Have you heard what Bono's doing in Las Vegas?
"Pride In The Name Of Love," you know it, right? The song was U2's first hit in the United States. It's a song about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.:
He's performing the song now and has stripped it of MLK. Las Vegas audiences are hearing him sing about "October 7th" and about the Israelis.
Bono is garbage. He proved when he wouldn't call out the Iraq War because he was buddies with Bully Boy Bush.
They better not try to record again. They already destroyed their reputation so bad that they can't sell albums anymore. This money-grab Las Vegas gig isn't making them relevant.
Closing with C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"
The American people have seen who Donald Trump really is.
The delusion.
The lying.
The racism.
The xenophobia.
The admiration of dictators.
The utter cruelty.
Instead of properly handling the COVID crisis, Trump played golf and told people to inject bleach. Instead of accepting the 2020 election results, Trump riled up a mob that ransacked our Capitol and violently attacked law enforcement.
Donald Trump is a threat to our democracy. And he is a threat to everything we hold dear.
It's our shared responsibility to defeat Trump once and for all and save our democracy -- but it will be impossible if supporters like you sit on the sidelines.
The MAGA Right has stockpiled millions of dollars to spread absurd falsehoods, and we must respond with strength.
Four additional Democrats in Congress told their lawmaker colleagues during a phone call Sunday that they believe President Joe Biden should step aside to allow someone else to be the party’s nominee for president, according to multiple people on the call and familiar with the discussion.
The House Democrats who said Biden should drop out of the race were Adam Smith of Washington, Jerry Nadler of New York, Mark Takano of California and Joe Morelle of New York.
All four lawmakers hold top positions on key committees and bring the number of Democrats in Congress who have called for Biden to reconsider his bid for president to nearly a dozen.
Smith is the top Democrat on the Armed Services Committee. Similar positions are held by Nadler on the Judiciary Committee, Takano on the Veterans’ Affairs Committee and Morelle on the House Administration Committee.
The four lawmakers and the Biden campaign did not immediately provide comments on the call.
The big picture: Democratic lawmakers have gone from shock, to sadness, to madness since the debate 10 days ago. These Democrats, further deflated by Biden's high-stakes ABC interview, believe there's nothing he can do to reverse the damage — or his aging.
- "The sh*t is going to hit the fan on Monday, when Congress returns," a House Democrat told us. "People are scared about their own races. But they're also worried about the country, and about democracy."
- Lawmakers were antsy enough about Biden during their Fourth of July break this past week. There'll be even greater torque when they're venting, raging and plotting in person.
"Every single person not named Biden," or paid by the president, recognizes how deep a hole he's in, said a top Democratic operative who's talking nonstop to elected officials.
- David Axelrod, former President Obama's political architect, described Biden's posture in an opinion piece Saturday: "Denial. Delusion. Defiance." Axe said a growing chorus of Democrats is "fearful of an electoral disaster."
A front-page story in Sunday's Washington Post quotes an adviser to major donors as estimating that "for every 10 people who think he should exit, one thinks he should stay." The story says multiple people "publicly vouching for Biden, at the behest of the White House and campaign, privately say there's no path." (Saved ya 2,550 words, 9½ mins.!)
- 3,376 massacres committed by the Israeli army
- 38,153 people killed
- 10,000 missing (their fate unknown)
- 15,983 children killed
- 34 died as a result of malnutrition
- 10,637 women killed
- 500 medical personnel killed
- 75 members of the civil defence killed
- 158 journalists killed
- 520 bodies recovered from seven mass graves near Gaza hospitals
- 157 shelters targeted by Israel
- 87,828 wounded
- 70 percent of victims are children and women
- 17,000 children are now without either or both parents
On the issue of the death toll, THE NATIONAL notes:
Up to 186,000 people may have been killed in Israel’s war on Gaza, according to a Lancet Journal report. The report said the estimate includes direct deaths from the conflict as well as indirect deaths from causes such as reproductive, communicable and non-communicable diseases.
The Lancet is one of the world's most highly cited medical journals.
In February, John Hopkins University estimated 70,000 'excess deaths' including 10,000 from diseases.
The development came as Keir Starmer, the new UK prime minister, told the Palestinian Authority president, Mahmoud Abbas, that he believed the Palestinians had an undeniable right to a Palestinian state. Starmer spoke to Abbas on Sunday about the “ongoing suffering and devastating loss of life” in Gaza.
He also spoke to Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, setting out the “clear and urgent” need for a ceasefire in Gaza. “He added that it was also important to ensure the long-term conditions for a two-state solution were in place, including ensuring the Palestinian Authority had the financial means to operate effectively,” a readout of the call said.
Israeli Defence Minister Yoav Gallant said the army will not stop fighting with Hezbollah in Lebanon if a ceasefire is reached in the Gaza Strip with Hamas, and that a separate deal with the Lebanese militant group is needed.
His threat came after Hezbollah on Sunday said it had launched its largest aerial operation yet, attacking an Israeli surveillance centre on Mount Hermon in the annexed Golan Heights.
“My instructions to the forces in the north and the south are clear: even if we reach a settlement in the south, we will continue to fight in the north until we bring Hezbollah to a settlement and restore the residents with security,” Mr Gallant said in a video on Sunday during a visit to the Mount Hermon area.
“Things can happen. We do not aspire to it. We are ready for anything, but we are prepared for the fact that if they come to attack us, or if they try to harm us, or if they do not allow us to return our citizens safely to their homes – we will act.”
I entered the ER, and there was absolute chaos. The first thing I saw was the three or four children on the floor, one of whom had horrific injuries to the lower back, a flesh wound that went all the way down to the spine. He had trouble moving his legs. So, I can only imagine that he had a severe spinal cord injury. Bear in mind, we don’t have a CT scanner at Al-Aqsa Hospital. It’s not set up as a trauma centre, so this hospital, which should normally run with a capacity of 200, has 600 patients. You have children lying on the floors, men lying on a floor, injured people everywhere. It’s chaos, and you’re dealing with an already broken system.
THE IRISH TIMES quotes Mahmoud Basal (Gaza Civil Emergency Service) stating, "The attack on the school meant no place in the enclave was safe for families who leave their houses to seek shelter," And that was Saturday. Sunday? The Israeli government bombed another school. Soraya Ebrahimi (THE NATIONAL) reports:
The civil defence agency in Hamas-run Gaza said a strike Sunday on a school sheltering displaced Palestinians killed at least four people, the second such Israeli attack in two days.
The Israeli military, which has long accused Palestinian militants of using schools and other civilian infrastructure, confirmed the strike "in the area of the school" in Gaza City.
It said the school complex was used as a militant hideout and housed "a Hamas weapons manufacturing facility".
The civil defence agency said Ihab Al Ghusain, the Hamas government's deputy labour minister, was among those killed in the strike on the Holy Family school.
The Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem said it is monitoring, with grave concern, the news of the raids at its school.
It condemned “in the strongest terms the targeting of civilians or any belligerent actions that fall short of ensuring that civilians remain outside the combat scene".
"We continue to pray for the Lord’s mercy and hope that the parties will reach an agreement that would put an immediate end to the horrifying bloodbath and humanitarian catastrophe in the region,” the organisation said.
Gaza remains under assault. Day 276 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." ALJAZEERA notes, "At least 75 people have also been injured in Israel’s attacks across Gaza, raising the total number of injuries since October 7 to 87,903, according to Gaza’s Ministry of Health. The new figures raised the overall death toll to 38,193, including more than 15,983 children and 10,637 women, the ministry said." 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:
