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Black Magic

Best of the Web: Israeli tanks deliberately crush dozens of Palestinian civilians alive, some were families sleeping in tents

gaza tank palestine
The Israeli army's repeated killings of Palestinian civilians by deliberately running them over alive with military vehicles was vehemently denounced by Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor on Sunday, as was the widespread destruction of civilian property. These crimes are part of Israel's genocide against Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the rights group said, ongoing since 7 October 2023.

Euro-Med Monitor documented the Israeli army's killing of a Palestinian man who was deliberately run over in Gaza City's Al-Zaytoun neighbourhood on 29 February after he was arrested. The man was subjected to harsh interrogation by members of the Israeli army, who bound his hands with plastic zip-tie handcuffs before running him over with a military vehicle from the bottom to the top of his body.

Comment: Israel's crimes against the Palestinians has always been legion - with rampant organ harvesting and trafficking, rape and abuse of prisoners, endless terror raids and murder with impunity - but it seems that the nefarious infection that has possessed these perpetrators is worsening. Perhaps because, on some level, they know that their reckoning will come soon enough:


People 2

Best of the Web: Neil Oliver tears into 'unelected puppet' Rishi Sunak for 'gaslighting' the British people

Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver
Neil Oliver says that after years of neglect, politicians are starting to feel afraid as their poor decisions catch up with them.


Light Sabers

Best of the Web: Expelling US troops: Iraq's resistance efforts gain steam in Baghdad

iraq
© The CradleAs the Iraqi Resistance continues to pressure the US to halt support for Israel's war on Gaza, Baghdad - and Moscow - align closer with their agenda to expel US troops from Iraq.
Surveillance devices on a local Baghdad thoroughfare captured on camera the assassination of an Iraqi Hezbollah Brigades leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in a 7 February US missile attack. The images show a missile piercing the roof of his vehicle, then deviating to the right of Al-Baladiyat street, leaving a wake of flames in its incendiary path.


Against the backdrop of the widening, US-backed and armed Israeli war on Gaza, the US airstrikes against Iraq and Syria were meant to deliver a strong message of deterrence to Iran's allies in the Axis of Resistance, who are targeting US military interests in West Asia in response to the carnage in Gaza.

But the strikes have instead served mainly to embarrass the Iraqi government and its domestic allies, prompting a reevaluation of the country's relationship with Washington and reviving calls for an end to the US military presence in Iraq.

Despite a steady stream of US threats and intimidation tactics employed to deter the Iraqi resistance since late last year, these factions have incrementally increased and expanded their engagement in the region-wide war, driven by their commitment to the Palestinian resistance and its liberation goals. The Iraqi groups have a specific goal: pressure Washington until it forces a Gaza truce - a strategic target that reflects the unity of purpose among the resistance factions in Iraq and the region.

Gavel

Best of the Web: Nicaragua files genocide case against GERMANY at ICJ for abetting Israel's crimes in Gaza


Comment: They deserve this. Germany is culpable of genocide TWICE in one century...


ICJcourt
© Remko ce Waal/ANP/AFPICJ President Joan Donoghue (C) and ICJ judges arrive at the International Court of Justice (ICJ) prior to the verdict announcement in the genocide case against Israel, brought by South Africa, in The Hague on January 26, 2024
Nicaragua accuses Germany of facilitating genocide and failing to prevent the commission of genocide at The Hague.

Nicaragua accused Germany on Friday of enabling genocide in Gaza in a lawsuit brought before the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for supporting "Israel" and blocking financing for the UN Palestinian refugee agency.

The Central American country officially filed a case at the ICJ against Germany for supporting "Israel" financially and militarily.

"Germany is facilitating the commission of genocide and, in any case, has failed in its obligation to do everything possible to prevent the commission of genocide," Nicaragua asserted in a petition issued by the court in The Hague.

Comment: It's unlikely to have any discernible impact, however it at least highlights Germany's complicity - in spite of its history - and on the record: UN special rapporteur: Israel is deliberately starving Palestinians and it should be held accountable for genocide


USA

Best of the Web: The Silent Eulogy

Russian Yars Flight Test
© Scott Ritter ExtraThe flight test of a Russian Yars ICBM, February 29, 2024.
I was planning on publishing Part 2 of my article on Alexei Navalny.

However, today Alexei Navalny's body is being laid to rest in a funeral service in Moscow attended by a few thousand well-wishers and supporters.

My wife has always cautioned me not to speak ill of the dead.

Especially on the day their mortal remains are being returned to the earth.

Instead, I am compelled to write about something else.

It is the funeral that will never be held.

The obituary that will never be read.

The eulogy that will never be spoken.

Who's passing do I lament?

My own.

My family.

My friends.

My fellow Americans.

Humanity.

Robert Oppenheimer
© Scott Ritter ExtraRobert Oppenheimer
The mechanism of our deaths will only too late be revealed, most likely in a blinding flash of light that will bring us to our knees, awaiting the shockwave that proceeds the unbearable heat that will transform our flesh and bones, instantaneously, to ash.

We cannot claim that we were not forewarned of our imminent demise — ever since Robert Oppenheimer proclaimed himself to be "Death, the destroyer of worlds," we have known that we possessed the mechanism of our own destruction, and yet we have done nothing to remove this danger from our lives.

Instead, we continued to perfect this most horrible of weapons, devising even more deadly warheads, and more efficient delivery systems upon which to deliver them to our enemies, all the while knowing that any large-scale use of these weapons would signal our own passing.

For an all-too-brief moment, the insanity of the course we had set became apparent, and we undertook to return the genie to the bottle, to reverse course, to save ourselves and our fellow human beings.

Pills

Best of the Web: Liberal Oregon U-turns, passes bill to recriminalize hard drugs as overdose deaths skyrocket

tent city drug use portland oregon
© Hannah Ray Lambert/Fox News DigitalTents cover an open space near the Steel Bridge in Portland, Oregon on July 7, 2023. Drug use has become rampant in the area.
Oregon lawmakers have voted to recriminalize certain drugs after a surge in overdose deaths resulted in the governor declaring a state of emergency for Portland's fentanyl crisis - all but ending a flagship liberal policy.

In 2020, a measure to decriminalize small amounts of all drugs and redirect much of the state's marijuana tax revenue to fund grants for addiction services was passed into law under Ballot Measure 110 with 58% of Oregon residents approving the measure.

Since then, addiction and overdose deaths have skyrocketed in Oregon and nationwide as fentanyl swept across the country.

Comment: Hot Air adds:
The real story here, which most of the news outlets writing about this completely skip over, is that the city of Portland has been a mess ever since 2020. That's when police were defunded and crime began to go up sharply. And thanks to the passage of Measure 110 (also in 2020) drug use on the streets and homelessness have gotten worse as well.

[...]

For the last several months, Gov. Tina Kotek has gone through a series of steps involving a task force making recommendations about what to do about these problems. All of this was political theater designed to reach the obvious conclusion that the state needed to do something about Measure 110. And that's where we are now.

Just a few years ago, Measure 110 was sold as a bold new vision for dealing with the drug problem, one that would replace the old, harsh system of imprisoning people. The results have been a disaster.

[...]

My own take on this, having watched the downfall of Portland from afar for many years now, is that neither decriminalization nor locking people up with solve this problem because this isn't a problem that can be solved. There is no magic pill that turns homeless addicts into reformed, productive members of society. Offering clean needles and endless services won't do it and neither will putting them in jail. Even those interventions that work can't keep up with the pace of new addicts showing up on the streets.

But the addicts aren't the only ones who matter.

That's what I think the ACLU and similar activists tend to overlook. We can't solve the problem of fentanyl addiction, but we can keep the street cleaner and open for business so people who aren't fentanyl addicts have a nice place to live. We can make it possible for people with physical handicaps to move down the sidewalk rather than being forced to traverse the streets because of all the tents blocking the way.

Locking people up is a brute force means of doing that but it's better than not doing anything at all. If the choice is between lots of addicts walking around, stealing and pissing on the street and lots of addicts locked up in jail, jail is the better option for everyone else. At some point, everyone else has to matter.

You don't have to take my word for it. It's Oregon Democrats who are about to repeal Measure 110. They have learned this lesson the hard way. The new bill should pass sometime in the next 10 days.



Target

Best of the Web: There are chilling parallels between the suffering of Julian Assange and Gaza civilians

Assange image
© Rasid Necati Aslim/Getty ImagesJullian Assange supporter
By locking away one journalist and abetting the misery of an entire people, the West combines oppressive structure with disregard for law...

Recently, two of the defining injustices of the contemporary West have been the object of legal proceedings. And while one involves mass murder and the other the torture but not murder of a single victim (at least not yet), there are good reasons to juxtapose the two systematically. The suffering involved is different, but the forces that cause it are intricately linked and, as we will see, reveal much about the nature of the West as a political order.

In The Hague, the UN's International Court of Justice (ICJ) - also known as the World Court - has held extensive hearings (involving 52 states and three international organizations) on Israel's post-1967 occupation - or de facto annexation - of Palestinian territories. These hearings are connected to, but are not the same as, the genocide case against Israel also currently proceeding at the ICJ.

All of this is happening against the backdrop of Israel's relentless genocide of the Palestinians by bombing, shooting (reportedly including small children, in the head), blockade, and starvation. As of now, the constantly growing - and conservative - victim count stands at about 30,000 killed, 70,000 injured, 7,000 missing, and at least 2 million displaced, often more than once, always under horrific conditions.

In London, the Royal Courts of Justice have been the stage for Julian Assange's fight for an appeal against Washington's demand to extradite him to the US. Assange, an activist and publisher of investigative journalism, has already been in confinement - of one kind or the other - for more than a decade. Since 2019, he has been held in the Belmarsh high security prison. In fact, what has already happened to him is the modern equivalent of being locked away in the Bastille by royal "lettre de cachet" in absolutist, pre-revolutionary, Ancien régime France. Multiple observers, including a UN special rapporteur, have argued compellingly that Assange's treatment has amounted to torture.

X

Best of the Web: If memes are illegal, all speech will become illegal

with her
© THERICKYVAUGHN/TWITTERscreenshot
The Biden administration has convicted a pro-Trump influencer for posting a meme. If this precedent stands, soon everything will be against the law, but the law will only apply to enemies of the state.

Thirty years ago, the incendiary columnist Sam Francis coined the term "anarcho-tyranny" to describe a state of affairs in which the government cannot or will not enforce laws against serious criminals and instead exerts excessive and often arbitrary force on ordinary citizens.

Francis's coinage, conceived against the backdrop of the crack epidemic and attendant crime wave of the late '80s and early '90s, was provoked by a series of feckless gun laws ostensibly designed to curb armed crime. But in practice, they were used to harass ordinary gun owners. The original column appeared in December 1992, a few months after an off-the-grid Vietnam vet was entrapped by an undercover ATF agent for the illegal sale of a shotgun, leading to a raid on his cabin in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, and the murder of his dog, son, and wife by federal agents.

Anarcho-tyranny is not an intentional conspiracy to subvert the rule of law. There are no smoke-filled rooms where the anarcho-tyranny white paper is passed around among policymakers. It is simply the natural devolution of a government undergoing a crisis of authority: As power slackens in one direction, it must tighten in another.

Yoda

Best of the Web: UK firebrand George Galloway WINS Rochdale by-election

George Galloway reelected britain house of commons
George Galloway has clinched a stunning victory in the Rochdale by-election after one of the most divisive and controversial contests in recent history
Controversial politician to make shock return to the Commons after his hardline pro-Palestinian stance brings victory amid Labour vote collapse - as he fires warning at Keir Starmer and says: 'This is for Gaza'

George Galloway has clinched a stunning victory in the Rochdale by-election after one of the most divisive and chaotic contests in recent history.

Local voters have chosen the firebrand politician as their new MP to replace Sir Tony Lloyd, following the death of the veteran Labour politician last month.

Mr Galloway, who put a hardline pro-Palestinian stance at the heart of his campaign, is now set to end his nine-year absence from the House of Commons.

Comment: Things are about to get very uncomfortable for the parliamentary class in the UK House of Commons. Galloway has never been reticent about voicing plain truths. And a post-election interview with a Sky News reporter. Must-watch!




Wolf

Best of the Web: Obama's CIA asked foreign intel agencies to spy on Trump campaign, thus launching Russiagate

five eyes surveillance
The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
The revelation that the U.S. intelligence community, under the Obama administration, sought the assistance of the "Five Eyes" intelligence alliance to surveil Donald Trump's associates before the 2016 election is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which the Deep State will go to protect its interests and challenge its adversaries. (The Five Eyes countries are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.) This bombshell, reported by a team of independent journalists, exposes a dark chapter in American political history, where foreign intelligence services were reportedly mobilized against a presidential candidate.

The alleged operation against Trump and his associates, which predates the official start of the FBI's Crossfire Hurricane investigation, is a stark example of political weaponization of intelligence. The involvement of foreign allies in surveilling American citizens under the pretext of national security raises serious questions about the integrity of our democratic processes and the autonomy of our nation's intelligence operations.

Comment: