Wednesday, July 24, 2024

Skidmarks drags down the ticket

Videos.  I often note YOUTUBE videos here.  I'm not talking about music videos.  We're months away from the election (I think it's November 5th).  I will be voting for Kamala Harris. I think she would be a very strong US president.  I have no hesitation about voting for her.


I do have hesitation about putting up videos by people who trash her.  So when you come here and you think, "Mike hasn't noted X in a while, I wonder why?"  That's your answer.

I think Donald Trump will destroy the country if he's back in the White House.  This needs to be a win for Kamala.  I'm not interested in people making fun of her.


They're stupid asses.  Especially if they're  supporting the racist Jill Stein.  Cornel West is a real candidate.  You want a third party or independent candidate, great, go for Cornel who is genuine.  


Donald Trump is a very real threat.  I would've voted for any Democratic nominee.  And I owe C.I. fifty bucks.  She hasn't said a thing.  Back before Labor Day, she was saying she'd vote for whomever the nominee was -- she was saying that all last year -- but when she said it around Labor Day and we were around her pool, I said you really don't think it's going to be Joe?  And she said she did not think he would make it to November of 2024.  She said he would drop out.  I said no way.  And she said she felt it.  I bet her fifty bucks.  She has not brought that up.  I need to pay up on my bet.


But, yes, I would've voted for anyone.  And I'm actually excited that anyone is Kamala.  I would have voted for whomever.  But it being Kamala makes it a vote that I'm thrilled to be able to vote for her.  


And isn't it great that we've got a candidate under 70.  I mean, come on, when are the elderly going to let other generations have a shot?  


I like her.  I like what she stands for.


If you don't, that's your take and you're entitled to it.  But I'm not posting your take here.  I don't need it and I especially don't need it if you think you're so smart and so revolutionary while you attack the best chance we have for our future.  Just go ahead and die because you're not helping anyone.


I had an e-mail asking about Vance.  Ruth had covered him in the community but she noted she grabbed the topic reluctantly -- see her "Does JD Vance wear SPANX?"  I did check with her before I wrote about him here and she said she would gladly hand him over.  Ruth does a great job on every topic she covers but she has been the one that's focused most in the community on Donald Trump so me grabbing this lets her focus on that sewer. We all love Ruth so let's not make her cover two sewers.  :D






CNN’s senior political data reporter Harry Enten explained why he believes Republican vice presidential candidate JD Vance is currently “making history in the completely wrong way.”

“Frankly, I don’t really understand the pick,” Enten told “Outfront” anchor Erin Burnett on Tuesday of Donald Trump’s decision to run alongside Vance instead of a more moderate figure.

“And apparently, neither do the American voters,” Enten continued. “Because, we take a look at the net favorable rating for JD Vance, that’s the favorable minus unfavorable. It’s in negative net territory. Look at that. Negative six points.”

Enten said he’d trawled polling data back to 1980 and discovered that Vance is the first vice presidential nominee since then to have “a net negative favorable rating that is underwater” so soon after the convention.

“The average since 2000 is plus 19 points,” he pointed out, adding that presidential running mates are “usually very popular” but “in this case, he’s dragging Trump down.”



Skidmarks Vance!!!!  The DARK MATTER Dan Quayle.  Bryan Metzger (BUSINESS INSIDER) notes:


Perhaps the most notable soundbite to emerge from Sen. JD Vance's first solo rally since becoming former President Donald Trump's running mate was a joke about Diet Mountain Dew.

[. . .]

It's not the first time that he's made light of racism for political benefit. During his 2022 Senate bid, Vance released an ad in which he asked the viewer, in a deadpan fashion, whether they were racist and "hate Mexicans."

Yet the Ohio senator once took the issue of racism far more seriously, according to his 2016 bestselling autobiography "Hillbilly Elegy."

"I've worried about racial prejudice in my own family and friends," Vance wrote toward the end of that book, describing some of the anxieties and adjustments that had come with his upward mobility.



That's right, Today's Skidmarks isn't your Yesterday's Skidmarks.  Both were awful but Today's Skidmarks is so much more awful.  Skidmarks Vance is just driving voters to Kamala.  :D  Further proof that Skidmarks and Trump are toxic?   Travis Gettys reports:





New voter registration spiked to record levels in the first 48 hours after president Joe Biden ended his presidential campaign.

The nonpartisan Vote.org website saw its highest level of new voter registrations of the 2024 election cycle in the first two days after Biden dropped out and endorsed vice president Kamala Harris, with 38,500 people signing up – a 700 percent spike, reported Politico Playbook.



That's excitement.  Someone explain it to Roland S. Martin and all the other geezers who kept saying Joe shouldn't drop out and that Kamala was wrong for the nominee.  I see Roland's trying to walk that back, by the way.  I don't know if people will accept it or not.  Joy Reid did the same thing.  


Here's C.I.'s "Iraq snapshot:"


Wednesday, July 24, 2024.  Jill Stein has her Joe Biden moment in an interview that should alarm everyone (not just the Green Party), CNN says it practices journalism -- says that anyway, polio concerns grow in Gaza and much more.



Did you see that hideous Jill Stein on Jordan Chariton's equally hideous STATUS QUO yesterday?  Jordan was sputtering away about the DNC convention and the delegates and the vote and offering, "It's been cancelled.  They can say there's going to be an open convention but I haven't seen anything like this --"  Well whores gotta whore and whore gotta eat and Jordan will put his mouth around anything.

Which is how you got him presenting Jill as the Green Party's presidential nominee despite the fact that the party has no nominee until their convention in August.

Yes, that's right.  He's slamming the Democratic Party and their process while he advances a tired old liar who is not yet the nominee for her party.

Whore's gotta whore and Jordan and Jill were giving a 2-for-1 special.

"It looks like the anti-democratic party is doubling down on its ant-democratic [. . .]"  74 year old Jill Stein croaked out.  Explaining -- as she launched one attack after another in an 27 minute segment why she never gets anywhere and why her party never does -- Bitchy is not a campaign platform.  Trying to woo potential voters, Jill spent 27 minutes offering nothing -- but that's all she's ever offered: Nothing.

While America was looking elsewhere in the fall of 2012, Barack Obama was running for re-election on delivering his promise to get US troops out of Iraq when, in fact, he was actually sending US troops back in and then Tim Arango (NYT) reports on that reality  and 'anti-war' Jill says . . . nothing.

For those who don't know, she was the Green Party's 2012 presidential nominee -- and refused to raise the issue of the Iraq War -- and she was the same party's 2016 nominee.  

Eight years later, she's pushing to be the nominee again.





She wants to talk about undemocratic?  Her entire public life has been about destroying democracy and how sad for The Green Party that they're about to stand on the national stage and say: We got nothing.

That's what her becoming the nominee of the party will say.

It'll also say: We hate young people, we use them for our volunteers as unpaid workers but Kat Swfit and the younger Greens are never going to stand a chance at being presidential nominees because we are the true party of failed vision and gerontocracy.  
.  

Jill really turned on the  bitchy and racism because that is Jill Stein.  This is known within the Green Party, by the way.  She is a racist and she is a bitch.  But on the show she attacked Kamala and wanted to talk about the votes Kamala got during the 2019 to 2020 race for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination.

Hmm.

Long before Jill was failing as a candidate for president, she failed as a candidate for other offices.  


In 2002, she ran for office and lost.  In 2004, she ran for office and lost.  We'll skip her Town Meeting 'credentials' and move on to her run for governor 2002 where, yes, she lost.  In 2006, she ran for Secretary of the Common Wealth and . . . she . . . lost.  2010 found her again running for governor and again losting -- distant fourth place.  2012 found her running for president of the United States because five losing races in a row screams "I can do the job!"  and besides serial plagiarist Chris Hedges endorsed her.  Maybe that endorsement is why she lost?  In 2016, she again ran for president because, well, honestly, she didn't have anything else to do -- or anything else to do with her pathetic life.  She lost again.


For some perspective, in 2000, Ralph Nader was the Green Party's presidential candidate and received 2,882,955 votes.  The best Jill's ever done was in the 2016 with 1,457,216.  That's bad but for those who don't really get it, population increases (except in war torn countries).  In 2000, there were 209.1 million US adults but in 2016, the figure rose to 249, 372,462.  That was forty million more adults -- forty million more voters -- that a real candidate could have picked up.  Sloppy Jill didn't though.  She's never been able to match -- let alone exceed -- the number of voters Ralph Nader won.  

She's just that pathetic and just that awful.

But, hey, waste everyone's time and make her the presidential nominee for the third time.


Unlike Jill - -the wacko doctor that preached the anti-vaccine screed until it became a media liability for her -- Kamala held office.  Kamala won elections.  

In 2003, she won the election for San Francisco District Attorney.  In 2010?  Elected Attorney General of California and re-elected in 2014.  2016 saw her elected to the US Senate.  2020's election resulted in her becoming the vice president of the United States.

See, unlike Jill, Kamala is electable.


It must be sad for Jill that the only slugline by her name is "Putin's pal."  Where there are butchers, there is Jill Stein.

She snarled -- Jill, check and see if you've had an early stroke, "What does it say about the Democratic Party that they best they can do is Joe Biden or Kamala Harris?"

I think that's the question for your party:  What does it say about the Green Party that they keep making you their nominee.

You're 74 years old, grandma, shouldn't you have retired long, long ago.

Her mind says she's already sitting on the porch in her rocker which explains her speaking of Ralph Nader running for president and Democrats challenging him in court "in I think it was the 2004 or 2006 election to deplete his resources."


You think it was 2004 or 2006?


Ralph Nader ran for president.  There was no 2006 presidential election.  We all question your sanity and your slide into senility unless this is just another lie form you, Jill


She insists the Democrats are bad and "tying us up with trivia."  Isn't  it always great to hear a whore talk?  That's not trivia, dear, they're called laws.

She could have dedicated her many failed runs for office to the issue of ballot access but that wouldn't let her whine about what the Democrats are doing.

Here's the reality on that: She benefits from it.  The Republicans back her campaign.  They give money to it because the hope is that, as in 2016, she'll get just enough votes to help a Republican into the White House.  And while she whines about herself and her friend Robert Kennedy Junior, the reality is it's Republican Party money that's keeping both campaigns afloat.  They're non-starters and two losers, but thanks to the Republican Party, they can pretend they're real candidates.

The Democrats are not inventing rules and regulations to apply to you, Jill, they're insisting that you abide by the legal requirements in place.

Boo-hoo that you can't.  Boo-hoo that you hired people to, for example, gather signatures and because they're hired that don't do the quality of work that actual volunteers would do for you.  

I believe in ranked choice voting.  Maybe Jill should have spent the last 20 or so years working on that issue.  Wouldn't have gotten her into elected office, no, but none of her campaigns for elected office got her into office either.


Not being able to make the ballot because you didn't abide by the rules is not "authoritarianism" or "fascism" and you look like an idiot when you claim otherwise.  Around the world, real people struggle with fascist regimes and authoritarian ones and your whines come off as ridiculous and fake as everything else that has ever come out of your damn mouth.

She then made it worse.  Challenging her petition signatures or other requirements?  Jill informed, "This is as bad as Trump undermining the balance of power after the election."

Donald Trump led a failed coup, a violent coup, against the United States and Jill wants to say that legal challenges are "as bad"?  


She showed further stupidity by claiming the US could do what France just did.  No, that's not possible because the US doesn't have the French parliament system.  She's an idiot and that is her Joe Biden moment by the way, she's visibly stressed trying to come up with the term "united front" and she scratching her face in panic and doing something weird with her eyes and then trying to recover from her senility slip by mumbling, "There's a member of -- a former member of the Panthers.  Dhoruba -- I forget his last name."

Of course you do, White Karen, of course you do.

I believe she's speaking of Dhoruba al-Mujahid bin Wahad.   But who knows?  This was her Joe Biden moment and she looked as old and senile as she could.

She says Donald Trump and Kamala Harris are the same.   And then she slips into another Joe moment where not only does she stumble over words, she also has we

 
Kamala Harris, the genocider, the uhm cop uh protector uhm you know the uh  the uh mmmmh censorship advocate,   the assault on our civil liberties.  Everything, you know.  Whether it's Kamala Harris  leading the charge here or Donald Trump, in my view, it's not much different.   I see this very much as uhm Malcom X described it,  you know, with the   wolf at least, uh -- No, I'm sorry the wolf -- the wolf -- it can be hard to read uhm [long pause while she looks to her right}.  No, I have it backwards.

You have so much backwards, Jill, so much.



If you're not getting how senile Jill has become.  Seconds later, she will speak of this November's election and declare the need to fight them "remembering this is a three-way race among genociders.  You have RFK, Trump and Biden who are all leading the charge for genocide."

Uhm, no.

Someone call from granny's nurse.  She thinks RFK is in the race.  RFK died, granny Jill, sixty years ago.  Junior is the one running.  As for Biden?  Joe dropped out Sunday.  So you've lost your long term memory and your short term memory both.

And don't claim it was a one time slip.  Seconds later she repeated this nonsense,  "We have two greater evil choices or rather three.  Three greater evil choices between RFK, Trump and Biden."


If they nominate her next month, the Green Party is over as a political party but they can certainly continue as a comedy improv troupe. 


She also attacked Cornel West and that was what I was planning to write about when I streamed the video last night; however, this morning, as I'm dictating the snapshot, the things above are what come back to me.

Cornel is a real candidate.  Jill is not.  She liked Cornel when she planned to control him.  Cornel thought she was a friend.  Realizing the truth about her was hard for Cornel because he's too trusting.  But it was a learning experience for him and he's a better candidate for it.  She wants him to drop out but won't call for that because she doesn't believe in making that call, she says.  Then she whines, "Would you please think strategically here and take a look at France and see how we beat back the fascist chance." 

Again, that's not how it works in the US.  She's an idiot and she's senile.  

Let's change topics, I'm sick of that useless liar.

Okay, 

I'm unclear, after reading Chandelis Duster's report for CNN, why CNN exists.  I thought it was a news organization.  Chandelis starts out typing:


An author whose novel about book banning was removed from a Florida school district’s library shelves has asked the school board to reinstate his book, saying that its removal is “erasure of the highest order.”

Alan Gratz, author of “Ban This Book,” said in a letter read during the Indian River County school board meeting Monday night and obtained by CNN he was “disappointed” by the book’s removal. The school district’s decision to disregard a local review committee’s earlier recommendation to keep it on library shelves indicates it was “motivated by politics, and not what is best for the students and families,” Gratz also wrote.


I understand what Alan Gratz is stating.  And I believe him.  The record supports his claim.  But CNN's report doesn't.  Apparently, CNN is no longer doing journalism and that's how we get garbage like this:

In February, the chair of the county Moms for Liberty chapter submitted a challenge of Gratz’s book to the district’s book objection committee, claiming the novel “depicts or describes sexual conduct.” The chapter president, Jennifer Pippin, also told CNN she challenged the book because “basically it’s promoting banned books to children ages 4-12.”

The committee reviewed the book and voted in April to keep it on school library shelves, but the Indian River County school board in May voted 3-2 to remove the book from school libraries, agreeing with Pippin that the book was inappropriate.

[. . .]

Jacqueline Rosario, another school board member, said the decision to remove the book “had nothing to do with politics” but “everything to do with what was appropriate.”

“We have the legal right. Each district school board is responsible for the content of all – not some – all instructional materials and any other material used in a classroom made available in a school or in a classroom library,” she said, citing a Florida statute. “At the end of the day, it is the board’s responsibility that if any of these items are included … it is up to this board to take final action and vote. And we did.”




See the problem?  Moms For Bigotry are banning books.  And who is this Jacqueline Rosario?  Why she's a Moms For Bigotry quota.  Ray McNulty (VERO NEWS) explains what CNN couldn't or wouldn't:


Hours after Rosario received her education on the bylaws, she was at it again, this time putting on another clown show for her friends in the local chapter of the Moms For Liberty, the uber-conservative group that pretends to advocate nationally for parental rights and endorsed her candidacy in the 2022 election.

Rosario, for no good reason, pelted Moore with a series of questions – about the district’s planned implementation of the new state-approved “African-American history standards,” the Moms’ influence on the curriculum, and banning books that contain critical race theory – that nobody should’ve taken seriously.

There’s little doubt Rosario already knew the answers.

Moore, at best, appeared to tolerate the snarky tone and ridiculous content of her disrespectful barrage. He should’ve walked out.

That shameful scene, though, provided all the evidence needed to prove Rosario isn’t worthy of any leadership role on the board. And we’ve seen such boorish behavior before from her.

Don’t take my word for it.

Mara Schiff, who served on the board for four years before opting to not seek re-election in 2022, stated that she “never” considered voting for Rosario for chair during her term.

In an email sent in response to a request for comment from Vero Beach 32963, Schiff wrote of Rosario: “Her capacity to disrupt board processes, interfere with the work of the superintendent, misunderstand her role as a board member, and presume to act as a de facto legal counsel is a recipe for perpetual board dysfunction.

“Moreover, Mrs. Rosario caters to special political and religious interests at the expense of other community voices,” she added. “The chair’s job is to maintain a cohesive nonpartisan board, working together with the superintendent, as a policy governance team serving the interests of the Indian River County community, the school district, the staff and, most of all, the students.

So Moms for Bigotry attacked the writer's book and pushed to have it removed and then you're quoting a council member but forgetting to note that she plays a clown for Moms For Bigotry and that she is endorsed by them and works with them and . . .


Let's look at what CNN published one more time:

Jacqueline Rosario, another school board member, said the decision to remove the book “had nothing to do with politics” but “everything to do with what was appropriate.”

“We have the legal right. Each district school board is responsible for the content of all – not some – all instructional materials and any other material used in a classroom made available in a school or in a classroom library,” she said, citing a Florida statute. “At the end of the day, it is the board’s responsibility that if any of these items are included … it is up to this board to take final action and vote. And we did.”


That is what she said.  That is not what she is.  CNN should have reported her connection to Moms For Bigotry and the fact that 2024's biggest political failure Ron DeSantis endorsed her.  Instead, they leave out pertinent information which makes it appear that it's a he-said-she-said and who can ever know what's actually going on?  They do that by hiding her actual record.  

That's not journalism.




AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Juan González.

Israel’s military says it’s begun vaccinating its soldiers against polio after the paralytic virus was found in a number of wastewater samples in Gaza. The World Health Organization warns the risk of further spread remains high while Gaza’s children go unvaccinated during Israel’s assault, which has devastated Gaza’s water and sanitation infrastructure. Public health officials have called it a major setback for global efforts to eradicate polio.

For more, we’re joined in Be’er Sheva in Israel by Dr. Dorit Nitzan, professor and director of the masters program in emergency medicine-preparedness and response at Ben-Gurion University. She’s also the former regional emergency director for the World Health Organization’s European office. She co-authored a piece by eight Israeli doctors in Haaretz on Sunday headlined “Cease-fire. The Only Way to Prevent a Polio Epidemic Among Gazan and Israeli Babies.”

Thank you so much for being with us, Doctor. If you can start off by explaining what the situation is in Gaza right now and what you’re calling for?

DR. DORIT NITZAN: Thank you very much. And really, thank you for paying attention to this important public health risk and issue.

In Gaza now, we don’t — we are not there, and it’s hard for us to imagine what both babies, newborn babies, their mothers, kids are going through. But what we know is that sewage samples that arrived to Israel, collected in Gaza for analysis, revealed the existence of a vaccine-derived polio there. And this is something that is expected in such conditions.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Doctor, could you talk about what that potentially means, especially given the fact that infected individuals can show no symptoms for weeks?

DR. DORIT NITZAN: Yes. So, right now we don’t know — fortunately, we don’t know of any polio patients in Gaza. But we anticipate that it will come. We know that behind each polio patient, there are about hundred and more people that are not symptomatic, meaning that it takes time for the symptoms to appear. This sewage system is a very good, sensitive marker for that. So, knowing that it is there and it might appear, then the circumstances and the conditions of the healthcare, the health services is so bad that we are really, really worried for these kids.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Dorit Nitzan, the Israeli government has begun a major vaccination campaign for Israeli soldiers. They say there are some vaccines available for Palestinians, but throughout Gaza, hospitals have been destroyed, have been bombed. The healthcare system is in shambles. Talk about why you say that the prescription right now for what’s happening is a ceasefire.

DR. DORIT NITZAN: Yeah, the prescription is ceasefire, vaccines and good public health conditions. This is — you know, it’s a full prescription that comes in. What we know, that for the past 20 years, with Israel’s support, Gaza and the West Bank have succeeded very high rates of vaccinations, including for polio. So, the older kids should be OK. Those who were born just before October 7th and after are at risk. And for that, ceasefire is needed, because we need to get — the humanitarian workers, the health workers, the nurses need to get to each and every baby and each and every adult that has not been vaccinated in the past, and vaccinate them. And that should be done under secure conditions. It cannot be done under war.

JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And you mentioned other global conflicts that have demonstrated the potential for the spread of polio. Can you talk about some of those conflicts that have occurred?

DR. DORIT NITZAN: Yes. We know that in every country where there is a conflict, there is a risk for outbreaks, including polio, cholera, other foodborne diseases, respiratory diseases, as well as exposure to chemicals and others. But polio is one of them. And we saw it in Ukraine, in Ethiopia and in many other countries, in Syria, etc. We know that the viruses and the bacteria and the toxic materials know no borders, and they actually go across borders, as we saw in Iraq from Syria, etc. Therefore, it’s not only the kids in Gaza. It’s also the Israelis. And it is important to vaccinate the kids as soon as possible, those who are exposed to them, the humanitarian workforce, the health workforce in Gaza and here in Israel.

AMY GOODMAN: As we wrap up, Dr. Nitzan, as you know, your prime minister is in the United States. He’s going to give an address, joint session of the U.S. Congress. And I’m sure you follow the politics here. Now Kamala Harris is the presumptive Democratic nominee for president. Your message to her and to him?

DR. DORIT NITZAN: Yes, my message is to go beyond politics. We do understand that there are deep, deep divides here. The 7th of October was terrible, and I do understand. Right now we do not want to risk the kids on both sides and in every place, in any place. We want to take a break and stop it and make sure that every child has access to the vaccines.

AMY GOODMAN: Dr. Dorit Nitzan, we want to thank you for being with us, director of the masters program in emergency medicine-preparedness and response at Ben-Gurion University, former regional emergency director for the World Health Organization’s European office. We’ll link to the article you co-wrote with a number of Israeli doctors headlined “Cease-fire. The Only Way to Prevent a Polio Epidemic Among Gazan and Israeli Babies.”




'



The clock had not yet struck midnight on October 9, when Said Al-Taweel fell into a deep sleep in his office in al-Ghefari Tower, Gaza City’s tallest building. Alaa Abu Mohsen, Al-Taweel’s colleague, heard him snoring.

It was the early days of Israel’s war on Gaza, and Al-Taweel wasn’t getting much sleep. Neither, for that matter, was Abu Mohsen.

Al-Taweel, the 37-year-old editor-in-chief of Khamsa News Agency, had been more or less living in his high-rise office, working constantly, late into the night, to cover the Israeli onslaught.

More than an hour after Al-Taweel drifted off to sleep, sometime after 1 a.m., word began to spread that Haji Tower, another high-rise near the al-Ghefari building, was going to be attacked by the Israelis. Haji Tower is home to local and international media offices, including Agence France-Presse. The rush of people leaving the 12-story tower came after an Israeli military officer spoke by phone to at least four people to order the evacuation of Haji Tower, according to the accounts of two direct recipients of warnings as well as video of a call.

As people streaming from the building scrambled to get into their cars and flee, several of the journalists in the area instead drew nearer to Haji Tower. They wanted to get the story: An Israeli attack on a building known to house so many reporters would resonate internationally.

Abu Mohsen had by then drifted off to sleep himself and, when he awoke, he didn’t see Al-Taweel, he later recalled. He glanced at his phone. He had missed two calls from Al-Taweel. “I’ll see him downstairs,” Abu Mohsen thought to himself, resolving to go down to check things out at street level.

Though many Israeli attacks come unannounced, the military also sometimes issues warnings before striking buildings where civilians could be present. In the early hours of October 10, such a warning was issued, but what unfolded nonetheless proved tragic.

When the airstrike finally came, it did not hit al-Ghefari nor Haji Tower. Instead, it destroyed a third structure: a six-story residential building called Babel that lay directly on the road between the two towers. As Babel collapsed into rubble, at least nine people were killed, including three journalists who had moved into the building’s vicinity to report on Haji Tower from a safe distance.

“The bodies of the journalists flew into the air from the intensity of the bombing,” said Mansour Khalaf, the owner of Babel, who witnessed the attack from the street.

In a written statement, the Israeli military said that, on October 10, a “facility” used by a senior Hamas member was targeted “in the area in question.” It had issued “a warning to residents of the building and the area to evacuate,” the military spokesperson said. “Any claim that the IDF led people to evacuate to a strike zone is baseless and absurd.” The statement said that the case is being investigated.

International humanitarian law encourages armed forces to provide advance warnings prior to an attack when circumstances permit, but the warnings must be “effective.” In the Babel building attack, the call contained false information.

The following minute-by-minute account of the airstrike — based on analysis of videos, audio recordings, and photographs from the attack and its aftermath — is part of the monthslong investigation by Arab Reporters for Investigative Journalism. The investigation is being published in partnership with The Intercept as part of the Gaza Project, a collaboration of 50 journalists from 13 media organizations coordinated by Forbidden Stories to investigate attacks on journalists in Gaza.


Gaza remains under assault. Day 292 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."   THE NATIONAL notes, "Gaza death toll reaches 39,145 with 90,257 wounded." 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:

  



April 11th, Sharon Zhang (TRUTHOUT) reported, "In addition to the over 34,000 Palestinians who have been counted as killed in Israel’s genocidal assault so far, there are 13,000 Palestinians in Gaza who are missing, a humanitarian aid group has estimated, either buried in rubble or mass graves or disappeared into Israeli prisons.  In a report released Thursday, Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor said that the estimate is based on initial reports and that the actual number of people missing is likely even higher."
 

As for the area itself?  Isabele Debre (AP) reveals, "Israel’s military offensive has turned much of northern Gaza into an uninhabitable moonscape. Whole neighborhoods have been erased. Homes, schools and hospitals have been blasted by airstrikes and scorched by tank fire. Some buildings are still standing, but most are battered shells."  Kieron Monks (I NEWS) reports, "More than 40 per cent of the buildings in northern Gaza have been damaged or destroyed, according to a new study of satellite imagery by US researchers Jamon Van Den Hoek from Oregon State University and Corey Scher at the City University of New York. The UN gave a figure of 45 per cent of housing destroyed or damaged across the strip in less than six weeks. The rate of destruction is among the highest of any conflict since the Second World War."





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