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Republican senators in Washington are attempting to block Kristen Clarke, a prominent voting rights advocate, from a top Justice Department position. The Senate Judiciary Committee has deadlocked on an 11-11 vote on whether to move Clarke's nomination for assistant attorney general of the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division to the Senate floor for a full vote. If she wins the vote, Clarke, who has served as the head of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law and is a longtime champion of voting rights, a defender against hate and violent extremism, would be the first Black woman to hold the position. Ben Jealous, president of People for the American Way and former president of the NAACP, says the campaign against Clarke's nomination is based on falsehoods, including baseless claims of anti-Semitism. "The way that they've lied about her really is a new low," Jealous says, who links Republican obstruction to the party's larger assault on voting rights.

Palestinian scholar Hanan Ashrawi says Israel's latest assault on Gaza is turning life in the besieged territory into "sheer hell," aided by U.S. military and diplomatic support. "Israel has total license to use unbridled power to kill and destroy and maim and get away with it," Ashrawi says. We also speak with Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, who says President Joe Biden's continued defense of Israeli actions reflects long-standing erasure and dehumanization of Palestinians. "One wonders what proportion you have to have of Arab deaths, of Palestinian deaths, over Israeli deaths. Is it 20 to 1 before the United States finally begins to recognize that this is not legitimate self-defense?" Khalidi says. "This is a perfect illustration of the bias that has been a feature of American policy for many, many years."

Communal Violence Inside of Israel May Restrain Escalation to an Invasion of Gaza | Fully-Vaccinated Americans Can Now Take Off Their Masks | The GOP is Getting More Extreme and Will Dismantle Democracy if They Win in 2022 backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

Vigilante Violence in Israel Against Israeli Arabs and Palestinians | Unconditional Support For Israel in Our Politics and Press is Eroding | The GOP is a Threat to American Democracy. What are the Democrats Doing About it? backgroundbriefing.org/donate twitter.com/ianmastersmedia facebook.com/ianmastersmedia

We barely made it for today's BradCast, after a nightmarish computer crash. So, if today's show is an odd, disjointed mess that makes no sense at all, feel free to blame Microsoft. But if it's great, I'll take all the credit! [Audio link to full show is posted below summary.] Among the stories covered on today's [...]

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Colonial Pipeline restarts operation days after major cyberattack; Out of gas in the Southeast because panic-buying and hording caused shortages; Biden Administration greenlights nation's first major offshore wind farm; PLUS: Tesla ditches Bitcoin due to massive carbon footprint... All that and more in today's Green News Report! GNR's now celebrating 12 YEARS [...]

FEATURING HUWAIDA ARRAF – Israeli air strikes have killed dozens of Palestinians including 9 children over 48 hours on Monday and Tuesday as a conflict that began in East Jerusalem threatens to turn into a larger war. Saying it was responding to Hamas rocket fire, Israel sent over 130 air strikes into the heavily populated...

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