Music: Arve Henriksen & Kjetil Husebø — ‘Seeding’
Israel is bombing Rafah while Americans watch the Super Bowl
The Israeli military is bombing Rafah, the most densely populated area in the world, while Americans watch the Super Bowl. This is intentional. This is genocide. We're demanding the world watching the #superbowl turn their eyes to #Rafah. #alleyesongaza #CeasefireNOW pic.twitter.com/IPRV6mqD3P — Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) February 12, 2024 Biden tells Netanyahu “a military operation in Rafah should not proceed without a credible and executable plan for ensuring the safety” of 1+ million Gaza refugees sheltering there. Netanyahu’s response:…
Message to Biden: ‘Stop sending us military aid! Send us peace aid!’
Maoz Inon, who lost both his parents on October 7th, is calling the US and Germany to stop their unconditional financial aid to Israel. His calling "Stop sending us military aid! Send us peace aid!". Join @maozinon by signing our petition to Biden: https://t.co/TDkIAT5yzv pic.twitter.com/YeeemIh98W — Voices Against War (@againstwarvoice) February 11, 2024 The Washington Post reports: White House aides say publicly that there has been no change in Biden’s strategy or message. But many of his allies contend that…
Meta considering increased censorship of the word ‘Zionist’
The Intercept reports: Facebook and Instagram’s parent company, Meta, is contemplating stricter rules around discussing Israeli nationalism on its platforms, a major policy change that could stifle criticism and free expression about the war in Gaza and beyond, five civil society sources who were briefed on the potential change told The Intercept. “Meta is currently revisiting its hate speech policy, specifically in relation to the term ‘Zionist,’” reads a January 30 email sent to civil society groups by Meta policy…
NATO chief says Trump remarks may put U.S. and EU lives at risk
The Guardian reports: The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, has said any attack on the western military alliance would be met with a “united and forceful response”, after Donald Trump invited Russia to attack member countries that he perceived as not meeting their financial obligations. Stoltenberg said in a statement: “Any suggestion that allies will not defend each other undermines all of our security, including that of the US, and puts American and European soldiers at increased risk. I expect that…
Overwhelming majority of Americans think Biden is too old for another term, poll finds
ABC News reports: An overwhelming majority of Americans think President Joe Biden is too old to serve another term, according to a new ABC News/Ipsos poll. According to the poll, conducted using Ipsos’ Knowledge Panel, 86% of Americans think Biden, 81, is too old to serve another term as president. That figure includes 59% of Americans who think both he and former President Donald Trump, the Republican front-runner, are too old and 27% who think only Biden is too old….
Shocking opposition victory throws Pakistan into chaos
The New York Times reports: The party of the imprisoned former prime minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan, won the most seats in parliamentary elections this week, delivering a strong rebuke to the country’s powerful generals and throwing the political system into chaos. While military leaders had hoped the election would put an end to the political turmoil that has consumed the country since Mr. Khan’s ouster in 2022, it has instead plunged it into an even deeper crisis, analysts said….
If reasonable people disengage from politics, the zealots win
Conor Friedersdorf writes: “Divisive,” “corrupt,” and “messy.” That’s how Americans described the state of our politics when asked to do so by Pew last year. Other popular answers included “polarized” and “dysfunctional.” Those of us who feel that way may be tempted to tune out this election year. To participate in politics is to encounter many otherwise lovely people at their most upset, angry, and uncharitable. To withdraw from it is, for many, to avoid stress, annoyance, and maybe even…
Music: Bremer/McCoy — ‘Opstigning’
What the Israeli public doesn’t see
Jewish Currents reports: On January 29th, The Nightly News with Michal Rabinovitch—which airs on Israel’s public broadcaster, known as Kan—ran a series of stories that were broadly representative of the channel’s programming over the past few months. A story about diplomatic progress toward a prisoner swap between Israel and Hamas was followed by a report on the rockets launched into Israel’s interior from the Gazan city of Khan Younis; the segment included video from inside Hamas tunnels and footage captured…
Is Joe Biden uniquely indifferent to Palestinian suffering?
Yousef Munayyer writes: Last September, I found myself trying to understand something about President Biden’s behavior that just didn’t make sense to me. Why did it seem like he was bending over backward for Benjamin Netanyahu, even when Biden’s domestic political interests and America’s national interests were not being served by Netanyahu’s decisions? I concluded at the time that the only possible explanation was that Biden was personally being ideologically driven by a commitment to Zionism. All of this was…
Under Gaza’s shadow, Syria faces a new welter of conflict
Paulo Pinheiro, Hanny Megally and Lynn Welchman write: The scale and ferocity of the conflict in Gaza and the unspeakable suffering of its civilians have rightly provoked the world’s outrage. But in Syria, a steep escalation of violence that has forced the flight of tens of thousands more people in what remains the world’s largest displacement crisis is taking place largely unnoticed outside the region. Syria, too, desperately needs a halt to the violence. But instead, the more than 12-year-long…
Big Pharma spends billions more on executives and stockholders than on R&D
Ars Technica reports: When big pharmaceutical companies are confronted over their exorbitant pricing of prescription drugs in the US, they often retreat to two well-worn arguments: One, that the high drug prices cover costs of researching and developing new drugs, a risky and expensive endeavor, and two, that middle managers—pharmacy benefit managers (PBMs), to be specific—are actually the ones price gouging Americans. Both of these arguments faced substantial blows in a hearing Thursday held by the Senate Committee on Health,…
Is the media prepared for an extinction-level event?
Clare Malone writes: My first job in media was as an assistant at The American Prospect, a small political magazine in Washington, D.C., that offered a promising foothold in journalism. I helped with the print order, mailed checks to writers—after receiving lots of e-mails asking, politely, Where is my money?—and ran the intern program. This last responsibility allowed me a small joy: every couple of weeks, a respected journalist would come into the office for a brown-bag lunch in our…
The real ‘Robert Hur report.’ How the Special Counsel report has been misinterpreted
Andrew Weissmann and Ryan Goodman write: The Special Counsel Robert Hur report has been grossly mischaracterized by the press. The report finds that the evidence of a knowing, willful violation of the criminal laws is wanting. Indeed, the report, on page 6, notes that there are “innocent explanations” that Hur “cannot refute.” That is but one of myriad examples we outline in great detail below of the report repeatedly finding a lack of proof. And those findings mean, in DOJ-speak,…
Evangelicals’ Trump worship looks more like QAnon every day
Ron Filipowski writes: I have watched every Donald Trump rally, interview, and speech since he left the White House in Jan. 2021. It’s certainly been interesting to observe the evolution of his political messaging over that time—as he went from desperately trying to resuscitate his political image and career in 2021 following the Jan. 6 attack, to reclaiming his role of Republican kingmaker through his use of primary endorsements in 2022, to crafting his rally speeches and policy positions in…