Saturday, August 10, 2024

We have to pull together and stop Trump

At Common Dreams, Joe Queally writes:

 

"There is only one answer to the threat we face as a nation. The answer is solidarity."

That is the core message directed at the American working class from the United Auto Workers (UAW) in a new ad that frames the nation's current political battle as one between organized workers and the billionaire and corporate classes.

"We stand at a historic crossroads in this country right now," says UAW president Shawn Fain to begin the 2-minute video. "And it's clear Donald Trump represents the billionaire class—that's his base."

Calling Trump a "scab" who will "ruthlessly fight for a vision of America in which the wealthy rule everyone and everything, and the working class is left behind and forced to settle for the scraps," Fain argues that "what we win or lose now" will ultimately impact "whether we go forwards or backwards for a generation—everything is at stake."

"In the wealthiest country in the world, working class people shouldn't have to scrap to get by, paycheck to paycheck," Fain says before championing the UAW's historic strike last year in which the union's members stood up to the Big Three automakers—and won historic contracts.

"We united the entire working class," he added, "that's the winning formula."

 

And Kamala Harris is the winning candidate.  I've never voted for a Democrat in any presidential election.  I'm a Green.  I was willing to vote for Joe Biden in November because of how important it is that Donald Trump not return to the White House.  We'd be destroyed -- Black people, LGBTQ+ people, women, immigrants, really every American.  And we'd have no chance over the next four years of seeing climate change addressed.  We'd see the corrupt Supreme Court dismantle more of our rights.  We'd lose our democracy.   But then I couldn't vote for Joe.  Not with the ongoing war on Gaza.

 

I can vote for Kamala.  She's not president at this point.  Joe is and Joe's responsible for policy.  I hope Kamala will be different.  If she's not then this November will be my last time voting for her.  

 

But we do need to save our country and I am voting for her.

 

 

Let me post about community websites:

 

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    Saturdays, C.I. posts on the half hour from 6:00 AM EST to at least 12:30 am Sunday EST.  And half the videos are music.  She notes various women.  Today's female musicians included Diana Ross, Cher, Jill Scott, Megan Thee Stallion, Cyndi Lauper, Carole King, Valerie Simpson, Meshell Ndegeocello, Maria McKee, Janet Jackson, Grace Slick, Aimee Mann, Chloe, Jade, Brandy, Kylie Minogue . . .  It's a great way to make the internet more inclusive. That's something C.I. has long worked for at The Common Ills. 
     
     
     
     
     
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    Trina offers a recipe (this one looks really easy and I will try it next week) and also goes into how Google is censoring people who support Kamala Harris for president.  They censored Trina's Thursday post, Mike's Thursday post, Isaiah's post about Mike being censored and my Wednesday post.  None of the posts in question violated any community standards though Google is using that as their excuse as they work to get Donald Trump back in the White House.  Trina is Mike's mother, by the way.
     
     
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    Kat covers music in the community.  I didn't know the American Music Awards were no longer going to be on ABC (they've moved to CBS).  She also, at The Common Ills, reviews at least ten albums a year while also doing a year-end piece there.
     
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    Ruth covers Donald Trump and more power to her.  That man is disgusting and I don't know how Ruth manages to cover him nearly every week day.  When she takes an occasional break from the topic, I understand and I'm sure her loyal readers do as well.  She started out blogging at The Common Ills with "Ruth's Report" which was a weekly piece about public radio.  Then she started her own site because we all knew she had so much more to share.

     
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    Stan covers TV and movies -- and he and I do a year-end look at movies each December.  I consider him a real and forever friend. He's great and funny From time to time, he also writes about his diabetes.
     
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    Mike usually grabs one topic and stays on it.  Right now, he's covering Skidmarks Vance.  Prior to that, he covered the repugnant Ron DeSantis -- Doo-Doo Ron as Mike termed him.  Idiot of the Week is a feature he started about 15 years ago.  Cedric, my husband, always says that we all learned a great deal from Mike about how to blog and I agree with that 100%.
     
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    Betty has two primary beats.  She covers the Supreme Court and science as her primary beats.  She will also cover racism like the post above where she is calling out Donald Trump and his efforts to pretend he was more popular and important than MLK.  Betty's blog now has a heading of "Blog Betty."  "Thomas Friedman is a Great Man"?  When she started her site in 2005, she wanted it to be a comic novel about imperialism with strong press critiques.  She continued that until the spring of 2008.  I loved Bettina (her main character) who was misused by columnist Thomas Friedman.  I miss the character and it was fun reading each chapter -- in the beginning, it was a twice a week post site so we'd get two chapters. 
     
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    Rebeca covers a variety of topics.  If it's a night time or a day time soap or soap actor, she tends to cover it.  She also covers music from time to time and politics.  In the post above, she's reviewing a book.  We're continuing our book coverage this year with every one attempting to grab at least one book throughout the year to cover at their site.  In addition to that, Marcia and Rebecca also grab a book every summer that they cover together as their 'summer read' selection.
     
     
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    Marcia's blog.  Along with writing with Rebecca, Marcia is also Stan's cousin.  She covers books, she covers movies, she covers syfy.  She's covering the polling for Kamala Harris.   Marcia and Ruth usually are on the phone or with each other when they blog.  They use one another as a sounding board.
     
     
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    Elaine.  She started out covering peace.  She long ago wanted to pack blogging in.  Consider her the reluctant blogger and she started that way.  Rebecca was being stalked by a friend of Bob Somerby's and she was freaked out by it.  She stepped away for a month and Elaine offered to fill in.  She did that because she and Rebecca are old friends going back to college.  After Rebecca returned from her month break, Mike got Elaine to agree to blog at her own site.  She now covers the crazy MAGA crowd that's trying to destroy the United States.  In the post above, she's covering the lying Skidmarks Vance. 
     
     
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    Wally started blogging forever ago.  He and Mike used to do joint-posts from time to time.  Then Wally really wanted a humor site.  So that's what he was doing.  My husband, Cedric had a blog at -- I can't remember.  It doesn't exist anymore.  Blogdrive!  That's what it was.  And he covered politics and covered issues impacting the African-American community and things to do with our church.  One of the elderly men at our church was someone Cedric loved to write about and loved to interview.  He was kind of the second voice on Cedric's site.  And then he passed away and that really left Cedric in a funk.  He just didn't want to blog anymore.  Wally reached out and offered to do joint-posts.  He said they could do it until Cedric felt comfortable blogging solo again.  Well they've been a team ever since.  Sometimes Betty, C.I., Isaiah and I join them for a joint-post.  It's fun and we try to be funny.  What if we aren't?  That's when you're glad C.I.'s part of it because she will say, "Okay, maybe it's not ha-ha worthy but it's got enough to get a point across."  At which point, we post it.
     

 

 The Third Estate Sunday Review is often referred to as "Third."  It is Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess, Ava and C.I.  Rebecca had the first community site after The Common Ills.  Ava and C.I. cover media at Third.  They are the site's calling card as Dona notes.  If Third disappeared tomorrow as a website, you could still find Ava and C.I.'s writing all over the net because their pieces are forever being reposted around the world.  They have presented a strong feminist voice weekly since 2005.  From time to time, I'll do a piece with them and it's always fun -- there's a lot of laughing -- and it's always informative an education to write with them.  It teaches me so much. Features that go up at Third?  Book discussions, roundtables, The TESR Test Kitchen, Ty's Corner, Jim's world, mailbag, Tweet of the week, Truest statement of the week, etc. 


This is C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"

 

Friday, August 9, 2024.  Presidential candidate Kamala Harris speaks with the UAW about our power when we pull together, Robert Kennedy Junior offers up a Cruise to Hell contest, and much more.



In the US, the presidential election will be held November 5, 2024.  Early voting will start sooner but the 'last day' of voting will be November 5, 2024.  The Democratic Party's presidential nominee is Kamala Harris.  Yesterday, she and her running mate Tim Walz spoke to the United Auto Workers (UAW) in Wayne, Michigan Local 900 chapter.  Local 900 members are credited with being part of the driving force last year that brought about the negotiations with the Big Three automakers last year.  Addressing the gathered, Kamala noted,  "When you know what you stand for, you know what to fight for. We stand for the people. We stand for the dignity of work. We stand for justice. We stand for equality. And we will fight for all of it."  Excerpt:

 

Presidential nominee Kamala Harris:  But the same people raised us.  Good people.  Hard working people.  People who had pride in knowing we were a community of people who looked out for each other.  You know, raised by a community of folks who understood that the true measure of the strength of a leader is not based on who you beat down, it's based on who you lift up.  And you know there's a perversion that's happened in our country in the last several years where there's a suggestion that   somehow strength is about making people feel small, making people feel alone but isn't that the very opposite of what we know -- unions know to be strength?  It's about the collective.  It's about understanding no one should ever be made to fight alone -- that we are all in this together.  You know why I fought in my career for unions and labor because I understand the concept -- the noble concept -- behind collective bargaining and here it is, here it is:  Fairness.  Fairness.  It's about saying, "Hey, in a negotiation, don't we all believe the outcome should be fair?"  I mean who could disagree with that?  The outcome should be fair.  It should be fair, right?  But when you're talking about the individual and a big company and you're requiring that one individual to negotiate against a big company, how's that outcome going to be fair?  So collective bargaining is about saying, "Let the collective come together around a common experience which at its core is about dignity and the dignity of  labor and then let the people come together to negotiate so you make the balance  and then the outcome will be fair."  And isn't that what we're talking about in this election.


Crowds are turning out for the Harris-Walz ticket.  And they're doing a great job on social media.  Where they need to step up their game?  Democrats need to shore up elderly voters.  They are often the most at risk when it comes to misinformation.  That's not because they're lazy.  It's because they're trying to educate themselves.  That's why they watch the news and, sadly, that does include watching FOX "NEWS" for some elderly Democrats.  I'm speaking to youth groups, labor, women's groups as usual but I have added the elderly and that's based on some polling I've seen and concerns that some friends in DNC leadership have noted.  So, just added the elderly segment this week, here's what I'm hearing that needs to be stepped up: The campaign website.

You need speeches up there, you need issues and positions up there.  The website deserves a D grade currently.  I'm not here to sugar coat or tell people good job when there's no good job being done.  This might fly with younger people but it's not working for the elderly population.  

There's another problem and maybe I should have started with that.  ACT BLUE should not be able to pull focus from Kamala's designated campaign site unless they clearly and easily link to her website.  "I felt trapped," one 74 year old woman stated.  She searched for Kamala Harris' website and saw ACT BLUE official Kamala Harris website.  She clicked.  And she couldn't go anywhere.  Well maybe she could, maybe if she chose a donation amount and then gave her credit card information, maybe then she could go somewhere beyong that huge STOP SIGN that ACT BLUE's website is.

At least on Kamala's official site, they can click a clearly noted "Close" and get off the begging for money page to look for actual content.

But when they look for it, it's not there. 

These are people who vote and these are people who grew up as voters being able to dash to the local campaign headquarters where there would be tons of printed pages with positions on this and on that, with biographical information, you name it. This is hurting another group, by the way.  But we'll come back to that.

There's no content there.  Elderly people especially want content.  If they're visiting a website for a presidential candidate, they should find a plethora of information -- more information than they could ever want.

The other group.  As I was dictating the above, I flashed on 1992 and how Bill Clinton -- if people were being honest -- got about ten more votes because of campaign literature.  It was a Sunday and it started with a mother of one of my kids' classmates calling about an assignment.  Could I help?  Some of the kids had put off their assignment on the presidential election.  It was Sunday, the campaign office was closed, the internet wasn't what it is today.  I said sure, let's meet at our local campaign headquarters and I'd unlock it and we'd get some papers for the woman's child that he could use to write a report.  She said that was great and thanked me and asked if it was okay for any other parent to come along?  Sure, anyone she knew whose kid needed material for a paper could meet us up there.  It ended up being ten parents and they honestly weren't planning on voting.  It's California, we go blue.  They were busy raising kids and busy living life.  But the fact that they were able to go in, on a Sunday, to a closed campaign office to get material so their kids could turn in an assignment the next day made a difference.  

So I'm thinking of those 1992 parents.  And school's about to start up.  And they're going to be parents whose kid put off an assignment and they're going to be trying to help their children at the last minute and the official Kamala Harris for President website is useless at this point.  They're not going to find anything that will talk about climate change or reproductive rights.  

The only reason the website appears to exist right now is for donations.  And that's the complaint I've heard all week from the elderly. 

As things shifted in the last decades, Ava and I noted that a politician's campaign website was their campaign office and it needed to be run as such.  (We also used to look at all the presidential campaign websites and write about how good or bad a job they were doing.)  Team Kamala needs to up their game and do so immediately.  Elderly voters are being let down.  And as school starts to start up, if the website isn't beefed up, you're going to find parents feeling let down because they should be able to visit the official website and find information their kids can use for papers or presentations at school.

Let's move on.  Robert Kennedy Junior.  It's been such a busy week that we've only had time to post the videos about his creepy staging of a crime in Central Park with the corpse of a young bear cub. We don't have time for it now.

We're noting his contest.  Donate ten dollars to Junior and you can enter to be part of the "celebrity cruise"!!!! Celebrity?


On August 28, 2024, you and a guest could embark on a sunset cruise with Bobby, Cheryl Hines, star of Curb Your Enthusiasm, Hollywood superhero fan favorite actor, Zachary Levi, influential Substack writer, Jessica Reed Kraus, Drea de Matteo, the critically acclaimed and award-winning actress from The Sopranos, and legendary basketball star Metta World Peace.

Cheryl's not a celebrity and she may be the most well known of that list of losers.  Zac?  The second Shazam movie flopped, his HAROLD movie that opened last weekend is a flop.   Who does that leave?  The ONLYFA NS 'actress'?  What you really see, if you pay attention, is the COVID crazies.  I really don't understand those crazies.  One of them, for example, could use COVID to come out -- to finally come out.  He could say, "I can't get an erection so I've decided I'll sleep with men."  COVID is the key that will finally let you come out of the closet.  Your management team wouldn't let you in the '00s.  Now it can be your time at last.  You can use COVID to come out as the bottom you've been your whole life and you can pin it on COVID by using that false rumor that the shot makes some men unable to get erections.


If you want to take a trip with losers, Junior's serving it up.  Some might see winning that contest as a victory, I'd see it as being consigned to hell.

Transition!  Let's note this from yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.

Israel is facing growing condemnation over the torture and rape of Palestinian prisoners. Israel’s Channel 12 News aired shocking footage of Israeli soldiers sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner. The video shows a group of blindfolded prisoners lying on the ground inside a prison at Sde Teiman army base, which critics have compared to Guantánamo. Israeli guards are then seen taking one man into a corner, where the soldiers encircled him and reportedly sexually assaulted him. Israel’s investigation of this incident is what led a group of far-right Israeli protesters and lawmakers to break into two military bases last week in an effort to prevent the soldiers from being questioned.

Meanwhile, a group of U.N. experts has warned Israel’s escalating use of torture of jailed Palestinians is a crime against humanity. The experts wrote, “Torture practices are irredeemably unlawful and constitute international crimes, yet form part of the modus operandi of Israel’s notorious detention and torture system,” unquote.

Meanwhile, the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem has published a major new report documenting how the Israeli prison system has become what B’Tselem calls a “network of torture camps.”

I want to turn to an interview conducted by B’Tselem of Ashraf al-Muhtaseb, a father of five from Hebron and a wedding band manager. While detained on the morning of November 18th last year, Ashraf had prison guards storm his cell he shared with other men, claiming they were looking for a radio.

ASHRAF AL-MUHTASEB: [translated] One morning at 6:00, they raided our cell, about 15 guards with a monstrous dog. Sometimes they made him attack sensitive body parts. They attacked us all, kicking us and hitting us with sticks. I was leaning against the wall behind others in the cell. They started kicking me in the neck and ear. Unfortunately, I got a very hard blow to my ear. I’ve completely lost my hearing on that side. I got four fractures in my back ribs, three in my chest, and fractures in my hands and other body parts.

AMY GOODMAN: In another interview conducted by the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem, 50-year-old Firas Hassan, an official in the Palestinian Authority’s Ministry of Youth and Sports, describes not only being beaten by prison guards while in detention, but hearing that their brutal attack is being live-streamed for Itamar Ben-Gvir, the minister of national security of Israel, to watch.

FIRAS HASSAN: [translated] On November 9th, 2023, two prison forces, the District Unit and the Initial Response Force, came into cell 14 we were in, on wing 28. We were 10 Palestinians in the cell. The forces came in masked and beat us for 50 minutes. They laughed while they hit us and live-streamed it all. I understand Hebrew, and I heard one say, “We’re live-streaming for Ben-Gvir, directly to Ben-Gvir.” They beat us in various ways, with their hands and feet, and then brought in police dogs, after they tied our hands behind our backs and blindfolded us.

AMY GOODMAN: B’Tselem also spoke to Sari Huriyyah. He’s a 53-year-old real estate lawyer and an Israeli citizen. He was arrested and detained over a Facebook post November 4th last year. In this clip, Sari describes 'Abd a-Rahman Mar'i, a 23-year-old man in the isolation cell next to him, screaming in pain and later being brought out in a body bag.

SARI HURIYYAH: [translated] He screamed in pain constantly, begging for the doctor. The guard would come now and then and swear at him and tell him to shut up. In the morning, the guards came to count us. One said, “Get up, you animal. Get up, you dog.” They checked him, and the whole place went silent. Finally, the doctor said, “There’s nothing to be done.” One of the guards said to them, “My condolences.” And they all started laughing. They put him in a black body bag and carried him out like trash.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re joined right now by Sarit Michaeli, international advocacy lead for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. The group’s new report is titled “Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps.”

Sarit, thanks so much for being with us. Just as we listen to these horrifying accounts, please lay out your findings.

SARIT MICHAELI: I think on a very fundamental level, Amy, our findings look at the systemic, ongoing and state-sanctioned, government-sanctioned use of torture and abuse in the Israeli prison system vis-à-vis Palestinians, Palestinians who Israel considers to be — views as security prisoners.

Now, this is something that we have discussed in the past. I mean, torture and abuse of Palestinian detainees in detention and interrogations have occurred. They have been documented. But the level, the degree, the scope, the scale of this phenomenon since October 7th are simply unrelated to anything we’ve seen in the past.

And when we look at the way these people are treated — you showed some of the testimonies. Some of the — many more testimonies are actually available on our website, and we are sharing them online. You see that, clearly, this isn’t the actions of any sort of rogue element of the Israeli prison system. It’s a government-sanctioned and also government-supported, government-mandated policy. And that’s the central conclusion that we have from all of the information that we’ve collected in recent months.

AMY GOODMAN: If you can talk about Firas, who was describing not only being beaten by the Israeli soldiers, but also the fact that this beating was being live-streamed for the national security minister of Israel, Itamar Ben-Gvir, to watch?

SARIT MICHAELI: So, I just want to clarify: We know that the police say — or, sorry, the prison guards were discussing this. Certainly, we have not — you know, we clarified in our communications that we don’t know whether this was indeed, like, literally live-streamed for Itamar Ben-Gvir or whether it was more about the spirit of Itamar Ben-Gvir, because a lot of the things we see on the ground today in the Israeli prison system are directly related to the influence, to the spirit of Minister Ben-Gvir.

I think it’s certainly not the case that Minister Ben-Gvir is the only person responsible. Absolutely, the prime minister, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who gave him all of his authority, is absolutely responsible and culpable for this reality. But the Israeli government and Ben-Gvir have shown again and again, since October 7th but also before October 7th, that they are hell-bent, that their intention is to cause this deterioration to increase the pressure on Palestinian prisoners.

And this was — this has been done, and we saw these kinds of developments even prior to October 7th. From the beginning of the tenure of Minister Ben-Gvir as minister of national security, he has been imposing his racist, his Kahanist agenda, both on the Israeli police, with great success, unfortunately, and also on the Israeli Prison Service. October 7th, the horror, the crimes committed against Israelis on October 7th, served as a golden opportunity for Ben-Gvir to continue to cynically manipulate the Israeli trauma, the Israeli fear and anger, in order to push forward this agenda that he has been promoting even beforehand.

So, I think one of the clear things that we’ve seen on the ground and in the system since October 7th was that much of this Israeli policy, at least the parts about starving prisoners, about cramping them all together in large numbers in cells, canceling any possibility for them to have any sort of sustenance, to buy additional food, for example, all of these policies have been declared. They’ve been stated by the Israeli government. They haven’t hid this. Ben-Gvir himself has been on the media promoting these policies and showing — you know, having these, like, show visits to visit prisoners that he claims are Nukhba — right? — are Palestinian, are Hamas fighters from Gaza.

But what we have seen again and again, based on the testimonies that we’ve taken, is that the Israeli policy wasn’t just applied Palestinian Hamas suspects. We would argue, by the way, that this is absolutely, categorically prohibited regardless of the crimes people have been — have committed. Torture and this type of treatment is absolutely prohibited. But Israel is claiming, and in some cases showing — right? — performing, in a way. And this is — I think the incident that was described in this testimony seems very much an example of this, not just the kind of actual violence and ill-treatment and humiliation, but making it very, very public. And this is something that is simply chilling and is part of the really deep moral abyss that this report exposes, I think, within our society today.

AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli Supreme Court considered a petition yesterday to close a desert military prison where soldiers have been accused of abusing Palestinians, most recently this shocking video that aired on Israeli News 12, the Channel 12, showing Israeli soldiers sexually abusing a Palestinian prisoner. Talk about that video and what the Supreme Court is calling for or if they’ve had a ruling yet.

SARIT MICHAELI: Well, I think there’s a few things to unpack in this situation. I mean, again, regardless of the specifics of this individual case — B’Tselem hasn’t documented it; we’re not familiar enough with the details — I think this is a moment within Israeli society where the old way of doing things, which involved very often these sham investigations — right? — pretending that we’re holding soldiers accountable for violations of Palestinian rights and investigating suspected wrongdoing, this is rejected, is being rejected by a growing — maybe majority, certainly very large number of Israelis, who are simply not interested in any kind of accountability, because they do not believe that the Palestinians deserve any rights. And this is an interesting and quite disturbing and very, very depressing situation to experience, because the power and the violence released by the recent, for example, charging of far-right activists into the Sde Teiman military base and into the Beit Lid military base isn’t just going to harm, you know, the specific investigative bodies that we are very critical of. This is an action that is very concerted and coordinated by the Israeli far right in order to scare off any type of law enforcement in Israeli society.

And this is why I think it’s so deeply connected to what we’ve seen yesterday in the High Court. There is a High Court petition against Sde Teiman. It’s being — it was presented by the Israeli — by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel. And the state has, as is its custom, denied that there is any wrongdoing in Sde Teiman. But there’s also another kind of parallel development, which is that a far-right mob has actually verbally charged the High Court justices yesterday in the Israeli High Court and also tried to assault the lawyers acting on behalf of ACRI. And I think this is an excellent example of what has been happening to the gatekeepers in Israel. This is an example of why these gatekeepers, who were meant to protect against the type of abuses that we describe in this report, they have been so scared off, they’ve been so weakened and paralyzed after many, many years of these types of far-right and even quite centrist assaults, that the type of reality that we exposed in the report is allowed to go pretty much on as Minister Ben-Gvir pleases, with very little resistance from the High Court, the other courts, from the attorney general. Now, certainly, we have had, and we’re still extremely critical of these institutions, of the Israeli court system, of the Israeli attorney general, but we do expect them to stand up to this type of abuse, to this type of official torture. And I think one of the reasons why Ben-Gvir has been so successful in imposing his own agenda, his racist, Kahanist agenda, is this weakness, the cowering of the gatekeepers that have been weakened for so many years.

AMY GOODMAN: And can you talk about the protests that took place in the last days trying to prevent the Israeli soldiers or police from being questioned about the sexual assault or the rape of a Palestinian prisoner?

SARIT MICHAELI: Yeah. I mean, I think I should also maybe open this with one point of light in the current reality, which is that since the publication of B’Tselem’s report, and also since the publication and the exposure of the story about these really horrific suspicions in Sde Teiman, there’s been a very strong voice coming from Israelis who categorically oppose this — not necessarily Israelis who are absolutely with B’Tselem on everything, mainstream Israelis who know, who understand that if you are a country that claims you’re a democracy — of course, we would take great issue with this — then you cannot simply abuse people because you suspect them or because you’ve accused them and even because you’ve convicted them of perpetrating the most horrific crimes. This is simply unacceptable. And people are saying this very openly in our society today. These might not be the majority of Israelis, but it’s very heartening to hear these voices again and again, as I said, also in response to B’Tselem’s report.

But the story itself, the reason it got such prominence is because it really is — it’s something that one did not expect to see up until, really, the recent period. And I’m saying that even though, you know, as I said, B’Tselem’s report also revealed additional cases of suspected sexual and gender-based abuse. The story of the suspicions of sexual abuse by soldiers in Sde Teiman has generated a mass public outcry, but it’s also generated a mass response by proponents of the far right, of the Kahanist movement in Israel, who simply do not want any kind of action by Israeli soldiers against Palestinians to be subject of any sort of accountability process. I mean, that’s the whole point. From their perspective, they would like to have a completely open field in terms of what they can do to Palestinians. And this is both for soldiers and settlers. And anyone who tries to impose any, even the most rudimentary, the most basic, level of accountability is attacked as an enemy of the state, as a traitor.

And this brings us into quite an absurd situation, where bodies that we, as I said, are extremely critical of — for example, the State Attorney’s Office and also the Military Advocate General’s Office — are now coming under fire, not for what we would argue is the correct reason, the fact that they have enabled Israel to allow the army and soldiers on the ground to use totally disproportionate force against Palestinians. They’ve enabled almost everything that Israel has been doing in Gaza in recent months — the mass killings, the starvation, the horrific things we have done in Gaza. This is not what the far right is criticizing these institutions for. The criticism is coming when — in the very, very rare cases where there is an occasional investigation when the Israeli investigative bodies simply don’t have any other choice, I’m assuming. I’m only speculating, right? But the fact that there is CCTV footage of this alleged assault and the fact that the story has become so prominent and the possibility of an internal whistleblower inside who reported this have left the authorities really with no option other than to conduct this investigation. Certainly, many other cases and the broad policy is not investigated, but they are still attacked by the right for this tiny foray into accountability.

AMY GOODMAN: I want to go to yesterday’s briefing at the U.S. State Department, where Matthew Miller is questioned about this issue. This is the reporter Rabia Iclal Turan.

RABIA ICLAL TURAN: Going back to Israel, Israeli media today released a video showing Israeli soldiers raping a Palestinian detainee at Sde Teiman detention camp. The footage was very disturbing. I know you have commented on the reports about this detention center before, but we have now — we now have a new evidence, which is video. Have you seen that video? And do you have anything to say on that and also the reports of, you know, rape —

MATTHEW MILLER: Yeah.

RABIA ICLAL TURAN: — in Israeli prisons?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, we have seen the video. And reports of sexual abuse of detainees are horrific. They ought to be investigated fully by the government of Israel, by the IDF. Prisoners need to be treated — prisoners’ human rights need to be respected in all cases. And when there are alleged violations, the government of Israel needs to take steps to investigate those who are alleged to have committed abuses and, if appropriate, hold them accountable.

RABIA ICLAL TURAN: And, actually, this is not the first rape incident we have been hearing about Israeli prisons. And Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on Monday released a report saying that Sde Teiman is only tip of the iceberg and that, you know, Israeli detention centers turned into a network of torture camps for Palestinian — Palestinians. Its report cited testimonies from 55 Palestinian detainees. So, I know the Israelis are investigating this, but would you support an independent investigation into those allegations?

MATTHEW MILLER: So, I would have to look at what the specific independent investigation people are calling for and pass judgment on the merits. But, look, there ought to be zero tolerance for sexual abuse, rape of any detainee, period.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s the State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller. Sarit Michaeli, if you could talk about the significance of what he is saying, and what you’re demanding at this point as the international advocacy lead for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem?

SARIT MICHAELI: Yes, Amy. Well, I think the most important thing to clarify in terms of our response to this is that Israel is not going to hold an investigation into the conduct and into the policies in its detention centers, for the pure reason, for the obvious reasons that these are policies. They’re not the actions of rogue elements, as I said. They’re not the actions of individuals who are going against the grain. They are dictated by the management of the Israeli prison system and by the government. They are supported by these bodies. And therefore, the only options for investigations are individual cases that are either so egregious that it would be impossible for the authorities to ignore them because of international pressure or in cases where there is some sort of documentation. And that is generally, I think — when you look at the Israeli investigations, that is generally the way the Israeli authorities work. The small, isolated, token investigations cover up for broader policies.

And in this specific case, I think, from our perspective, we have, A, not appealed — we have not requested Israeli investigations; B, we do not expect any Israeli investigations to fundamentally alter the situation. What we do expect is the international community to take action. And in the report, we’ve appealed to all nations and also to all relevant international institutions to look into the situation, to make it — to make it stop. Specifically, we’ve also appealed to the International Criminal Court, because these offenses that we list in our report are war crimes. They also, we would argue, reach the magnitude of crimes against humanity. And this is the responsibility of the international community, including the United States government, to address. It’s not just an intra-Israeli issue. Certainly, the Israeli government in its current standing — I mean, it’s pretty blatantly obvious that if the Israeli government is not able to hold an investigation into such serious allegations of horrific abuse without a mob of right-wing fanatics rushing, storming into two military bases, then it’s blatant that Israel isn’t going to be able — willing or able to address this broader policy of torture, you know, by order, essentially, against Palestinians since October 7th.

AMY GOODMAN: Sarit Michaeli, I want to thank you for being with us from Tel Aviv, international advocacy lead for the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. We’ll link to your new report

SARIT MICHAELI: Thank you very much.

AMY GOODMAN: — “Welcome to Hell: The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps.”


Where's the video?  Use the link.  We posted it yesterday afternoon.  A few hours later, YOUTUBE had done their censorship nonsense.  I'm not posting a video in a snapshot that is a blank square before the snapshot goes up.  


Gaza remains under assault. Day 308 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 39,699 with 91,722 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:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."


Now to another topic.  From yesterday's snapshot:

Team Kamala Harris is gearing up with multiple in-person events this week and, today alone, six zoom phone banks and training alone.  Unlike Kamala Harris, the GOP has an elderly man in charge as their candidate and terms like "memes" and "viral" sailed right over Donald Trump's head and he instead insisted they send his ridiculous pick for a running mate -- JD "Skidmarks" Vance -- as a stalker, following Kamala and her running mate Tim Walz around.  Skidmarks must be Donald Trump's idea of a groupie.  

And you have to feel sorry for Skidmarks.  Especially if you have eye sight and vision, you have to feel sorry for him as they use him, the fat man who wore Spanx during the GOP convention and wears eyeliner daily,  to attack Tim Walz's service.  "When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did?  He dropped out of the army and allowed his unit to go without him, a fact that he's been criticized for aggressively by a lot of people that he served with."  Two people have criticized him for leaving the National Guard at the end of the four years.  Idiots -- Ann covered one idiot last night and she's right -- especially abut the man needing a breast reduction.  Tim  served 24 years.  Following 9/11, he re-enlisted for four more years.  After that?  He retired.  That's not "dropping out."  He didn't go AWOL.  He served 24 years. 
 

"As a Marine who served his country in uniform," JD Vance boasted of himself yesterday.  Huh?

You may have played dress up -- did the Marines let you wear eyeliner in Iraq? -- but stop with the service nonsense.  You 'served' in Iraq as a journalist.  Stop pretending otherwise.  As Elaine rightly noted last week:


Let me get this right, Skidmarks Vance who tries to play combat veteran to the public, was actually in Iraq for six months as "a military journalist."  From WIKIPEDIA:


After graduating from Middletown High School in 2003,[19] Vance enlisted in the U.S. Marine Corps and served in Iraq as a combat correspondent for six months in late 2005.[20] He was part of the Public Affairs section of the 2nd Marine Aircraft Wing[21][22] and said that his service "taught me how to live like an adult" and that he was "lucky to escape any real fighting".[23] His decorations included the Marine Corps Good Conduct Medal and Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal.[20]



He's not a combat veteran.  He's a joke.  He 'served' in Iraq . . . as a journalist.  What?  The USO was full?  

What a joke.  Everything about the Trump-Vance ticket is a fraud.


Well I'm blown away because in response to the above a Vance supporter e-mailed to insist his outrage.  I'm amazed.  Who knew Vance had a supporter.  But the man didn't make a convincing case for an informed supporter, "J.D. Vance saw combat in Iraq and defused bombs.  He was not a journalist in Iraq and he would never be part of a profession like that!"

I think you're confusing THE HURT LOCKER with your lover.  Skidmarks Vance did not defuse bombs.  He typed.  If you doubt it, Meg Kinnard (AP) notes, "Vance enlisted in the Marine Corps after graduating high school, serving four years as a combat correspondent, a type of military journalist, and deploying to Iraq in that capacity in 2005."


For more on military service, you can refer to this video.





That's former US House Rep. Adam Kinzinger calling out the lies and the liars trying to attack Tim Walz's 24 years in the National Guard.

 

"I am furious about this attack," Adam explains in the video above.  And we all should be furious but listen and grasp what a liar the Tommys attacking Tim are.  And, here's Adam's service record:
 

Kinzinger resigned from the McLean County Board in 2003 to join the United States Air Force. He was commissioned a second lieutenant in November 2003 and later awarded his pilot wings. Kinzinger was initially a KC-135 Stratotanker pilot and flew missions in South AmericaGuamIraq and Afghanistan. He later switched to flying the RC-26 surveillance aircraft and was stationed in Iraq twice.[11]

Kinzinger has served in the Air Force Special Operations CommandAir Combat CommandAir Mobility Command, and Wisconsin Air National Guard and was progressively promoted to his current rank of lieutenant colonel.[12] As part of his continued service with the Air National Guard, Kinzinger was deployed to the Mexico–United States border in February 2019 as part of efforts to maintain border security.[13]

 



The following sites updated: