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This evening's music features blues guitarist Robert Ward. Enjoy!

"The reputation of those countries which cater to the foreign policy interests of other states at the expense of their own national interests will go down regardless of how they explain their actions."

-- Vladimir Putin

News and Opinion

Heh, you can almost see the Times of Israel squirming in its seat as it types the text...

Trump ditched Israel with surprise Houthi truce. That doesn’t bode well (for Israel) on Iran

The Israeli Air Force struck Houthi-controlled infrastructure on Tuesday as its planes flattened the airport in Sanaa, a day after Israeli jets pounded the port city of Hodeida. Then, US President Donald Trump dropped his own bombshell. Without coordinating with Israel or other allies, he announced during a White House meeting that the Houthis had agreed to stop attacking shipping lanes in the Red Sea, and said that the US would halt its attacks on the Iran-backed group.

The Houthis, meanwhile, declared they would keep hitting Israel. As if to emphasize the point, a drone believed to have been launched from Yemen flew toward Israel early Wednesday before being intercepted by the IAF. If the agreement holds — and that is an extremely uncertain proposition — Israel, it seems, is on its own in the fight against the Houthis. ...

If the Houthis do continue firing at Israeli-linked civilian ships and at the country itself, Israel is unlikely to be capable of forcing them to stop through airstrikes. It’s not even clear that hundreds of US strikes are what caused the Houthis to agree to a ceasefire with Washington. Two Iranian officials told The New York Times that it was Iran that persuaded the Houthis to stop their attacks on US assets, as Tehran engages in nuclear talks with the US. ...

But the ceasefire also points to a clear danger for Israel. Trump surprised Jerusalem with his announcement, and didn’t seem to care much about what it meant for Israel’s security. This mirrors the nightmare scenario for Israel as Trump pursues nuclear talks with Iran. With Israel on the sidelines, the president could suddenly announce a deal with Iran that leaves its nuclear program intact. Israel would find itself isolated, and unlike in the Houthi case, it would be inconceivable that it would attack Iran after an agreement with Trump.

The US president has talked tough on Iran. Yet his partiality toward agreements with enemies through direct talks seems to be driving policy, and Israel’s point men — Ambassador Yechiel Leiter and Strategic Affairs Minister Ron Dermer — have failed to influence policy or even keep abreast of secret talks. With Trump coming to the region next week, and not planning to stop in Israel, more surprises could be in store.

Is the Trump/Netanyahu Split Real?

'Assault on Children': UNRWA Condemns Israeli Raids on East Jerusalem Schools

Israeli occupation forces enforced a ban on the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees on Thursday by storming three schools in East Jerusalem, terrorizing children and staff as they shuttered the facilities and drawing condemnation from human rights defenders.

According to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, heavily armed Israeli security forces raided the schools in the Shu'fat refugee camp in illegally occupied East Jerusalem, detaining one UNRWA employee and forcing around 550 children out of their classrooms as the invaders closed the facilities.

"As a result, UNRWA was forced to evacuate all children across the six schools it runs in East Jerusalem," UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said. "Now, nearly 800 girls and boys—some as young as 6 years old—are left in shock and trauma."

An assault on children.
An assault on education.
A sad day in occupied East Jerusalem.

This morning, heavily armed Israeli Forces entered three @UNRWA schools in Shu’fat Camp in occupied East Jerusalem, forcing 550+ girls & boys who were in classrooms out of their schools.…

— Philippe Lazzarini (@UNLazzarini) May 8, 2025

"Storming schools and forcing them shut is a blatant disregard of international law," Lazzarini added. "These schools are inviolable premises of the United Nations. By enforcing closure orders issued last month, the Israeli authorities are denying Palestinian children their basic right to learn. UNRWA schools must continue to be open to safeguard an entire generation of children."

The International Court of Justice—which is also weighing a genocide case against Israel over the U.S.-backed Gaza onslaught—is considering whether the Israeli government's ban on UNRWA violates international law.

Hundreds of UNRWA staffers and their relatives have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip since October 2023. Israel has bombed many UNRWA schools-turned-shelters in Gaza, including a Tuesday "double-tap" airstrike on school in the al-Bureij refugee camp that killed at least 30 of the more than 2,000 people sheltering there.

UNRWA officials also accuse Israeli forces of torturing kidnapped agency workers in a bid to elicit false confessions that they took part in the October 7, 2023 attack. UNRWA and much of the international community have condemned such allegations as baseless.

In the West Bank, which includes East Jerusalem, Israeli forces launched Operation Iron Wall in January. Israel says the invasion is targeting resistance fighters largely based in West Bank refugee camps. However, tens of thousands of people have been forcibly displaced by the offensive, which has killed numerous civilians.

According to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, more than 900 Palestinians including nearly 200 children have been killed by Israeli forces in the West Bank since October 2023. Attacks by Israeli settler-colonists, sometimes aided by Israeli troops, have also killed, wounded, displaced, and terrorized West Bank residents as Israel's far-right government forges ahead with plans to steal more land from Palestinians, ethnically cleanse them, and open the door to further Israeli colonization.

"We Are Not Living. We Are Enduring." Gaza Mother on Struggle for Food Under Israeli Blockade

Dozens of Community Kitchens in Gaza Shut Down Due To Israeli Blockade

Dozens of community kitchens in Gaza shut down on Thursday after running out of supplies due to the total Israeli blockade on the Palestinian territory, which is starving millions of civilians.

Amjad al-Shawa, director of the Palestinian Non-Governmental Organizations Network (PNGO) in Gaza, told Reuters that the majority of the 170 community kitchens in Gaza have already shut down, and the few remaining will soon run out of supplies. ...

“Everyone in Gaza today is hungry. The world must act now to save the people here,” Shawa said. “The remaining kitchens will be closing soon. The hunger catastrophe is beyond words. People are losing their lone source of food.”

New film claims to identify Israeli killer of journalist Shireen Abu Akleh

A new US-made documentary has produced evidence pointing to the identity of an Israeli soldier who shot dead the Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh in 2022. The documentary, Who Killed Shireen?, concludes that a member of the Duvdevan Israeli special forces unit shot Abu Akleh while she was reporting for Al Jazeera in Jenin, on the West Bank. ...

Israelis never identified the unit or individual responsible, nor did they allow the Biden administration access to them. The documentary, made by the Zeteo media organisation, sets out not only to identify the soldier responsible for the journalist’s death, but also to show the failure of the US government to hold the Israeli military to account.

An unnamed Biden administration official said a US team that investigated the incident came to the conclusion that an Israeli soldier intentionally shot Abu Akleh and should have been able to see that she was a journalist. ...

Two Israeli soldiers identified the soldier who shot Abu Akleh as Alon Scagio. He was promoted to captain and moved to another unit after the shooting, and was killed in combat in Jenin in June 2024.

Pepe Escobar : Yemen Wins by a Landslide!

Vance says US won’t intervene in India-Pakistan conflict: ‘None of our business’

JD Vance has said that the US will not intervene in the conflict between Pakistan and India, calling fighting between the two nuclear powers “fundamentally none of our business”.

The remarks came during an interview with Fox News, where the US vice-president said that the US would seek to de-escalate the conflict but could force neither side to “lay down their arms”.

“What we can do is try to encourage these folks to de-escalate a little bit, but we’re not going to get involved in the middle of war that’s fundamentally none of our business and has nothing to do with America’s ability to control it,” Vance said during the interview. As the US could force neither side to lay down their arms, he continued, the country would “continue to pursue this thing through diplomatic channels”.

“Our hope and our expectation is that this is not going to spiral into a broader regional war or, God forbid, a nuclear conflict,” Vance said. “Right now, we don’t think that’s going to happen.”

The remarks match Donald Trump’s “America first” foreign policy of calling for a retreat from the US role as a mediator in foreign conflicts.

‘There will be war’: fear and defiance across border after Indian airstrikes in Pakistan

The crowd gathered in an angry frenzy, their slogans ringing out across the streets of the Pakistani city of Rawalpindi. “There will be war,” they cried out in unison. “The war will continue till Kashmir is freed. Till India is destroyed. There will be war.” Just hours earlier, an alleged Indian drone had crashed amid the food stalls outside the cricket stadium, injuring a passing civilian. It was one of at least 25 drones that Pakistan claimed India had sent into Pakistani territory overnight, in what they described as “another blatant military act of aggression”. ...

After India’s alleged second incursion involving drones, which were shot down deep inside Pakistani territory earlier on Thursday, the mood on the streets of Rawalpindi was one of rage. The crowd had a single demand: “Attack India and destroy India,” they roared. “Hail Pakistan’s military.”

Since the partition of India and the formation of Pakistan in 1947, the two countries have fought four wars. While people-to-people sentiments have often softened in times of peace, any sign of cross-border aggression is known to ignite deep-rooted suspicions and outright anger, and is often met with calls for powerful retaliation.

In Rawalpindi – home to the headquarters of Pakistan’s military – there was deep frustration that Pakistan had yet to hit back at India after the strikes. ... Even a few weeks ago, as the two countries exchanged mounting threats, the appetite for a hot war with India had remained largely lacklustre in Pakistan. However, this week’s aggressions have changed sentiments entirely, cutting across political divides and economic background, from vendors to students and lawyers. ...

Over the border in India, a similar appetite for the full force of the military to rain down on Pakistan had been circulating for weeks, after a militant attack in Indian-controlled Kashmir killed 26 people. India accused Pakistan of involvement in the attack, in which Hindu men were singled out for their religion and killed, horrifying the Hindu-majority country.

DIRECT negotiations US-Russia, ONLY way forward

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : Is Trump for Peace?

Heh, is there going to be anybody left at Fox?

Trump names Fox News host Jeanine Pirro as top DC federal prosecutor

Donald Trump said on Thursday he would name Jeanine Pirro, a Fox News host and former state-level prosecutor, to be the interim US attorney for the District of Columbia after a key Republican senator said he would not support the loyalist initially selected for the job.

Pirro, a former district attorney of Westchester county, New York, is a diehard Trump supporter whose false claim that the 2020 election was rigged by Dominion Voting Systems was used against Fox in court.

The move to select Pirro pulled Trump out of a fraught situation after he was forced to withdraw the nomination of Ed Martin, who has been serving as the interim US attorney since the start of Trump’s second term.

Interim US attorneys can serve for 120 days until they need to be confirmed permanently by the Senate. If they do not win confirmation, or if the president has not named a successor, the vacancy is filled by the judges who sit on the bench in federal district court in Washington.

The chief US district judge in Washington is James Boasberg, who Trump sees as a judicial adversary, after he blocked Trump’s use of the Alien Enemies Act to deport suspected Venezuelan gang members and then opened a contempt inquiry after his injunction was flouted.

Trump administration invokes state secrets privilege in Kilmar Ábrego García case

The Trump administration is invoking the “state secrets privilege ” in an apparent attempt to avoid answering a judge’s questions about its erroneous deportation of Kilmar Ábrego García to El Salvador.

US district judge Paula Xinis disclosed the government’s position in a two-page order on Wednesday. She set a Monday deadline for attorneys to file briefs on the issue and how it could affect Ábrego García’s case. Xinis also scheduled a 16 May hearing in Greenbelt, Maryland, to address the matter.

The Republican administration previously invoked the same legal authority to cut off a judge’s inquiry into whether it defied an order to turn around planes deporting Venezuelan migrants to El Salvador. ...

Police in Maryland had identified Ábrego García as an MS-13 gang member in 2019 based off his tattoos, Chicago Bulls hoodie and the word of a criminal informant. But Ábrego García was never charged. His lawyers say the informant claimed Ábrego García was in an MS-13 chapter in New York, where Ábrego García has never lived.

The administration has balked at telling Xinis what, if anything, it has done to facilitate Ábrego García’s return to the US. The judge ruled that his lawyers can question several Trump administration officials under oath about the government’s response to her orders.

Judge orders immediate release of Tufts University student from ICE custody

Judge Boasberg Demands to Know If Trump Can Really Bring Abrego Garcia Home With a Phone Call

At a hearing Wednesday on the status of nearly 140 Venezuelan immigrants whom the Trump administration hastily expelled to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center, a federal judge told lawyers representing the detainees that there were "a lot of facts in their favor" regarding whether the White House has the authority to return the men to the United States.

During the hearing, Judge James Boasberg, chief judge of the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., questioned U.S. Department of Justice lawyers to determine whether the U.S. has "constructive custody" of Kilmar Abrego Garcia—a Maryland man whom the administration has insisted it can't bring back to the country even though he was mistakenly sent to El Salvador—and other prisoners at the Terrorism Confinement Center (CECOT).

If the White House does have constructive custody of the men, with El Salvador detaining them at the behest of the U.S. government, it would be possible to bring them back to the U.S. to receive due process—which DOJ lawyer Abishek Kambli reluctantly conceded they had not received before their expulsion.

Boasberg zeroed in on a comment President Donald Trump made in an ABC News interview last week about Abrego Garcia, when he told reporter Terry Moran that he "could" make a phone call to Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele to secure the Maryland father's return.

"You could pick it up and with all the power of the presidency, you could call up the president of El Salvador and say, 'Send him back,'" said Moran.

"And if he were the gentleman that you say he is, I would do that," Trump said.

On Wednesday Boasberg demanded to know if Trump's comments were accurate.

"Is the president not telling the truth, or could he secure the release of Mr. Abrego Garcia?" he asked.

Kambli replied that Trump was just speaking of "the influence that he has" but doubled down on the claim that the president's position of power doesn't equal legal control of constructive custody.

The White House has claimed it has no jurisdiction over the migrants even though they were sent to El Salvador under a $6 million deal Trump struck with Bukele.

Boasberg pointed to comments by Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a visit to CECOT in which she suggested the U.S. is in control of who is sent to and remains at the prison.

"What about Secretary Noem saying CECOT is 'one of the tools in our tool kit that we will use if you commit crimes against the American people,'" Boasberg asked Kambli, quoting Noem directly. "Is she wrong about that?"

Kambli attempted to deflect the suggestion that the U.S. is paying El Salvador directly to house migrants, saying that despite Noem's remarks, the administration has only paid "grants" to Bukele's government "for law enforcement and anti-crime purposes."

Boasberg also asked point-blank: "Is the United States paying the government of El Salvador to detain the migrants?"

Kambli did not reply directly, saying only that "there is no agreement or arrangement whereby the United States maintains any agency or control over these prisoners."

At another point the judge forced Kambli to admit that—contrary to repeated claims by Trump—the U.S. Supreme Court did not rule in his favor regarding his invocation of the Alien Enemies Act, which the White House has used to expel people it accuses of being members of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua.

The Supreme Court lifted a block imposed by Boasberg in an earlier ruling on the Alien Enemies Act, but did not uphold Trump's invocation of the rarely-used law.

"I know your client believes the Supreme Court upheld the invocation of the AEA," Boasberg told Kambli. "You agree the Supreme Court never did that, correct?"

Law & Crime reported that "almost audible squirming ensued" as Kambli gave "several evasive answers" before Boasberg read the Supreme Court ruling verbatim.

"They did not analyze that precise issue," Kambli finally admitted.

Former congressman Conor Lamb suggested Boasberg's harsh questioning of the Trump administration is what is needed in the judicial system as the president continues his mass deportation operation and threatens due process rights.

"A country in which Trump can do whatever he wants to these people, say whatever he wants about what he did, but be protected from what he said in a case about what he did, is not the democratic country we have known or that we deserve," said Lamb. "Judges, we need you now."

Law & Crime reported that Boasberg "signaled an obvious inclination toward finding the U.S. does have constructive custody over the relevant Venezuelan nationals detained in CECOT" before ordering the Trump administration to provide sworn declarations regarding who has official custody.

At the end of this hearing, Judge Boasberg pushed the case forward and suggested the Trump admin will be forced to explain more about its control over the Venezuelan men we are paying El Salvador to imprison without trial. Discovery may start next week. https://t.co/Fo8k0oQ86o

— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) May 7, 2025

The judge ordered the organizations representing the plaintiffs, the ACLU and Democracy Forward, to decide by Monday whether to request new documents and depositions from the government in the ongoing case.

Federal prosecutors open criminal investigation into New York attorney general

Federal prosecutors have opened a criminal investigation into New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, after the Trump administration alleged last month in a referral that she may have falsified paperwork for properties she owns in Virginia and New York, according to people familiar with the matter.

The investigation marks a swift and notable escalation against James, a major political enemy of Donald Trump, who was ordered to pay more than $450m in penalties as a result of a lawsuit brought by James’s office that accused him of inflating his net worth to secure financial benefits.

In what appears to be the early stages of the FBI criminal investigation, prosecutors have impaneled a federal grand jury to hear evidence in the eastern district of Virginia after the head of the federal housing agency, William Pulte, last month made the referral to the justice department, the people said.

The investigation appears to be multipronged, the people said, with involvement from the FBI in New York in addition to Virginia. The investigation appears to have gathered pace only in recent weeks with news of the grand jury filtering through Trump’s orbit in the last few days of April.

The criminal referral rehashed claims touted online by Trump allies that James may have committed fraud by attesting in paperwork in 2023 that she would make a house in Norfolk, Virginia, which she was helping a relative to buy, as her principal residence while she was New York’s attorney general. Whether the allegations are substantial enough to result in criminal charges remains unclear.

Tyre Nichols Case: Shock & Anger in Memphis as 3 Cops Acquitted on State Murder Charges

Noaa to stop tracking cost of climate crisis-fueled disasters

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (Noaa) will no longer track the cost of climate crisis-fueled weather disasters, including floods, heatwaves, wildfires and more. It is the latest example of changes to the agency and the Trump administration limiting federal government resources on climate change.

Noaa falls under the US Department of Commerce and is tasked with daily weather forecasts, severe storm warnings and climate monitoring. It is also parent to the National Weather Service.

The agency said its National Centers for Environmental Information would no longer update its Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters database beyond 2024, and that its information – going as far back as 1980 – would be archived. For decades, it has tracked hundreds of major events across the country, including destructive hurricanes, hailstorms, droughts and freezes that have totaled trillions of dollars in damage.

The database uniquely pulls information from the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (Fema) assistance data, insurance organizations, state agencies and more to estimate overall losses from individual disasters. ...

In a separate development on Thursday, Fema’s acting administrator, Cameron Hamilton, was pushed out and replaced by another official from the Department of Homeland Security, a day after he testified on Capitol Hill that he did not agree with proposals to dismantle Fema, which Donald Trump has threatened to do.

April storms that killed 24 in US made more severe by burning fossil fuels

The four-day historic storm that caused death and destruction across the central Mississippi valley in early April was made significantly more likely and more severe by burning fossil fuels, rapid analysis by a coalition of leading climate scientists has found.

Record quantities of rain were dumped across eight southern and midwestern states between 3 and 6 April, causing widespread catastrophic flooding that killed at least 15 people, inundated crops, wrecked homes, swept away vehicles and caused power outages for hundreds of thousands of households.

The floods were caused by rainfall made about 9% more intense and 40% more likely by human-caused climate change, the World Weather Attribution (WWA) study found. Uncertainty in models means the role of the climate crisis was probably even higher. Another nine people died as a result of tornadoes and strong winds, and the economic damages have been estimated to be between $80bn and $90bn.

The record rainfall was driven in large part by warm ocean temperatures in the Gulf of Mexico that fed the storm moisture that it dropped across Mississippi, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee and Alabama. Overall, the human-caused climate crisis made surface sea temperatures 2.2F (1.2C) hotter, and such ocean conditions are now 14 times more likely compared with in a cooler, pre-industrial world, the study found.

Also of Interest

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

Who killed Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh – and why?

Karma Arriving? Times of Israel Frets Over Trump Abandonment With Houthis and Perhaps Even Iran

Ukraine - Rada Blocks Detail Agreements Of Mineral Deal

A US or UK Hidden Hand? “How an India-Pakistan War Could Derail Central Asia’s Future”

Trump Missing His Chance to Make History in Moscow

Holes in the US Constitution

Why is Trump considering raising taxes on millionaires?

Trump Trade 'Deal' With UK Ripped as Another 'Con on American Workers'

President Trump’s Proposal to Eliminate Income Taxes: Can It Be Done?

Fixing Education In The Age of “AI” Is Simple, But Hard

‘Hollowing out’: New Zealand grapples with an uncertain future as record numbers leave

‘Astonishing journeys’: online tool tracking migratory animals highlights challenge of protecting them

The Who announce ‘bittersweet final tour’ of US and Canada

Iran's missile program: Max Blumenthal tours Tehran's aerospace park

Bill Gates ACCUSES Elon Musk Of KILLING CHILDREN, GIVING AWAY 99% Of Fortune

A Little Night Music

Robert Ward And The Ohio Untouchables – Hot Stuff

Robert Ward - I Will Fear No Evil

Robert Ward And The Ohio Untouchables – Your Love Is Amazing

Robert Ward - Potato Soup

Robert Ward - Lord Have Mercy On Me

Robert Ward - (You Make My) Blood Run Cold

Robert Ward - Yonder Goes My Baby

Robert Ward - The Chicken Jerk

Robert Ward - You Ought To Stop It

Robert Ward - Born To Entertain

Robert Ward - Black Bottom