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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Doc Watson

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features folk blues guitarist Doc Watson. Enjoy!

^{Doc Watson & Earl Scruggs Play Cripple Creek}

"Censorship is the tool of those who have the need to hide actualities from themselves and from others."

-- Charles Bukowski

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News and Opinion

Zionism Is The Single Greatest Threat To Free Speech In The Western World Today

The Irish-language hip hop trio Kneecap is being investigated by British counterterrorism police following a controversial appearance where the group performed in front of the words “FUCK ISRAEL, FREE PALESTINE” during a music festival in the United States.

Zionist outrage over the incident led to a video being shared on Twitter by a man named Danny Morris who works for Community Security Trust, a British organization dedicated to supporting Israel in the name of fighting antisemitism. The video apparently shows Kneecap chanting “Up Hamas, up Hezbollah” at a London concert last November, which is the official reason the group is now under investigation.

By designating Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations and then passing laws against support for proscribed terrorist groups, the British government has effectively given itself the authority to stomp out any speech which can be deemed supportive of armed groups opposing Israel’s abuses in the middle east today, and has been using this authority to persecute journalists and activists in the UK.

Some facts pic.twitter.com/hoVZrqg1hl

— KNEECAP (@KNEECAPCEOL) April 24, 2025

This is just one of the latest incidents in the steady assault on free speech rights we’ve been seeing in the western nations that have aligned themselves with the state of Israel during the Gaza holocaust.

In Michigan the homes of pro-Palestine demonstrators are reportedly being raided by the FBI and by state and local police, with numerous activists detained and electronic devices seized under search warrants.

A new policy unveiled by the Trump administration’s National Institutes of Health bans researchers and university employees from participating in any activism involving boycotts or divestment from the state of Israel, or even advocating such measures.

New York Police Department officers are reportedly attending training on combatting antisemitism which teaches them that keffiyehs and watermelons are antisemitic symbols, and that phrases like “settler colonialism” and “all eyes on Rafah” are examples of antisemitic hate speech.

On Thursday a judge ruled that the extradition process of Tufts University student Rümeysa Öztürk shall continue to the next stage, which will see her transferred to the state of Vermont. Öztürk’s sole offense is having written an op-ed in the university paper mildly denouncing Israel’s atrocities in Gaza.

This all comes as a new poll finds
that a majority of Americans oppose the Trump administration’s new policy of deporting foreigners for expressing wrongthink about Israel. They’re taking away the right of US citizens to hear what Israel’s critics have to say, and they are doing so directly against the will of the US citizens themselves.

This is a common tactic by the pro genocide crowd to manufacture false accusations of antisemitism.

Insist on walking through a protest (one that includes Jews) Instead of around it. Then claim you were blocked because you were Jewish. https://t.co/tbNFd7eEoX

— Rafael Shimunov (@rafaelshimunov) April 23, 2025

There’s a video that Israel apologists are sharing around which they claim shows pro-Palestine activists blocking Jewish students from walking through the campus of Yale University, and it’s just so illustrative of the fake “antisemitism” crisis we’re being told necessitates the elimination of free speech rights throughout all of western civilization.

If you watch the clip you can see a student wearing a kippah being filmed by someone behind him and demanding to walk directly through what appears to be a relatively small group of activists in the midst of an anti-genocide demonstration. The demonstrators are heard telling him to walk around them, which is what any normal person does when they wish to be on the other side of a physical human body (or indeed any physical object), and you can clearly see people walking around them in the background of the video.

This is like walking up to a cheer squad in the middle of a human pyramid, demanding to walk through them, and then claiming they refused to do so because they hate your religion. It’s just so transparently bat shit insane, but it’s being shared around in all seriousness by Zionist pundits and politicians as a sign of an antisemitism crisis at a prominent university. This is the kind of evidence that’s being cited for the need to stomp out free speech in our society.

I’m going to keep saying it and saying it until the message gets through: Zionism is the single greatest threat to free speech in the western world today. Nothing is eroding people’s rights to free expression faster than the support that western governments have for the apartheid state of Israel and the atrocities it is committing.

This isn’t just about Gaza now. It’s not just about some strangers in the middle east. It’s about you. It’s about your rights. It’s about your right to tell the truth, even if the truth makes your leaders feel uncomfortable.

Even if you are not a sufficiently moral and compassionate person to oppose a genocide on its own merit, at this point you should at least be opposing the erosion of your own personal liberties for your own sake.

Journalist Richard Medhurst Shares Chilling Arrest Story

As usual, as time moves forward, the Israeli web of lies unravels...

New details on killing of paramedics in Gaza appear to contradict IDF’s account

New developments have come to light in the killing of 15 Palestinian medics and rescue workers by Israeli troops in the Gaza Strip last month, with evidence reportedly contradicting the Israel Defense Forces’ claim that soldiers did not fire indiscriminately at the medical workers.

The Israeli daily Haaretz reported on Wednesday that its analysis of the IDF’s own materials collected as part of an internal investigation into the incident contradicted the army’s claim that soldiers did not shoot indiscriminately at Palestinian ambulances and a fire engine in the early hours of 23 March.

Instead, Haaretz said, soldiers fired continuously at the vehicles for three and a half minutes from close range despite the aid workers’ attempts to identify themselves.

The family of Assad al-Nsasrah, one of two survivors of the attack, filed a petition on Wednesday with Israel’s high court seeking details of his detention in Israel. Israeli authorities confirmed last week that Nsasrah was in custody, but under emergency war legislation the whereabouts of detainees from Gaza can be kept secret and they can be barred from meeting a lawyer for 45 days. Nsasrah is not allowed legal counsel until 7 May.

US Has Launched 750 Airstrikes on Yemen Since March 15

A US official has told ABC News that the US has launched about 750 airstrikes on Yemen since March 15, a relentless bombing campaign that has failed to deter the Houthis and has taken a heavy toll on civilians.

US airstrikes hit multiple provinces in Yemen on Thursday, with at least three people wounded by US attacks in the morning that hit the capital, Sanaa, and the northern Saada province. US airstrikes on Thursday night were reported in the provinces of Marib, Sanaa, and Amran. ...

Houthi leader Abdul-Malik al-Houthi said on Thursday that the new US bombing campaign has failed to impact Yemeni military capabilities and that a blockade was in effect for Israeli and US shipping in the Red Sea.

Iran rejects demand from US to rely on imported uranium

Iran has insisted it must be allowed to have its own uranium enrichment capacity for its civil nuclear programme, rejecting a US demand that Tehran must rely exclusively on imported nuclear fuel.

If Washington sticks to the position taken by Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, in the third round of talks in Oman on Saturday, the two sides will have hit their first major negotiating hurdle. They are trying to reach an agreement that blocks off Iran’s access to a nuclear bomb in return for relief from economic sanctions.

The Rubio plan is an attempt at compromise between those inside the US administration who say the only certain way to close off Iran’s path to a nuclear bomb is to dismantle its entire nuclear programme and those that say Iran should be allowed to enrich low purity uranium subject to a full external inspection. That proposal is similar to the system set up in the 2015 nuclear deal from which Donald Trump withdrew the US in his first term.

US national security adviser Mike Waltz had argued Tehran must agree to the “full dismantlement” of its nuclear programme. But Rubio this week told The Free Press podcast: “If Iran wants a civil nuclear programme, they can have one just like many other countries in the world.” He added that Tehran would be required to “import enriched material”.

Iran’s chief negotiator, Abbas Araghchi, speaking in China, said: “If America’s only demand is that Iran not have nuclear weapons, this is an achievable demand, but if it has impractical and illogical demands, it is natural that we will run into problems.”

US federal agency texts Barnard College employees to ask if they’re Jewish

Employees from Barnard College received text messages this week from the federally run Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) on their personal phones linking to a voluntary survey asking recipients if they are Jewish or Israeli and whether they have been subjected to harassment or antisemitism.

The text, which was reviewed by the Guardian, states that the civil rights agency is “currently reviewing the employment practices at Barnard College” and invites current and former employees to complete the linked survey. It is not clear how many college employees received the survey, but it appears to have been sent to a sizable portion of the faculty and other staff.

The survey, which appeared to be part of the Trump administration’s aggressive investigations into American colleges and universities over antisemitism allegations stemming from pro-Palestinian protests, sparked anxiety among some recipients. “Regardless of the stated intent, this survey in effect creates a list of Jewish faculty, staff and students at Barnard,” said Elizabeth Bauer, a Barnard professor and chair of the college’s biology department, who said she was alarmed by the message. “The government is also now requiring undocumented immigrants, including children, to register with DHS. I’ve seen this movie before and I’m horrified.”

Jewish senators accuse Trump of exploiting antisemitism to target universities

Five Jewish Democratic senators have sent a strongly worded letter to Donald Trump condemning his administration’s “assault on universities” and questioning whether actions taken against higher education institutions are truly aimed at combating antisemitism.

The letter – signed by Chuck Schumer, Senate minority leader, and senators Jacky Rosen, Richard Blumenthal, Adam Schiff and Brian Schatz – accuses the administration of using “a real crisis as a pretext to attack people and institutions who do not agree with you”.

“We are extremely troubled and disturbed by your broad and extra-legal attacks against universities and higher education institutions as well as members of their communities, which seem to go far beyond combating antisemitism,” write the senators, who devote much of their attention to the freezing of $2bn in federal funding for Harvard University.

Some Jewish advocacy leaders welcomed the senators’ intervention.

“It’s good news that these senators are standing up to the hypocrisy of this White House,” said Hadar Susskind, president and CEO of New Jewish Narrative. “President Trump is exploiting very real concerns about antisemitism as a foil for his attacks on universities.”

An open letter last updated 20 April from 800 Jewish professors, scholars and students similarly admonished the Trump administration for targeting Columbia University and threatening other schools, saying that “the cuts did nothing to protect Jews, and in fact, could be used to target them”.

Isolating China or strategic divorce

US and China holding talks on trade war, Trump says after Beijing rebuttal

The US and China held talks on Thursday to help resolve the trade war between the world’s two largest economies, Donald Trump said. “We may reveal it later, but they had meetings this morning, and we’ve been meeting with China,” the US president told reporters at the White House.

China had earlier hit back against Trump’s previous claim to be close to a trade deal with Beijing.

Trump had buoyed markets by suggesting on Wednesday that the US was “actively” negotiating with Beijing, and pointing to hopes of a deal that would “substantially” reduce tariffs, now set at 145%, on goods coming into the US from China.

The Chinese commerce ministry’s spokesperson He Yadong said there were “currently no economic and trade negotiations between China and the United States”.

“Any claims about progress in China-US economic and trade negotiations are baseless rumours without factual evidence,” he said, adding that if the US wanted “de-escalation” – as Trump’s Treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, has argued – it should “completely cancel all unilateral tariff measures against China and find a way to resolve differences through equal dialogue”.

Trump’s Treasury Secretary Sounds Like Bernie Sanders!

'Flagrantly Enabling Insider Trading': Trump White House Reportedly Tips Off Wall St on Trade Talks

Officials inside U.S. President Donald Trump's White House have reportedly tipped off Wall Street executives about a potentially imminent trade agreement with India, a move that one watchdog group described as further evidence that the administration is "flagrantly enabling insider trading."

Fox Business correspondent Charles Gasparino reported Thursday that unnamed "people inside the Trump White House are alerting Wall Street execs they are nearing an agreement in principle on trade with India." Gasparino cited "senior Wall Street execs" with ties to the Trump White House.

It's not clear what kind of information Trump administration officials provided Wall Street executives or how the information differs from publicly available reporting and White House comments on the U.S.-India trade talks, which have thus far been scant on specific details about the timing or provisions of a potential deal.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, a former hedge fund manager, told reporters Wednesday that the Trump administration was "very close" to a bilateral trade agreement with India, one of the United States' largest trading partners.

The report of behind-the-scenes communications between the Trump White House and Wall Street executives on a matter that could substantially move financial markets drew immediate alarm.

Emily Peterson-Cassin, corporate power director at the Demand Progress Education Fund, said Thursday that "while we all look at our retirement accounts with alternating relief and horror, Wall Street execs are getting a direct heads-up from the White House about news that could earn them billions on the stock market."

"The White House is flagrantly enabling insider trading and is continuing their long history of embracing Wall Street while throwing everyday Americans to the wolves," said Peterson-Cassin. "These tip-offs also serve as a corrupt shakedown scheme to lure powerful CEOs into Trump's orbit to beg for their own special carve-outs. It is crystal clear that the president doesn't care about fighting for Main Street and just wears economic populism like one of his ill-fitting suits."

Earlier this month, Trump himself sparked insider trading concerns by writing on his social media platform that it was a "great time to buy" stocks shortly before announcing a partial 90-day tariff pause, which sent equities surging.

USPS workers sound alarm over Trump efforts to dismantle service: ‘The hounds are at the door"

US postal workers – and many who depend on them – may have sighed in relief when the Trump-appointed postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, resigned last month. Now, postal workers and others fear the worst is to come.

Many feared DeJoy, a prolific Trump donor and trucking logistics executive who pushed a 10-year consolidation plan at the agency, would be the man who would finally dismantle the United States Postal Service (USPS). Now the service is facing off with an empowered Trump and Elon Musk, his billionaire backer and chainsaw-wielding leader of his government job-cutting “department of government efficiency” (Doge).

At stake, supporters argue, is the very existence of a service woven into US society, which can be traced back to 1775. “These are real threats. The hounds are at the door,” said Don Maston, president of the National Rural Letter Carriers’ Association, the union representing more than 130,000 mail carriers in rural America. Workers and labor unions at the USPS are sounding the alarm and calling for public awareness of the threats of dismantling and privatizing the agency by the Trump administration.

In March, the USPS reached an agreement with Doge to cut billions of dollars from its budget and finalize a voluntary retirement buyout program announced under the Biden administration to cut 10,000 employees. The Washington Post has reported industry executives are preparing for government efforts to outsource mail and package handling and long-haul trucking routes, and offload leases for unprofitable post offices.

Doge was even too much for DeJoy, who reportedly left after clashing with its staff over access to the agency. Last month, Musk voiced support for privatizing the USPS. The idea has been praised on the right, including by staff at the Heritage Foundation, which organized Project 2025, and by Trump: “It’s an idea that a lot of people have liked for a long time. We’re looking at it,” he said last year.

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Trump Approval Rating LOWER Than First Term: Fox Poll

Trump targets Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue with memorandum

The Republican president is taking aim at a Democratic fundraising platform, issuing a presidential memorandum to crack down on supposed foreign contributions to elections, an unsubstantiated claim from the right..

Donald Trump announced the memo on Thursday, directing the attorney general to investigate, and report to the president, “concerning allegations regarding the use of online fundraising platforms to make ‘straw’ or ‘dummy’ contributions and to make foreign contributions to US political candidates and committees, all of which break the law”.

ActBlue, the largest online donation platform on the left, has anticipated the presidential action. Its CEO and president, Regina Wallace-Jones, sent an email this week saying the organization expected an executive order targeting it, and that the threat of these investigations had “caused many in the ecosystem anxiety and distress”.

“If we look past rumors and innuendo, here is what we know to be true: Nothing will deter or interrupt ActBlue’s mission and work to enable millions of Americans to participate in our democracy,” she wrote. “There is an ongoing and persistent effort to weaken the confidence of the American people in what’s possible. This is the next version of ‘the big lie.’”

ActBlue is the main platform used to collect donations for Democratic candidates and causes. The move is among several actions the Trump administration has taken to “cripple the left”, the New York Times has reported, part of a “series of highly partisan official actions that, if successful, will threaten to hobble Democrats’ ability to compete in elections for years to come”.

DNC Chair BLASTS David Hogg For THREATENING To PRIMARY Democrat Incumbents, Offers ULTIMATUM

Where activism goes to die...

DNC chair rebukes David Hogg over plan to primary ‘out of touch’ Democrats

Ken Martin, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, has announced a proposal requiring party officials to remain neutral in primary elections, challenging activist David Hogg to choose between his vice-chair post and his pledge to unseat “asleep-at-the-wheel” incumbents.

As Democrats scramble to rebuild their tarnished brand after a devastating loss to Donald Trump in 2024, party officials are escalating a confrontation with the 25-year-old progressive activist who was elected to serve as a vice-chair in February.

“If you want to challenge incumbents, you’re more than free to do that, but just not as an officer of the DNC, because our job is to be neutral arbiters,” Martin said on a call with reporters on Thursday. “We can’t be both the referee and also the player at the same time. You have to make a decision.”

Martin officially presented the neutrality pledge on Thursday, days after Hogg announced plans to spend $20m to primary “out-of-touch” and “ineffective” Democratic incumbents through his grassroots organization Leaders We Deserve – an unprecedented move for a high-ranking party official. The effort has put Hogg on a collision course with his own party, which has traditionally not opposed incumbents, preferring instead to use its resources against Republicans.

Martin emphasized that he had “great respect” for Hogg, who became an outspoken gun safety advocate after surviving the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida. “But it’s important for us to maintain the trust that we have built with Democratic voters and to keep our thumb off the scale as party officers,” he added.

Federal judge blocks Trump order that could disenfranchise millions of voters

A federal judge on Thursday blocked Donald Trump’s efforts to add a proof of citizenship requirement to the federal voter registration form, a change that voting rights advocates warned would have disenfranchised millions of voters. The president sought to unilaterally add the requirement in a 25 March executive orders. The Democratic party, as well as a slew of civil rights groups, challenged that order, arguing the president does not have the power to set the rules for federal elections.

US district judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of the federal district court in Washington, agreed with that argument on Thursday. “Our Constitution entrusts Congress and the States – not the President – with the authority to regulate federal elections,” she wrote in a 120-page opinion. “No statutory delegation of authority to the Executive Branch permits the President to short-circuit Congress’s deliberative process by executive order.”

Kollar-Kotelly also blocked a portion of the executive order that required federal agencies to assess the citizenship of individuals applying to vote at a public assistance agency before they offered them a chance to vote. The order would have made it significantly harder to register to vote, even for eligible voters. Nearly 10% of eligible voters lack easy access to documents, such as a US passport or birth certificate, that would be required to prove their citizenship, a 2024 survey found. ...

Republicans in the US House have passed a similar bill that would require proof of citizenship to vote, but it almost certainly will not pass in the US Senate. Several states have also passed statutes to require proof of citizenship to vote.

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Trump signs executive order boosting deep-sea mining industry

Donald Trump on Thursday signed an executive order aimed at boosting the deep-sea mining industry, the latest attempt to boost US production of nickel, copper and other critical minerals used widely across the economy. The broad order avoids a direct confrontation with the UN-backed International Seabed Authority and seeks essentially to jumpstart the mining of US waters as part of a push to offset China’s sweeping control of the critical minerals industry.

Parts of the Pacific Ocean and elsewhere are estimated to contain large amounts of potato-shaped rocks known as polymetallic nodules filled with the building blocks for electric vehicles and electronics. More than 1bn metric tons of those nodules are estimated to be in US waters and filled with manganese, nickel, copper and other critical minerals, according to an administration official. Extracting them could boost US GDP by $300bn over 10 years and create 100,000 jobs, the official added. “We want the US to get ahead of China in this resource space under the ocean, on the ocean bottom,” the official said.

The order directs the administration to expedite mining permits under the Deep Seabed Hard Minerals Resource Act of 1980 and to establish a process for issuing permits along the US Outer Continental Shelf, according to the official. It also orders the administration to issue a report that details areas for potential seabed exploration and to work with allies to look at ways they can share resources in international waters, the official said.

Supporters of deep-sea mining say it would lessen the need for large mining operations on land, which are often unpopular with host communities. Environmental groups are calling for all activities to be banned, warning that industrial operations on the ocean floor could cause irreversible biodiversity loss.

Trump administration has set Noaa on ‘non-science trajectory’, workers warn

The Trump administration has shunted one of the US federal government’s top scientific agencies onto a “non-science trajectory”, workers warn, that threatens to derail decades of research and leave the US with “air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable”. Workers and scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) are warning of the drastic impacts of cuts at the agency on science, research, and efforts to protect natural resources.

“The problems are still there. We still have harmful algal blooms, we still have fisheries that are collapsing, waters you can’t swim in. These problems don’t go away because we fired all the people who were trying to solve a problem,” said one Noaa veteran, who wished to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation. “How do you save the arms and legs or the feet and hands when the core is dying?”

The longtime research scientist with more than 20 years at Noaa has taken early retirement. “I left because it was just so demoralizing and fearful and scary,” they said. Trump administration officials are seeking to abolish the scientific research division at Noaa, the Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (Oar) office. It is the latest of a series of cuts at the agency that began the second Trump administration with 12,000 employees around the world, including more than 6,700 engineers and scientists.

The cuts are disrupting the collection of data sets, including recordings of global temperatures in the air and ocean, and that data cannot be replaced, said the Noaa veteran. The dismantling of Noaa, they said, would harm work in many areas, from finding solutions to combat harmful algae and improving sustainable fisheries to work on new medicines and industrial products and collecting information for disaster preparation.

“We can look at other countries that are actively making these mistakes, where they have air that’s not breathable and water that’s not drinkable,” they said. “I think it’s done. I think this is done. The enemies are in the gate. I don’t see any indication so far of anyone stopping it. They’re just letting it burn. I honestly don’t understand how US science will recover.”

“Musk Is Scamming the City of Memphis”: Meet Two Brothers Fighting Colossus, Musk’s xAI Data Center

US interior agency to fast track fossil fuel and mining permits over ‘fake emergency’

The US interior department has announced plans to radically fast track permitting for projects involving fossil fuels and mining citing Donald Trump’s ‘energy emergency’ declaration that many experts say does not exist. The move would reduce to a maximum of 28 days permitting procedures that previously could take multiple years, the department said late Wednesday.

Green groups immediately criticized the plans to boost planet-heating fossil fuels and questioned their legality describing them as an extreme change to the nation’s core environment laws.

The department said that reviews that now typically take around a year would be reduced to just 14 days while a full environment impact statement that usually took two years would now take less than a month.

The announcement will amplify fears the Trump administration will shrink federal protections for national monuments in the west. Interior department officials are considering scaling back at least six national monuments spread across Arizona, California, New Mexico and Utah while analyzing the potential for drilling or mining in the areas, the Washington Post reported on Thursday.

The interior department said the plans to fast track permitting were designed to “accelerate the development of domestic energy resources and critical minerals”.

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Also of Interest

Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.

'Another Gaza': British MPs warn of apartheid conditions after West Bank visit

War Dust and Collateral Inhalation: Israel Breathes in Gaza’s Dust

Dozens of my family have been killed by Israel in Gaza, and now Ziyad, too. Only one thing gives me solace

R&B singer Kehlani barred from Cornell performance over pro-Palestine comments

Ukraine Encroaches on ‘Friendly’ Moldova

Trump Has Made It Impossible For America To Resist China

Meet the new American refugees fleeing across state lines for safety

How the American Economy Is Rigged to Serve the Rich, and Why Tariffs Won’t Change That

Company Accused of Organizing National Rental Housing Cartel Goes on Offense as Trump DOJ Mothballs Price-Fixing Case

‘Morally repugnant’: Brazilian workers sue coffee supplier to Starbucks over ‘slavery-like conditions’

Canada election is Carney’s to lose in contest turned on its head by Trump

Singer CANCELED by Cornell

Zelensky REJECTS Trump's Ukraine Proposal

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A Little Night Music

Doc Watson - Ready for the Times to get Better

Doc Watson – Freight Train Boogie

Doc Watson – Walk On Boy

Doc & Merle Watson - Little Beggar Man / Old Joe Clark

Doc & Merle Watson - Minglewood Blues

Doc & Merle Watson – Lost John

Doc & Merle Watson – John Hurt

Doc Watson – Spikedriver Blues

Doc Watson - Tennessee Stud

An Evening with Doc Watson

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