Lest We Forget…Israel Attacked Iran:
Israel was mere moments away from an airstrike on April 1 that killed several senior Iranian commanders at Iran’s embassy complex in Syria when it told the United States what was about to happen.
Israel’s closest ally had just been caught off guard.
The Israelis had badly miscalculated, thinking that Iran would not react strongly, according to multiple American officials who were involved in high-level discussions after the attack, a view shared by a senior Israeli official. On Saturday, Iran launched a retaliatory barrage of more than 300 drones and missiles at Israel, an unexpectedly large-scale response, if one that did minimal damage.
Even after it became clear that Iran would retaliate, U.S. and Israeli officials initially thought the scale of the response would be fairly limited, before scrambling to revise their assessment again and again. Now the focus is on what Israel will do next — and how Iran might respond.
Might I suggest–nothing? Which reminds me–
Secretary Of State Refuses To Sanction Israeli Human Rights Violators:
A special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses.
But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the face of growing international criticism of the Israeli military’s conduct in Gaza, according to current and former State Department officials.
The incidents under review mostly took place in the West Bank and occurred before Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. They include reports of extrajudicial killings by the Israeli Border Police; an incident in which a battalion gagged, handcuffed and left an elderly Palestinian American man for dead; and an allegation that interrogators tortured and raped a teenager who had been accused of throwing rocks and Molotov cocktails.
Recommendations for action against Israeli units were sent to Blinken in December, according to one person familiar with the memo. “They’ve been sitting in his briefcase since then,” another official said.
Fascism On The March. Red states threaten jail for librarians. Can we at least agree that this is not normal or acceptable?:
But the library-friendly measures are being outpaced by bills in mostly red states that aim to restrict which books libraries can offer and threaten librarians with prison or thousands in fines for handing out “obscene” or “harmful” titles. At least 27 states are considering 100 such bills this year, three of which have become law, The Post found. That adds to nearly a dozen similar measures enacted over the last three years across 10 states.
Lawmakers proposing restrictive bills contend they are necessary because school and public libraries contain graphic sexual material that should not be available to children. Some books’ “sole purpose is sexual gratification,” said West Virginia Del. Brandon Steele (R), who introduced a bill that would allow librarians to be prosecuted for giving obscene titles to minors.
Chrastka of EveryLibrary said he fears red and blue parts of America are charting different courses for the future of reading.
“I see an emerging divide about the right to read, the right to access stories about people like you, the right to be yourself in the library,” he said. “We do have two Americas settling into place.”
Book-banning and jailing librarians are not normal until they’re normal.
Wait. Did I Miss An Impeachment Trial??:
On Wednesday, the Senate took one look at the articles of impeachment oh-so-solemnly delivered by a hard-right House faction just the day before and said, “Nope. Hard pass.” Senators voted to toss the case without wasting their time on a trial.
And like that, it was all over.
That House Republicans, led by the increasingly endangered speaker, Mike Johnson, insisted on going through with the whole charade in the first place is a testament to their dedication to absurd stunts, as well as their inability to count. In February, they couldn’t count the number of votes they would need to actually impeach Mayorkas, and their first attempt failed.
Once they finally got their precious articles passed, they waited. And waited. And waited. It just never seemed like the right time to send those articles to the Senate because even Republican senators were musing that it all seemed like a ridiculous waste of time.
Just read a really cool debut novel. “Last Acts” by one Alexander Sammartino (could he be related to Bruno?). Most of the action takes place in Phoenix, AZ. Didn’t take long for me to realize that Phoenix might be the last place I’d ever want to live. More proof:
Phoenix is America’s fifth largest and hottest city, a sprawling urban heat island which has expanded without adequate consideration to climate and environmental factors like water scarcity and extreme heat. Multiple heat records were broken last year, including 133 days over 100F and 55 days topping 110F .
Only around 9 percent of Phoenix is protected by tree canopies, yet this citywide figure masks vast inequities between wealthy, majority-white neighborhoods like Willo (13 percent coverage) just two miles north of Grant Park (4 percent). One census tract in the north-west of the city, Camelback East, has 23 percent tree cover.
What do you want to talk about?