From elsewhere, Author at Attention to the Unseen

Biden moves to defang political assaults on federal workforce

April 4, 2024 From elsewhere

Politico reports: The Biden administration put the finishing touches Thursday on a plan to restrict presidents from unilaterally nixing civil service protections from large swaths of the federal workforce, as former President Donald Trump renews his vow to uproot a perceived “deep state” if he is returned to the White House. While a future president could take steps to squelch the new directive, it reflects a larger effort by the Biden administration to put a protective wall around its policies….

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Why Judge Aileen Cannon is on thin ice in Trump’s Mar-a-Lago case

April 4, 2024 From elsewhere

Norman Eisen, E. Danya Perry and Joshua Kolb write: On Tuesday, special counsel Jack Smith threw down the gauntlet in an extraordinary filing in the Mar-a-Lago prosecution, the case that centers around former President Donald Trump’s retention of classified documents and his resistance to government attempts to recover them from his Mar-a-Lago estate. Smith warned Judge Aileen Cannon that her approach to the law governing the handling of presidential records — and so Donald Trump’s culpability in the case —…

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Music: Studnitzky — ‘Anemos’

April 4, 2024 From elsewhere

In Gaza, Israel unleashed a rogue army in which ‘every commander makes his own rules’

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

The Times of Israel reports: [O]n Tuesday evening, the Haaretz daily spoke to unnamed military sources who revealed that the cause of the strike [killing seven World Central Kitchen staffers] was undisciplined, rogue commanders, not a lack of coordination between the IDF and the WCK. A source in the intelligence branch told Haaretz that the IDF’s Southern Command “knows exactly what the cause of the attack was: in Gaza, everyone does as they please.” Army regulations require final approvals from…

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José Andrés: Let people eat

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

José Andrés, the founder of World Central Kitchen, writes: In the worst conditions you can imagine — after hurricanes, earthquakes, bombs and gunfire — the best of humanity shows up. Not once or twice but always. The seven people killed on a World Central Kitchen mission in Gaza on Monday were the best of humanity. They are not faceless or nameless. They are not generic aid workers or collateral damage in war. Saifeddin Issam Ayad Abutaha, John Chapman, Jacob Flickinger,…

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‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

The Guardian reports: The Israeli military’s bombing campaign in Gaza used a previously undisclosed AI-powered database that at one stage identified 37,000 potential targets based on their apparent links to Hamas, according to intelligence sources involved in the war. In addition to talking about their use of the AI system, called Lavender, the intelligence sources claim that Israeli military officials permitted large numbers of Palestinian civilians to be killed, particularly during the early weeks and months of the conflict. Their…

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‘Not a normal war’: Doctors say children have been targeted by Israeli snipers in Gaza

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

The Guardian reports: Dr Fozia Alvi was making her rounds of the intensive care unit on her final day at the battered European public hospital in southern Gaza when she stopped next to two young arrivals with facial injuries and breathing tubes in their windpipes. “I asked the nurse, what’s the history? She said that they were brought in a couple of hours ago. They had sniper shots to the brain. They were seven or eight years old,” she said….

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Palestinian American doctor explains why he walked out of Biden meeting

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

President Biden held a meeting at the White House with Arab and Muslim leaders and activists Tuesday amid ongoing criticism for his stance on the Israel-Hamas war. Dr. Thaer Ahmad, a Palestinian American emergency physician from Chicago who traveled to Gaza earlier this year, said he walked out of the event after delivering a note to Mr. Biden from an 8-year-old. “Face the Nation” moderator and CBS News chief foreign correspondent Margaret Brennan spoke with Dr. Ahmad about his…

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1 in 5 Americans think violence may solve U.S. divisions, poll finds

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

NPR reports: One in 5 U.S. adults believe Americans may have to resort to violence to get their own country back on track, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll, an attitude that experts say puts the nation in “an incredibly dangerous place” in the months before the 2024 presidential election. Most Americans, no matter their political affiliation, do not believe that violence is a solution to domestic political divisions, according to this latest poll. But Republicans were more likely…

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Music: Andrew Cornish — ‘Meteor Shower’

April 3, 2024 From elsewhere

Israel’s habit of targeting and killing humanitarian workers

April 2, 2024 From elsewhere

The Times of Israel reports: Speaking to Channel 12, a senior Israeli official echoed the fears that the incident could be a turning point in the war. Channel 12 reported that Israeli officials fear the WCK deaths and disruptions to aid deliveries will exacerbate famine concerns. Other aid agencies may also stop their operations, which would leave Israel forced to choose between taking over food distribution — effectively making it a military governor of Gaza — or ending the…

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Israel is now ‘a step away from international ostracism,’ says former president following attack on WCK

April 2, 2024 From elsewhere

The Daily Beast reports: On Tuesday, former Israeli president Reuven Rivlin told IDF Radio that Israel is now “a step away from international ostracism,” according to Haaretz. “We are losing the tremendous morality that all Israeli governments for generations have enjoyed, by the conduct and behavior of the IDF and by the behavior of the State of Israel in everything related to the wars we have waged for 76 years,” Rivlin said. According to the World Central Kitchen, its staff…

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Sen. Bernie Sanders to Netanyahu: ‘stop murdering innocent people’

April 2, 2024 From elsewhere

The Times of Israel reports: A virtual meeting on Monday between US and Israeli officials to discuss a potential IDF ground operation in Rafah was reportedly marked by tensions and accusations as Washington expressed deep skepticism over Israeli plans to operate in the southernmost Gaza city. The two-hour video call between US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the American side and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer and National Security Adviser Tzachi…

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The empty promise of a two-state solution has become an instrument for sustaining Palestinian subjugation

April 2, 2024 From elsewhere

Tareq Baconi writes: After 176 days, Israel’s assault on Gaza has not stopped and has expanded into what Human Rights Watch has declared to be a policy of starvation as a weapon of war. More than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed, and the international community has reverted to a deeply familiar call for a two-state solution, under which Palestinians and Israelis can coexist in peace and security. President Biden even declared “the only real solution is a two-state solution” in…

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Syria says an Israeli air strike has destroyed Iran’s consulate building in Damascus

April 2, 2024 From elsewhere

Yahoo News reports: Israel is seeking to weaken the “line of control” from Tehran to its so-called proxy militias abroad by killing senior Iranian military figures, says an ex-MI6 chief. Sir John Sawers, the former head of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, made the remark after suspected Israeli warplanes bombed Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria, on Monday in a strike that Iran said killed seven of its military advisers, including three senior commanders. The attack marked a major escalation in…

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