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Midnight Fire Kills 27 With Flame-Thrower Intensity by Richard S. Ehrlich:
BANGKOK, Thailand -- A midnight fire burning with the intensity of a huge flame-thrower killed at least 27 people and injured 63 when a suspected electrical short-circuit ignited flamable soundproof foam and decorations on the ceiling and walls of a packed nightclub.
Thailand's Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul and Bangkok Governor Chadchart Sittipunt rushed to the scene in the early hours of Monday (July 13) morning to inspect the charred wreckage from the midnight blaze.
The extreme intensity of the fire forced huge flames to gush in a sustained, billowing, horizontal stream through the nightclub's front door into the street, like a huge flame-thrower or industrial blast furnace, while people screamed and ran.
Some witnesses said the front door's projectile flames looked like fire spewing from a gigantic dragon's mouth.
"The fire spread very quickly, reaching up to the ceiling," Governor Chadchart told reporters.
"Smoke was likely the main cause of death."
Investigators were checking if a powerful backdraft forced the flames to pour horizontally through the open front door, fueled by natural gas cannisters in the crowded Rong Beer Na Lat Phrao venue's kitchen and small brewery.
Some survivors could be seen staggering through the furious firestorm into the neon-lit street with their clothes and hair ablaze.
Others lay on the sidewalk while police and rescue workers vigorously pumped each unconscious person's chest, trying to revive them, amid burnt shoes and other debris.
Firefighters piled charred handbags, purses, backpacks, and smart phones onto a nearby table.
The 27 dead were wrapped in plastic sheets secured with straps and laid out in front of the nightclub on the sidewalk in northeast Bangkok's Lat Phrao neighborhood.
They included 18 women and nine men, many of whom died from smoke inhalation, rescuers said.
The inferno erupted in the large club packed with mostly young Thai men and women enjoying live music, dancing, food, and drinks.
Survivors said many victims could not find their way out of the nightclub because of thick, toxic smoke and an emergency exit allegedly blocked by a display case selling snacks.
Investigators were trying to determine if the other emergency exit had been intentionally blocked with beer crates or locked because the club allegedly feared customers might sneak out without paying, forcing people to flee through the flame-filled front door as the only way out.
"The entry is one tiny door, then a corridor. Very claustrophobic," one person said after visiting the nightclub last week.
Panicked people fought to get through the front door, survivors said.
Some were trampled underfoot but were helped up and escaped.
Rescuers, lighting their way with flashlights in the dark, discovered most of the bodies in toilet stalls where victims vainly sought shelter near a blocked exit.
Rescuers said decorations and flammable, polyurethane foam soundproofing on the walls and low ceiling burst into flames, possibly as a result of sparks from an electrical short-circuit in a ceiling-mounted air-conditioner.
Investigators pointed to the nightclub's long, neat rows of tables and plastic stools laden with the ceiling's fallen, charred debris but otherwise intact, including blackened beer bottles still standing on the tables.
The fire's intense heat melted the tops of plastic ice buckets but left them in place, filled with water on the rows of tables.
charred ceiling debris and burning droplets also covered the top of the drummer's cymbals and a partially burnt electric keyboard and electric guitar.
The performing Tosakan band's drummer, keyboardist, and female singer perished in the fire, the indie band said.
Investigators were inspecting whether or not the nightclub had emergency water sprinklers, fire extinguishers, and other safety measures.
Flames burnt the single-story nightclub's interior but did not damage the concrete building's exterior, plastic signs, leafy plants, and wooden doors, thanks to the nearby fire department's rapid response.
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Richard S. Ehrlich is a Bangkok-based American foreign correspondent reporting from Asia since 1978, and winner of Columbia University's Foreign Correspondents' Award. Excerpts from his two new nonfiction books, "Rituals. Killers. Wars. & S*x. -- Tibet, India, Nepal, Laos, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka & New York" and "Apocalyptic Tribes, Smugglers & Freaks" are available at

asia-correspondent.tumblr.com richard s. ehrlich foreign correspondent & photographer, reporting news from asia since 1978

The World Is a Better and Safer Place Without Sen. Lindsey Graham by Mahmoud El-Yousseph: "It is perhaps not surprising that Israeli Crime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was among the first foreign leaders to express condolences, stating that Israel had "lost one of its great friends." Full article here:

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Lindsey Graham: When the United States Senate Falls Silent Ahmad Al-Akhras Every public official leaves behind a record—not only of what was accomplished, but also of the human consequences of the decisions made while entrusted with power.

Lindsey Graham: When the United States Senate Falls Silent Power Ends. The Record Remains Ahmad Al-Akhras July 12, 2026 // Opinion Image Image via Instagram Death is the great equalizer.  It strips away titles, dissolves influence, and renders meaningless the privileges that once seemed permanent. The senator, the president, the king, and the laborer all ...

Israel Debated: Why Palestine is Rewriting the Rules of Domestic US Politics by Ramzy Baroud: A major showdown on the House floor seemed imminent. An amendment, advanced by the Rules Committee, was poised to force a rare and telling record vote on stripping Israel of $3.3 billion in annual US military aid.

Brought forward by Republican Representative Thomas Massie and drawing support from key progressive Democrats like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Greg Casar, the measure was set to put every lawmaker's stance on unconditional foreign assistance under a public microscope.

However, the high-stakes vote never actually happened. On June 30, the entire legislative package collapsed under the weight of Washington's internal political warfare. In a dramatic procedural twist, a coalition of Democrats and disgruntled conservative Republicans voted down the mandatory 'rule' required to even begin debating the underlying State Department spending bill.

But even if the vote on Massie's amendment had occurred, the result would have been entirely predictable. It would have been defeated, as support for Israel on both sides of the congressional aisle remains structurally entrenched—even as the American public shifts against Israeli policy in historic numbers.
According to a watershed Gallup poll published on February 27, a plurality of Americans now sympathize more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, leading by a margin of 41 percent to 36 percent. This marked the first time since Gallup began tracking the metric over two decades ago that Israel did not hold the upper hand in public sympathy.

Yet the shift is part of a broader, undeniable trend. A nationwide survey published in late June 2026 by Quinnipiac University revealed that an unprecedented 48 percent of American voters now think the United States is “too supportive” of Israel—the highest percentage recorded since the pollster first began tracking the question in 2017.

This is precisely why Massie's amendment carries such profound weight. It is significant not because US politicians have suddenly developed a collective moral conscience, but because recent election cycles represented the first time in modern American history where Palestine factored as a major, decisive variable in how citizens cast their ballots.

For years, conventional political analysts dismissed pro-Palestinian mobilization, claiming Americans only vote based on immediate socioeconomic interests and rigid party loyalties. That assessment has since proven faulty.

The political cost of Washington's complicity became undeniable following the fallout of the 2024 presidential race, a reality later confirmed by those within the inner sanctums of power. In the post-election debates, senior administration insiders admitted that the handling of the Gaza genocide alienated core voter blocks.

The political cost of Washington's complicity became undeniable after the 2024 presidential race. According to Axios, top Democratic strategists conducting the party's post-election audit explicitly admitted to advocacy groups that internal party data proved the administration's Gaza policy was a "net-negative" on the ballot.

This finding—disclosed during internal briefings by DNC autopsy author Paul Rivera—confirmed that the party's unconditional backing of Israel directly fractured its base, and ultimately contributed to its loss of the elections.

The upcoming November elections are expected to be fiercely contested, and Gaza will, once more, be on the ballot. Following a series of progressive, anti-war victories in local primaries, The Guardian reported that US foreign policy toward the conflict has effectively "turned into something of a litmus test for the left."

This historic transformation in the popular American perception of Palestine and Israel does not indicate that a political rupture is soon to follow, as US politicians are notorious for their moral flexibility and their ability to spin language in whatever way is necessary to remain in power.

Indeed, the evolution of the language used by Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez regarding the word 'genocide' in Gaza tells the entire story of how the Democratic establishment is never compelled by genuine moral urgency, but rather by sheer political expediency.

In the early months of the genocide, Ocasio-Cortez hesitated to adopt the term, acutely aware of the deep sensitivities surrounding such language in US media and mainstream society.

"The fact that this word is even in our discourse... demonstrates the mass inhumanity that Gaza is facing," she stated, attempting to navigate an acceptable rhetorical middle ground in January 2024 during an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press.

Yet, under the relentless weight of pressure from an increasingly mobilized progressive constituency, she systematically upgraded her language in March of the same year, declaring on the House floor: "If you want to know what an unfolding genocide looks like, open your eyes. It looks like the forced famine of 1.1 million innocents."

This linguistic shift continued to intensify until it reached the Munich Security Conference last February, where Ocasio-Cortez finally deployed the term without any qualification. Unconditional US aid, she flatly argued, "enabled a genocide in Gaza."

Ocasio-Cortez is just one of many Democratic progressives who carefully filtered their vocabulary to avoid the political fallout of using the term genocide too early, or too late. Her position was eventually corrected not because of a sudden moral awakening or the discovery of new information regarding the "unfolding genocide," but because the margins of error allowed by a newly conscious American public have completely closed.

Therefore, the strategic focus must remain on reaching out to the public, who hold the true power to influence—and even coerce—politicians into making the right choices.

Ultimately, the current movement serves as a crucial barometer, proving that sustained, grassroots, anti-war pressure is successfully destabilizing Israel's traditionally unquestioned shield in Washington.

- https://freepress.org/article/israel-debated-why-palestine-rewriting-rules-domestic-us-politics

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