning for a third week.

Off-ramps along Interstate 5, a major north-south artery, were closed as flames raced along hilltops and down into rugged canyons. Crews on the ground and in water-dropping aircraft tried to prevent the wind-driven fire from moving south toward more populated foothill communities in Castaic, home to about 19,000 people. Another 15,000 people in the area were warned to prepare to leave at a moment’s notice, according to the LA County Sheriff’s Department. ...

Meanwhile, to the south, Los Angeles officials were preparing for potential rain even as some residents were allowed to return to the charred Pacific Palisades and Altadena areas. Gusty weather was expected to last through Thursday.

“We’re going to see another round of critical fire conditions across southern California,” Todd Hall, a National Weather Service meteorologist, said on Wednesday morning. “At this point, it sounds like a broken record.”

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Also of Interest

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

Returning to Devastation

Digging Out the Bodies From the Rubble

'We dig with our fingernails': What is it like to be a civil defense worker in Gaza?

Zelenski, Having Failed, Blames His Sponsors

Trump Keeps His Promises While Democrats Must Be Abandoned

As Trump II Begins, Bezos Swaps Scrutiny for ‘Storytelling’

How Far Will Trump Get With Shock and Awe?

Trump Budget Nominee Touts Welfare Reform That Doubled Extreme Poverty

Indiana bill seeks to end tax breaks for non-profit hospitals that overcharge patients

Actuaries Weigh In On Climate Change Effects

Close to 30 Million Americans Face Limited Water Supplies, Government Report Finds

Kevork Almassian : International Implications of Assad’s Fall

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A Little Night Music

Earl Gaines - Good Good Lovin'

Earl Gaines with Freddy Robinson Orchestra - White Rose

Earl Gaines - The Best Of Luck To You

Earl Gaines - Please Love Me

Earl Gaines - My Woman

Earl Gaines - Little Boy Blue

Earl Gaines Can't Keep From Cryin'

Earl Gaines - Nine pound steel

Earl Gaines - It's Drivin' Me Mad

Earl Gaines - Baby, Baby, What's Wrong

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