Wednesday, July 31, 2024

Kamala's got a broad base of support

skidmarks

 


Isaiah's THE WORLD TODAY JUST NUTS "JD Vance Doesn't Understand The Church" went up earlier tonight.  

Lorraine Ali (Los Angeles Times) notes:


A mob of white men in the thousands amassed in a show of solidarity for their presidential candidate of choice, and no violence ensued. Not one broken window, makeshift noose or whiff of bear spray.

But this rally wasn’t for him. It was for her.

White Dudes for Harris hosted a Zoom fundraiser Monday in support of the vice president and her bid to win the White House. The online event raised over $4 million, drew 200,000 attendees and inspired a slew of jokes.


I'm thrilled with all the groups popping up to show support for Kamala.  Akayla Gardner and Jarrell Dillard (Bloomberg News) notes:

Cameron Elgart, a 23-year-old musician who lives in Idaho, was dismayed at the prospect of another presidential race pitting Joe Biden against Donald Trump. He planned to sit out November’s election.

After supporting Biden in 2020, Elgart said the president had lost his vote over his handling of the war in Gaza. Now that Vice President Kamala Harris is running in Biden’s place, he’s changed his mind about staying on the sidelines.


“There’s so much more that I like about Kamala,” said Elgart, noting the Democratic candidate’s background as a prosecutor and her youth, at age 59, compared with Biden, who is 81. “She’s just a more suited candidate for young people.”

More than half of swing-state voters age 18 to 34 said they are more likely to take part in the November election now that Biden has left the race, the latest Bloomberg News/Morning Consult poll found. Some 38% said his exit made them much more likely to cast a ballot, while 16% said it made them somewhat more likely to vote.


She reaches out to a very broad base and that's what we need in the person who's going to defeat Donald Trump in November. Leigh Tauss reports:

Kamala Harris’ speech in Atlanta reverberated among her base, as supporters harkened back to the energy surrounding then candidate Barack Obama’s 2008 run.

“I am not lying when I tell you chills went through my body, this was a MOMENT,” wrote Carter Christensen, communications strategist for Act Blue.

Harris seemed to hone her charisma on stage at the Georgia State Convocation Center·to a crowd of energized supporters as she egged on a debate with Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump, who has backed out of committing to going toe-to-toe with the former prosecutor.


“I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage. Because as the saying goes, if you got something to say, say it to my face,” Harris said, nearly being drowned out by the roars of applause from the crowd.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Wednesday, July 31, 2024.  Though the US press has ignored last Friday's Green Zone shooting the US Embassy in Baghdad has confirmed the shooter was in the embassy, the Israeli government has apparently carried out an assassination in Iran, the United Nations reveals the Israeli government has abused prisoners and committed War Crimes, and much more.


Starting with Iraq, Sunday and Monday we covered a shooting in Iraq.  A woman was praying in her apartment when she was shot.  She had to go to the hospital.  A shooting in the heavily fortified Green Zone is news.  But this was especially newsworthy because the bullet was said to have come from the US Embassy in Baghdad.  As we noted:

Though it remains uncovered by the US press, it's not made up.  The incident happened last week.  Abdul Amir Al-Ghazali spoke with ALSUMARIA and explained to them that the shooting took place on Friday while his wife was praying.  The Badr Organization accuses the US government of converting the US Embassy in Baghdad into a "military base," condemns the action citing the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations 1961, and, citing the Iraqi Constitution (Articles 1, 15, 50 and 109) calls for Iraq's legislative and executive branches to expel the US military from Iraq.


Is there a reason the US press is unable to do its job?  This is an international incident.  Someone, at the US Embassy, shot a woman.  The shooting now has parliamentarians ushing even harder to evict US troops from the country.  Where's the coverage?

Sunday, when I saw the Tweets, I thought it had to be a Twitter hoax because there's no way that this could happen and get zero coverage -- not a word -- from the US press.  But it wasn't a hoax and, in fact, the US Embassy has admitted to the shooting as SHAFAW NEWS notes:


The embassy's spokesperson told Shafaq News Agency, “We received a report from Iraqi authorities about an Iraqi citizen injured by gunfire near our Baghdad building on the evening of July 26.”

"The investigation found that the shooting inside the embassy was accidental. The embassy is treating the unfortunate incident seriously and is continuing its investigation," he added.

Furthermore, the US Embassy, through its spokesman, expressed deep concern over the Iraqi citizen’s injury and wished her a speedy recovery, confirming that Iraqi authorities have been informed and coordination with them continues.


Somehow not one US news outlet could report on this.  They could serve up a lot of fluff -- and did -- but they couldn't cover this story.  This woman is injured because of the US war on Iraq.  The embassy would not be there otherwise.  But instead of feeling an obligation to show what still takes place from the illegal war that they sold -- that they gleefully sold -- in 2003, they just look the other way and hope no one calls them out.

In other news out of the region, CBS and AP report:

Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was assassinated in Iran's capital after attending the inauguration of the country's new president, Iranian officials and the militant group said early Wednesday. Hamas said it was an Israeli airstrike that killed the group's top political leader. 

It was the second Israeli assassination of a senior Iran-allied militant commander in the space of just 12 hours, casting a growing shadow over U.S.-backed efforts to broker a cease-fire in the ongoing Israel-Hamas war and sharply increasing concern that the Gaza war could spread into a wider regional conflict in the Middle East, where the U.S. has thousands of troops based.


THE NATIONAL notes that the US government has denied participation in the assassination, "US Secretary of State Antony Blinken has denied American involvement in the suspected Israeli air strike that killed Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran."  THE NATIONAL also notes:



John Lyons (Australia's ABC NEWS) offers, "In 2006, Israel had a war with Hezbollah. It did not go well. An official Israeli report — the Winograd commission report — later made clear that Israel did not win that war. It brought home to Israel several key factors: firstly, the terrain in southern Lebanon is far tougher to fight a war in than the flat and tiny enclave that is Gaza."  Jake Johnson (COMMON DREAMS) adds, "The killing of Ismail Haniyeh, who became the head of Hamas' political arm in 2017, sparked warnings that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing all he can to undermine cease-fire talks with the Palestinian group after they showed signs of progress in recent weeks."  ALJAZEERA speaks with the Center for Middle East Strategic Studies' Abbas Aslani who states, "We see that Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing everything he can to prolong the war and expand the conflict. Over the past nine months, Israel has been making efforts to extend and escalate the war to a broader regional scale. They also aim to involve the US in this conflict."

 

In Israel, a group of far-right protesters, including at least one member of the Knesset, broke into two Israeli military bases on Monday in an effort to prevent Israeli military police from detaining nine soldiers suspected of torturing Palestinian prisoners. The nine soldiers are reportedly being investigated for gang raping a Palestinian prisoner at Sde Teiman, a facility where prisoners from Gaza say they have been routinely beaten and tortured. Some prisoners held at the site had limbs amputated due to injuries sustained from constant handcuffing.

The protesters who stormed the military bases on Monday included far-right Knesset member Zvi Sukkot, who is a member of Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s party.


In response to the storming mob, Abed Abou Shhadeh (MIDDLE EAST EYE) offers this take:

This development illustrated the deep changes occurring in Israeli society and its relationship with the army, which until a few years ago was perceived as a body enjoying broad legitimacy and at the heart of the Israeli consensus, both from the right and left.

However, since the beginning of the genocidal war in Gaza and the military and intelligence failures of the army to protect villages and towns surrounding Gaza, the army has lost its consensus, with sectoral and political splits rife within the military.

However, this trend did not start with the war and encompasses deep institutional problems within Israeli institutions such as the army and the Supreme Court.


Today, the office of the High Commissioner of the United Nations Human Rights issued the following:


The UN Human Rights Office today published a report on arbitrary, prolonged and incommunicado detention by Israeli authorities, affecting thousands of Palestinians since last October. The report also covers allegations of torture and other forms of cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment, including sexual abuse of women and men.

Since 7 October, thousands of Palestinians - including medical staff, patients and residents fleeing the conflict, as well as captured fighters - have been taken from Gaza to Israel, usually shackled and blindfolded. Thousands more have been detained in the West Bank and Israel. They have generally been held in secret, without being given a reason for their detention, access to a lawyer or effective judicial review, the report states.

At least 53 Palestinian detainees are known to have died in Israeli military facilities and prisons since the horrific attacks by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups against Israeli civilians on 7 October.

The staggering number of men, women, children, doctors, journalists and human rights defenders detained since 7 October, most of them without charge or trial and held in deplorable conditions, along with reports of ill-treatment and torture and violation of due process guarantees, raises serious concerns regarding the arbitrariness and the fundamentally punitive nature of such arrests and detention, said UN Human Rights Chief Volker Türk.

“The testimonies gathered by my Office and other entities indicate a range of appalling acts, such as waterboarding and the release of dogs on detainees, amongst other acts, in flagrant violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” he said.

On Monday, the Israeli authorities said they were investigating a number of soldiers for allegedly abusing a Palestinian prisoner earlier this month at the Sde Teiman detention centre in the Negev desert.

In Gaza, mostly men and adolescent boys have been detained. Many have been taken into custody while sheltering in schools, hospitals and residential buildings, or at checkpoints during their displacement from north to south, the report finds.

The Israeli military does not usually explain publicly the basis for taking Palestinians into custody in Gaza, although it has in some cases alleged affiliation with Palestinian armed groups or their political wings.

Israel has also not provided information regarding the fate or whereabouts of many of those detained, and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has been denied access to facilities where they are held.

Conditions in military-run detention facilities appear worse, the report states, adding children were among those held, in some cases jointly with adults.

Detainees said they were held in cage-like facilities, stripped naked for prolonged periods, wearing only diapers. Their testimonies told of prolonged blindfolding, deprivation of food, sleep and water, and being subjected to electric shocks and being burnt with cigarettes. Some detainees said dogs were released on them, and others said they were subjected to waterboarding, or that their hands were tied and they were suspended from the ceiling. Some women and men also spoke of sexual and gender-based violence.

Accounts of hostages taken by Hamas and other Palestinian armed groups last October also described appalling conditions of captivity, including lack of food, water and poor sanitary conditions, and lack of fresh air and sunlight. Some described being beaten while being taken into Gaza, or seeing other hostages being beaten while in captivity; receiving surgery or stitches without anaesthetic. There were also reports of sexual and gender-based violence in captivity. In addition, the report criticises the Palestinian Authority for continuing to carry out arbitrary detention and torture or other ill-treatment in the West Bank, reportedly principally to suppress criticism and political opposition.

“International humanitarian law protects all those being held, requiring their humane treatment and protection against all acts of violence or threats thereof,” said Türk.

“International law requires that all those deprived of their liberty be treated with humanity and dignity, and it strictly prohibits torture or other ill-treatment, including rape and other forms of sexual violence. Secret, prolonged incommunicado detention may also amount to a form of torture.”

The High Commissioner reiterated his call for the immediate release of all hostages still held in Gaza. All Palestinians arbitrarily detained by Israel must be released. He also called for prompt, thorough, independent, impartial and transparent investigations into all incidents that have led to serious violations of international law; ensure that perpetrators are held accountable and that all victims and their families are provided with their right to remedy and reparations.




Gaza remains under assault. Day 299 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 39,445 killed and 91,073 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."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."



A polio epidemic has broken out in the Gaza Strip 25 years after Palestine was declared free from the highly infectious disease.

Inoculation campaigns in the enclave came to halt after the start of the war with Israel, which has destroyed sewage infrastructure and disrupted waste-collection services.

Thousands of tonnes of rubbish have accumulated since then, creating conditions suitable for the spread of diseases.

Compounding the crisis has been the displacement of the majority of Gaza's population, a situation that has deprived them of clean water and sanitation services, Gaza's Health Ministry said as it declared the endemic.

“This poses a health threat to the residents of the Gaza Strip and neighbouring countries, and a setback to the global polio eradication programme,” the ministry said.

Dr Medhat Abbas, director general of Al Shifa Medical Complex, told The National that the streets were full of sewage.

“Personal hygiene is absent. You can't wash your hands, even after you've used the bathroom,” he said. “So, there's pollution and this disease is spread through faeces.”

Before the detection of the poliovirus, foreign medics had to burn their clothes before returning to their countries after hepatitis A and other communicable diseases were detected, another doctor told The National.


Meanwhile, Kanishka Singh (REUTERS) reports, "Discrimination and attacks against Muslims and Palestinians rose by about 70% in the U.S. in the first half of 2024 amid heightened Islamophobia due to Israel's war in Gaza, the Council on American-Islamic Relations advocacy group said on Tuesday."

Staying with the US, in less than 100 days, a presidential election will take place.  US Vice President Kamala Harris is the Democratic Party's presidential nominee.  She has yet to announce her running mate.  At TRUTHOUT,  Mike Ludwig ,reports on the mounting opposition to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro:


A national coalition of education justice groups are urging Vice President Kamala Harris, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, not to choose Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro as a running mate due to his support for taxpayer-funded school vouchers.

Advocates for public education say voucher programs funnel much needed funding away from public schools and into private religious schools as well as for-profit startups that often don’t perform well and tend to close after just a few years.

On the other side of the debate over vouchers is the school privatization movement. Largely funded by billionaires, the movement has worked with the Republican Party to establish and expand universal school voucher programs in at least 10 states, as well as Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico. Betsy DeVos, former President Trump’s education secretary, is famously one of those billionaire backers of voucher programs. In Shapiro’s home state of Pennsylvania, Republican megadonor Jeffrey Yass faced protests after spending millions of dollars promoting school vouchers and GOP candidates such as Lou Barletta, who lost to MAGA extremist Doug Mastriano in the 2020 Republican primary for governor. Mastriano, a controversial doomsday Christian, lost to Shapiro.

[. . .]

In an open letter sent to Harris last week, more than two dozen education and racial justice groups said Shapiro has supported education privatization policies “mirroring” Project 2025, the far right blueprint for a Trump administration that proposes dismantling the Department of Education along with bedrock civil rights protections for public school students.


For other election news, let's drop back to yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!




AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, “War, Peace and the Presidency.” I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump made headlines this week after suggesting that this year’s election could be the last U.S. election if he wins in November. Trump made the comment Friday in Florida at Turning Point Action’s Believers’ Summit.

DONALD TRUMP: Christians, get out and vote! Just this time. You won’t have to do it anymore. Four more years, you know what? It’ll be fixed. It’ll be fine. You won’t have to vote anymore, my beautiful Christians. I love you, Christians. I’m a Christian. I love you. Get out. You got to get out and vote. In four years you don’t have to vote again. We’ll have it fixed so good, you’re not going to have to vote.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on who’s backing Trump’s efforts, we look at a secret organization of wealthy Christians who are working to purge more than a million voters from the rolls in battleground states and mobilize Republican voters to back Trump. It’s called Ziklag. The news outlets ProPublica and Documented obtained thousands of Ziklag’s internal files and found the group has divided its 2024 activities into three different operations: Steeplechase, which uses churches to get out the vote; and Watchtower, which aims to rally voters around opposition to transgender rights; the third operation called Checkmate, focused on funding so-called election integrity groups, as laid out in this Ziklag member strategy video.

ZIKLAG VIDEO: Voter irregularities are rampant across all 50 states, but especially pronounced in the battleground states. Public polling confirms Americans have lost confidence in electoral integrity. With the federal election already in full swing, more must be done to ensure fair elections in the most important republic in the world. That’s the purpose behind Operation Checkmate and its practical approaches to both get out the vote and clean electoral rolls through our coalition partners. Through these efforts, we have the opportunity to play a significant role in the upcoming election.

AMY GOODMAN: ProPublica reports Ziklag’s mission is to take dominion over seven spheres of public life, which it calls “mountains”: business, science and technology, family, arts and media, church, education and government.

For more, we continue with Andy Kroll, investigative reporter for ProPublica, his recent piece, “Inside Ziklag, the Secret Organization of Wealthy Christians Trying to Sway the Election and Change the Country.”

Andy, lay it out for us.

ANDY KROLL: Ziklag is a secretive network of ultrawealthy Christians, conservative Christians, who have this two-part goal, two-part vision for this country. One is to get heavily involved in the 2024 elections, in the ways that you just described, mobilizing pastors, knocking people off the voting rolls, demonizing trans people to motivate conservative voters. But then, looking toward the 20- and 30-year horizon, Ziklag’s goal is nothing less than moving the country toward a state of Christian nationalism, having biblical worldviews, quote-unquote, “biblical truth,” shaping, influencing every part of American culture, the seven mountains that you described. So, this really is, as one expert we quoted in the story told us, a vision for Christian supremacy.

AMY GOODMAN: “Ziklag” mean?

ANDY KROLL: Ziklag, the name, refers to a biblical reference about David taking refuge during his struggle with King Saul. The analogy here, of course, is that the Christians in this group apparently feel that they are under siege and that this group is their refuge, but then the place from which they plan their campaign, their assault to take back American culture.

AMY GOODMAN: In a Ziklag member briefing video that you obtained at ProPublica, one of Ziklag’s spiritual advisers, Lance Wallnau, a Christian evangelist and influencer, laid out a plan to deliver swing states by using an anti-transgender message to motivate conservative voters who are exhausted with Trump.

LANCE WALLNAU: If we can get the left to own their position on LGBTQ — the country has already drifted on the homosexual issue, but on transgenderism, there is a problem, and they know it. They’re going to want to talk about Trump, Trump, Trump, he’s indicted, the guy’s a criminal, this and that. They’re going to have riots on the street and all the kabuki theater. Meanwhile, if we talk about it’s not about Trump; it’s about the parents and their children, and the state is a threat. When you get Governor Newsom or Governor Whitmer or Polis, your top three potential candidates for the future presidency of the United States, other than Kamala, you got these — when they’re going to have to stand with their LGBTQ donors, and so, when they solidify that position, that’s where they’ve gone too far.

AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Lance Wallnau, a Christian evangelist and influencer. Andy Kroll, if you can talk about him, what he’s saying, and who the other leaders of this are?

ANDY KROLL: Lance Wallnau is maybe one of the most important Christian evangelist figures that maybe your audience hasn’t heard of. He was one of the earliest Christian right leaders to endorse Donald Trump. We’re talking way back in 2015 here. He popularized this notion that Donald Trump was a modern-day Cyrus, a sort of flawed but virtuous leader who would deliver a victory for Christians. And that Cyrus idea really caught on, was a big reason that evangelicals turned out to such a big degree for Trump in ’16, again in ’20. Wallnau remains this bridge between the Christian right, Christian nationalism and Trump world.

Wallnau is one of a number of really influential and well-known people that are part of Ziklag. Some members that your audience might have heard of, the Green family, they’re the family behind Hobby Lobby. Obviously, they’ve had a pretty big impact in trying to strike down parts of the Obamacare law back in the Obama presidency. The Uihlein family have donated to this effort. They are, of course, the billionaire office supply family out of the Midwest, major, major political donors to Republicans and to Donald Trump. And then, another family is the Waller family, influential in Ziklag. They are the owners of the Jockey apparel company, which probably a lot of people have heard of even if they haven’t heard of this family. So you have a number of really wealthy, really influential conservative Christian families in this group. They have the means to invest not just in political work, but also in this larger cultural transformation plan that Ziklag has really put its — really organized itself around.

AMY GOODMAN: Andy, talk about more in depth these three programs, Checkmate, Steeplechase and Watchtower.

ANDY KROLL: Yeah. You see an almost sort of wraparound, 360-degree approach to influencing the 2024 election in these three groups. So, with Steeplechase, you have mobilizing conservative pastors out in America, out in the field, to mobilize their congregations to get them out to vote. And, you know, there’s some concern that maybe there’s fatigue about Donald Trump in 2024, that maybe conservative Christians won’t turn out in the numbers they did in 2016. That’s what this program is there for, getting the church as involved as possible.

You have this anti-trans operation. As Lance Wallnau says in that video that you just played, they believe that going after trans people, demonizing transgender Americans, transgender healthcare, can, quote-unquote, “deliver” swing states. That’s what Lance Wallnau himself said.

But then, this final one, I think, is, honestly, perhaps the most interesting, this Operation Checkmate, putting money into mobilizing conservative voters in key counties — not just states, but the counties — so Maricopa County in Arizona, Fulton County in Georgia, the other battleground counties in the country, and then trying to put money into knocking more than a million voters off the voting rolls in these states. And you see this in a couple of ways. But what’s so interesting is how the Christian right, Christian nationalism is fusing here with the election integrity or, really, the election denial movement that grew out of the 2020 election. We didn’t have a lot of evidence of that before this reporting on Ziklag. But you see this bridge, again, between the Christian right and the election deniers in a really big way going into this election.

AMY GOODMAN: And how effective can they be in knocking voters off the rolls?

ANDY KROLL: A little bit of money goes a long way when you are trying to get people knocked off the eligibility list for voters. That’s what the experts, the political consultants, the folks that know these worlds, told us in the reporting for this story. You know, Ziklag is putting, say, $800,000 or $1 million into something called EagleAI, an artificial intelligence software that makes it easier to challenge the eligibility of voters en masse. So, you’re not doing it one by one; you’re doing it by the hundreds, by the thousands. You don’t need tens of millions of dollars, the experts told us, to be able to make those challenges and to sort of turbocharge the effort to make voters ineligible. You only need a few hundred thousand dollars, maybe a million dollars. That’s what this group, Ziklag, appears to be doing. So, it could have an effect. And we’re talking about margins again in Georgia, Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin, margins that are a few thousand, a few tens of thousands of voters.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Andy, how does the election officials in every state, especially in the battleground states, their cooperation with these efforts, how might that turn out in the coming election?

ANDY KROLL: Well, you have two different camps here. You have the election officials in these states and in these counties who are just trying to run a free and fair election. What we’ve heard from those officials is that these efforts, like EagleAI or the work of the group True the Vote, another, quote-unquote, “election integrity” group — these mass challenges to the voter rolls make an already difficult job, an already stressful job, a time-consuming job, even more difficult. It’s putting just more stress on the work of these local election officials, the ones who are trying to do a good job.

And then you have the officials who have sort of bought into the election integrity claims, who have bought into Donald Trump’s election denial for 2020 or 2022 even. And for them, they are, in some places, encouraging these mass challenges. And so you might see confusion. You might see chaos. You might see voters unaware that they’ve been removed from the rolls in these kinds of places. So, it’s just creating either more stress on good officials, or it’s creating more chaos with officials who buy into these baseless claims about election fraud.





The following sites updated: 

Tuesday, July 30, 2024

The HBO documentary on Faye Dunaway and other TV things

I'm catching up on CBS' The Neighborhood this summer and I'm watching the new Orphan Black spin-off.  My cousin Stan recently noted how little there was to watch on TV in "TV this sucky summer" and Greg e-mailed me asking if I felt the same?

I honestly do.  I am hugely disappointed in Disney+ which seems a complete waste of streaming.  They do not offer something new every week.  Then again, after abominations like the She-Hulk series and that awful WandaVision, maybe I should be grateful.  Not being a whimsical Karen, I don't find shows that mock women to be 'ironic' or 'post-ironic' or 'post-modern' or worth watching.

I'm also not interested in the garbage torture shows that America remakes from Israel.  I get it, the Israeli government is on board with torture.  That is not, however, the American way.  I find it disgusting that Claire Danes and others have popularized torture with these American remakes of trash and garbage.

So in a summer with so very little to watch, what do I catch?  I've seen all episodes of Elsbeth now (seen them at least three times).  I like that show.  I liked So Help Me Todd but CBS axed that when, if ratings and lineup were issues, they should have moved it over to Paramount+ because, believe it or not, some of us are not into westerns or Israeli remakes.  

I watch a lot of Alfred Hitchcock and The Twilight Zone on Pluto.  I watch The Carol Burnett Show there.  On NBC's archive channel -- The Vault? -- I watch Will & Grace.

Netflix hasn't had anything that interested me in months.  I watched the documentary Faye about Faye Dunaway.  That's probably the thing I enjoyed the most this summer on TV.  

Faye's an Oscar winning actress.  She came to fame with Bonnie & Clyde.  She'd already done the films The Happening -- so so movie -- and Hurry Sundown.  That's an Otto Preminger film.  I've probably seen it 20 times.  Black outlets tend to show it because it's about racism in the south and Diahann Carrol is one of the stars along with Jane Fonda, Michael Caine and Faye.  It's a melodrama and I'd say it's a good one but I'm a big fan of Diahann's and it's great to see her get a chance to show her dramatic talent.

So after Bonnie & Clyde, Faye was kind of the it-girl and she continued that phase with the mega-hit The Thomas Crown Affair with Steve McQueen.  And then she made Chinatown and that changed things.  That's one of the all time great films.  Chinatown, Bonnie & Clyde, 3 Days of The Condor and Network cemented her reputation as one of the 70s most important actresses.   That decade also saw her have hits with The Eyes Of Laura Mars, The Three Musketeers and The Four Musketeers, The Champ and The Towering Inferno.  

She was great as Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest -- and the film made a lot of money; however, it kind of ended her reign.  Was that because she wouldn't talk about it?  Maybe.

But she went on to deliver strong performances in films like The Handmaid's Tale, Barfly, Midnight Crossing, Arizona Dreams, Don Juan DeMarco, The Yards, Gia, etc.

She more than deserved a documentary and her interviews in the present day find her addressing reality, not trying to be silly or coy.  It was a brave documentary and a good one.


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Tuesday, July 30, 2024.  Gaza remains under assault as the Israeli government attacks a water reservoir, their actions have already made the destroyed area a breeding ground for disease, JD Vance is a "weirdo" and much more.



Where to start?  Well blame it on my wild heart.  For the bulk of this month, we've been calling out Josh Shapiro as a v.p. choice (see Elaine's "Hell no to Shapiro" and Ruth's "Josh Shapiro adds nothing to the ticket" and Rebecca's "shapiro not only supports genocide, he also covers..." and the July 5th snapshot for starters).  Guess who finally got the memo?  Yes, after three weeks of the hideous David Sirota pimping Josh Shapiro, people like Jeff Cohen and Norman Solomon finally find the spine to say I object:


Kamala Harris has gained strong support as the presumptive Democratic presidential candidate. Putting Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro on the ticket would likely fracture that support.

The most divisive issue among Democrats is the U.S.-enabled Israeli war against the civilian population of Gaza. To unify the party and defeat Trump’s MAGA forces, Harris needs to distance herself in a meaningful way from Joe Biden’s Gaza policy. If she does so, she can win back the votes and energy of young activists, progressives, racial justice organizers, Arab Americans and Muslims—many of whom devoted weeks or months of their lives in 2020 to defeating Trump on behalf of the Biden-Harris ticket.

But a Harris-Shapiro ticket would jeopardize all that. 

[. . .]

Overall, Josh Shapiro is liberal and sometimes progressive on domestic issues (though notably not on fracking or tax subsidies for private schools). But on the contentious issue of Israel’s relentless war against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, Shapiro sounds much less bothered by the lethal violence than by U.S. ceasefire activists, many of whom he has demonized. Here’s a bit of the history:

In 2021, after Ben & Jerry’s (a company founded and led by Jewish Americans) refused to sell its products in Israel’s illegal settlements, then-Attorney General Josh Shapiro threatened the company by urging Pennsylvania state agencies to enforce a constitutionally suspect law targeting advocates of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel over its discriminatory policies. Shapiro smeared such advocates by claiming that “BDS is rooted in antisemitism” – although the effort has wide support globally, including from many Jews, as a thoroughly nonviolent tactic in advancing Palestinian rights.

After the horrific Hamas attack of October 7, several dozen Pennsylvania-based Muslim groups wrote a letter protesting Governor Shapiro’s one-sided comments: “Not only did you fail to recognize the structural root causes of the conflict, you chose to intentionally ignore the civilian loss of life in Gaza.” Responding to the letter after Israeli bombs and missiles had killed more civilians in Gaza than had been killed by Hamas in Israel on October 7, the governor’s spokesman said: “We all must speak with moral clarity and support Israel’s right to defend itself.”

Last December, after he amplified the Capitol Hill demagoguery of MAGA Congresswoman Elise Stefanik, Gov. Shapiro contributed to the firing of the University of Pennsylvania president. Referring to UPenn’s president, Shapiro said: “I thought her comments were absolutely shameful. It should not be hard to condemn genocide.” By then, after two months of Israeli bombing, more than 17,000 Gazans had been killed, mostly women and children—and later that month, Israel was charged with violations of the Genocide Convention in South Africa’s filing at the International Court of Justice.

In early April, after Democratic governors in other states had called for a ceasefire in Gaza, Muslim leaders in Philadelphia criticized Shapiro for his refusal to do so.

Beginning in late April, Gov. Shapiro and his office repeatedly prodded campuses to “restore order” and take action against student encampments, including the University of Pennsylvania Gaza Solidarity Encampment which called on the college administration to provide greater transparency on university investments, divest from Israel, and reinstate the banned student group Penn Students Against the Occupation.

On May 9, Shapiro invoked student “safety” in demanding the encampment be shut down. Police shut it down the next day, arresting 33. In two different interviews, Shapiro seemed to compare campus ceasefire activists, many of whom are Jewish or students of color, to “white supremacists camped out and yelling racial slurs” and “people dressed up in KKK outfits or KKK regalia making comments about people who’re African American.”

In May, as activism continued to grow over Israel’s lethal violence against civilians in Gaza, Gov. Shapiro issued an order aimed at Israel’s critics that revised his administration’s code of conduct to bar state employees from “scandalous or disgraceful” conduct—a vague and subjective directive criticized by the legal director of Pennsylvania’s ACLU as a possible violation of free speech protections.

In a July 23 post on X, progressive leader and former Ohio State Senator Nina Turner wrote: “Choosing Governor Josh Shapiro for Vice President would be a mistake. Governor Shapiro compared pro-peace protesters to the KKK. That’s simply unacceptable & would stifle the momentum VP Harris has. Hopefully she is looking to build a broad coalition to beat Trump.”


Welcome to the room . . . Sara.


Took your sweet time getting here, didn't you, Norman and Jeff?

That David Sirota wasn't immediately called out for pimping Shapiro (I immediately called him out) goes to how f**ked up the circle-jerk left and 'left' are.

Gaza matters.  Putting Shapiro on the ticket is flipping the bird to all the students who protested on campuses and demanded an end to the assault.

If you don't get how much Gaza matters, grasp that CODEPINK -- that famous organization of 'women' for 'women' and by 'women' -- just published an essay on the topic.  It's a piece written just for their organization -- their organization of women.  

And it's by a man.

CODEPINk has always tried to pretend to be a feminist organization.  But it's not.  The grassroots are probably feminist and they're certainly more radical than the aged leadership -- they're the ones who prevented Susan "Medea" Benjamin from hopping on stage with the Nick Fuentes crowd -- but they are a fake ass organization and they will always remain that just like Medea will turn her weekly column written with a man.  But if they presented themselves as anything other than a woman's organization, they wouldn't get the press they've recieved over the years.

In the real world . . . 



As the slaughter continues in Gaza, the lives of the Palestinians worsen.  The United Nations notes:

Evacuation orders issued by the Israeli military have impacted Nuseirat and Bureij refugee camps, forcing families to relocate “again and again, knowing that safety is non-existent in the Gaza Strip”, said the UN agency assisting Palestine refugees, UNRWA, in a post on X.

More than nine months into the war in Gaza, only 14 per cent of the enclave has not been impacted by evacuation orders, said UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini.  

“Quite often, people have just a few hours to pack whatever they can and start all over again, mostly on foot or on a crowded donkey cart for those who can afford it,” he said. “Almost everyone in Gaza has been impacted by these orders. Many were forced to flee on average once a month since the war began nine months ago.”

Water plant destroyed

In a related development, the UN agency condemned the reported destruction of a water plant in Rafah in southern Gaza, a focus of Israeli military action since early May. 

“Any time, something happens - like what appears to happen in Rafah over the weekend, with a water plant destroyed - it impacts the ability we have to generate water,” said Scott Anderson, UN Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator and Director of UNRWA Affairs in Gaza. The UN agency has been unable to independently assess the situation, he noted. 

Uprooted – again

Echoing the testimonies of forcibly displaced people who are among those assisted by UNRWA, Mr. Anderson recounted how one woman with twins explained the chaos of the upheaval: “She said, yeah, basically, that was one child for each arm and a little backpack, you know, and off they go to try to find safety.”

According to UNRWA, evacuation orders are now issued “every other day”, while UN aid coordination office, OCHA, reported on Friday that humanitarian partners estimated that more than 190,000 Palestinians had been displaced last week in Khan Younis and Deir al Balah, since an evacuation order issued seven days ago.



The UN coordinator in Gaza on Monday said there should be compliance with international law after Israel’s bombing of a drinking water reservoir in Rafah, southern Gaza Strip.

"International humanitarian law was very clear what it asks of parties to the conflict, so I don't think you need an additional commentary from me," Sigrid Kaag, senior humanitarian and reconstruction coordinator for Gaza, told Anadolu.

"In the meantime, what we do need, regardless, also in compliance and alignment with international law, is for safe access, safety and security to deliver, and we need to obviously ramp up all facilities that provide water, that we have clean water for the population, that we can provide for sanitation," she added.

The Israeli army has admitted its soldiers were responsible for the bombing of the water reservoir in Tal al-Sultan, and is said to have initiated an investigation.

The incident has raised alarm about the worsening water crisis in the area.

A video circulating online shows an Israeli soldier planting an explosive device at the main water reservoir, which was then detonated.

One of the soldiers posted a video of the explosion on social media with the caption "Destruction of the Tel Sultan water reservoir in honor of Shabbat."

Local institutions and municipalities in Gaza have repeatedly accused the Israeli military of deliberately destroying water networks, wells, and desalination plants, exacerbating the drinking water crisis.



Starvation is used as a weapon, water is denied and destroyed, schools and universities are bombed, the Israeli government is committing War Crimes and destroying life in Gaza.  Their actions are leading to diseases spreading.  AP notes, "Skin diseases are running rampant in Gaza, health officials say. The cause, they say, is the appalling conditions in overcrowded tent camps housing hundreds of thousands of Palestinians driven from their homes, along with the summer heat and the collapse of sanitation that has left pools of open sewage amid 10 months of Israel’s bombardment and offensives in the territory."  Yasmine Hassan (CBC) explains:

As of June 30, there were over 65,000 cases of skin rashes in Gaza, and over 100,000 cases of scabies and lice, according to the World Health Organization. 

Impetigo, the infection that Dr. Al-Farra is treating at Nasser, is common and mainly affects children and infants. It starts with a blister and, after about a week, spreads to the rest of the body, and is highly contagious. The reddish sores, often found around the nose, mouth, arms and legs, eventually burst and develop a crust. It's typically treated with antibiotics.

But Nasser Hospital has been overwhelmed by patient demand after being sieged in February by Israeli troops. At the time, an Israeli spokesperson described that raid as "precise and limited," and said the IDF had credible information of Hamas members hiding in Nasser, which Hamas called "lies." The raid displaced some 2,000 people to Rafah and Deir al-Balah. 


In addition, REUTERS notes, "Gaza’s health ministry declared a polio epidemic across the Palestinian enclave, blaming Israel’s military offensive."






Nour Odeh, Palestinian political analyst and former spokesperson for the Palestinian Authority, noted that the sheer proportion of Gaza that is being evacuated and attacked confirms that Israel’s siege of Gaza is an ethnic cleansing campaign.

“These are not ‘evacuation’ orders. They’re ethnic cleansing tactics,” Odeh wrote on social media.

It has been reported for months that there is nowhere safe to go for Palestinians in Gaza, with danger from Israel’s bombardments and famine and disease campaign lurking around every corner. This danger has only intensified as Israel has shrunk the area of Gaza that is not subject to evacuation, while escalating its horrific humanitarian aid blockade and destruction of the medical system.

One of the only places left that isn’t under evacuation, the “safe zone” in al-Mawasi, is now completely full, the Palestine Red Crescent Society reported last week. Before being designated as a “safe zone,” al-Mawasi was already deemed unlivable, with the stretch of desert lacking basically any infrastructure. Indeed, conditions in al-Mawasi are worse than elsewhere, with access to water and toilets severely limited, even when compared to the extremely low access available to Palestinians elsewhere in Gaza.

“In the so-called ‘humanitarian area’ in Al-Mawasi, there is no space even for a single tent due to the overwhelming number of people desperate for safety,” said the Red Crescent. 



Gaza remains under assault. Day 298 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 39,400 killed with 90,996 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."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."


In US election news, we'll note this from yesterday's DEMOCRACY NOW!



AMY GOODMAN: We turn now to Renee Bracey Sherman. She’s a reproductive justice activist. And she wrote a very interesting piece in Teen Vogue. And it’s called — the piece is called “JD Vance Doesn’t Want All Women to Be Trad Wives, Just White Women.” Explain, Renee.

RENEE BRACEY SHERMAN: Well, hi, Amy. Thanks for having me. And I should just let your audience know that — full disclosure — I am a childless cat lady. I am fine with that, and my life is amazing.

But what I think is really important is, people have maybe seen this trad wife phenomena on TikTok, where usually white women are making these videos about how amazing it is to make everything from scratch, and this idyllic, like, 1950s home life, and how great it is just to be home and opt out of the working society, right? And these are videos that are basically propaganda for the world that people like JD Vance want.

But what we have to think about is, if you actually look at history, women of color have never been part of that idyllic society, right? Women of color always had to work, whether they were wet nurses and enslaved women and being abused by white women on plantations during slavery, to when they were working in the 1950s. They were still in the homes — right? — because of mass incarceration, family separation, all of these things. They did not get the choice to decide: “Well, do I stay home, or do I work?” With low wages, without access to social safety net supports because of racist barriers, they’ve always had to work.

And so, when JD Vance talks about what this future looks like, where he wants women at home, he’s picturing white women. He is very sure that he wants white women to be at home procreating, while the rest of us are laboring under capitalism, so he and his donors can keep making more and more money off of our backs and off of our low wages.

AMY GOODMAN: So, can you talk more about the issue of Vance’s views on gender, sex and marriage, and what it means, why he is attacking people who don’t have children, and being very focused on the nuclear family? It can’t even be, as in the case of Kamala Harris, stepchildren.

RENEE BRACEY SHERMAN: I mean, the short answer is he’s a weirdo. The longer answer is he’s a white supremacist, and he’s a white nationalist. He believes that the only children are ones that are physically born through natural birth conception. Those are the ones that are legitimate, right? Which is wild, because he promotes adoption as an alternative to abortion, which it is not, but then attacks Pete Buttigieg for adopting children, right? Again, he has this view that certain families are valuable. And that is families that are white, that have natural children, that have, you know, single — or, heterosexual parents.

He does not recognize that this world, we make our families in lots of different ways. Divorce, stepparents, adoption, abortion, all of these ways that we make our families, that is the reproductive future that we’re all building together. He cannot stand that. He cannot stand that fighting for abortion access, fighting for reproductive justice, all of this, ensures that we are able to decide if, when and how to grow our family. It terrifies him.

AMY GOODMAN: In other news about JD Vance, the Republican vice-presidential nominee has written the foreword to the forthcoming book by Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation, head of Project 2025. Trump’s campaign has disavowed any connection to Project 2025, a radical, almost thousand-page Republican blueprint to overhaul U.S. policy on everything from immigration to reproductive rights to the climate. Can you talk about the MAGA right’s views on reproductive rights in particular, what you think a Trump-Vance White House would mean for reproductive rights?

RENEE BRACEY SHERMAN: I mean, a Trump-Vance White House, for reproductive rights and abortion access, is terrifying. If you care about abortion, if you care about IVF, if you care about sex, if you like having sex, if you like having sex with whoever you want, if you like sex toys, all of those things could be gone, right? This is the modern-day Comstock. Anthony Comstock, in the mid-1800s, used the mail service to try to ban contraceptions, pornography, sex toys, all of these things, right? Project 2025 is just the updated version of that. And Vance is just the updated version of Anthony Comstock.

So, anything that you love about your sex life, your family, the freedoms that you get to have to build the families that you care about, that you love, build your life, that is under threat with this Project 2025. And I really hope that people pay attention to that, in a way that they didn’t necessarily hear us when we said that Roe could and would be overturned. Please listen to us right now, that they are very serious about this. This is not a pipe dream. They wrote it down. It is their goal. And they will stop at nothing to achieve it.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how Vance’s personal background and professional history cast doubts on his public stance on gender roles in family life, married to a very high-powered, successful working woman, quit her law firm the week of the Republican convention? On Friday, Vance was asked about his wife in an interview with Megyn Kelly.

SEN. JD VANCE: Look, I love my wife so much. I love her because she’s who she is. Obviously, she’s not a white person. And we’ve been attacked by some white supremacists over that. But I just — I love Usha. She’s such a good mom.

AMY GOODMAN: Your response, Renee?

RENEE BRACEY SHERMAN: I mean, he’s a weirdo. Like, it is wild to me that you are married to a woman of color, and you can’t see her as anything other than not a white person and a mom, right? But that’s who he is. He has such a worldview in which — that whiteness is the default — that is the thing that we focus on — that women’s role in society is to have children. And I think it’s terrifying that he can’t see us for anything else, that he — as I wrote in the piece, you know, he enjoyed them being a power couple, until he needed to achieve the higher echelons of power, and then she had to give up hers. I think he believes that women are there to be subservient to men like him. And it is a really terrifying future in which we don’t get to decide what our futures are, particularly that women of color need to serve white men like him.

AMY GOODMAN: Renee Bracey Sherman, I want to thank you for being with us, reproductive justice activist and writer, founder and co-executive director of We Testify. We’ll link to your piece in Teen Vogue, “JD Vance Doesn’t Want All Women to Be Trad Wives, Just White Women.” Her forthcoming book is titled Liberating Abortion: Claiming Our History, Sharing Our Stories, and Building the Reproductive Future We Deserve.

Next up, we speak with Politico reporter Ian Ward about “The Seven Thinkers and Groups That Have Shaped JD Vance’s Unusual Worldview.” Back in a minute.


We're out of space but we've been noting the Friday Green Zone shooting where someone in/on the US Embassy shot a gun and wounded a woman in a nearby apartment who was praying.  MIDDLE EAST MONITOR becomes the first US outlet to note the shooting.  We'll go into this tomorrow but I'm noting it now to give them credit.

New content at THIRD:


The following sites updated: