Israel’s iron grip on the American right is slipping away

Israel’s iron grip on the American right is slipping away

Ben Lorber writes: On Oct. 12, 2017, then Congressmember Matt Gaetz spoke on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to introduce a resolution condemning the United Nations for ostensible anti-Israel bias. “I rise today to support our friend and ally, Israel,” the representative from Florida announced, claiming that the UN was trying to “rewrite history, to condemn Israel and call it an occupying power in Jerusalem.” Gaetz slammed the international body’s “antisemitism” and “attempts to punish and delegitimize…

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Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

Dutch foreign minister resigns over failure to secure sanctions against Israel

The Guardian reports: The Dutch foreign minister, Caspar Veldkamp, has resigned after a cabinet meeting failed to secure sanctions against Israel, weakening the Netherlands’ already fragile caretaker government. Veldkamp’s colleagues from the centrist New Social Contract (NSC) party also walked out after the cabinet debate late on Friday reached an impasse over adopting harsher measures against Israel. The discussions about taking further steps against Israel came after the Netherlands joined 20 other countries in signing a joint declaration on Thursday…

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Neuroscientists find evidence of an internal brain rhythm that orchestrates memory

Neuroscientists find evidence of an internal brain rhythm that orchestrates memory

PsyPost reports: A new study sheds light on how our brains rhythmically organize memories at the level of individual nerve cells. Researchers in Germany have found that single neurons in the human medial temporal lobe tend to synchronize their activity with slow brain waves, particularly during memory formation and retrieval. These patterns, known as theta-phase locking, appear to reflect an internal rhythm that helps structure cognitive processes. The findings were published in Nature Communications. The study, led by neuroscientists at…

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After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

After Gaza famine report, U.S. is mostly silent while Israel is defiant

The New York Times reports: A report by a panel of food security experts that found there was famine in parts of Gaza prompted outrage from many European countries, but not from the United States — Israel’s main backer — and the Trump administration. Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, echoed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel’s arguments against the report in posts on social media, saying that Hamas was to blame for any hunger in Gaza. “Tons of…

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Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, gives away the game

Trump’s lawyer, Todd Blanche, gives away the game

Adam Klasfeld writes: For two days of meandering questioning in Tallahassee, Fla., Donald Trump’s former criminal defense attorney turned Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche gave convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell ample opportunity to rehabilitate herself at the expense of victims like Virginia Giuffre. Giuffre’s lawyer Sigrid McCawley, who represents hundreds of Jeffrey Epstein survivors, said that Maxwell “repeatedly and brazenly lied on the record to the government” in these transcripts. “Maxwell ruined countless young lives with impunity for too long,”…

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Wajahat Ali and Zev Shalev discuss the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts

Wajahat Ali and Zev Shalev discuss the Ghislaine Maxwell transcripts

  Ghislaine Maxwell’s interview transcripts reveal a cover-up in real time, attempting to help Donald Trump distract America from his shady relationship with pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. I joined Zev Shalev to discuss what we learned from today’s transcripts, Maxwell’s endgame, and the financial trail and characters that corporate media are still missing when it comes to the Epstein story.

MAGA influencers express confidence in testimony of convicted sex trafficker who hopes to be pardoned

MAGA influencers express confidence in testimony of convicted sex trafficker who hopes to be pardoned

Politico reports: President Trump’s close allies are welcoming convicted sex trafficker Ghislaine Maxwell telling top Justice Department officials she never witnessed him “in any inappropriate setting” with young girls in his history of dealings with Jeffrey Epstein. MAGA loyalists quickly began circulating passages of Maxwell’s interview transcript released by DOJ on Friday in which Epstein’s former girlfriend says she never witnessed the president committing any wrongdoing. The DOJ’s announcement earlier this year that it would not release files connected to…

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Far-right extremists have nothing to complain about as Trump has embraced their agenda

Far-right extremists have nothing to complain about as Trump has embraced their agenda

The New York Times reports: During President Trump’s first turn in the White House, right-wing extremists like the Proud Boys were on the streets, weekend after weekend, raising their voices — and oftentimes their fists — about issues such as immigration, the squelching of conservative speech and the removal of Confederate-era statues. But in the first seven months of Mr. Trump’s second term, there has been a conspicuous absence of far-right demonstrations. And that, some leaders of the movement say,…

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The new American inequality separating those who can or cannot escape from insufferable heat

The new American inequality separating those who can or cannot escape from insufferable heat

Jeff Goodell writes: Summer is not what it used to be. On a hot August day, an outdoor concert can feel like a picnic in Death Valley. A trip to Disney World is a roller-coaster ride through unshaded hell. The Beach Boys’ “All Summer Long” sounds like a love letter from another planet. In the hottest regions of the country, such as Texas, where I live, the climate crisis is not only changing our world; it is also dividing it….

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From sea ice to ocean currents, Antarctica is now undergoing abrupt changes – and we will all feel them

From sea ice to ocean currents, Antarctica is now undergoing abrupt changes – and we will all feel them

By Nerilie Abram, Australian National University; Ariaan Purich, Monash University; Felicity McCormack, Monash University; Jan Strugnell, James Cook University, and Matthew England, UNSW Sydney Antarctica has long been seen as a remote, unchanging environment. Not any more. The ice-covered continent and the surrounding Southern Ocean are undergoing abrupt and alarming changes. Sea ice is shrinking rapidly, the floating glaciers known as ice shelves are melting faster, the ice sheets carpeting the continent are approaching tipping points and vital ocean currents…

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Trump’s Epstein problem is real: New poll shows many in base disapprove of handling of files, some having second thoughts about electing him

Trump’s Epstein problem is real: New poll shows many in base disapprove of handling of files, some having second thoughts about electing him

Pollsters found that 47% of 2024 Trump voters disapprove of Trump’s handling of the Epstein controversy. These supporters are at a rally in Doral, Fla., on July 9, 2024. Giorgio Viera/AFP via Getty Images By Tatishe Nteta, UMass Amherst; Adam Eichen, UMass Amherst; Alexander Theodoridis, UMass Amherst; Jesse Rhodes, UMass Amherst, and Raymond La Raja, UMass Amherst Has President Donald Trump survived the latest and most serious firestorm of controversy over the Epstein scandal? Or has the Trump administration’s handling…

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In Trump’s America, child sex predators go free but children whose lives could be saved are kept out

In Trump’s America, child sex predators go free but children whose lives could be saved are kept out

Axios reports: MAGA is pushing the Trump administration to explain why an Israeli official who was arrested in an undercover child sex sting in Nevada was allowed to leave the U.S. after posting bail. Why it matters: The outrage marks the latest fissure between Israel and MAGA, which already faces a generational divide over how much the U.S. should support Israel amid the war and humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Driving the news: Tom Artiom Alexandrovich, a senior Israeli cybersecurity official, was arrested during an undercover operation in…

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Poll indicates Trump’s ICE raids are backfiring in California — even among Republicans

Poll indicates Trump’s ICE raids are backfiring in California — even among Republicans

Politico reports: Donald Trump’s immigration raids may be backfiring in California, even among Republicans and independents who otherwise support tougher border security, according to a new poll from POLITICO and its partners. Nearly three-quarters of registered voters in the state — including roughly half of Republicans — said removing millions of undocumented immigrants from the workforce would hurt California’s economy, the latest POLITICO-Citrin Center-Possibility Lab poll found. And roughly 80 percent of voters, including a majority of Republicans, said undocumented…

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How deceit, delusion, and the inexorable pull of the past killed the two-state solution

How deceit, delusion, and the inexorable pull of the past killed the two-state solution

Hussein Agha and Robert Malley write: The war that has engulfed Israel, the Gaza Strip, and well beyond since October 7, 2023, has confronted the world with much on which it had never set eyes before. In scope and brutality, Hamas’s assault on Israelis exceeded any prior Palestinian act. Israel’s military attacks and forced starvation in Gaza are an onslaught governed by unusual rules, in which the death of Palestinian fighters seems like collateral damage, while the widespread, indiscriminate slaughter…

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