Quotables
US rejects Moscow’s ceasefire plan. Pokes the nuclear bear with cluster bomb attack in Crimea.
I’ve been travelling this week so I haven’t had much time to Substack. After a week at the Cape and a few days in the Berkshires visiting family and friends (including my dear friend, Deb Meier), we’re on our way to Brooklyn to see brother Fred and Anne in their new digs.
A world on the brink
Despite being on vacation and the idyllic setting up here in the mountains, I’m not completely off the grid and therefore unable to escape the torrent of horrific news and videos of the genocide unfolding in Gaza, a world on the brink of global (possibly nuclear) war, and the absurdity that is the upcoming presidential debate
Tens of millions of viewers are expected to watch Biden and Trump's presidential debate on Thursday on CNN. It will be the first time in decades that a single TV network will be in control of every aspect of the debate.
Some Democratic insiders are speculating that a disastrous showing on Biden’s part could mean the end of the line for his campaign. I doubt it. But these days…
See Seymour Hersh’s latest post below
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The bright spot for me is the continuing dynamic protest movement, led by students, that is spreading globally. Despite facing harsh police repression and violent attacks from right-wing, pro-zionist instigators, the movement continues to grow. As they did in the ‘60s civil rights and anti-war movements, young people are finding ways to have their voices heard in a world they are inheriting and creating — ways that influence and transcend the November elections.
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It’s day 262 of the war on Gaza.
Israel allegedly has told the US about plans of using “unprecedented” weapons in the event of an all-out war with Hezbollah, to resolve the war quickly. The US will likely give the green light, given that they used the same reasoning in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
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One in three children in northern Gaza are acutely malnourished or suffering from wasting, according to the UN children’s agency UNICEF, citing data from its partners on the ground.
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West Bank Palestinian property for sale in LA
Demonstrators in LA tried to block a real estate sale taking place inside a synagogue, which was reportedly promoting the sale of land plots in Jewish settlements located in the West Bank. Fighting broke out when protesters were attacked by LAPD and event participants. Pres. Biden condemned the protest but said nothing about the real estate sale of stolen Palestinian land and homes.
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Putin said on Friday that Russia would be ready to order a cease-fire in Ukraine and enter negotiations with its government if Kyiv were to withdraw troops from the four regions that have been fighting for autonomy and drop its aspirations to join NATO.
But the US and NATO have rejected Putin’s appeal for negotiations and escalated their proxy war with Russia by launching new attacks on Russia’s civilian population including a cluster bomb attack on a heavily populated beach in Sevastopol.
The Biden administration recently gave Ukraine permission to use American weapons to strike inside Russia
NATO is also opening its largest military base in Europe on the doorstep of Ukraine. The military base at Mihail Kogqlniceanu, Constanta, southeast Romania, on the Black Sea coast, will become the largest NATO military base in Europe and will surpass the US military base in Ramstein, Germany, in size. An estimated 10,000 NATO troops will be stationed there.
Putin is threatening a major response if Romania allows the base to open.
Quotables
In a speech to wealthy Jewish campaign donors in May, Trump promised to crush pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, telling a roomful of the donors — a group that he joked included “98 percent of my Jewish friends” — that he would expel student demonstrators from the United States.
“One thing I do is, any student that protests, I throw them out of the country.”
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Seymour Hersh
Biden has emerged from the last eight months not only as a loyal supporter of Israel but as a president reviled by untold numbers of American college students coast to coast for his refusal to tell Israel to stop the killing. He will not be welcome on many campuses this fall and he is unlikely to get the student votes that current polling suggests he will need. — Substack post