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This evening's music features early blues singer Victoria Spivey. Enjoy!

"We learn from experience that men never learn anything from experience."

-- George Bernard Shaw

News and Opinion

Israel Will Even Persecute Palestinians For Simply Talking To Journalists

Israeli soldiers have been harassing a Palestinian activist who appeared in Louis Theroux’s recent documentary The Settlers to talk about Israel’s apartheid abuses in the occupied West Bank. Issa Amro shared footage of IDF troops raiding his home over the weekend, days after Theroux’s film debuted on the BBC.

Israelis not only murder journalists, attack journalistic institutions and block journalists from entering the Gaza Strip, they also persecute Palestinian civilians who speak with journalists.

If you haven’t yet watched The Settlers, I highly recommend doing so. It’s so damning that I’ve seen people expressing astonishment that it made it past the BBC’s censors, but really, what’s to censor? It’s an hour of Israelis telling a video camera what Israelis think in their own words.

One of the best ways to tell the truth about the real Israel is to just point a camera at these freaks and let them tell it themselves. Theroux’s interviewing style lends itself particularly well to this type of exposure.

one of the few benefits of Musk giving me the blue-check without having asked for it is that I can post long videos, so here's the full Louis Theroux documentary on the genocidal Zionist Israeli settlers and their pathological death-cult mania: pic.twitter.com/oNV2mc3U6w

— (@zei_squirrel) April 29, 2025

Israel carries out fresh airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen

Israel’s military has carried out a fresh round of airstrikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen’s Red Sea city of Hodeida, a day after the Iranian-backed rebels launched a missile that hit Israel’s main airport. The rebels’ media office said at least six strikes hit the crucial Hodeida port on Monday afternoon. Other strikes hit a cement factory in the Bajil district in Hodeida province, the rebels said. Israeli media reported that dozens of Israeli aircraft took part in the operation.

On Sunday, the Houthis launched a missile from Yemen that struck an access road near Israel’s main airport, briefly halting flights and commuter traffic. Four people were lightly injured. It was the first time a missile had struck the grounds of Israel’s airport since the start of the war.

The Houthis claimed that the strikes were a joint Israeli-American operation. However, a US defence official said Washington did not participate in the strikes, which were not part of Operation Rough Rider, the US military operation against the Houthis in Yemen to prevent them from targeting ships in the Red Sea. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity. However, the US military separately launched multiple strikes on the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, on Monday, according to another US official.

Nasruddin Amer, head of the Houthi media office, said the Israeli strikes would not deter the rebels, vowing that they will respond to the attack. “The aggressive Zionist-American raids on civilian facilities will not affect our military operations against the Zionist enemy entity,” he said in a social media post. He said the Houthis will escalate their attacks and won’t stop targeting shipping routes and Israel until it stops the war in Gaza.

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is Iran a Threat to the US?

Announcement of Israel’s Gaza occupation plan is carefully timed

The announcement of Israel’s plan to launch imminently a new, expanded offensive in Gaza and to retain the territory it seized is a significant moment, at least in terms of public rhetoric. Throughout the nearly 19-month war, Israeli troops have carried out large and frequently bloody operations that have covered all except central parts of Gaza, but they have largely restricted their permanent presence to a buffer zone about 1km deep along the devastated territory’s perimeter and two relatively narrow east-west corridors.

This now seems to have changed. Once “Operation Gideon’s Chariots” is under way, Israel will send its troops across much – if not all – of Gaza, and will seek to establish a “sustained presence” there, Israel officials said. Israeli officials are also talking openly about the displacement of Palestinians to southern Gaza, and their potential “voluntary” displacement from the territory altogether to allow the implementation of the reconstruction plan announced by the US president, Donald Trump, in January. The far-right Israeli finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, told Israelis on Monday to embrace the word “occupation”. ...

The idea of a major new offensive in Gaza has been discussed and debated within the government and the upper ranks of the military for some months. So why has Israel’s government announced this plan so loudly? And why now? A key factor is the indirect talks being held with Hamas about a new ceasefire. The government of the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, hopes that the Israel Defense Forces’ call-up of tens of thousands of reservists, the threat of the new offensive and the prospect of Israel seizing swaths of territory will force Hamas’s leaders to make concessions.

If it fails to do so, then physical possession of terrain will offer useful leverage in future negotiations and allow Hamas to be squeezed further in the meantime. Israel’s twin war aims – to crush Hamas and free the 59 hostages it still holds – remain unchanged, though Netanyahu has signaled the former is the priority.

Israel's "Horrific Trifecta" of Starvation, Siege & Bombings Creates Maternal Health Disaster

Israel PLANS To CONQUER Gaza?! Trita Parsi Interview

Netanyahu says new offensive in Gaza focused on consolidating seizure of territory

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has said a new “intensified” offensive in Gaza will involve Israeli troops holding on to seized territory and significant displacement of the population. Speaking after officials said Israel’s security cabinet had approved a plan for “conquering” the Gaza Strip and establishing a “sustained presence” there, Netanyahu posted a video on X in which he said Israeli soldiers would not go into Gaza, launch raids and then retreat. “The intention is the opposite of that,” he said. “Population will be moved, for its own protection.”

Brig Gen Efi Dufferin, the chief Israeli military spokesperson, said in a statement shortly afterwards that Operation Gideon’s Chariots, as the new offensive has been named, would “include a wide-scale attack and the movement of the majority of the strip’s population, this is to protect them in an area sterile of Hamas. And continued airstrikes, elimination of terrorists, and dismantling of infrastructure.”

The plan, which was unanimously approved at a security cabinet meeting late on Sunday, goes beyond any aims so far outlined by Israel for its offensive in the devastated Palestinian territory and is likely to prompt deep international concern and fierce opposition. “This will inevitably lead to countless more civilians killed and the further destruction of Gaza,” said a spokesperson for António Guterres, the United Nations secretary general. “Gaza is, and must remain, an integral part of a future Palestinian state.”

After a fragile ceasefire collapsed in mid-March, Israel renewed its bombardment, with troops reinforcing kilometre-deep “buffer zones” along the perimeter of the territory and expanding their hold over much of the north and south of the strip. In all, more than 70% of Gaza is under Israeli control or covered by orders issued by Israel telling Palestinian civilians to evacuate specific neighbourhoods.

Israel Moves To 'FLATTEN' Gaza Ahead Of Trump Visit

Never again? Pffffftttt!!!

Israeli TV producer calls for 'Gaza holocaust, gas chambers'

A famous television producer in Israel has come under intense scrutiny following the uncovering of a series of inflammatory social media posts in which he called for a "Holocaust" against the people of Gaza.

Elad Barashi, who has worked in the Israeli entertainment industry for several years, sparked outrage after posting on X, "Good morning, let there be a Shoa (Holocaust) in Gaza." In another post, he wrote, "I can't understand the people here in the State of Israel who don't want to fill Gaza with gas showers... or train cars... and finish this story! Let there be a Holocaust in Gaza."

"Who is the fool who says there are ‘innocents’ in Gaza? Who is the despicable scoundrel who wants to let them flee to Arab countries or Europe freely?"

The comments, originally written in Hebrew in February and widely circulated online, were met with immediate condemnation by human rights groups and Palestinian advocacy organisations. They described the remarks as openly genocidal and indicative of escalating dehumanisation in the rhetoric surrounding Israel's war on Gaza.

Barashi is mostly affiliated with Channel 14, a far-right television network widely seen as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s favoured platform for interviews and messaging.

Zelensky, Art of the Deal

Michigan AG drops all charges against seven pro-Palestinian protesters

Michigan’s attorney general, Dana Nessel, announced on Monday that she was dropping all charges against seven pro-Palestinian demonstrators arrested last May at a University of Michigan encampment. The announcement came just moments before the judge was to decide on a defense motion to disqualify Nessel’s office over alleged bias. Defense attorney Amir Makled said the motion largely stemmed from an October Guardian report detailing Nessel’s extensive personal, financial and political connections to university regents calling for the activists to be prosecuted.

“This was a case of selective prosecution and rooted in bias, not in public safety issues,” Makled added. “We’re hoping this sends a message to other institutions locally and nationally that protest is not a crime, and dissent is not disorder.”

Nessel’s office is still moving forward with cases involving the alleged off-campus vandalization of the home and workplace of several university leaders. A handful of other cases against campus protesters still have not been dropped, but Makled said he was hopeful they would be.

The protesters and their supporters, among them the US representative Rashida Tlaib, had previously alleged bias in Nessel’s office, arguing that the university recruited her because she was a political ally. The Guardian’s investigation revealed concrete evidence of conflicts that defense attorneys argued factored into the prosecutions. Among the findings, the story revealed Nessel’s office charged pro-Palestinian protesters at a higher rate than other state prosecutors. ...

Makled said the judge had told him he was leaning toward granting an evidentiary hearing on the bias allegation, which would have opened Nessel’s office to discovery, or the requirement to turn over evidence. “I think she didn’t want to open the can of worms that was coming her way,” Makled added. ... Makled called Nessel’s decision “a victory for the constitution”.

NYU Demands Law Students Renounce Protests or Be Barred From Sitting Final Exams

New York University School of Law barred 31 pro-Palestine law school students from campus facilities and demanded that they sign away their right to protest in exchange for being allowed to return. If the students — deemed “personae non grata,” or PNG — don’t renounce their right to protest on campus, they will be unable to sit for final exams.

“You may not participate in any protest activity or disruptive activity on Law School property,” says the so-called “Use of Space Agreement” sent to the students, which explicitly lays out conditions for being allowed to return to key campus buildings during the school’s “exam period.”

The law students, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid further repercussions from the school, are accused of participating in sit-ins, a time-honored form of nonviolent demonstration that is allowed according to NYU policy. The sit-ins on March 4 and April 29 took place, respectively, at the school’s Bobst Library and outside the office of the law school dean.

LtCOL. Karen Kwiatkowski : War In Washington

Trump blocks grant funding for Harvard until it meets president’s demands

The US Department of Education informed Harvard University on Monday that it was ending billions of dollars in research grants and other aid unless the school accedes to a list of demands from the Trump administration that would effectively cede control of the nation’s oldest and wealthiest university to the government. The news was delivered to Dr Alan Garber, Harvard’s president, in a deeply partisan letter from Linda McMahon, the education secretary, which she also posted on social media. “This letter is to inform you that Harvard should no longer seek grants from the federal government, since none will be provided,” McMahon wrote.

The main reason for the crackdown on Harvard is the school’s rejection of a long list of demands from the Trump administration’s antisemitism taskforce, prompted by campus protests against Israel’s brutal military campaign in Gaza following the Hamas-led attacks of 7 October 2023. McMahon also accuses the university of “a systematic pattern of violating federal law”. ...

The text of McMahon’s letter, much like a Truth Social post from Donald Trump, is littered with all-caps words. “Where do many of these ‘students’ come from, who are they, how do they get into Harvard, or even into our country – and why is there so much HATE?” ...

But McMahon’s letter is not mainly about the claim that Jewish students feel unsafe at Harvard – a view the school’s president, who is himself Jewish, has some sympathy with – but is filled with extended diatribes about a series of other grievances, including: the supposed far-left politics of Penny Pritzker, a member of the university’s governing board who previously served as US commerce secretary during the Obama administration; the complaints of Harvard alumnus and Trump supporter Bill Ackman; what McMahon calls the “ugly racism” of Harvard’s efforts to diversify its student body; complaints about what Fox News has termed a “remedial math” course which is intended to address gaps in new students’ math skills following the Covid pandemic; accusations that the Harvard Law Review has discriminated against white authors; and two brief fellowships the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health offered to the former mayors of New York and Chicago, Bill de Blasio and Lori Lightfoot.

Yanis Varoufakis REVEALS REAL Trump Tariff Strategy

Americans would suffer most if Trump imposes pharma tariffs

Americans would suffer most if Donald Trump imposed tariffs on imports of pharmaceuticals, as medications would become more expensive and potentially unaffordable for some people, drugmakers have warned.

Drugmakers have been braced for targeted border taxes – similar to the 25% levies on steel, aluminium and car imports – after the US president threatened to hit the sector and announced an investigation last month. Last week, Trump hinted at a possible reprieve for companies, saying they would be given time to move their operations to the US, But “after that it’s going to be a tariff wall put up, and they won’t be happy about it,” he added.

Giovanni Barbella, the global head of strategy and supply chain at the Swiss multinational Sandoz, said tariffs would lead to supply disruptions and in the medium term price increases, hitting US patients hardest. Sandoz is one of the world’s biggest makers of generic drugs – cheaper versions of branded medicines whose patents have expired. The majority of prescription drugs sold around the world are generic. “We are producing products on a very tight margin,” Barbella said. “That’s the nature of our industry. So ultimately, higher production cost, including the cost of tariffs, will lead to higher prices.”

He added: “There can be even more supply disruption, because some players can leave the [US] market and focus on markets where they can make more business. So ultimately, the risk is that the US patient will suffer the most.” There are already persistent drug shortages in the US, the UK and other countries, and tariffs would potentially exacerbate that by disrupting the long and complex global supply chains.

Trump orders reopening of Alcatraz prison for ‘most ruthless offenders’

Donald Trump has said he is directing the administration to reopen and expand Alcatraz, the notorious former prison on an island off San Francisco that has been closed for more than 60 years. California Democrats called the idea “absurd on its face” and part of the US president’s strategy of political distraction. Other officials pointed to the closure of the prison complex in 1963, known for its brutal conditions, due to operational expense and the high number of (unsuccessful) escape attempts.

“Alcatraz closed as a federal penitentiary more than 60 years ago. It is now a very popular national park and major tourist attraction. The president’s proposal is not a serious one,” the California Democratic congresswomen and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi said.

In a post on his Truth Social site on Sunday evening, Trump wrote: “For too long, America has been plagued by vicious, violent, and repeat Criminal Offenders, the dregs of society, who will never contribute anything other than Misery and Suffering. When we were a more serious Nation, in times past, we did not hesitate to lock up the most dangerous criminals, and keep them far away from anyone they could harm. That’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

He added: “That is why, today, I am directing the Bureau of Prisons, together with the Department of Justice, FBI, and Homeland Security, to reopen a substantially enlarged and rebuilt ALCATRAZ, to house America’s most ruthless and violent Offenders.”

But the directive received a scathing reception from critics, especially California Democrats. Scott Wiener, a Democratic state senator representing San Francisco, posted that Trump “wants to turn Alcatraz into a domestic gulag right in the middle of San Francisco Bay”.

Trump administration offers $1,000 to undocumented immigrants to leave US

The Trump administration has announced a new program offering a $1,000 payment to people in the US without immigration status as an incentive to return to their home country voluntarily. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) outlined the initiative on Monday, pledging “financial and travel assistance” to undocumented immigrants who agree to leave the country using an app called CBP Home. ...

The department estimates that even with the cost of the stipend, the program “will decrease the costs of a deportation by around 70%”. Currently, the DHS claims, the average cost to arrest, detain and deport someone from the US is $17,121.

The agency also stated in the announcement that individuals who use the CBP Home app to declare their intent to leave the US will be “deprioritized for detention and removal ahead of their departure as long as they demonstrate they are making meaningful strides in completing that departure”.

The DHS further claimed that participation in the program “may help preserve the option” for an individual to re-enter the US “legally in the future”.

Trump cuts will lead to more deaths in disasters, expert warns

The Trump administration’s sweeping cuts to disaster management will cost lives in the US, with hollowed-out agencies unable to accurately predict, prepare for or respond to extreme weather events, earthquakes and pandemics, a leading expert has warned.

Samantha Montano, professor of emergency management at Massachusetts Maritime Academy and author of Disasterology: Dispatches from the Frontlines of the Climate Crisis, said the death toll from disasters including hurricanes, tornadoes and water pollution will rise in the US unless Trump backtracks on mass layoffs and funding cuts to key agencies. That includes the Federal Emergency Management Agency (Fema), whose work relies heavily on the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa), which is also being dismantled.

“The overall risk of threats and hazards occurring in the US has increased since this administration took over, while the capacity of our emergency management system is being diminished,” said Montano in an interview. “Emergency managers will be operating blindly without the data that we have become accustomed to from Noaa and other science agencies. It’s what we rely on to issue warnings and evacuation orders, and pre-position resources. It is really scary because we used to not have good weather data – and death tolls were remarkably higher.

“It is difficult to know if it will be the next hurricane where the response completely fails or three hurricanes from now. But I feel confident in saying that if the cuts continue, we will be seeing higher death tolls and more devastation, absolutely. It’s beyond crazy that we are eliminating the funding for these agencies particularly at this moment where hazards are increasing because of climate change,” Montano said.

First-of-its-kind Hawaii bill raises tourist taxes to fund climate relief

Lawmakers in Hawaii have passed first-of-its-kind legislation that will increase the state’s lodging tax to raise money for environmental protection and strengthening defenses against natural disasters fueled by the climate crisis.

Hawaii’s governor, Josh Green, supports the creation of the so-called “green fee”, and is expected to sign it. “This legislation, which I intend to sign, is the first of its kind in the nation and represents a generational commitment to protect our ‘āina [land],” Green said in a statement. “Hawai‘i is truly setting a new standard to address the climate crisis.”

The bill passed on Friday adds a 0.75% levy to the state’s existing tax on hotel rooms, timeshares, vacation rentals and other short-term accommodations. It also imposes a new 11% tax on cruise ship bills, prorated for the number of days the vessels are in Hawaii ports.

Officials estimate the tax will generate nearly $100m annually. They say the money will be used for projects like replenishing sand on eroding Waikiki beaches, promoting the use of hurricane clips to secure roofs during powerful storms and clearing flammable invasive grasses like those that fed the deadly wildfire that destroyed downtown Lahaina in 2023.

The state’s house and senate, both controlled by large majorities of Democrats, passed the measure by wide margins. Experts say the bill is the first of its kind in the US.

Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: Trumpland

IDF Soldiers Drop Blue Bomb in Gaza as Part of Gender Reveal Celebration

Palestinian poet Mosab Abu Toha wins Pulitzer prize for commentary

Yemen - They Defeated The Saudis, Then Biden, Now Trump

US Minerals Deal Resets Ukraine’s Geopolitics

Craig Murray: Social Democratic Britain’s Strange Death

Environmental Collapse, Not Just Climate Change

A Little Night Music

Victoria Spivey - Organ Grinder Blues

Victoria Spivey - TB Blues

Victoria Spivey - Don't Trust Nobody Blues

Victoria Spivey - Dope Head Blues

Victoria Spivey with Sonny Boy Williamson - Black Snake Swinger

Lonnie Johnson & Victoria Spivey - Steady Grind

Victoria Spivey - Good Cabbage

Victoria Spivey - Thirty Years

Victoria Spivey + Muddy Waters Band - Trouble Hurts