Legal analysis: How the USSC is both powerful and political

Quick summary 

The USSC has key tools that give it enormous power that is on a par with congress plus the White House. Those tools are:

• It decides which cases to hear or reject

• It decides which legal questions the parties pose to answer or ignore 

• It writes its own legal question(s), even if none of the parties posed it

One legal scholar said the Supreme Court is moving away from “deciding cases” and toward “answering discrete policy questions.” Those three tools allow it to do that.
Credit...

By focusing on the power to dictate the legal question to be answered, the USSC has basically the same power that congress and the president have. Once a court decides a legal question, e.g., is Roe v. Wade constitutional, the decision has the same power as a law that congress and a president can make. 

One can see how a radicalized, authoritarian USSC, like the one we have today, can greatly change the law, government, commerce and eventually society itself. The USSC could, and is now in the process of, convert the constitution from a document that reflects secular democracy to one that reflects radical Christian Sharia law.  

The legal analysis

A fascinating but critically important legal analysis discussed by the NYT about how the USSC can be political reveals the vast power of the USSC to do what legislatures + presidents do:

By choosing among and sometimes writing the questions the court agrees to answer, recent studies say, the justices have distorted the judicial process

We say that the Supreme Court decides cases, but that is not correct. It picks isolated questions to answer, often choosing among ones proposed by the parties or writing ones of its own.

That practice adds a disturbing element of politics to the judicial process, said Benjamin B. Johnson, a law professor at the University of Florida and the author of three recent papers on the subject.

“They are no longer doing what a court does, which is deciding cases,” he said. “They’re now doing what a legislature does, which is answering discrete policy questions.”

Consider a few examples.

When the court agreed to hear one of this term’s most important cases, it rejected a modest question proposed by the plaintiffs and said it would only consider one that asked it to overrule an important precedent, Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.

The same thing happened in the Dobbs case, which eliminated the constitutional right to abortion. When the court granted review, it picked only the broadest of the three proposed questions, one that led it to overrule Roe v. Wade.

“Even though the court had alternative pathways to resolve the case without inviting a firestorm of controversy,” Professor Johnson wrote in the Alabama Law Review, “the justices intentionally eliminated those alternatives from their review.”

In the recent case of a Christian web designer who challenged a Colorado law barring discrimination based on sexual orientation, the court accepted only part of one of her two proposed questions. The court said it would not consider whether the law was at odds with her right to free exercise of her religion and would treat the case solely a free-speech challenge.

And when the court agreed to hear two big cases on the First Amendment and social media last month, it did not adopt the questions proposed by any of the parties. It looked instead to a friend-of-the-court brief filed by the Biden administration, choosing two of its four questions.

This sort of cherry-picking and revision, Professor Johnson said, is on the rise. “What was once a relatively rare occurrence now makes up between a tenth and a quarter of the docket,” he said.

Data compiled by Professor Johnson from the two decades ending in 2020 seems to back that up. When the court added or subtracted questions, he found, the case was more likely to attract friend-of-the-court briefs and to result in 5-to-4 splits.

A century ago, in 1925, Chief Justice William Howard Taft persuaded Congress to cut back on the kinds of cases the Supreme Court had to hear, allowing the court to choose for itself which ones it would decide. That itself was an extraordinary move. Giving the justices almost total discretion over their docket helped to transform and empower it.

But the 1925 law did not authorize the justices to take the further step of picking the questions they would answer. “This is clear both from the statutory language and the justices’ own testimony in favor of the bill,” Professor Johnson wrote. Indeed, Chief Justice Taft had assured lawmakers that in federal cases the “power of review extends to the whole case and every question presented in it.”

Still, in later decisions and then in the court’s own rules, the justices said they would consider only discrete questions.

That was so, Professor Johnson wrote, “even though Congress mandated — and the justices promised — review of the entire case.”

It is one thing to allow the Supreme Court to decide which cases to hear and another to let it choose to answer the questions proposed in the petition seeking review. But it is a third thing for the justices to choose among those questions. And it is yet another thing for them to write their own questions.

But the court has drafted its own questions in any number of landmark cases, including ones on the right to counsel, the 2000 presidential election, campaign finance, same-sex marriage, class actions, recess appointments and immigration.

At the same time, the Supreme Court has had little patience with lower courts that try something similar.

Three years ago, for instance, the justices chastised a federal appeals court for revising the questions before it, saying that it ran afoul of “the principle of party presentation.” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, quoting an earlier decision, explained that “we rely on the parties to frame the issues for decision and assign to courts the role of neutral arbiter of matters the parties present.”

This is why I keep pointing to the grave danger this USSC poses to democracy, civil liberties that God hates and the rules of law that kleptocratic plutocrats hate. The danger is lethal and intentional, and thus it cannot be overstated.

News bits: Dark free speech update; Forcing a bit of climate transparency; Etc.

Deutsche Welle writes about the degradation of Musk's Xitter into a crackpot authoritarian hellscape in Germany:

German anti-racism body leaves X over 'rise in hate speech'

A German agency that tackles discrimination and racism says it is quitting the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter. It cited a rise in hate speech since owner Elon Musk took over last year

Mozilla, the company that owns Firefox, acquired Fakespot in May. Fakespot, a startup that helps users identify fake news through a website and a browser extension, has been used to spot fake reviews on Amazon, Yelp, TripAdvisor, Walmart, and eBay using an A-to-F scale.

Fakespot's Review Checker is scheduled to be released on Firefox version 120 for desktop and Android on November 21, 2023, according to MS Power User.

This is terrible news for folks who plan to use AI technologies, particularly generative AI tools like ChatGPT, to flood product reviews. Fakespot could make that task much more difficult by using its own AI to spot the fake product reviews.

Fakespot founder Saoud Khalifah told Axios at the time of the acquisition that reviews are important for the online shopping experience because "you can’t touch the product," he said. "You really need the reviews."

I was wondering if and when AI would start to be used to fight lies, deceit, slanders and crackpottery. It's about freaking time. Maybe it's about freaking time for me to stop using rotted Chrome and move back to Firefox.

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The Conversation writes: 

Exxon, Apple and other corporate giants will have to disclose all their emissions 

under California’s new climate laws – that will have a global impact

California Gov. Gavin Newsom signed two new rules into law on Oct. 7, 2023. Under the new Climate Corporate Data Accountability Act, U.S.- companies with annual revenues of US$1 billion or more will have to report both their direct and indirect greenhouse gas emissions starting in 2026 and 2027. The California Chamber of Commerce opposed the regulation, arguing it would increase companies’ costs. But more than a dozen major corporations endorsed the rule, including Microsoft, Apple, Salesforce and Patagonia.

The second law, the Climate-Related Financial Risk Act, requires companies generating $500 million or more to report their financial risks related to climate change and their plans for risk mitigation. 

While California isn’t the first place to mandate climate disclosures, it is the fifth-largest economy in the world. So, the state’s new laws are poised to have substantial influence worldwide. Subsidiaries of companies that didn’t have to report their emissions before will now be subject to disclosure requirements. California is in effect exercising its immense market leverage to establish climate disclosures as standard practice in the U.S. and beyond.

That's what pro-public interest governance can look like. If the kleptocratic, authoritarian radical right, plutocratic, theocratic (KARRPT) Republican Party gets its way, its KARRPT USSC will hold laws like this to be unconstitutional. That day is probably coming.

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6 GOP lawmakers want to expel scandal-plagued Rep. George Santos. Hm, Santos is the essence of corrupt radical right GOP authoritarianism. They should be expelling themselves.

Routine radical right hypocrisy: President Biden’s reelection campaign bashed presidential candidate Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.) for touting drug prices caps for seniors after voting against the Inflation Reduction Act. In a video first shared with The Hill, the campaign mashed up clips of Scott celebrating capping costs for seniors and saying that the Inflation Reduction Act, which Scott voted against, should be eliminated.

Brazen, insulting legal weaseling: Trump tells court he had no duty to 'support' the Constitution as president -- Former President Donald Trump is arguing to a judge in Colorado that he was not required to "support" the Constitution as president, reported Brandi Buchman from Law & Crime. .... Trump's attorneys argue: "The Presidential oath, which the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment surely knew, requires the President to swear to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution — not to 'support' the Constitution," said the filing by Trump's attorneys. "Because the framers chose to define the group of people subject to Section Three by an oath to 'support' the Constitution of the United States, and not by an oath to 'preserve, protect and defend' the Constitution, the framers of the Fourteenth Amendment never intended for it to apply to the President."

News chunk & bits: Chevron defense is at risk; Lighter news

The Chevron defense is one of the targets America's ARR (authoritarian radical right) has hated for decades. The Supreme Court created this doctrine in a 1984 decision in Chevron U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. In a nutshell, the Chevron deference doctrine holds that when a legislative delegation to an administrative agency on a particular issue or question is not explicit but rather implicit, a court may not substitute its own interpretation of the statute for a reasonable interpretation made by the administrative agency.

The reasoning is that an administrative agency is staffed with experts and has information gathering and analysis expertise the courts do not have. Sine most laws that congress writes and passes are loaded with implicit intent, usually referred to as the spirit of the law. Administrative agencies therefore have great power to implement explicit regulations that are supposed to reflect the spirit of the law. That is essence of the administrative deep state that the ARR movement and businesses hate and want to obliterate. If that deep state is dismantled, power will flow from government and citizens to special interests and businesses. That will constitute a form of kleptocratic plutocracy.

Bloomberg Law writes about a now-pending court case, which is a huge deal not a little deal, that the ARR USSC could use to overturn Chevron or narrow it into near-oblivion:

A panel of administrative law scholars and US Supreme Court watchers says the nation’s highest court is likely to narrow—if not overturn— its decades-old precedent in Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council, a move that would significantly weaken the modern administrative state.

The prediction came as Bertrall Ross, a professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, said the Supreme Court also appears likely to use the major questions and non-delegation doctrines to put additional limits on agency power in the future.

The panelists said that a ruling in Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo that diminishes or does away with Chevron deference completely would empower the federal judiciary by requiring courts to interpret statutes more often. They said such a ruling could also create more work for Congress, which might have to pass more specific legislation in a world where lawmakers couldn’t rely on agencies to fill in the gaps in statutes and regulatory regimes.

• Professor Allison Orr Larsen, of William and Mary Law School, suggested that, as in Kisor v. Wilkie, the Supreme Court could limit Chevron deference to “genuine ambiguities” in statutory text

• Larsen suggested that some statutory ambiguities facilitate legislative compromise, and in a world where agencies can’t resolve those ambiguities with their own interpretations, Ross said Congress might be forced to revisit the same statute on a regular basis

• Ross said recent decisions invoking the major questions doctrine indicate that the high court wants to make sure major political issues of national significance are handled by Congress, not agencies

• Certain policy solutions clearly chosen by Congress might also be impermissible under an approach to non-delegation principles set out in Justice Neil Gorsuch’s dissent in Gundy v. United States, Ross also said

• After the Supreme Court concluded in Lucia v. SEC that SEC administrative law judges are officers of the United States subject to the Constitution’s Appointments Clause, Meaghan VerGow, a partner at O’Melveny and Myers LLP, said SEC v. Jarkesy now presents the question whether ALJs at the SEC must be subject to immediate removal by the president instead of removal for cause

• If the president’s ability to remove administrative law judges is absolute, VerGow said it was an open question whether the lack of political independence on the part of these judicial officers at federal agencies could give rise to due process problems

I cannot understate how important this case is. This is a huge step in the direction of kleptocratic plutocracy-autocracy. 

This video adds context about why this is so incredibly important:

“. . . . . the people don’t have a way to fire the bureaucrats. What we mostly do around this body is not pass laws. What we mostly decide to do is to give permission to the secretary or the administrator of bureaucracy X, Y or Z to make law-like regulations. That’s mostly what we do here. We go home and we pretend we make laws. No we don’t. We write giant pieces of legislation, 1200 pages, 1500 pages long, that people haven’t read, filled with all these terms that are undefined, and say to secretary of such and such that he shall promulgate rules that do the rest of our dang jobs. That’s why there are so many fights about the executive branch and the judiciary, because this body rarely finishes its work. [joking] And, the House is even worse.”

Context for the context: The speaker, Ben Sasse (himself an ARR Republican) explains why congress is so sloppy, and that slop in the laws explains why the Chrvron Defense is so critically important. The context here is the Senate confirmation hearings for the ARR sex predator and professional beer boofer, Brett Kavanaugh. Sasse is an Ivy League trained, soft spoken guy who sounds reasonable. But he is a flaming government-hating, authoritarian far right radical. He wants to obliterate federal agencies and the evil communist deep state. Nebraska voters RINO hunted him out of the US Senate for criticizing Trump including the crime of publicly saying this: “Politics isn’t about the weird worship of one dude. The party can purge Trump skeptics. But I’d like to convince you that not only is that civic cancer for the nation, it’s just terrible for our party.” 

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From the lighter news desk:

U.S. Representative George Santos was hit with more criminal charges on Tuesday, with prosecutors accusing him of inflating his campaign's fundraising numbers and charging campaign contributors' credit cards without their consent.

The DoJ commented: Congressman George Santos Charged With Conspiracy, Wire Fraud, False Statements, Falsification of Records, Aggravated Identity Theft, and Credit Card Fraud. CENTRAL ISLIP, NY – A 23-count superseding indictment charging .... “George Santos” .... with one count of conspiracy to commit offenses against the United States, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of making materially false statements to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), two counts of falsifying records submitted to obstruct the FEC, two counts of aggravated identity theft, and one count of access device fraud, in addition to the seven counts of wire fraud, three counts of money laundering, one count of theft of public funds, and two counts of making materially false statements to the United States House of Representatives that were charged in the original indictment. Santos is due back in federal court in Central Islip on October 27, 2023.

My goodness. What a naughty boy. Twice!

HEY! I'm innocent, innocent I tell you!

(no, he's not)

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From the Bad Weather Files: Researchers have found that about 14,300 years ago a big solar burp (geomagnetic storm) hit Earth. Before this new discovery, the 1859 event known as the Carrington Event was the benchmark for the most intense solar belch observed on Earth. The Carrington event sent northern lights as far south as Florida and Central America and knocked out communication systems. The WaPo writes:

In a study released Monday, researchers identified what appears to be the largest solar storm to hit Earth, estimated to be larger than the Carrington Event by an order of magnitude [that's 10-fold, folks!]. The storm occurred 14,300 years ago, but is evidence of a yet unknown dimension of the sun’s extreme behavior and hazards to Earth. 

“It’s clear that if one of these events [occurred] today … this would be quite destructive on our energy network and also internet network,” said Edouard Bard, lead author of the study. “This would really freeze, in fact, all communications and [travel] would be totally disrupted.”

Brrrrap! Oops, pardon me

Fortunately, the US government is on the job. The House has it's knickers in a twist, peacefully touring fascists are roaming the halls of congress with patriotic insignia

Guy on the left: 'Where's the bathroom, 

I have to pee?'

Cop pointing to the bathroom:

'Have a nice day!

And remember, you're a people, urination!'

Thing with horns in the middle:

'Aaawwwhhh hooo doooo! Arf, arf, arf! Ahhoogah!

Baddaboom Tischhh'

Guy on the right: 'Why am I here?'

and, even better, Mitch McConnell signals that he completed the Republican Party response preparations for the next big burp (the secret GOP plan: blame Bill, Hillary, Barak, Joe and Benghazi!!)

I feel safe now that plans have been made and everything is under control.

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A comment to an article about Trump's recent portraying himself as martyred Jesus: Just because a lot of people moan 'Christ almighty' whenever they see or hear Trump doesn't make him the second coming of Christ.

Paintings and prints depicting former president Donald Trump and Jesus are seen for sale on the first day of the Conservative Political Action Conference on March 2 in Fort Washington, Md. 

(He's selling this art to raise some cash)

(Note that Jesus has the same skin color as Trump)

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Trump's niece, Mary Trump asks why her ‘fucking maniac’ uncle is allowed to ‘roam free.’ “This f‑‑‑ing maniac likely gave Putin (who gave Iran, who gave Hamas) Israel’s national security secrets. ....  He divulged highly classified information about our nuclear subs to an Australian cardboard guy. Why is he still allowed to roam free?”

Good question Mary. I'll get my minions right on that.

Feng-shui is restored and peace is once again upon the happy people in the happy valley . . . . . they are happy to be happy . . . . . 

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And now there's this from Salon: 

Crackpot fight! Trump is worried about RFK Jr. running for president — and he should be scared | Trump depends on the crank vote that the anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist could siphon off

He may not have bolts sticking out of his neck, but Robert F. Kennedy Jr. is morphing into the MAGA version of Frankenstein's monster.  

It's not because Republican power players like or even respect Kennedy. On the contrary, they see him for what he is: An unhinged conspiracy theorist with a massive ego that makes him easy to manipulate. They just thought they could use him [like they used Trump? Not!], and his famous name, to make life hard for Biden in the Democratic primary, thereby weakening the president's general election campaign.

Crackpot fight? He may not have bolts sticking out of his neck? OMG! 🤪☠️

Politics just gets funner 'n funner!

News bits: Global warming update; Lying radical right liars; Misinformation update

EurekAlert! discusses some resent new research on human tolerance to heat:

Climate-driven extreme heat may make parts of 

Earth too hot for humans

If global temperatures increase by 1 degree Celsius (C) or more than current levels, each year billions of people will be exposed to heat and humidity so extreme they will be unable to naturally cool themselves, . . . . . 

Results from a new article published today (Oct. 9) in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicated that warming of the planet beyond 1.5 C above preindustrial levels will be increasingly devastating for human health across the planet.

Humans can only withstand certain combinations of heat and humidity before their bodies begin to experience heat-related health problems, such as heat stroke or heart attack. As climate change pushes temperatures higher around the world, billions of people could be pushed beyond these limits.  

The ambient wet-bulb temperature limit for young, healthy people is about 31 C, which is equal to 87.8 F at 100% humidity, .... However, in addition to temperature and humidity, the specific threshold for any individual at a specific moment also depends on their exertion level and other environmental factors, including wind speed and solar radiation. In human history, temperatures and humidity that exceed human limits have been recorded only a limited number of times — and only for a few hours at a time — in the Middle East and Southeast Asia, according to the researchers.

Results of the study indicate that if global temperatures increase by 2 C above pre-industrial levels, the 2.2 billion residents of Pakistan and India’s Indus River Valley, the one billion people living in eastern China and the 800 million residents of sub-Saharan Africa will annually experience many hours of heat that surpass human tolerance.  

“Models like these are good at predicting trends, but they do not predict specific events like the 2021 heatwave in Oregon that killed more than 700 people or London reaching 40 C last summer,” said lead author Daniel Vecellio, a bioclimatologist who completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Penn State with Kenney.

Well, this maybe is one way to reduce human overpopulation. It might also be a way to get rid of some species diversity too!

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The mendacity of America's authoritarian radical right is now completely unrestrained. Facts contrary to false narratives that authoritarian radicals routinely spread are simply ignored, or when they can't be ignored, denied or distorted. There's no shame in the authoritarian radical right for lying and being caught doing it. PolitiFact discusses a recent example:

Jesse Watters** stated on September 28, 2023 in a segment of "The Five" on Fox News:

James Biden’s text message to Hunter Biden that says, “I can work with you(r) father alone,” shows that Joe Biden was “in business” with Hunter Biden.

• A single line of a text message from James Biden to Hunter Biden that read, "I can work with you(r) father alone," does not prove President Joe Biden was "in business" with his son. The line was intentionally taken out of context to smear Biden.

• An investigators’ summary of the text message exchange shows that James Biden’s message was about family matters such as alimony and tuition, not business.

** This is the scorecard that PolitiFact has for Jesse Waters

And it wasn't just Faux News and Waters who relied on this blatant lie. Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), used it during the Sept. 28, 2023, Biden impeachment inquiry hearing. 

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From here on out, we can expect fake news and blatant lies to be constantly coming at us from the unregulated hellscape called social media. NBC News reports:

A doctored White House news release posted online falsely claimed that the Biden administration had authorized $8 billion in emergency aid to Israel on Saturday. The fact that it was faked didn't stop it from being posted across the internet and rising to the top of Google search results.

The faked document is one of the most far-reaching instances of misinformation to come out of the most recent violent conflict between Hamas and Israel. It fooled several online publications into writing full articles about the fake news, which are still surfacing prominently in online search results.

The faked document appears to be an edited version of President Joe Biden's July memo announcing $400 million in aid to Ukraine. .... The faked document first started appearing on social media accounts Saturday morning. Around noon Saturday, a collection of verified accounts on X, formerly Twitter, began disseminating it.

Geez, that didn't take long. 

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From the Germaine Is Not Alone In His Thinking files: The New Republic writes in an opinion piece:

I Never Thought I’d Live to See Democracy Die. 

But Now I Wonder.

Chaos and corruption are on the rise, the perfect breeding ground for authoritarians to claim control

The situation in Israel precipitated by the vicious Hamas attacks over the weekend is ghastly on its own terms. But it’s not just a potential nightmare for Israel and for the Palestinian people. It could have ramifications around the world, including here in the United States. In sum: It’s going to bring chaos—chaos and instability. And chaos and instability are enemies of democracy.

There are grim signs practically everywhere one looks. Next Sunday, the Polish elections will determine whether the right-wing Law and Justice Party wins an unprecedented third term. If it does—and the party leads in the polls, although somewhat narrowly—some observers think Poland becomes another Hungary (it’s already part of the way down that road). More instability. Today in Europe in general, The Guardian recently reported, 32 percent of voters are casting their votes for anti-establishment parties, up from 20 percent in the 2000s and 12 percent in the 1990s. The vast majority of that increased vote share is going to parties of the far right.

And everything is prelude, of course, to November 5, 2024 in the United States. If Trump wins that election (or worse, narrowly loses and steals it), we’ll have chaos and instability like the world hasn’t seen since the 1940s. We know what Trump will do here at home, because he’s been telling us. He’ll destroy the executive branch, he’ll take whatever steps he can to shut down opposition media and cripple the Democratic Party, ....

And the impact around the world of a second Trump administration? Obviously, the end of NATO will be one early result. More generally, the United States of America will become a global partner of Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and even North Korea. Think about that. Oh, and remember this too. Back in 2016, Trump was getting a briefing from a foreign policy adviser and asked—three times—why the United States can’t use nuclear weapons.

I’m not saying all this will emanate from what happens in Israel. I am saying this: This country, and the world, are in a clear danger zone. In such a context, everything that happens anywhere in the world, especially in such a closely watched flashpoint, has the potential to increase the chaos and instability that turns people toward, and invariably helps, authoritarian propagandists.

.... Democracy won’t completely disappear. And millions of us will fight like hell for it. But the mere fact that so many millions of people across the country and the planet are voting against it—using the chief privilege and tool of democracy, the vote, to destroy it—is staggering.

I grew up thinking democracy was the culmination of human social organization, and that our job was just to perfect it. Now we’re learning it may have been just a phase.

As the chaos, corruption and dictatorship warrior Steve Bannon succinctly said about his preferred anti-democracy tactic, “flood the zone with shit.” That means lie, deceive, slander, irrationally emotionally manipulate and crackpot reasoning people into a state of confusion, division, distraction, irrational distrust and a buttload of false, anti-democracy beliefs.

Germaine is not alone in his thinking.

NTF WORKSHEET: CONSERVATIVES SHOULD BOYCOTT the FOLLOWING COMPANIES & PERSONALITIES

 

NEBRASKA TAXPAYERS FOR FREEDOM WORKSHEET:
CONSERVATIVES SHOULD BOYCOTT THE FOLLOWING COMPANIES AND PERSONALITIES:

The complete hit list:

https://www.netaxpayers.org/archives/4956

MAGA!

The war in Israel

The situation in Israel is significantly worse than I initially imagined. The Messenger writes about what is going to happen to all of the people in the Gaza Strip:

Israel’s defense minister on Monday declared a “complete siege” on Gaza, as Hamas rockets continued to fall on Israeli cities.

“There is no electricity, there is no food, there is no water, there is no fuel,” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced at a briefing.

Power and fuel supplies to the Hamas-ruled territory had been cut off since Saturday, Israel’s energy minister, Israel Katz, told reporters. Now, he said, drinking water to Gaza’s 2.1 million people would be stopped as well.

“I instructed that the water supply from Israel to Gaza be cut off immediately,” Katz said.

People cannot survive for more than about 2 days without water. Everyone in Gaza will be brought to their knees in a few days, unless there is some way to get water in.

The WaPo gives some history about why the situation became so bitter and apparently hopeless:

Since winning an election in the Gaza Strip in 2006, Hamas has repeatedly attacked Israel with rockets and mortars, emerging as a defiant adversary. Israel has retaliated with its superior firepower and a punishing blockade, restricting imports and movement of civilians in a strategy of collective punishment. The blockade and recurring Israeli strikes have contributed to Gaza’s poor infrastructure and living conditions. Israel declared a full siege of the enclave on Monday, with Defense Minister Yoav Gallant promising “no electricity, no food, no fuel” and calling Hamas "savages.”

Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a militant group that governs the Gaza Strip, a 25-mile-long, densely populated enclave of more than 2.1 million people. Hamas emerged as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian intifada, or uprising, in 1987 against the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. It was founded by Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a Palestinian cleric. Its military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, was established around 1991.

It is committed to armed resistance against Israel and aims for the creation of a Palestinian state with Jerusalem as its capital, along the borders before the Six-Day War in June 1967, during which Israel captured and occupied the West Bank, Gaza, the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians were displaced as a result.

In October 1997, the United States designated Hamas a terrorist organization. The group has used explosives and rockets along with suicide bombings and kidnappings to target Israel.

Why did Hamas attack Israel now?

The coordinated attack by Hamas caught Israel by surprise but comes after months of worsening tensions over violence at al-Aqsa Mosque — a deeply revered Muslim holy site in the heart of Jerusalem — as well as the punishing blockade and occupation of Palestinians. Once-fringe Jewish supremacists and settler leaders have been given key positions in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s hard-right government, further inflaming tensions.

Palestinian anger also reached a boiling point in May 2021 over the evictions of families from a Palestinian neighborhood in Jerusalem, leading to clashes between protesters and Israeli forces that prompted Hamas to launch rockets at Israeli cities.

Even worse than all of that, there may be a new front in the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon attacking Israel in the north:

Oct 8 (Reuters) - Israel and Lebanon's powerful armed group Hezbollah exchanged artillery and rocket fire on Sunday following the deadliest attack in years by Palestinian gunmen on Israel.

On Saturday, a multi-pronged attack by Palestinian gunmen on Israeli towns left around 500 Israelis dead, with more than 300 Palestinians killed in Israel's retaliatory bombardment.

The scale of the attack prompted fears that a wider conflict could break out between Israel and other factions opposed to it in the region, including Lebanon's Hezbollah, an armed party backed by Iran that has previously clashed with Israel.  

Hezbollah on Sunday said it had launched guided rockets and artillery onto three posts in the Shebaa Farms "in solidarity" with the Palestinian people.

"Our history, our guns and our rockets are with you," said senior Hezbollah official Hashem Safieddine at an event in the Hezbollah stronghold of Dahieh on Beirut's outskirts in solidarity with the Palestinian fighters. 

To blunt authoritarian radical right propaganda smearing Biden about the war The Hill reports:

$6B in frozen Iranian funds remain unspent in wake of 

Hamas attack, Blinken says

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Sunday the $6 billion in Iranian funds expected to be unfrozen in the U.S. prisoner swap with Iran have remained unspent, pushing back against suggestions that the Biden administration’s deal may have contributed to Hamas’s recent attacks on Israel.

“The facts are these — no U.S. taxpayer dollars were involved,” Blinken said on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “These were Iranian resources that Iran had accumulated from the sale of its oil that were stuck in a bank in South Korea. They have had from day one, under our law, under our sanctions, the right to use these monies for humanitarian purposes.”

“From one account to another in another country to facilitate that use,” Blinken continued. “As of now, not a single dollar has been spent from that account.”  

U.S. officials said the funds were to be used only for food, medicine and other humanitarian goods, a point Blinken emphasized Sunday.

“And, again, the account is closely regulated by the U.S. Treasury Department, so it can only be used for things like food, medicine, medical equipment,” Blinken said. “That’s what this is about.”

One can only hope that Blinken is not lying. The radical right as gone completely nuts in blaming Biden for the outbreak of this war and supporting it with that $6 billion. Those lies are now fully embedded in the minds of the radical right rank and file. Truth cannot counteract that.

Al Jazeera reports:

The Israeli army says some 100,000 reserve troops have amassed near the fence with Gaza.

Here are the latest casualty figures as of 2pm local time (11:00 GMT):

Gaza

• Killed: At least 560
• Injured: At least 2,900

Occupied West Bank

• Killed: At least 16
• Injured: At least 80

Israel

• Killed: At least 800
• Injured: At least 2,243 

Sixteen years of Israeli blockade

Gaza has a population of about 2.3 million people living in one of the most densely populated areas in the world. Located between Israel and Egypt on the Mediterranean coast, the strip is about 365sq km (141sq miles).

Since 2007, Israel has maintained strict control over Gaza's airspace and territorial waters and restricted the movement of goods and people in and out of Gaza.

Following Hamas's attack, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has threatened to turn Gaza into a “deserted island” and warned its residents to “leave now”.

Land area = 141 sq mi

This looks like the end of it for the Palestinians. The survivors are going to be living in conditions not much better than the stone age, assuming some are still allowed to live there.