❧ Israel has committed a major act of terrorism. Or rather, two of them in quick succession. On Tuesday, thousands of pagers belonging to members of Hezbollah exploded across Lebanon—in their hands, in their pockets, in crowded grocery stores, and everywhere else you could imagine. According to U.S. officials who were briefed on the attacks, it was the result of a covert operation by Israeli intelligence agents. The Israelis created an entire shell company to manufacture pagers with small amounts of PETN, a high explosive similar to nitroglycerin, and distribute them to Hezbollah and its allies. The devices were designed so that Israel could trigger them remotely whenever it chose—and on Tuesday they did exactly that.
In the first wave of explosions, the BBC reports that at least 12 people were killed and around 2,800 were wounded, with many requiring surgery and even amputations. Hospitals were overwhelmed, and many of the victims were civilians. It’s important to remember that Hezbollah is a political party as well as a militant organization, and only a fraction of its members are actually combatants. The exploding pagers were reportedly used by a “wide network of people, including administrators, medical workers, paramedics, media workers and other civilian members” of the group, all of whom ended up as targets. According to Lebanese health officials, two children—eight and 11 years old, respectively—died in the blasts.
But Israel wasn’t finished. On Wednesday, they set off a second wave of explosions, blowing up walkie-talkies that had been booby-trapped in the same way. This time at least 25 people were killed and another 600 injured, bringing the death count so far to 37—and that may not be the final number. Some of the handheld radios even exploded in the middle of funerals for the people killed the previous day, where “mothers and children” were in attendance.
Note: The death toll has already increased since this graphic was created.
Needless to say, Hezbollah has been linked to various acts of terrorism itself over the years. But that doesn’t justify using terrorist tactics against them. Importantly, the New York Times notes that “the explosions had little strategic purpose,” as Israel is “hardly about to force Hezbollah’s leaders to give up a cause they have battled over for four decades.” Instead, “the chief effect is psychological,” as this kind of attack “makes everyone fearful that ordinary devices can become an instant source of injury or death. It gnaws at the psyche.” In other words, it creates terror; it is terroristic in nature. The Times doesn’t call it that, opting for the word “sabotage” instead, but they do mention that “there is nothing new about sabotaging phones or planting bombs: Terrorists and spy agencies have done that for decades,” tacitly admitting that Israel’s actions are no different. The print edition of the Times is even blunter, calling it an “elaborate plot to manufacture fear” and noting that ordinary Lebanese people are now terrified of their household electronics—with good reason!
In fact, there’s even a specific international law that prohibits booby-trapping “objects that are likely to attract civilians.” When they pressed the button, Israeli officials had no idea how many of their deadly devices were being held by non-combatants, by healthcare providers, or even by children. They did it anyway. They didn’t care. Even if the majority of the targets had been militants, the collateral damage is still unacceptable, as Edward Snowden pointed out: “They blew up countless numbers of people who were driving (meaning cars out of control), shopping (your children are in the stroller standing behind him in the checkout line), et cetera. Indistinguishable from terrorism.” No matter which way you look at it, this is a cut-and-dried war crime.
In the aftermath, there have been renewed calls for Israel to face real consequences for its actions. Germany, the second-largest supplier of weapons to Israel after the United States, has suspended exports over concerns they may violate international law. In the U.S., Senator Bernie Sanders has introduced resolutions to block more than $20 billion in additional arms sales. In Britain, Jeremy Corbyn’s nonprofit Peace and Justice Project has gone further, explicitly calling the pager attacks “state terrorism” and calling for “major sanctions on Israel.” That’s the right approach. If any other nation on Earth had carried out this bombing, world leaders would be falling over each other to condemn it and call the perpetrator a dangerous rogue state. Israel can’t be allowed a blank check to just do whatever it likes.
In other news…
In Japan, leadership elections for the ruling Liberal Democratic Party are coming up on September 27. Worryingly, one of the leading candidates is Sanae Takaichi—who would be Japan’s first female prime minister if she wins, but is also “ultra-conservative” and once promoted a book called The Hitler Election Strategy. (The Guardian)
Thousands of supporters of former Bolivian president Evo Morales held an anti-government march on Tuesday, burning an effigy of incumbent Luis Arce and fighting with police. Both Arce and Morales are leftists, making the conflict between them a dangerous moment of weakness that the Bolivian right may try to exploit. (Associated Press)
Voting for local government offices has begun in Jammu and Kashmir. It is the first election the disputed region has had since India’s Hindu-nationalist government stripped it of its autonomy and suspended its state legislature in 2019. Jammu and Kashmir is majority-Muslim and has been a center for protests against Indian rule, while also being claimed by Pakistan. In India’s parliamentary election earlier this year, Kashmiri participation was up, and they roundly rejected Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party in what was considered a “protest vote.” (Al Jazeera)
As part of its anti-immigration policy, the Italian government has been directing European Union funds to the national guard of Tunisia. According to a new investigative report, those EU-funded troops have committed serious human rights abuses against immigrants, including sexual abuse and “robbing, beating and abandoning women and children in the desert without food or water.” And remember, this is the program UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer recently said he wants to learn from! (The Guardian)
Armenia thwarted a “Russian-sponsored” coup attempt that was intended to overthrow Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and replace his government with one more friendly to the Kremlin. The plot was revealed amid peace negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which Russia has previously claimed it has no desire to meddle in. (Eurasia Net)
Boise, Idaho will host an “Open Streets” day on Sunday, temporarily banning cars from certain streets and turning them into “community spaces” for pedestrians, cyclists, and street vendors. It’s part of the larger international Open Streets Project, which is trying to reduce the dominance of car-based infrastructure and urban design around the world. (Idaho Statesman)
The nonprofit Center for Biological Diversity is suing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for denying Endangered Species Act protections to the striped newt, which lives in Georgia and northern Florida and is vulnerable to droughts and deforestation. (WSB-TV Atlanta)
Students at the University of Maryland are suing the school after it canceled a vigil for those killed in Gaza, which is scheduled for October 7. Citing nonspecific concerns for “student safety,” the school abruptly decided that only “university-sponsored events that promote reflection” would be allowed on that day. Students for Justice in Palestine, which co-organized the event with Jewish Voice for Peace, says that revoking their approval to host the vigil “amounts to illegal content, viewpoint and speaker-based discrimination.” (Baltimore Banner)
Missouri is planning to execute Marcellus Williams on Tuesday. He may be entirely innocent. He was convicted of murdering Felicia Gayle Picus in 1998. However, as David Mehr writes for the Missouri Independent, “The prosecution’s case against him was based solely on notoriously unreliable, incentivized informant testimony and circumstantial evidence. No physical evidence nor eyewitnesses implicated him.” Williams maintains his innocence to this day. But despite efforts to have his conviction overturned—including from the murder victim’s own husband—a likely innocent man will be put to death next week if Judge Bruce Hinton or Governor Mike Parson do not intervene.
Los Angeles has officially banned “deputy gangs” like the infamous Compton Executioners from operating within the LA Sheriff's Department. Under a new policy, the LASD will be required to investigate any allegation that a deputy is a member of such a gang (including by questioning them about their tattoos) and refer them for prosecution in some cases. It’s a good start, and long overdue—but it’s one thing to announce a policy, and another to actually enforce it. We’ll see how this goes. (CBS)
A lawsuit is preventing a new food bank from being constructed in Alameda, California, in the airplane hangar of a decommissioned naval base. The two plaintiffs—one of whom owns a local winery—are trying to stop the food bank from being built because the location is a “historic parking lot.” A lot of locals, understandably, found this objection ridiculous and turned out to a city council meeting in support of the food bank. The city attorney says the lawsuit is “entirely without merit” and says he looks forward to dismissing it. (Kron 4)
We wish we could let poor people eat, but we have to protect this historic landmark.
Private equity is buying up one of the last remaining forms of affordable housing: manufactured homes (more commonly known as “mobile homes”). More Perfect Union has a new video explaining how these corporate raiders have been buying up mobile home parks and raising rents dramatically. “There is an overall trend in our economy to identify who has the fewest choices and then squeeze them,” says Paul Terranova, an organizer of manufactured housing residents in Michigan:
AROUND THE STARS
The Earth will have a second “mini-moon” for about two months this fall. The small asteroid, which traveled from more than 93 million miles away, will enter the Earth’s gravitational field on September 29 and will hang out there until November 25. It’s about 33 feet long, about the length of a bus, meaning that you won’t be able to see it without a telescope. (Washington Post)
CROOKS vs. SICKOS (or, “What's going on with our politicians and oligarchs?”)
❧The United States' healthcare system ranks dead last among peer nations, according to a new study. Healthcare-focused think tank the Commonwealth Fund just released its “Mirror, Mirror” report for 2024, which analyzes medical outcomes in ten wealthy countries—including Canada, Australia, Switzerland, and the U.K. The study looked at more than 70 different health metrics and used those to generate scores for five different general areas: access to care, care process, administrative efficiency, equity, and health outcomes. “Despite their overall rankings, all the countries have strengths and weaknesses, ranking high on some dimensions and lower on others,” the report reads. However, it says, “there is one glaring exception — the U.S.”
The U.S. not only spends close to twice as much of its annual GDP on health care as the other nations in the survey, but its results are by far the worst. One of the most glaring discrepancies is in access to care. Germany, the Netherlands, and the U.K. are at the top, enjoying few barriers to care and minimal out-of-pocket expenses, while the U.S. languishes at the bottom. As the report reveals, this huge gulf is clearly the result of government policy. In the Netherlands, “visits to primary care, maternity care, and child health care providers are fully covered,” and most other services are covered after patients pay an annual deductible. The U.K. provides hospital, physician, and mental health care free at the point of service. Germany takes a different route, instead capping co-payments at 2 percent of a person’s gross income.
Compare that to the United States, where caps under the Affordable Care Act aren’t required to kick in until an individual has spent nearly $10,000—and more than 41 percent of Americans pay more than a thousand dollars out of pocket for medical care each year. Americans face the greatest difficulty affording healthcare in general: “While the ACA’s Medicaid expansions and subsidized private coverage have helped fill the gap, 26 million Americans are still uninsured, leaving them fully exposed to the cost drivers in the system.” The result is a much larger disparity in healthcare access between rich and poor.
The U.S. has also by far the worst health outcomes, with Americans living the shortest lives and dying the most avoidable deaths. And while nations with fewer bills and, often, a single government insurer keep things simple, America has among the most byzantine systems for physicians to navigate, “featuring thousands of health plans, each with its own cost-sharing requirements and coverage limitations — physicians and other health care providers spend enormous amounts of time and effort billing insurers.”
The Commonwealth Fund's findings bolster progressives' case for transitioning to a Medicare for All system that would provide comprehensive coverage to everyone in the country for free at the point of service. Studies have repeatedly shown that such a program would cost less than the immensely wasteful for-profit system—which is set to drive national healthcare spending to $7.7 trillion per year by 2032—while saving lives.
Unfortunately, neither of America’s two political parties supports Medicare for All. President Joe Biden said he’d veto it if it came to his desk. And his successor Kamala Harris, who co-sponsored Bernie Sanders’ universal healthcare legislation back in 2019, has since disavowed the policy. In fact, according to her website, she doesn’t even support a public health insurance option, which was considered the squishy, moderate position back during the 2020 Democratic primary. How far we’ve fallen since then. Say what you will about Mayor Pete (we certainly havesaid a lot) but “Medicare for All Who Want It”sounds a hell of a lot better than Harris’ comically vague promise to “[strengthen] the Affordable Care Act,” whatever that means. Whatever tinkering Harris plans to do, it likely won’t address the fundamental problem with American health insurance, which is that it is treated as a commodity to be profited from rather than an investment in the public good.
In other news…
As if U.S. healthcare weren't bad enough already, Donald Trump wants to make it worse. In a recent interview, J.D. Vance revealed that Trump’s “concepts of a plan” involve deregulating insurance companies and allowing them to charge more to people with pre-existing conditions, otherwise known as extorting sick people. (Intelligencer)
Mark Robinson, the far-right GOP candidate for governor of North Carolina, reportedly made dozens of offensive comments on a porn website called “Nude Africa” between 2008 and 2012. Among many, many other things, Robinson apparently called himself a “black NAZI!,” bragged about spying on women in a public shower as a teenager, called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. a “commie bastard,” used copious homophobic and antisemitic slurs, and said that “Slavery is not bad. Some people need to be slaves… I would certainly buy a few.” His profile also expressed a fondness for transgender porn, despite Robinson being loudly anti-trans publicly. For his part, Robinson denies everything and refuses to drop out. (CNN)
Leaving aside the “black Nazi” stuff, what kind of weirdo leaves comments on porn to begin with? (Image: Wikimedia Commons)
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“I have never made but one prayer to God, a very short one: Oh Lord, make my enemies ridiculous. And God granted it.”
The Federal Reserve has cut interest rates for the first time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping them by half a percentage point. It signals the beginning of the end of the Fed’s war against inflation, as price increases have settled back near pre-pandemic levels. Unemployment now appears to be a bigger worry, as last month it was up to 4.2 percent from 3.7 at the beginning of 2024. (Wall Street Journal)
A new report from the corporate accountability and environmental justice research organization Empower found that the U.S. is giving billions of dollars worth of tax breaks and subsidies to fund carbon capture and sequestration projects in Texas. The technology is meant to reverse the effects of CO2 emissions, though it has not been very successful at it. Even worse, most of the projects are being managed by the oil and gas industry, which created the problem in the first place. Dominic Chacon, of the Texas Campaign for the Environment, described it as a form of “greenwashing,” saying that “It is essentially a marketing PR branding ploy to downplay the obvious risks associated with fossil fuels, to try and rebrand this industry as something that we need for the future.” (Common Dreams)
The Teamsters have announced that they won’t endorse any candidate for president this year, after Kamala Harris refused to promise that she would never interfere in a national strike the way Joe Biden did with rail workers in 2022. However, several regional chapters—including in Michigan—have endorsed Harris independent of the national Teamsters leadership. (The Hill)
The Uncommitted Movement has also refused to endorse Kamala Harris after the Democratic candidate refused to meet with them in Michigan—a swing state with many Arab and Muslim voters who have become alienated by her policy towards Palestinians. “Vice President Harris’s unwillingness to shift on unconditional weapons policy or to even make a clear campaign statement in support of upholding existing U.S. and international human rights law has made it impossible for us to endorse her,” Uncommitted said in a statement. (The Intercept)
There’s a two-legged bear walking around West Virginia.
Oh, and it might be Bigfoot.
Hunters and other outdoor enthusiasts in West Virginia haven’t named the bear, referring to it simply as “the two-legged bear.” But they’ve been seeing it since 2018, when sportsman Kirk Price first caught sight of it on a motion-activated trail camera. Since then, the bear’s been a fixture in the local forests, wandering around a five-mile territory on its hind legs. Price believes it was simply born with two limbs as a genetic defect, since the bear has “clean nubs” and doesn’t seem injured otherwise. Despite the lack of limbs, it seems to get around and forage for food just fine:
Interestingly, some scientists believe that bears walking upright—whether because they’re missing legs, or just because they feel like it—may be the origin of many Bigfoot sightings, since the big mammals can be as tall as a human when they rear up on their hind legs. There was also another famous bear named Pedals that spent most of its life bipedal, apparently as a result of an injury, before dying in 2016. If you saw this animal on a dark night, would you be sure it wasn’t the Sasquatch?
Writing and research by Stephen Prager and Alex Skopic. Editing and additional material by Nathan J. Robinson and Lily Sánchez. Header graphic by Cali Traina Blume. This news briefing is a product of Current Affairs Magazine. Subscribe to our gorgeous and informative print edition here, and our delightful podcast here.
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