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Most reformists were barred from the elections, which saw a turnout of only 41% after boycott calls.
— Read on www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-68467595 -
A state of emergency is declared after armed gangs stormed a major prison, freeing thousands of inmates.
— Read on www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68462851 -
It has fired them into Iraq, Syria and Pakistan, and Israel is within their roughly 900-mile range.
— Read on www.wsj.com/articles/ballistic-missiles-allow-iran-to-act-more-boldly-e3bb53a6 -
NEWS NOTES: Reported Today
ISRAEL:
- Hamas said on Friday that seven more hostages had been killed in Gaza due to bombing.
- BBC journalists investigated for posting about Oct 7 massacre, supportive of Hamas.
- Right-wing Itamar Ben-Gvir has been accused of breaching the very guidelines he has been appointed to protect. Israel’s hardline security minister has been barred from intelligence briefings.
RUSSIA/UKRAINE
- German military uses unsecure telephones and divulges British military secrets to Russia.
- Germany’s Scholz refuses to send missiles to Ukraine because they might be used on Moscow? (Note: What?) Ukraine pays the price
- Ukraine destroys railway bridge deep inside Russia. The bridge Ukraine says it bombed was being used to transport military cargo. Russia has rerouted trains in the Samara region
- Russia leaks telephone call conversation and claims it means that Germany is “preparing a war” against Russia.
- More than 40 countries have demanded an investigation into Navalny’s death.
- West’s dithering over Ukraine funding could spark nuclear arms race, Poland warns.
- Indian nationals tricked into fighting for Russia with promises of jobs in Dubai.
- Russia is massing forces around Chasiv Yar to make a breakthrough in the Donetsk region.
- Kremlin’s gains in February have cost 29,000 lives killed or wounded.
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Opinion | Alexei Navalny was undoubtedly the brightest star in the Russian opposition.
— Read on www.themoscowtimes.com/ -
Russia’s most prominent opposition figure Alexei Navalny died on Feb. 16 in the Arctic penal colony where he was serving a 19-year prison sentence, dealing a major blow to the country’s beleaguered opposition. Ahead of next month’s presidential election, which President Vladimir Putin is expected to easily win, Russia’s opposition is divided more than ever before — both physically, by prison and exile, and politically, by disagreements over a slew of issues. Here’s an overview of some of the opposition figures who could potentially take the lead following the loss of Navalny: In Russia, but in prison: Ilya Yashin and Vladimir Kara-Murza
— Read on www.themoscowtimes.com/ -
MORNING NEWS NOTES
SATURDAY 2 MARCH 2024
HOUSE NOTES:
Mike to Hiram: Come on. It’s better to take your medicine while it’s fresh.
(Silence)
Mike to Hiram: Don’t be stubborn.
(Audible sigh of exasperation).
(Caterwalling)
Mike: Stop it. Who is doing what?
Me: Who is it?
Mike: Hiram and Short Change
Me: Who started it?
Mike: Hiram of course, but Short Change is going to finish it. (To Short Change) You tired of dealing with his bull shit?
Short Change: (Cat utterance, combination of agreement and lament.)
It’s a very dreary Saturday morning. There’s a fine mist in the air and the coats of the cats are wet even though it’s not really raining. I walked down to the dock and surprised an otter, who looked up at me and said: “What the fuck are you doing here?” He then sank into the water and disappeared accompanied by a trail of bubbles.
All the cats are inside from morning walk. Everybody has had tuna. The first headline in the New York Times is how much everybody dislikes Biden. I think the corporate media wants Trump elected. Then, all they have to do is cover the soap opera. They love it. There are two major wars going on in which the United States plays a crucial role and all the corporate media can cover is every minute detail of Trump’s various trials. Every hack commentator has been on television talking about what might happen in Trump’s various trials, what might happen. You know, when it happens, let me know, until then I would rather find out what is happening in the rest of the world.
ISRAEL
• Negotiators from Israel, Qatar and Hamas are scheduled to arrive in Cairo, but the fiasco of aid delivery to northern Gaza on Thursday threatens the negotiations.
• Hamas calls it systematic killing.
• Israel says that many were killed by trampling and aid trucks trying to escape the chaos.
• Hamas is trying to get high profile prisoners released, while Israel is releasing a list of high-profile prisoners they will not release.
• (Note: The US is supposed to start dropping aid from airplanes into Gaza, one of the most expensive and inefficient ways of getting aid to a population.)
• Hamas’s leader, Sinwar, thinks that they can survive Israel’s onslaught, even on Rafah and emerge to claim the leadership of the Palestinian national cause.
• The militants are now commanded on a day-to-day basis by Sinwar’s brother, Mohammed. They are avoiding large scale firefights and engaging in ambushes.
• Even though Netanyahu has promised a “total victory,” Israel is far from eliminating Hamas.
• Hamas’s strategy is to survive.
CAPITALISM AND THE COURT: EVERYBODY IS FOR SALE
• Jane Mayer reports that Thomas “shocked the legal community” by appointing Crystal Clanton as one of his new law clerks.
• Clanton became notorious in 2015 by posting texts that said, “I HATE BLACK PEOPLE. Like fuck them all…I hate blacks.”
• But, after rising in legal circles, the right has released a story which maintains that the texts are an example not of her racism, but of her victimhood.
• In 2017, Clanton declined an opportunity to deny she had posted the texts.
• The texts were considered so bad, Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point organization fired her.
• So, of course, Clanton started working for Genni Thomas and became the couple’s “protegee.” She lived with the Thomases for the better part of a year. They encouraged her to go to law school and then helped her secure a prestigious clerkship.
• Then, they began to design an elaborate cover story for Clanton. She had, according to them, been victimized at Turning Point. A former employee, unidentified, had framed her as the author of the texts. No motive was given for this supposed framing, nor was it explained why Clanton had never mentioned this devious plot in all the previous years.
• Then, Clanton maintained that she had been prevented from talking about the frame by an NDA in the case. She never told anybody about the NDA either and lawyers doubted whether such a NDA could be written.
• Charlie Kirk, who had supported the story of Clanton’s firing for years, of course, then supported the frame story.
Sources:
Mayer, Jane (2/28/24) The Scandal of Clarence Thomas’s New Clerk. The New Yorker.
Said, Summer and Chao Deng (3/2/24) Netotiators Scramble… Wall Street Journal.
Walker, Marcus (2/29/24) Hamas is Losing…Wall Street Journal.
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Saturday 2 MARCH 2024
NEWS NOTES
Russia
- Putin has threatened using nuclear weapons at three points in the past two years since the second invasion of Ukraine. On Thursday, as he senses a decrease in American resolve he threatened again. He knows that Biden fears “escalation of the conflict most of all.” In the equivalent of Putin’s State of the Union address, he signaled he was doubling down in Ukraine and that he was not considering renovating the last major arms-control treaty in force with the US, unless he is handed Ukraine (NYT, 3/1/24).
- Putin’s threats have worked in the past, at the beginning of this second invasion, Putin threatened and the west “hesitated to provide long-range missiles, tanks and fighter jets to Ukraine. Both the behavior of Trump and the Republicans in Congress has emboldened Putin (NYT, 3/1/24).
- Macron of France talked about the possibility of sending troops to Ukraine (NYT, 3/1/24).
- Thousands poured into the streets to remember Navalny at his funeral. Navalny’s wife could not attend. She and the children are still out of the country.
- Other inmates who have served time in the same prison as Navalny, spoke to the crushing conditions: “the exceptional psychological pressure and loneliness” “a system devised to break the human spirit,” survival depended on “total and unconditional obedience to the will of guards.” (Quotes from NYT article, 3/1/24)
Israel
- Biden is revealing intention to airdrop aid into Gaza (NYT, 3/1/24).
- There are widespread condemnations of the aid convoy killings on Thursday and demands for investigations (nyt, 3/1/24).
- NYT 3/1/24, Opinion Page: David Grossman “I fear that Israel is more fortress than home. It offers neither security nor ease…” “What has also been clarified is how deeply rooted the hatred of this nation is.” “The trauma of becoming refugees is fundamental and primal for both Israelis and Palestinians, and yet neither side is capable of viewing the other’s tragedy with a shred of understanding – not to mention compassion.” “Only when it comes to Israel is it acceptable to publicly demand the elimination of a state.” “It is furthermore intolerable that certain parties are attempting to force the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into a colonialist framework when they willfully and stubbornly forget that Jews do not have another country…and obscure the fact that Jews did not arrive in the land of Israel iin conquest but seeking safety; that their powerful affinity with this land is almost 4,000 years old; that this is where they emerged as a nation, a religion, a culture and a language.”
US: Presidential Politics
Books (NYT, 2/1/24)
- Book: Dixon, Matt “Trump vs. De Santis: the Greatest Show on Earth.”
- Book: Green, Joshua “Devil’s Bargin” The political alliance between Steve Bannon and Trump.
- Book: Green, Joshua (2024) “The Rebels: Elizabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez ad the Struggle for a New American Politics.” There was a Democratic slide away from the “labor-centered liberalism” that had prevailed since WWII. “Psychologically cogent portraits.” “Green’s analysis is rich and lively.”
US: Capitalism and the Rot of Character: Everybody’s For Sale: Robert Menendez (NYT, 3/1/24)
- Former New Jersey insurance broker, Jose Uribe, plead guilty to a “broad bribery scheme” involving Menendez. Menendez, as he did last time he was indicted for corruption, plead not guilty.
- Uribe admitted providing Menendez’s wife with a Mercedes-Benz in exchange for efforts to “intercede in an insurance fraud investigation.”
- Uribe has also agreed to cooperate.
- Menendez is also charged with accepting gold bullion and money in exchange for providing political favors and helping the governments of Egypt and Qatar.
- Menendez’s lawyers are using the Supreme Court established in the case of Bob McDonnell, which made it harder to prosecute public officials (note: just what we needed).
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The service took place under tight monitoring from the Russian authorities, who have arrested hundreds of mourners at memorial sites since Mr. Navalny died. Police presence was heavy around the church where funeral services began shortly after 2 p.m. local time, but there were no reports of widespread arrests as of the early afternoon.
After a procession to the cemetery, Mr. Navalny’s coffin was placed next to his freshly dug grave. Video live streamed from the site showed his family members and then other mourners kissing him goodbye for the last time. Then his face was covered with a white cloth and the coffin was lowered to the Frank Sinatra song “My Way” and then the final song from “Terminator 2,” which Mr. Navalny considered “the best film on Earth.”
www.nytimes.com/2024/03/01/world/europe/aleksei-navalny-funeral-moscow-russia.html
Law, Power, and Justice 