“So if we’re not bringing back the hostages, all this is doing is causing more death on our side or the Palestinian side … I can't justify this military operation any more. I'm unwilling to be part of a military that's doing this.”
-- Tal Vardi to Ruth Michaelson and Quique Kierszenbaum "'I can't justify this military operation any more': the IDF reservists refusing to return to Gaza" (GUARDIAN).
Hey --
Monday.
Let's thank all who participated this edition which includes Dallas and the following:
And what did we come up with?
An IDF reservist gets the truest.
Repost from THE COMMON ILLS.
Ava and C.I. cover the MAGA stupidity that will destroy everyone and everything on the planet given the chance.
None of us trust the fat defector Tara Reade anymore and this roundtable addresses why.
He really is disgusting but he's also really disgusting looking.
There is a world of difference.
And there is reason for excitement.
Paul Rudnick gets this.
What we listened to while writing this edition.
Mike and the gang wrote this and we thank them for it.
Peace.
-- Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.
Monday, July 29, 2024. A woman was shot in the Green Zone and Iraqis say the shot came from the American Embassy, Iraqi women protest child marriage, the government of Israel continues bombing schools in Gaza, and much more.
Last night, we noted the following:
Iraq's the focus tonight. There's too much going on and practically zero US coverage. That includes an incident today that could end up international incident. Dr Abdul Amir al-Hazali is an Iraqi MP. His wife was apparently shot today and he is placing the blame on the US government. The wife is reported injured, not dead.
Al-Ahad Channel enters the home of Dr. Abdul Amir Al-Ghazali, where his wife was injured by an American assault by an internationally banned bullet.#Iraq #Baghdad pic.twitter.com/pLZjt16h2V
— Alahad TV-EN
Not
really sure why the US media hasn't covered this. Is this not a real
story? Is it made up? Especially if it's made up -- some internet hoax
-- that would be reason to note it.
Though it remains uncovered by the US press, it's not made up. The incident happened last week. Abdul Amir Al-Ghazali spoke with ALSUMARIA and explained to them that the shooting took place on Friday while his wife was praying. The Badr Organization accuses the US government of converting the US Embassy in Baghdad into a "military base," condemns the action citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, and, citing the Iraqi Constitution (Articles 1, 15, 50 and 109) calls for Iraq's legislative and executive branches to expel the US military from Iraq.
I did not have a good Sunday health wise, so maybe it's just me, but I fail to see how this news was ignored by the US media and continues to be. Exactly what are they paid for. This is rather basic. Iraqis are outraged because a woman was shot and ended up in the hospital. The shooting took place in the heavily fortified Green Zone and, they say, came from the US Embassy.
The Badr Organization is part of the alliance that controls the Parliament.
All by itself, a shooting of a civilian in the Green Zone is rare enough to qualify as news. When the Iraqi people are saying that the shot came from the US Embassy, that makes it even more newsworthy and that's before you get to the fact that the shooting could lead to (something needs to) the withdrawal of all US military from Iraq.
In other news, IRAQI NEWS AGENCY reports on the death of an MP, "Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al-Sudani offered his condolences on Sunday on the death of Member of Parliament Gandhi Mohammed Abdul Karim Al-Kasnazani, saying that "with this loss we have lost a national figure with a good impact." The fifty-two year-old
Hundreds of Iraqi women took to the streets of Baghdad on Sunday to protest against proposed amendments to the country’s personal status law, expressing particular outrage over provisions that would legalize child marriage.
Demonstrators, including members of women’s rights organizations, gathered in Tahrir Square, carrying signs that read "No to child marriage" and "The era of child brides is over." The protesters denounced the proposed amendments to Law 88 of 1959, arguing that they would roll back women’s rights.
Here are some photos of the protest.
Only 14 percent of the Gaza Strip is not under the Israeli military ongoing “evacuation orders”, according to the UNRWA chief Philippe Lazzarini.
Recurrent mass enforced displacement is the dominating scene with the Israeli military ordering the residents of the Bureij and Nuseirat refugee camps to leave their homes.
The majority of the displaced population is flowing to the Deir el-Balah city that is already packed with displaced families and has no sufficient space or resources to accommodate people.
While he may not have the national name recognition that his fellow governors Newsom and Whitmer enjoy, Shapiro is considered one of the top candidates to potentially replace Biden.
The governor, who previously served as Pennsylvania’s attorney general, comfortably won his election in the Mid-Atlantic swing state in 2022. Since taking office, he has had positive approval ratings.
With regards to the war in Gaza, Shapiro has been a staunch supporter of Israel.
“The whataboutism used by some to justify Hamas’s unprovoked actions is ignorant and wrong,” he said last year. “There is no moral equivalency here. Israel has a right to defend itself.”
Shapiro has also been outspoken in denouncing what he describes as anti-Semitism by protesters who oppose the war in Gaza.
In April, he likened pro-Palestinian student protesters to the Ku Klux Klan. The campus protests, however, have been largely peaceful, and student leaders say accusations of anti-Semitism misrepresent their aim: to encourage their universities to divest from Israeli companies linked to the country’s human rights abuses.
“We have to query whether or not we would tolerate this if this were people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia making comments about people who are African American in our communities,” Shapiro told CNN.
This is a hopeful moment for the whole left-liberal coalition. The vibes, for once, are good. Almost every leftist I know is excited about Harris and thinks Trump is beatable. With a newly united party behind her, there are only so many ways Harris can screw it up, but one seems all too plausible: She could select Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro as her running mate.
On paper, it’s understandable why Shapiro is among the leading candidates reportedly being vetted by Harris. Like nearly all of the veep contenders, he’s a white male governor with a centrist reputation. At 51, he’s even younger than Harris and a fresh face, having only held his current job for 18 months. He has already shown himself to be a more than capable administrator, generating a lot of good publicity for repairing a damaged section of Interstate 95 within two weeks. Most importantly, Pennsylvania is the most valuable swing state in play, worth 19 electoral votes, and Shapiro is very popular there.
Unfortunately, Shapiro also stands out among the current field of potential running mates as being egregiously bad on Palestine. It’s not just that he, like many Democrats, is an outspoken supporter of Israel—though he certainly is, having championed Israel’s war against Hamas consistently and without any apparent concern for Palestinian civilians. Shapiro has, moreover, done far more than most Democrats to attack pro-Palestine antiwar demonstrators, in ways that call into question his basic commitment to First Amendment rights.
In his previous role as Pennsylvania attorney general, Shapiro championed the state’s constitutionally dubious anti-BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) law against Ben & Jerry’s after the ice cream maker refused to license its product for sale in Israeli settlements. “BDS is rooted in antisemitism,” Shapiro wrote in a statement in 2021, as he condemned a company named for its two Jewish American founders. “The stated goal of this amorphous movement is the removal of Jewish citizens from the region and I strongly oppose their efforts.”
As governor, Shapiro’s particular animus against pro-Palestine activism has only grown more apparent and troubling. Last December, he played an active role in the GOP-orchestrated sacking of University of Pennsylvania President Liz Magill. During a visit to Goldie, the popular Philadelphia restaurant co-owned by the Israeli-born celebrity chef Michael Solomonov, Shapiro condemned Magill’s testimony on alleged antisemitism on the Ivy League campus before Representative Elise Stefanik, the MAGA right’s grand inquisitor. “That was an unacceptable statement from the president of Penn,” Shapiro said, referring to Magill’s unwillingness to accept Stefanik’s slippery framing on what constitutes antisemitism. “Frankly, I thought her comments were absolutely shameful. It should not be hard to condemn genocide.” Magill resigned four days after her testimony and three days after Shapiro’s statement, legitimizing the GOP’s wider assault on academic freedom, which would be repeated successfully against Harvard President Claudine Gay weeks later.
In April, Shapiro’s office baselessly claimed that a peaceful pro-Palestine encampment on the Penn campus threatened student safety. “If the universities in accordance with their policies can’t guarantee the safety and security and well-being of the students, then I think it is incumbent upon a local mayor or local governor or local town councilor, whoever is the local leadership there, to step in and enforce the law,” Shapiro told Politico at the time. In May, he urged Penn to shut down the encampment completely. “The University of Pennsylvania has an obligation to their safety,” he said, once again alluding to nonexistent threats to the physical well-being of Jewish students. “It is past time for the university to act, to address this, to disband the encampment, and to restore order and safety on campus.” The university complied; one day and 33 arrests later, Shapiro’s office said Penn “made the right decision.”
That same week, The New York Times profiled Shapiro as one to watch in his party with the headline “A Rising Democrat Leans Into the Campus Fight Over Antisemitism.” In that piece, Shapiro made clear the low regard in which he holds pro-Palestine campus activists. “If you had a group of white supremacists camped out and yelling racial slurs every day, that would be met with a different response than antisemites camped out, yelling antisemitic tropes,” he told the Times. (This echoed a statement made in an earlier interview in which he compared campus protesters to the Ku Klux Klan.) Then, in an executive order, Shapiro updated his administration’s code of conduct to forbid state employees from engaging in “scandalous or disgraceful” behavior, a vaguely worded instruction that civil libertarians immediately interpreted as threatening pro-Palestine speech.
Shapiro is an observant Jew with personal ties to Israel; on October 7, he tweeted, “Our family has shared many special moments in Israel and our hearts break for those living this horror now.” If selected as Harris’s running mate and subsequently elected, he would become the first Jewish vice president in American history (a distinction narrowly missed by the late Joe Lieberman when Republicans stole the 2000 election).
Donald Trump met Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Friday, claiming that "no president has done what I've done for Israel".
The meeting signalled that both men are looking to ease tension that developed since Mr Trump left office in January 2021.
Warmly clasping hands, Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu greeted each other outside the former president's home in their first face-to-face meeting in almost four years.
About 50 pro-Palestinian protesters were on the bridge leading to the resort.
Given a possible return of Mr Trump to the White House, Mr Netanyahu – whom CNN reported had requested the meeting – was expected to be driven to mend fences.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 297 of the assault in the wave that began in October. Binoy Kampmark (DISSIDENT VOICE) points out, "Bloodletting as form; murder as fashion. The ongoing campaign in Gaza by Israel’s Defence Forces continues without stalling and restriction. But the burgeoning number of corpses is starting to become a challenge for the propaganda outlets: How to justify it? Fortunately for Israel, the United States, its unqualified defender, is happy to provide cover for murder covered in the sheath of self-defence." CNN has explained, "The Gaza Strip is 'the most dangerous place' in the world to be a child, according to the executive director of the United Nations Children's Fund." ABC NEWS quotes UNICEF's December 9th statement, ""The Gaza Strip is the most dangerous place in the world to be a child. Scores of children are reportedly being killed and injured on a daily basis. Entire neighborhoods, where children used to play and go to school have been turned into stacks of rubble, with no life in them." NBC NEWS notes, "Strong majorities of all voters in the U.S. disapprove of President Joe Biden’s handling of foreign policy and the Israel-Hamas war, according to the latest national NBC News poll. The erosion is most pronounced among Democrats, a majority of whom believe Israel has gone too far in its military action in Gaza." The slaughter continues. It has displaced over 1 million people per the US Congressional Research Service. Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) points out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide." The death toll of Palestinians in Gaza is grows higher and higher. United Nations Women noted, "More than 1.9 million people -- 85 per cent of the total population of Gaza -- have been displaced, including what UN Women estimates to be nearly 1 million women and girls. The entire population of Gaza -- roughly 2.2 million people -- are in crisis levels of acute food insecurity or worse." THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 39,363 killed with 90,923 wounded." Months ago, AP noted, "About 4,000 people are reported missing." February 7th, Jeremy Scahill explained on DEMOCRACY NOW! that "there’s an estimated 7,000 or 8,000 Palestinians missing, many of them in graves that are the rubble of their former home." February 5th, the United Nations' Phillipe Lazzarini Tweeted:
This morning, THE NATIONAL reports:
A six-year-old child has died of starvation at a hospital in central Gaza, taking the total official number of malnutrition-related deaths to 39.
Ali Anas al Tatar, 6, was pronounced dead at the Al Ahli Baptist Hospital in Gaza City, according to the official Wafa news agency.
Earlier this month, a group of UN experts said there was "no doubt" that famine is spreading across the enclave.
Images of emaciated children have become commonplace as Gazans starve, with aid deliveries blocked after Israel's seizure of the Rafah border crossing.
The following sites updated:
What Nancy Reagan once feared has come true. Stupidity and lack of education is destroying the Republican Party. Nancy, read Peggy Noonan's WHAT I SAW AT THE REVOLUTION, knew the great unwashed stupid that was glomming onto the GOP with their anti-choice positions and their stunted minds starved of education were the party's downfall. MAGA wasn't the term yet but she could see the ignorant mob advancing. Now maybe she was particularly insightful, maybe it was just common sense or maybe it was information passed on to her by Joan Quigley or Jeane Dixon or some other psychic advisor Nancy frequently collaborated with.
Regardless, what she saw is the reality of today's MAGA Republican Party.
Everything is a moment for MAGA to brag to the world, "I am stupid and I am uneducated."
The interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings. #Paris2024 #OpeningCeremony pic.twitter.com/FBlQNNUmvV
— The Olympic Games (@Olympics) July 26, 2024
The opening ceremony of the Olympics. They always go for arty. France went for Greek mythology.
And MAGA exploded.
Outsports has revised its tally from the original 144 out LGBTQ athletes we posted on July 17. In the last 12 days, we have gotten submissions from many readers and several journalists, which allowed us to verify 47 more out athletes and update the list.
“Happy to join the team!” Team USA women’s rugby player Kristi Kirshe wrote Outsports when we reached out to her on social media about being added to the list.
