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Chris Hedges: Palestinians Speak the Language of Violence Israel Taught Them

The indiscriminate shootings of Israelis by Hamas and other Palestinian resistance organizations, the kidnapping of civilians, the barrage of rockets into Israel, drone attacks on a variety of targets from tanks to automated machine gun nests, are the familiar language of the Israeli occupier. Israel has spoken this blood-soaked language of violence to the Palestinians since Zionist militias seized more than 78 percent of historic Palestine, destroyed some 530 Palestinian villages and cities and killed about 15,000 Palestinians in more than 70 massacres. Some 750,000 Palestinians were ethnically cleansed between 1947 and 1949 to create the state of Israel in 1948.

Israel’s response to these armed incursions will be a genocidal assault on Gaza. Israel will kill dozens of Palestinians for every Israeli killed. Hundreds of Palestinians have already died in Israel air assaults since the launch of “Operation Al-Aqsa Flood” on Saturday morning, which left 700 Israelis dead. Prime Minister Netanyahu warned Palestinians in Gaza on Sunday to “leave now,” because Israel is going to “turn all Hamas hiding places into rubble.” But where are Palestinians in Gaza supposed to go? Israel and Egypt blockade the land borders. There is no exit by air or sea, which are controlled by Israel.

The collective retribution against innocents is a familiar tactic employed by colonial rulers. We used it against Native Americans and later in the Philippines and Vietnam. The Germans used it against the Herero and Namaqua in Namibia. The British in Kenya and Malaya. The Nazis used it in the areas they occupied in the Soviet Union, Eastern and Central Europe. Israel follows the same playbook. Death for death. Atrocity for atrocity. But it is always the occupier who initiates this macabre dance and trades piles of corpses for higher piles of corpses. This is not to defend the war crimes by either side. It is not to rejoice in the attacks. I have seen enough violence in the Israeli occupied territories, where I covered the conflict for seven years, to loathe violence. But this is the familiar denouement to all settler-colonial projects. Regimes implanted and maintained by violence engender violence. The Haitian war of liberation. The Mau Mau in Kenya. The African National Congress in South Africa. These uprisings do not always succeed, but they follow familiar patterns. The Palestinians, like all colonized people, have a right to armed resistance under international law. ...

What does Israel, or the world community, expect? How can you trap 2.3 million people in Gaza, half of whom are unemployed, in one of the most densely populated spots on the planet for 16 years, reduce the lives of its residents, half of whom are children, to a subsistence level, deprive them of basic medical supplies, food, water and electricity, use attack aircraft, artillery, mechanized units, missiles, naval guns and infantry units to randomly slaughter unarmed civilians and not expect a violent response? Israel is currently carrying out waves of aerial assaults on Gaza, preparing a ground invasion and has cut the power to Gaza, which usually only operates two to four hours per day.

Many of the resistance fighters who infiltrated into Israel undoubtedly knew they would be killed. But like resistance fighters in other wars of liberation they decided that if they could not choose how they would live, they would choose how they would die. ...

The next stage of this struggle will be a massive campaign of industrial slaughter in Gaza by Israel, which has already begun. Israel is convinced greater levels of violence will finally crush Palestinian aspirations. Israel is mistaken. The terror Israel inflicts is the terror it will get.

Israeli Human Rights Leader Orly Noy on Israel’s War on Palestinians After Hamas Attack

Gazan Human Rights Lawyer Raji Sourani Describes Israeli Siege of Gaza City

They’re Repeating The Word ‘Unprovoked’ Again, This Time In Defense Of Israel

We’re seeing the western political/media class bleating the word “unprovoked” in unison again, this time in reference to the massive multi-pronged operation launched by Hamas against Israel on Saturday morning which reportedly killed hundreds of Israelis.

“The United States unequivocally condemns the unprovoked attacks by Hamas terrorists against Israeli civilians,” reads a statement from the White House.

“The loss of life in Israel as a result of the violent, calculated and unprovoked attack by Hamas is heartbreaking,” reads a statement by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“The unprovoked terror attack today and the murders of innocent Israeli citizens are a stark reminder of the brutality of Hamas and Iran-backed extremists,” reads a statement by congressman and house speaker contender Jim Jordan.

“This ignominious, unprovoked, and barbaric attack on Israel must be met with world condemnation and unequivocal support for the Jewish state’s right to self-defense,” tweeted presidential candidate Robert F Kennedy Jr.

“This is an ‘unprovoked attack on civilians’: Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg,” reads a recent Fox News report.

"Unprovoked aggression by Hamas terrorists,” reads a tweet by former secretary of state Mike Pompeo.

“These attacks by Hamas against Israel were heinous and unprovoked,” tweeted Senator Mark Kelly.

“As a steadfast supporter and ally of Israel, I unequivocally condemn the unprovoked and unprecedented terrorist attack launched by Hamas and stand with the people of Israel as it rightly defends itself,” tweeted congressman Richie Torres.

“The unprovoked attacks on Israel by Hamas through Gaza and via air and sea, are absolutely a terrorist attack,” tweeted Democratic Party pundit Ed Krassenstein.

“I unequivocally condemn Hamas’ horrific, unprovoked attacks and call on all parties to take steps to prevent civilian harm,” tweeted congresswoman Sara Jacobs.

I could cite many, many more examples, but I think that’s enough to make the point I’m trying to make. Isn’t it strange seeing the same oddly specific word choice inserted over and over and over again about the same event in statements by politicians and pundits, regardless of their political affiliation? When you lay them all out together it starts to sound highly suspicious, like someone always referring to his car as “my car, which I did not steal,” or always introducing his spouse as “my wife, whom I do not beat.”

75 years of ethnic cleansing.
15 years of blockade.
Confiscation of Palestinian lands.
Pogroms on Palestinian towns.
Desecration of Palestinian sacred sites.
Daily raids into Palestinian homes.
Constant humiliation of a entire people.

Nothing about today is “unprovoked.”

— Amer Zahr (@AmerZahr) October 7, 2023

It’s clear by now that whenever you see the word “unprovoked” being forcefully repeated in a uniform way across the entire political/media class, whatever they’re talking about was definitely massively provoked.

We saw this exact same thing when Russia invaded Ukraine; from the very beginning western politics and media were saturated with the word “unprovoked”, bashing the western public in the face with that message over and over and over again despite the obvious and undeniable fact that the war in Ukraine was most definitely provoked.

As Noam Chomsky quipped last year, “Of course, it was provoked. Otherwise, they wouldn’t refer to it all the time as an unprovoked invasion.”

And the same is of course true of the latest Hamas offensive. There are all kinds of arguments you could legitimately make about it, but one argument you definitely cannot defend is that it was unprovoked. As Palestinian-American writer and comedian Amer Zahr put it on Twitter, “75 years of ethnic cleansing. 15 years of blockade. Confiscation of Palestinian lands. Pogroms on Palestinian towns. Desecration of Palestinian sacred sites. Daily raids into Palestinian homes. Constant humiliation of a entire people. Nothing about today is ‘unprovoked.’”

Calling Palestinian violence against Israel “unprovoked” is easily even more ridiculous than calling the Russian invasion unprovoked, because the abuses of Israeli apartheid are so well-known by the general public at this point. Multiple mainstream human rights organizations have accused Israel of administering an abusive apartheid regime which treats Palestinians as lesser people. Palestinians who live in the open-air prison known as Gaza are deliberately subjected to undrinkable water, food shortages, energy shortages and bombing campaigns. Those outside Gaza are subjected to racist, violent policing and land seizure and live under a different set of laws than Jewish Israelis. The entire people were forced out of their homes to make way for a new state for reasons that had nothing to do with them, and any attempt to resist this has seen them killed as “terrorists”.

Isn’t it odd that the western political/media class would begin uniformly asserting something so easily disprovable? So transparently false? Why would they keep choosing over and over and over again in each instance to make use of that specific word “unprovoked” in their condemnations of the attacks by Hamas?

The answer is that this choice is not so much something they are saying as something they are doing. They’re not attempting to communicate with their audiences, they’re attempting to circumvent the critical thinking of their audience and trick them into accepting a blatant falsehood as true.

Skillful manipulators make frequent use of a cognitive bias known as the illusory truth effect, a glitch in the way human minds tend to operate which makes it hard for us to differentiate between the experience of hearing a well-evidenced fact and the experience of hearing something that they’ve heard repeated multiple times. If you want the public to believe something false you won’t be able to use facts and evidence to make your case to them, so what you can do is just repeat something over and over again until it starts sounding like the truth. Repeat the lie enough times and boom, you’ve perception-managed westerners into viewing the world from an understanding that Israel did nothing to provoke Palestinians into their actions.

After the news broke about the Hamas offensive I tweeted, “Here come days and days of western news media slyly reversing the aggressor-defender relationship and reporting as though the violence began with the Hamas offensive, spontaneously out of nowhere.”

But even I wasn’t expecting the perception management to be this brazen.

Biden, Netanyahu foreign policy blinders. Neocons push Iran escalation

Gaza is a small strip of besieged, blockaded land that Israel dominates and controls, allegedly with the most sophisticated surveillance on earth, and they missed a massive land, sea, and air incursion being organized for what had to have been months, right under their noses? Odd

— Michael Tracey (@mtracey) October 7, 2023

US Politicians BUYING War Stocks As Ukraine, Israel Conflicts Heat Up: Why Isn’t This ILLEGAL?

Biden Tells Netanyahu More Military Aid Is on Its Way

President Biden spoke with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday for the second time since Hamas launched an operation in southern Israel and said that more US military aid is on its way.

According to the White House, President Biden “conveyed that additional assistance for the Israeli Defense Forces is now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days.” ...

Israel already receives $3.8 billion in military aid each year from the US. It’s unclear how the US will be funding the new arms it’s sending to Israel, which will likely be pulled from US military stockpiles.

Iran BACKED Hamas Attack On Israel Per Report, GOP SLAMS Biden’s Iran Strategy Amid Conflict

Death toll rises to more than 1,100 after surprise Hamas attack on Israel

The Israeli death toll after the surprise attack by the militant group Hamas on communities in the country’s south has risen to at least 700, including 44 soldiers, as the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said Israel was embarking on a “long and difficult war”.

In Gaza, which was pummelled by Israeli airstrikes, officials reported at least 413 deaths. With thousands of Israelis and Palestinians wounded since Saturday morning, Israel said more than 100 Israeli citizens, including women and children, were believed to have been abducted at gunpoint by Hamas to Gaza.

At least 260 bodies were discovered at the site of a music festival in a desert kibbutz. Many of the Israeli victims were civilians who were murdered in their homes, on the streets of their communities and at other locations along a broad swathe of territory bordering Gaza, leading the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, to describe the Hamas assault as an “indiscriminate terrorist attack”.

Blinken added that Washington had not seen any evidence that Iran was behind the attack. ...

In a call to Netanyahu, Joe Biden said US military assistance was “now on its way to Israel with more to follow over the coming days”. The US defence secretary, Lloyd Austin, said the USS Gerald R Ford aircraft carrier and its strike group of warships would be moved closer to Israel in the Mediterranean while US air force squadrons in the region would be reinforced in a show of strength. ...

In a televised address on Saturday night, Netanyahu said the Israeli military would use all of its strength to destroy Hamas’s capabilities in response. “Get out of there now,” he told people in Gaza, who have no way to leave the tiny, overcrowded Mediterranean territory.

Israeli lunatic calls for an even more severe collective punishment on Palestinians:

Israel's 'existential war' against Hamas might require 'a terrible humanitarian crisis in Gaza'

As Israel and Gaza Erupt, the US Must Commit to Ending the Violence — All the Violence

The most recent eruption of violence in Gaza and Israel is a tragic reminder of the human consequences of decades of oppression. The human toll – hundreds of Palestinians and Israelis killed so far – tells that appalling story. Many of the targets, and many of those killed, on both sides, were civilians.

And, as the United Nations’ special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied Palestinian territory noted about attacks on civilians, “whoever launches them (Palestinian armed groups or Israeli occupation forces) commits crimes that must be accounted for.”

But while it’s necessary, condemning attacks on civilians isn’t enough. If we are serious about ending this spiraling violence, we need to look at root causes. And that means – hard as it may be for some to acknowledge it – we must look at the context.

While this attack against Israel may have been a surprise to Israel’s political and military officials, it should not have been unexpected. Eruptions of violence have well-known causes; they are no secret. Human rights organizations (Israeli, Palestinian, American and international) and UN officials, parliamentarians and governments around the world have long warned that Israel’s longstanding denial of freedom and equality for Palestinians would continue sparking cycles of violence.

Our understanding of reality is shaped by when we start the clock.

Saturday’s attack from Gaza did not happen out of thin air. It took place in the context of decades of Israel’s domination and control over Palestinians. As the Israeli human rights organization B’tselem describes it, “in the entire area between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River, the Israeli regime implements laws, practices and state violence designed to cement the supremacy of one group – Jews – over another – Palestinians. … [I]n 2007, Israel imposed a blockade on the Gaza Strip that is still in place. Throughout all of these years, Israel has continued to control nearly every aspect of life in Gaza from outside.”

Generations of Palestinians, 80 percent of them refugees, have grown up in the teeming, impoverished Gaza Strip, one of the most crowded pieces of land on Earth. Since Israel besieged Gaza in 2007, most of them have never been allowed to leave the walled-in, military-guarded Strip, have never glimpsed the West Bank or Jerusalem, let alone 1948 Israel, and certainly not the wider world.

In 2012 the UN determined that without “herculean action” by the international community, by 2020 Gaza “will not be livable” – largely, though not only, because of the profound lack of access to clean water. In 2015 the UN again reported that conditions had worsened, particularly because of the Israeli military assault in 2014 and its destruction of water and electrical infrastructure. And once again they urgently warned that Gaza would be “unlivable” by 2020.

Yet more than 2 million Palestinians remain in Gaza, locked into an open-air prison. 2020 has come and gone. The international community did not take “herculean action” to stop Israel’s blockade or to stop the current extremist government’s annexation of Palestinian land. They did nothing (then-President Trump even praised it) when Israel passed a law stating that “the right to exercise national self-determination in the State of Israel is unique to the Jewish people” — so even Palestinians who are Israeli citizens are officially denied equal rights. And Gaza remains unlivable.

In 2018, a series of overwhelmingly non-violent marches, organized by Ahmed Abu Artema, a young Gaza poet, and taking place inside the besieged Strip, called for an end to the blockade and freedom of movement for the Gaza population. They were met with tear gas, rubber bullets and Israeli sharpshooters taking aim at the mostly young protesters.

After two years, the result was 214 Palestinians killed, including 46 children, and more than 36,000 injured, including 8,800 children. More than 8,000 of those injured were hit by live ammunition. By the time the protests waned, in 2019, the United Nations reported that 1,700 of the protesters faced amputation of legs or arms because Gaza hospitals had insufficient health care funding to provide advanced care for those shot by Israeli snipers.

None of this makes attacks on civilians legal or acceptable. But without addressing the root causes, violence will continue to erupt. Israel remains the occupying power. Before today, Israeli soldiers had already killed more than 214 Palestinians, 47 of them children, in the occupied West Bank, and settler violence had escalated, with nearly 600 attacks in just the first six months of this year.

Too many Palestinians and too many Israelis have been killed. If Israel was in fact surprised by the attack, it was an intelligence failure – something that won’t be solved by sending it more weapons. The United States provides $3.8 billion – 20 percent of Israel’s military budget – every year, and that clearly isn’t helping deal with the root causes of violence.

Right now, we need U.S. support for the UN as it calls for an immediate ceasefire. And then we need a serious U.S. commitment to ending the violence — all the violence. That means ending Washington’s enabling of Israeli violations, and instead demanding real accountability for violations of human rights and international law, real moves to end the occupation and apartheid system and real moves to demand equality for all living under Israeli control.

'FINISH THEM:' Nikki Haley Calls FOR WAR With Iran

Biden Considering Huge $100 Billion Ukraine Spending Package

President Biden is considering asking Congress for a massive $100 billion spending package for the Ukraine war, The Telegraph reported on Saturday.

The idea of the huge spending package would be to fund the proxy war through the 2024 election without having to worry about the growing opposition to the policy in Congress, as the majority of the House and the Senate currently still support arming Ukraine.

“The ‘big package’ idea is firmly supported by many throughout the administration,” a source familiar with discussions on the matter told The Telegraph. “Supporters of Ukraine want this to be a one-and-done big bill, and then not have to deal with it until after the next election.”

Keep Using Ukrainians As Cannon Fodder! – Says Dutch Defense Minister

Biden’s border wall and the war in Ukraine

On Wednesday, President Joe Biden announced he had ordered the construction of a 20-mile extension of Donald Trump’s border wall along a section of the US-Mexico border. Biden claimed he had no choice and was simply implementing a mandate left over from the Trump administration. But Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas cited an “acute and immediate need… to prevent unlawful entries into the United States.”

On Thursday, the DHS said it would begin deporting asylum seekers from Venezuela who had crossed into the US illegally. This could affect hundreds of thousands of desperate and impoverished workers who have been driven to seek refuge and employment in the US as a result of the economic crisis in Venezuela, stoked by US sanctions and a de facto blockade aimed at destabilizing the government of President Nicolas Maduro. ...

Two days ago, in a statement on the ousting of Republican Kevin McCarthy from his position as House Speaker, the WSWS noted that the central priority of the Democratic Party and the Biden administration was the escalation of the US-NATO war against Russia. The Democrats, we wrote, will “collaborate with the domestic agenda of the Republicans in exchange for guarantees that funding for Ukraine is untouchable. The Democrats have no problem working with fascists in the Republican Party; after all, they are in an alliance with fascists in Ukraine.”

Biden’s action on the border completely confirms this appraisal. The Democrats are seeking, if they are able, to create some sort of rearrangement in the House that will make countless billions in financing for the Ukraine war inviolable, and in exchange they will agree to anything.

In 2020, Biden made his pledge to add “not one foot” to Trump’s border wall a major part of his appeal to voters. The fact that he has so crudely reversed it is a measure of the desperation of the dominant sections of the American ruling class that see the war against Russia as an existential question. They know there is little popular support for the war, and fear that support is eroding within sections of the political elite, both in the US and internationally. These developments have shattered all claims that the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine is about democracy, either in Ukraine or the United States itself.

German state elections: voters turn to the right in rebuke to Scholz’s coalition

German chancellor Olaf Scholz’s fractious centre-left coalition has received a sharp rebuke from voters in the key states of Bavaria and Hesse, with economic woes and immigration fears boosting the opposition conservatives and the far right.

At the elections on Sunday the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD) party burst out of its post-industrial eastern strongholds to score its best ever result in a western state. Polls showed it on course to be the second largest party in Hesse, home to the financial capital Frankfurt.

All three parties in Scholz’s federal coalition – his Social Democrats, the Greens and the pro-business Free Democrats (FDP) – did worse than five years ago in the states, which together account for about a quarter of the German population. The FDP even looked on track to fail to reach the 5% threshold to enter parliament in both states.

Analysts said this would further stoke tensions in a coalition that has struggled to find common ground, with Scholz accused of failing to show the leadership needed to impose order and tackle crises from war in Ukraine to the green transition. ...

Jens Spahn, a senior legislator for the conservative Christian Democrats (CDU), said rarely had a government been given such a comprehensive slapdown. “And rarely has it been so clear: whether on migration, the economy or climate policy, people want a different politics.”

Mass protest in Barcelona against possible amnesty for Catalan separatists

Tens of thousands of people have joined conservative and far-right Spanish political leaders in Barcelona to protest against the Socialist party’s decision to consider an amnesty for those involved in the failed, unlawful and unilateral push for Catalan independence six years ago.

Sunday’s demonstration, organised by the anti-independence group Societat Civil Catalana, was called after Catalan separatist parties said they would only consider supporting a new, socialist-led government following July’s inconclusive general election if they were offered an amnesty in return.

Although the conservative People’s party (PP) finished first in the election, it fell well short of a parliamentary majority and failed to secure MPs’ backing to form a government during an investiture vote at the end of September.

The Spanish Socialist Workers party (PSOE), led by the acting prime minister, Pedro Sánchez, now has King Felipe’s blessing to try to form a government but will be able to do so only with the votes of the hardline pro-independence Junts party, which is led by the former Catalan regional president Carles Puigdemont.

Puigdemont, who fled Spain six years ago to avoid arrest over his role in masterminding the attempted secession, is one of hundreds of Catalan activists to be summoned before Spanish courts. Opposition politicians argue that Sánchez’s willingness to entertain an amnesty is further proof of his over-reliance on Catalan separatist parties and a cynical determination to remain in office.

Here's further evidence that Gavin Newsom is ready to toss his hat into the ring for the presidency:

California governor vetoes bill that would have set a $35 cap for insulin

Gavin Newsom has vetoed a bill that would have stopped insurance companies from charging more than $35 for insulin.

The bill would have banned health plans and disability insurance policies from imposing any out-of-pocket expenses on insulin prescription drugs above $35 for a 30-day supply. That would have included deductibles and co-pays.

The California governor, a Democrat, said earlier this year that the state would soon start making its own brand of insulin. California has a $50m contract with the non-profit pharmaceutical company Civica Rx to manufacture the insulin under the brand CalRx. The state would sell a 10-milliliter vial of insulin for $30.

“With CalRx, we are getting at the underlying cost, which is the true sustainable solution to high-cost pharmaceuticals,” Newsom wrote in a message explaining why he vetoed the bill on Saturday. “With co-pay caps however, the long-term costs are still passed down to consumers through higher premiums from health plans.”

And a bit more evidence, can't be upsetting big pharma ...

California nearly decriminalizes psychedelics – but governor hits brakes

California will have to put more work into decriminalizing hallucinogens before Governor Gavin Newsom will sign a bill, said a statement from the governor on Saturday, announcing that the bill had been vetoed.

The rejected law, which was anticipated to take effect in 2025, would have done away with criminal penalties for people possessing natural psychedelics for personal use. It also would have required the state to form a group to study and make recommendations about the drugs’ therapeutic use.

Newsom, a Democrat who championed legalizing cannabis in 2016, said in a statement on Saturday that more needed to be done before California decriminalized the hallucinogens.

“California should immediately begin work to set up regulated treatment guidelines – replete with dosing information, therapeutic guidelines, rules to prevent against exploitation during guided treatments, and medical clearance of no underlying psychoses,” Newsom’s statement said. “Unfortunately, this bill would decriminalize possession prior to these guidelines going into place, and I cannot sign it.”

'Stop Cop City' Campaigners Decry State's Refusal to Charge Georgia Troopers Who Shot Activist 57 Times

Human rights advocates on Friday condemned a Georgia prosecutor's decision to not charge the state troopers who fatally shot forest defender Manuel Esteban Paez Terán—better known as "Tortuguita"—during a militarized January raid at a Stop Cop City protest camp outside Atlanta.

"The system has, once again, declared its own innocence," Stop Cop City activist Micah Herskind wrote on social media in response to the decision by the Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney's office. ...

Georgia State Patrol officers say they shot Terán after the 26-year-old Venezuelan activist opened fire on them, wounding an officer in the leg during the January 18 raid to evict protesters from the encampment protesting the $90 million, 85-acre Public Safety Training Center—widely known as "Cop City"—in the Weelaunee Forest just outside Atlanta city limits in DeKalb County.

According to a statement from Stone Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Pro Tempore George Christian explaining the decision not to charge the troopers:

Terán... refused to comply with the lawful commands of the troopers to come out of a tent. The troopers used a 'less lethal' device known as a pepperball launcher in an effort to have Terán leave the tent. Terán responded by shooting four times his 9mm pistol through the tent, striking and seriously injuring a Georgia State Trooper. Six troopers returned fire resulting in the death of Teran.

"The use of lethal... force by Georgia State Patrol was objectively reasonable under the circumstances of this case," the prosecutor concluded.

In addition to the body camera videos released by the Atlanta Police Departments – one of which casts doubt on the GBI narrative of the shooting – the Report mentions three Department of Natural Resources Officers were wearing Body Cams that caught audio of the killing.

— Atlanta Community Press Collective (@atlanta_press) October 6, 2023

A DeKalb County Medical Examiner's Office autopsy—which officials suppressed for months—revealed that Terán was shot 57 times and that there was no gunpowder residue on the victim's hands, which advocates say debunks claims that the activist fired first. There is no police bodycam video of the incident.

The Georgia Bureau of Investigation said that ballistics analysis proved a gun found at the scene of Terán's killing—a Smith & Wesson 9mm pistol GBI said the victim legally purchased in 2020—fired the bullet that wounded the trooper.

CCVC said that "from the start, the state's response to Tortuguita's murder has been to lie and cover up the facts."

"Today's announcement ruling the killing as 'reasonable' is just the latest in a long line of changing stories and withholding evidence," the campaign added.

RFK JR Calls for MORE AID to Israel Following Attacks, Anti-War Critics Aghast

Feeding seaweed to cows can cut methane emissions, says Swedish report

Sweden is one step closer to making the use of methane-reducing cow feed additives such as seaweed government policy after experts recommended further investigation into the area. A report by the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency into reduced methane emissions says development in the field has been “rapid in recent years” and is among “a number of new interesting additives with higher potential”.

Among the cow feed additives cited in the report were the seaweed red algae and the chemical 3-nitrooxypropanol (3-NOP). According to manufacturers, the daily feeding of red algae (where the active substance is bromoform) can reduce the methane emissions of meat animals by up to 90%. But, the agency said, more knowledge on cultivation and use was needed.

3-NOP, which has been fed to several cattle categories in Sweden and elsewhere, has been approved for use in dairy cows in the EU since February 2022. The chemical can cut methane emissions by an average of about 30% in dairy cows, according to the report, and by 45% in meat cattle.

The discovery about the effects of feeding seaweed was originally made by researchers in Australia and works by preventing microorganisms in the cow’s first stomach from producing methane. While some feed additives “appear to have significant potential”, it warns that there is still uncertainty over the long-term effects and factors preventing it from being used more within production systems.

Biden is building Trump’s border wall & waiving 26 environmental laws to do it.

Democrats are better at implementing Republican policies than Republicans.

There’s no outrage from liberals because they support Republican policies as long as their Blue Cult leader enacts them. pic.twitter.com/JRttuztHDy

— Ryan Knight (@ProudSocialist) October 5, 2023

Dead lawns, dry wells: Texas drought persists after summer heat dome

The heat dome that roasted a wide swath of the US this summer has dissipated – but it has left behind a crisp, dehydrated landscape, particularly in Texas. Even as the weather cools, more than 30% of the continental US is experiencing drought, according to a newly released analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa). Sizable portions of the Pacific north-west, midwest and much of the south find themselves grappling with drier-than-normal conditions.

However, in the heart of the Texas hill country, which lies in the middle of this vast state, “exceptional” drought – the most intense category – has persisted for months. Lawns and fields are dead. Trees are dying, even along the creeks. Wells have run dry. The Guadalupe River, a major artery that draws locals and tourists alike to bask in its cool green depths – and which the small city of Kerrville relies on as a water source – has stopped flowing along part of its route. Now, instead of a welcoming oasis, the broad, desiccated riverbed crunches underfoot. ...

The events in the hill country are “just a microcosm of the global situation”, said Dr Zong-Liang Yang, a professor in the earth and planetary sciences department at the University of Texas at Austin. Without human-induced climate change, the heatwaves that swept across the US, Mexico and southern Europe this summer would have been virtually impossible, Yang said: “The probability is less than 1%.”

While climate scientists have a high degree of confidence in connecting extreme temperatures to climate change, droughts are trickier. “Temperature is directly related to the greenhouse effect. If you have more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, they will lead to more greenhouse warming,” Yang said.

Drought, however, is influenced by a host of factors, including wind patterns, cloud formations, and pollutants. Although he cautioned that further study is needed, he said: “For current ongoing droughts, I would think that human-induced climate change would play a very high role.”

Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

Queen Warmonger Hillary Clinton Complains About “Men Starting Wars”

Middle East Eye Live Updates

The Top Ten Takeaways From Hamas’ Sneak Attack on Israel

Scott Ritter: Israel’s Massive Intelligence Failure

Palestine Is Striking Back

Israel: Police to 'legitimise' killing of Palestinian citizens in new open-fire rules

Israel’s State Archives Reveal Long and Sordid History With Anti-semitic Extremists in Europe

New Zealand’s ‘Russian Edits Scandal’ — How a National Broadcaster Demonized the Truth

What Is the Burevestnik Missile That Putin Says Russia Has Tested?

When 80 percent of US generals go to work for arms makers

Klan War: how Ulysses S Grant took the fight to the extreme right

Grieving Maui residents prepare to rebuild but ask: ‘For whom?’

Republicans FREAK Over Empty Speakership Blocking Israel Aid

Saturation, cyber attacks? How did Hamas get past Israel's Iron Dome

Why Are U.S. Firms Buying Up All The Farmland In Ukraine?

RFK JR Declares INDEPENDENT Presidential Run

A Little Night Music

Frank Stokes - I Got Mine

Frank Stokes - Chicken You Can Roost Behind the Moon

Frank Stokes - Downtown Blues

Frank Stokes - How Long

Frank Stokes - South Memphis Blues

Frank Stokes - Stomp That Thing

Frank Stokes - Jumpin on the Hill

Frank Stokes - Memphis Rounder Blues

Frank Stokes - It Won't Be Long Now

Frank Stokes - Old Sometime Blues

Frank Stokes - Mr. Crump Don't Like It