Saturday, September 7, 2024

Trump's Got It Bad And That Ain't Good

A sentencing was postponed.  No, that was not a good thing for Mr. Down On His Luck as Paul Rudnick points out.





Poor Convicted Felon Donald Trump.  His life has become the old torch song "I Got It Bad And That Ain't Good."  Everyone's sung it.  Duke Ellington co-wrote the song in 1941 and took it onto the charts the same year.  The following year, Peggy Lee had a hit with it while she was with Benny Goodman's band.   It is a standard that all the greats performed in the 20th century with some of the best versions being done by Frank Sinatra, Sarah Vaughan, Nina Simone, Tony Bennett, Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, John Coltrane, Lena Horne, Thelonious Monk, Dinah Washington, Nat King Cole, Etta James, Lou Rawls, Rosemary Clooney,  Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Jo Stafford and so many more.  Cher used to do classic songs and contemporary songs on her variety shows -- her two with Sonny and her solo one in between the two with Sonny.  On TV, she could really nail the song and others like it. 



She would do something like "It Never Rains In California" and then mix in some standard from the thirties or forties as well.  It was why variety shows worked when they worked.  

In an alternate universe, Cher never went on Broadway in the 80s nor did she have an Academy Award winning film career.  Instead, she returned to TV in the 80s and brought back the variety show format.  

Anyway, the last version I heard that really nailed the song was in 1981 when Carly Simon recorded it for her TORCH album.
 



The song includes this, "I end up like I start out/ Just crying my heart out."  And does that not describe each week for Mr. Trump these days?  Alex Henderson notes:


Back in the early 1980s, the late conservative Sen. Barry Goldwater (R-Arizona) — a scathing critic of the Rev. Jerry Falwell Sr., the Moral Majority and televangelist Pat Robertson — warned fellow Republicans that they were opening a Pandora's box by embracing the Religious Right. And more than 40 years later, 2024 GOP presidential nominee is trying to please his far-right white evangelical supporters despite the backlash from voters who are still angry over anti-abortion laws and the overturning of Roe v. Wade.

The New York Times' Jamelle Bouie, in his September 6 column, stresses that although Christian nationalism is a liability for Trump, he doesn't want to alienate fundamentalist evangelicals who have been supporting him.

"Donald Trump is stuck," Bouie argues. "He is a brutally transactional politician who represents a coalition of ideologues. His instinct is to promise the moon, and he'll say anything to get a vote — or just to get out of a room. He also knows, however, that he has no choice but to dance with the date that brought him. He can't abandon the groups, interested parties and constituencies that put him in the White House to execute their agenda — to exercise their will."


He is losing support among his faithful and shoring them up will alienate most voters.  That must be difficult to address with a functioning candidate but, as we all know, Mr. Trump is not a functioning candidate. Ed Mazza (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:


MSNBC’s Chris Hayes on Thursday slammed Donald Trump as a man suffering from “pretty obvious mental decline.” 

And he wants to know why the same voices that pressured President Joe Biden to drop out of the race over his mental skills are largely silent on Trump.


“We are not seeing nearly as much discussion about Trump’s diminished mental acuity,” Hayes said. “Seems like everyone’s grading Trump on a curve: ‘He has always been rambling and incoherent’ ― true ― ‘so he gets a pass.’”

But Hayes isn’t giving the former president a pass.

“I gotta say you spend any amount of time listening to him these days ― and for our sins, we do here at all end ― he does not sound like a person who should be anywhere near the nuclear codes,” he said.  




Mr. Hayes is correct.  Mr. Trump has grown more senile since he left the White House and this year has been especially dramatic.  As I have shared, my children recently told me I was too old to be driving.  I was not thrilled with that news.  I did understand that they were doing it for my safety and the safety of others.  It is a shame that no one in the Trump family cares enough about Mr. Trump to speak to him honestly about his cognitive decline and how he should drop out of the race immediately.  Michael Luciano (MEDIAITE) notes:


Jessica Tarlov dared her co-hosts on The Five to make a word salad response from Donald Trump comprehensible.

On Thursday, the former president spoke at the Economic Club of New York where he was asked if he would “commit to prioritizing legislation to make childcare affordable.”

Trump gave no specifics and responded with the following:

Well, I would do that, and we’re sitting down — you know, I was, somebody — we had Senator Marco Rubio, and my daughter Ivanka was so impactful on that issue. It’s a very important issue. But I think when you talk about the kind of numbers that I’m talking about, that — because the childcare is childcare — there’s something, you have to have it in this country. You have to have it. But when you talk about those numbers compared to the kind of numbers that I’m talking about by taxing foreign nations at levels that they’re not used to — but they’ll get used to it very quickly — and it’s not going to stop them from doing business with us; but they’ll have a very substantial tax when they send product into our country. Those numbers are so much bigger than any numbers that we’re talking about, including childcare, that it’s going to take care — we’re going to have, I look forward to having no deficits within a fairly short period of time, coupled with the reductions that I told you about on waste and fraud and all of the other things that are going on in our country because I have to stay with childcare. I want to stay with childcare. But those numbers are small relative to the kind of economic numbers that I’m talking about — including growth — but growth also headed up by what the plan is that I just told you about. We’re going to be taking in trillions of dollars. And as much as childcare is talked about as being expensive, it’s, relatively speaking, not very expensive compared to the kind of numbers we’ll be taking in. We’re going to make this into an incredible country that can afford to take care of its people, and then we’ll worry about the rest of the world. Let’s help other people, but we’re going to take care of our country first. This is about America first. It’s about “Make America Great Again.” We have to do it because right now we’re a failing nation, so we’ll take care of it.

Thank you.

Hours later on The Five, Tarlov asked her co-hosts to translate the reply from the former president.

“[T]oday was also about Donald Trump’s economic speech, and we watched a lot of it,” she said. “And I would dare any of you to listen to his answer on childcare and tell me what the hell he was talking about. It was one of the more incoherent things I’ve ever heard. He thinks tariffs are gonna pay for everything. We know that they’re attacks on the consumer.”


He makes no sense at all.  Now we know he makes no sense when he is lying, and I will get to an example there in a just a moment; however, he makes no sense even when he is doing his best to answer a question.  Travis Gettys points to another outlet calling the Convicted Felon's nonsensical rambles and ravings out:

MSNBC's Joe Scarborough mocked Donald Trump's "incoherent" remarks on child care and other policies to a group of business leaders.

The former president was asked to specifically comment on how his administration would help drive down child care costs to allow more women to join the workforce, and he suggested his proposed tariffs would raise enough money to pay for it in a rambling answer that the "Morning Joe" host compared to an unprepared student's book report.

"Thus ends the sixth-grade book report presentation," Scarborough said, after video of Trump's remarks concluded. "Little Donny obviously did not read his."

Scarborough recalled an incident from his freshman year of college when he failed to read an assigned book and was embarrassingly called out on it, and he compared that to Trump's faceplant.

"It sounded like a middle school book report where he didn't read the book," Scarborough said. "No idea what he is talking about, he's rambling incoherently. By the way, I've just got to say, too, because it's a pet peeve, the man who promised to pay down the debt and balance the budget in 2016 raised it more than any president in the history of this republic. Now, he's going, 'Oh, because of my high tariffs, because of my high taxes on working-class Americans, my high taxes on middle-class Americans, we're going to balance the budget quickly, and we're going to make so much money, I don't even have to talk about child care.'"


Now for when he is  lying.   Sara Pequeño (USA TODAY) points out:


Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump was in peak form at a Moms for Liberty event last week, where he sounded as racist, pompous and incomprehensible as ever. Is anyone surprised?
Trump spoke for over an hour in a “fireside chat” with Moms for Liberty co-founder Tiffany Justice. Aside from the incoherent tangents he went on and the softball questions he was asked, the former president spent a lot of time criticizing transgender children and immigrants to an audience he knew would be receptive to it.
At some point, I wish Republicans who support this would acknowledge the harmful things Trump says and does. The least they could do would be to cede the moral high ground they try to claim and just admit they're fine with this kind of hate speech targeting children.

Trans people were a bigger focus of the interview, with Trump being egged on by the moderator. Justice said there is an “explosion” of trans children existing in the United States.

They spent a lot of time talking about Imane Khelif, the Algerian boxer who won Olympic gold at this year’s Paris Summer Games. Not only is Khelif cisgender, but she’s taking legal action against people who have fed the speculation that she's trans.


Trump also said that children are receiving gender-affirming surgeries in school. Yes, seriously: “Think of it, your kid goes to school and comes home a few days later with an operation."

I can’t believe it has to be said: No one is performing gender-affirming surgery at school. To suggest that is ridiculous.


Here is the late great Sarah Vaughan performing "I've Got It Bad And That Ain't Good."



And Frank Sinatra.



And Nina Simone.




Yes, I do love that song.  And want to keep posting versions of it but I will stop there.  Oh, I will not.  One more.  I have to note Billie Holiday's version.







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


Friday, September 6, 2024.  Conditions become worse in Gaza, Amnesty International documents War Crimes, Junior's campaign's in debt but he's putting it further in debt as he promotes Donald Trump's campaign, Jill Stein remains a predator, and much more.


Let's start in the US with the presidential election.




Oh, look, it's an advert: BRONZER, HOW NOT TO USE IT.


It's as though they're four-year-old little girls playing in Mommy's make up for the first time.


But who's paying for it?

Robert Kennedy Junior, you may remember, wanted to run for president.  Even going so far as to run as an 'independent.'


Who's paying the bills right now?  Because my understanding is that Junior's campaign had huge debts.  So where did the money come from for yesterday evening's e-mail "Who Bobby wants you to vote for"?


That's what the picture's from.  That e-mail.  Who's paying to produce this stuff?


I don't think it's legal for Junior to use money donated to his campaign to pimp another person's campaign.  If people wanted to donate to Trump, they would have done that.  I don't understand the legality of someone already in debt on their campaign using resources to go further in debt in order to promote another candidate.  

I don't understand it and I'm not the only one confused here.  Junior finally got a response yesterday from various actual small donors who'd started the journey with him.  And they replied back to the shock of the campaign which had no idea just how many people who gave money to Junior now hate him.  Actively loathe him.  "F**k you" is how 42% of the e-mails basically started.  

Junior apparently did not realize how many people now hate him.  Not casual election observers, mind you,  but people who donated to his campaign.  They feel betrayed -- and they should.


Speaking of betrayals, Jill Stein.


Karen Hunter offers her take in the above.  That's her take.  I've offered mine on this issue.  I will add though that AOC is correct that Jill Stein is a "predator."

She waits every four years and shows up to prey on people, to lie to them and mislead them -- that is predator.  AOC is correct.  Not a Ted Glick fan but we'll note this from his ZNET column:


In 2004 there were about 225 GP members who were in elected office, almost all of them low-level offices like school board, water board, etc. Today Jill Stein says there are 144. There are no GP members who have been elected to a state house or senate seat and, of course, none to Congress. It’s a pretty dismal record for 20 years of existence.

Those of us who took the “safe states” position were in a decided minority then, and today, I am sure, anyone who advocated for it would be very unpopular. The GP has become a narrow, tiny party of true believers, destined to get at most 1% or so of the vote. Of course, that would triple the vote total of their Presidential candidate, Howie Hawkins, in 2020.

I remember when it was that I decided I had had it with the GP. I was at a national People’s Summit conference in Chicago in the summer of 2016 organized by National Nurses United and many other progressive groups and individuals who had come together after active involvement in the historic Bernie Sanders Presidential campaign. I was one of those people. On the second day of this event, attended by thousands, I looked up onto a screen that was projecting tweets about the convention that were being posted. I was shocked to see one from Jill Stein explicitly calling out this event and those who organized it as being “sheepdogs for the duopoly.” These supporters of independent socialist Bernie Sanders were all about corralling progressives into the Democratic Party, Stein was saying.

The GP, and others supporting them, don’t get it on mass politics. They believe in ideological purty before anything else. Unless you’re ideologically pure, they would say, you will never be able to bring about the transformational, revolutionary changes needed. Purity comes before anything else.

Twenty years of this approach have made it clear this is a losing strategy. The national US Green Party is a failure because of its rigid and narrow electoral approach.


The Democratic Party sent out a mailing yesterday.


The first early vote ballots will drop in the mail this week.

This is not a drill.

People are voting not just for president, but in critical races that will impact control of the House, the Senate, and races further down the ballot as well.

That is why we are asking you to donate $3 to the Democratic Party today.

$3 because a donation today will go further than at any point later in the cycle.

$3 because control of the White House, Senate, House, and down-ballot races are on the line.

$3 because the DNC is the best organization to ensure we have the infrastructure and resources in the places that will matter most.

We know you didn't wake up and think, “Today is the day I am donating to the DNC,” but just think about the people about to fill out their ballots and the impact your donation can make in reaching persuadable voters before they do.

Today is the day. Donate here:

Can Kamala Harris, Tim Walz, and Democrats running for office everywhere count on you to donate today -- especially today -- as ballots are being mailed to voters in several states across the country?


The election is in 59 days.  People need to be watching registration deadlines if they aren't already registered to vote.  On that, we're noting this from THIRD's "Roundtable" again:


Sabina and Francisco are doing great work in Texas and it's great to talk to them and amplify them in any way possible. One thing not being reported is that Texas has disabled online voter registration.  If you're planning to vote in Texas in November, the first thing you need to do is to check and make sure you weren't purged because Governor Greg Asshole has purged over a million people from the voter rolls.   The next thing you need to know is that Greg Asshole has stopped online voter registration.  You will need to register by October 7th.  That may require you going to your local voter registration officials office.  If you're renewing your drivers license or getting a replacement for it, you can register at the DMV.  Fall means county fairs and there will be people with booths and tables set up to register voters..  You can also print up an application online and mail it in.  You need to move quickly on that because October 7th is the deadline.


I'm not a TYT fan but they did cover what's going on in Texas so I'm noting their video today.





Turning to Gaza,  THE NATIONAL reports, "At least six Palestinians were killed in Israeli air strikes on the city of Rafah, in southern Gaza, on Friday morning. The bodies were taken to Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, the Wafa news agency reported."the United Nations notes:


Víctor Aguayo, UNICEF Director of Child Nutrition, described the situation for children affected by severe malnutrition.

Briefing journalists at the UN Headquarters in New York, he described the situation in Gaza as one of the most severe food and nutrition crises in history.

“The nutrition situation in Gaza is one of the most severe that we have ever seen…it is important to remember that the nearly half of Gaza’s population suffering from this devastation are children,” he said.

Having returned from the enclave last week, he said that the impact of the war and severe restrictions on humanitarian response have led to a “complete collapse” of food, health and protection systems, with catastrophic consequences.

“The fact is that the diets of children in Gaza are extremely poor. It is estimated that over 90 per cent of children are eating at best two types of food per day for weeks or months, in the context of very severe…lack of access to safe water and sanitation,” he said.

Estimates suggest that more than 50,000 children need immediate treatment for acute malnutrition, requiring medical professionals and nutrition workers.

“I walked through markets and neighborhoods, or what is left of markets and neighborhoods…there is no doubt in my mind there is a famine and a large-scale nutrition crisis,” he emphasized, calling for an immediate ceasefire and sustained humanitarian access.

 


Zack Beauchamp (VOX) reports:

This weekend, Israeli soldiers in Gaza discovered the bodies of six hostages executed by Hamas. The response was an outpouring of protests: Israelis flooding the streets to call for a ceasefire that would bring all hostages back and end the war, a demand that a majority of Israelis support. The Histadrut, Israel’s national labor union, called a (swiftly ended) general strike.

The response from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was to double down on war. In a Monday night press conference, he insisted that any ceasefire would depend on Israeli control over a stretch of territory in southwestern Gaza called the Philadelphi Corridor — something Hamas is not prepared to give. Netanyahu’s presser was so belligerent, in fact, that it may have single-handedly torpedoed ongoing ceasefire talks.

It’s clear that the Israeli public has no faith in Netanyahu’s handling of the war: Roughly 70 percent believe he should resign his position. Yet despite ongoing protests, it’s equally clear that the prime minister will not be changing course voluntarily.

And it looks like he’ll likely get away with it, at least for now.

His government has weathered dismal polling on its war effort, as well as sporadic protests, since the war began last October. And yet, as with past demonstration flare-ups, there has been no evidence that this weekend’s events have brought his government to the brink of collapse. How can this be?

The answer is brute power politics. The 2022 election gave right-wing parties a clear majority in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament), allowing Netanyahu to build the most far-right government in Israeli history. Though this coalition has since become extremely unpopular, there’s no way for voters to kick it out on their own.

The government could only collapse if it faces defections from inside the governing coalition. But at present, the greatest threat to Netanyahu’s coalition comes from his extreme right flank, which wants him to continue the war at all costs. And for that reason, he seems intent on doing so.



That's a little too much reality if your name is Debra Messing or Gweneth Paltrow.  Too much facts, too much truth, too much reality.   Here's some more reality from Amnesty International:


International humanitarian law, which applies in situations of armed conflict, including during military occupation, is comprised of rules whose central purpose is to limit, to the maximum extent feasible, human suffering in times of armed conflict.

The four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their two Additional Protocols of 1977 are the principal instruments of international humanitarian law. Many of these treaties’ rules are considered customary international law, meaning that they bind all parties to an armed conflict regardless of whether they have ratified particular treaties and whether they are a state forces or a non-state armed group.

According to this customary norm, “the destruction or seizure of the property of an adversary is prohibited, unless required by imperative military necessity”. In addition, according to article 53 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which regulates the actions of Israel as the occupying power in Gaza: “Any destruction by the Occupying Power of real or personal property belonging individually or collectively to private persons, or to the State, or to other public authorities, or to social or cooperative organizations, is prohibited, except where such destruction is rendered absolutely necessary by military operations.”

According to article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, “extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly” is a grave breach of the Convention, and thus a war crime.

Where such destruction is carried out as collective punishment, it also violates article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention which provides: “No protected person may be punished for an offence he or she has not personally committed. Collective penalties and likewise all measures of intimidation or of terrorism are prohibited.”

Civilian property in armed conflict is also protected by the principle of distinction, which requires that parties to the conflict at all times, distinguish between “civilian objects” and “military objectives” and direct their attacks only at military objectives.

According to customary international humanitarian law, civilian objects are all objects which are not “military objectives”; and military objectives are “limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose partial or total destruction, capture or neutralisation, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage”. Civilian objects are protected against attack, unless and for such time as they become military objectives when all of the criteria for a military objective are temporarily fulfilled Protocol I requires that, in cases of doubt, parties to a conflict should presume that the structure retains its civilian nature. Intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects is a war crime.


It's a lengthy press release which is why we linked to the release itself (normally on Amnesty, CCR, etc, we link to home page of the organization).  Brett Wilkins (COMMON DREAMS) reports:


  Amnesty International said Thursday that the Israeli military should be investigated for the "war crimes of wanton destruction and of collective punishment" over its destruction of entire communities along Gaza's border with Israel.

"Using bulldozers and manually laid explosives, the Israeli military has unlawfully destroyed agricultural land and civilian buildings, razing entire neighborhoods, including homes, schools, and mosques," the London-based rights group said in a new investigation.

Amnesty analyzed satellite imagery, as well as photos and videos posted online by invading Israel Defense Forces troops between October and May, and found that the IDF has cleared wide swathes of land up to 1.2 miles (1.8 km) wide along Gaza's eastern border. 

"In some videos, Israeli soldiers are seen posing for pictures or toasting in celebration as buildings are demolished in the background," the report states. 

[. . .]

  In the 335 days since October 7, Israeli forces have killed or maimed more than 145,000 Palestinians in Gaza while forcibly displacing almost all of the embattled strip's 2.3 million people and destroying hundreds of thousands of homes and other structures, according to Palestinian and international officials. Rebuilding after Israel's obliteration of Gaza's civilian infrastructure is expected to cost over $18.5 billion, or nearly Palestine's entire annual gross domestic product.

Israel is currently on trial for genocide at the International Court of Justice in The Hague. Meanwhile, International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan has applied for warrants to arrest Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, and Hamas leaders for alleged war crimes including extermination.

"International humanitarian law, which applies in situations of armed conflict, including during military occupation, is comprised of rules whose central purpose is to limit, to the maximum extent feasible, human suffering in times of armed conflict," Amnesty explained Thursday.

The group noted that under the Fourth Geneva Convention, "extensive destruction and appropriation of property, not justified by military necessity and carried out unlawfully and wantonly," is a war crime.

Additionally, the treaty bans collective punishment of civilians, stating that "no protected person may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed." 


Also covering the report is Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT):


According to an analysis by Amnesty International released Thursday, Israel has cleared a strip of land ranging between 1 km and 1.8 km wide. The buffer zone encompasses nearly the entirety of the Gaza side of its border with Israel, covering 58 square kilometers, or about 22 square miles.

Satellite imagery from May shows that over 90 percent of the buildings in this zone have been destroyed or severely damaged, the rights group found, while the majority of agricultural land there is also damaged.

Investigation by Amnesty International finds that Israeli forces created the buffer zone merely because of its proximity to the border fence, and for no supposed military necessity or tactical purpose. Anything in the zone appears to have been eligible for destruction: homes, schools, farms, mosques and cemeteries were all demolished.

“Around my family home we had a three dunam (0.7 acre) orchard full of fruit trees. They were all destroyed. Only an apple tree and a rose were left. I had bees and produced honey. All of it is gone now,” Salem Qudeih told Amnesty International. Qudeih lived in Khuza’a, situated near the border in Khan Yunis, which Israeli forces raided and nearly totally destroyed in December and January. 


Again, this is reality.  It's not the deranged fantasy that a bunch of self-deceiving idiots keep promoting to justify (and argue for it to continue) the genocide.  Devi Sridhar (GUARDIAN) notes:


The discovery of polio in Gaza reminds us that it’s becoming increasingly difficult to assess the true cost of the war. We don’t have a sense of how widespread disease and starvation are – so called “indirect deaths” – and we are in the dark in terms of total number of deaths. Usually, data is collected from hospitals and morgues, which certify each death and notify the health ministry. Yet these civil registration systems have broken down in Gaza, meaning there is no accurate data on how many deaths have occurred. The health ministry has been trying to put together figures using media reports, which isn’t a reliable way to capture the full picture. It is estimated that there are more than 10,000 bodies buried under rubble still (meaning they can’t be counted), as well as a rising number of unidentifiable bodies. 



Gaza remains under assault. Day 335 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.  THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll rises to 40,861, with 94,398 injured."   Early on, Jessica Corbett (COMMON DREAMS) pointed out, "Academics and legal experts around the world, including Holocaust scholars, have condemned the six-week Israeli assault of Gaza as genocide."    Months ago, 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 of acute food insecurity or worse."   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."
 



AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring into this conversation another professor, Natasha Lennard, columnist at The Intercept, associate director of the Creative Publishing and Critical Journalism Program at The New School, not far from Columbia University. Her most recent piece, “College Administrators Spent Summer Break Dreaming Up Ways to Squash Gaza Protests.” Can you put Professor Thrasher and Professor Franke’s experience in a broader context of the universities from here in New York, NYU, to other universities around the country?

NATASHA LENNARD: Absolutely. And thank you. It’s lovely to be back. And I firstly want to say thank you to Professor Franke and Professor Thrasher for being among the professors who refuse to be silenced in this moment of what is widely being called a “new McCarthyism.” And I think that’s an accurate description.

Their cases are not unusual, and it is indeed sad, and it is indeed disappointing, indeed no less than ghoulish. We are having, both de facto and through policy, both in terms of new regulations and student conduct guides coming through for this semester, as well as punitive actions against students and professors, a real reification of the claim that Israel critical speech and pro-Palestinian speech should count under violations of Title VI nondiscrimination law and regulations and policy in universities. What that does is align university policy with the right-wing agenda of Congress and right-wing lawmakers who follow in the footsteps of a right-wing Israeli-U.S. consensus.

And I think if a university is not a place where that can be critically challenged, especially at a time of genocide, when there are no universities left standing in Gaza — which we cannot forget — and the concerns of our academy is the speech of professors speaking out for academic freedom and speaking out for the liberation of an occupied people, we’re in very dark times indeed.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Natasha Lennard, you write in your piece in The Intercept that, quote, “Tucked into a document purportedly offering clarification on school policy, the new NYU” — New York University — “guidelines introduce an unprecedented expansion of protected classes to include 'Zionists' and ’Zionism’”?

NATASHA LENNARD: Yes, this is a very exemplary, in the worst of ways, document that was just released by the administration at NYU. It is a new updated guide of student conduct about nondiscrimination and harassment. It goes further than any document I have seen in asserting that Zionism, when used critically, should or at least readily can be understood as — and I quote the document — a “code word.” It doesn’t say that occasionally by antisemites that Zionism is used as a code word. It takes that as a given.

So, that is — to clarify, that is a student conduct guide, very poorly written, very open to misuse, that is asserting that the political ideology founded in the 19th century of the ethnostate of Israel being a Zionist project, that that should be considered part of the protected class of Jewish identity, religion and ethnic and shared ancestry. That is what we’re seeing in attempts of statehouses nationwide to attach Zionism, the political ideology, to the protected class of Jewish identity. It’s extremely dangerous. It performs de facto apologia for Israel. And to have that put into writing by a university so clearly is just open for further abuses and an escalation of the sort of repression we’ve already seen.

AMY GOODMAN: Professor Franke?

KATHERINE FRANKE: Well, I teach a class on citizenship and nationality in Israel and Palestine. And we begin with a critical look at the concept of Zionism. Of course, it was advanced as a place, as an idea, about the safety of the Jewish people being located in Mandate Palestine, but there were plenty of Jewish people at the time who said, “This is actually a horrible idea from the perspective of the safety of Jewish people, because what it says is the Jews all belong in Israel and nowhere else, not in Europe, not in the United States, nowhere else. And so this will lead to more violence, more expulsions, more antisemitic pogroms, if we lean in too much to the idea that Jews belong primarily and especially in Israel.” And those were critiques coming from Jews, again, themselves.

So, if we are not allowed to talk about that anymore in universities, what we’ve done is surrendered the very idea of the university itself. And that is so much what troubled us about Minouche Shafik, our president — former president of Columbia’s testimony in Congress, and some of those other presidents who came, who were called before Congress, is they not only did not put up a robust defense of the idea of a university where we teach students how to be critical thinkers in such a critical time, but they actually joined in to the criticism of the university. My president did not stand up for any one of us, nor did Professor Thrasher’s at Northwestern.

And this is part of what concerns me, is that our universities are places now where we could not have a protest and say things that are now being said in Tel Aviv by Israelis. The protests that are happening there this week, if they took place on Columbia’s campus, our students would be expelled or charged with very serious disciplinary violations. This is where we’ve come. It’s impossible to talk about the kinds of things that, Amy, in your setup, of the just horrible things that are happening right this week in Jenin, in Gaza — we can’t talk about that at Columbia. That’s part of what concerns me is, is that we don’t know our history, and these new policies are keeping us from learning it.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Natasha Lennard, we just have about 30 seconds, but you’ve noted that universities are not only facing attacks from Congress, they’re also being subjected to lawsuits all around the country. Could you talk about that briefly?

NATASHA LENNARD: Yes, we’ve seen a series of litigation, including at NYU, Columbia, Harvard, UCLA, brought by often unnamed students and faculty, often very frivolous suits that universities are forced to answer to nonetheless, and then, through settlements and often nonpublic agreements, are then forced to change policy, often leading to the conflation of anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have to leave it there, but we’re going to continue this discussion over time. We’ll link your piece, Natasha Lennard, “College Administrators Spent Summer Break Dreaming Up Ways to Squash Gaza Protests.” She’s at The New School. Columbia Law professor Katherine Franke, Kathleen Peratis, civil rights lawyer, and Steven Thrasher. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.


Nada AlTaher and Nagham Mohanna (THE NATIONAL) report:


Towering piles of rubbish, widespread destruction and tents spread out as far as the eye could see greeted UN workers and medical teams as they arrived at Gaza's southern city of Khan Younis for the second stage of a polio vaccination campaign.

The scale of destruction after several Israeli assaults, and the squalid conditions thousands of Palestinians are living in, shocked even local Gazans such as Dr Fady Abed, from the US-based NGO MedGlobal. He was among those who travelled from the central areas of the enclave to carry out the southern phase of the campaign.

"I saw kids playing among piles of garbage taller than the bus we were in," Dr Abed told The National on Friday.


 Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "Texas' Failure To Launch Boyz" went up yesterday.  The following sites updated: