News bits: Israeli govt. loses its mind; Etc.

The NYT reports that in response to Spain, Norway and Ireland saying that they recognize an independent Palestinian state, Israel will withhold funds Israel sends to the Palestinian Authority, the governing Palestinian power in the West Bank. That will worsen the Palestinians’ already dire economic crisis, but what the heck. Israel has never wanted a two state solution. So this is a fine way to respond. 

For what it is worth, as of May 2024 the State of Palestine is recognized as a sovereign state by 143 of the 193 member states of the United Nations. Spain, Norway and Ireland are the first in Europe to do so. Guess that really ticked off the Israeli government. Israel simply opposes a two-state solution. It is now an impossibility.

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The New York Times identified over 300 hundred civilians that were abducted in Afghanistan in the largest campaign of forced disappearances of the war. It all led back to one man, a US backed Afghani general. The actual disappeared (dead) toll is likely far higher. The NYT refers to the murderer as America’s monster. 

Secret graves in the desert

The general, Abdul Raziq, was one of America’s most important partners in the war against the Taliban. Witnesses report that he once stood before a crowd, gesturing at two prisoners he had brought along to make his point. The prisoners knelt with their hands bound as Raziq spoke to his men. A pair of his officers raised their rifles and opened fire, sending the prisoners into spasms on the reddening earth. In the silence that followed, Raziq addressed the crowd, three witnesses said. He told them to reject the Taliban and warned them that “I will come back and do this again and again, and no one is going to stop me.”

We all know how well that fun anti-Taliban tactic worked out. 

Our government is not good at keeping us informed about inconvenient facts and truths. Actually, it is bad at it and the badness is bipartisan.

Raziq at his home in Kandahar City, 2015 

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The WaPo reports that Fani Willis won her Georgia state primary election bid for re-election to stay on as Fulton County’s District Attorney. Also, the judge on the Trump election interference lawsuit won was elected to a full term in on the bench. In the November general election, Willis will face Courtney Kramer, an inexperienced radical right authoritarian Republican lawyer who interned in the Trump White House. Kramer has never prosecuted a criminal case. No doubt the Republicans will go all out to get Kramer elected so that she can stop the criminal lawsuit against Trump. Kramer, was involved in Trump’s efforts to reverse his 2020 loss in Georgia, so we all know exactly what she will do for Trump if she gets elected in November. WaPo comments that Fulton County (Atlanta) is heavily Democratic, so Willis is probably to be re-elected. Nonetheless, there has been an influx of national Republican donations for Kramer. That election will be nasty. It will be loaded with outrageous radical authoritarian Republican lies and slanders against Willis.

Willis already has attacked Kramer for not having any experience and for having no allegiance to the people of Fulton county. Willis correctly says Kramer is loyal to partisan politics and powerful Republican interests. Trump’s successful delay tactics have already pushed the likely date of the trial past the Nov. elections, so that alone constitutes a massive win for Trump. 

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The WaPo reports that the Louisiana legislature has passed a law that makes the abortion drugs mifepristone and misoprostol controlled substances, the legislature calls “controlled dangerous substances.” Once the governor signs the bill into law, that will effectively make all abortions in the state illegal. The law includes incarceration and fines for an individual having the pills without a valid prescription or outside of professional practice. It exempts pregnant women from prosecution.

So, there will probably be an underground railroad to smuggle the drugs into the state. Once again, radical right authoritarian republican elites show their disregard for civil liberties. According to those self-righteous elites, God decides what a liberty is, not humans or a mere Constitution.

As dangerous as fentanyl

(according to Christian nationalist zealots 

in the Louisiana legislature)

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WaPo reports that Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, is barging back into news content after backing off of it for a while. This time things are going to get real ugly. The WaPo reports:

After years of Meta steadily walking away from news on its platforms, the company’s new AI tool is now using the work of those outlets for content.

Meta’s new chatbot, Meta AI, is happy to scan news outlets and summarize their latest stories and headlines for anyone who asks. It’s even doing it in Canada, where the company banned links to news sources on Facebook and Instagram in August to get around a law that could require it to pay publishers.

It’s CliffsNotes for the news. Meta AI draws on news outlets to give its users the day’s top headlines, summaries of specific stories or deeper dives on current events without them having to leave its apps.

In our tests of the chatbot, we asked about top headlines and recent news, then compared its answers to the sources Meta listed. We found the chatbot regularly responded with slightly rephrased versions of sentences that appeared in the original articles. In multiple cases, the chatbot reproduced sentences from the news sources verbatim.

There are no links to the stories or names of sources in the answers themselves. Instead, you need to click another button or link at the bottom of Meta AI’s answers to see external links and sources, such as CNN, the Associated Press or NBC.  

In April, Meta began removing the News tab from Facebook in the United States and Australia, saying in a blog post that “people don’t come to Facebook for news and political content.”  

Publications have already seen large drops in traffic from Meta’s shifts. AI summaries could herald another massive change in how people find and consume news, and further affect news outlets’ traffic. According to a poll last year by Pew Research Center, vastly more people got news on their digital devices than from television, radio or print publications. 

Well ladies and germs, we all know how this is going to play out. Already weak news reporting is going to get summarized and distorted. Profits to news sources will further decrease. News organizations will sue in court to get payment from Meta for using their content for profit. God only knows what the courts will decide. Maybe that will depend on how Trump feels* about it, assuming he chooses to pay any attention to it whatsoever. 

* Feels, not knows. He doesn't know anything, he just feels and shoots from the hip.