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"Kayfabe is kind of a code. To break kayfabe is to let people know that the punch was not real and that the match was scripted."

-- John Darnielle

News and Opinion

Trump Has Completely Dropped His “Populist” Act

It’s so funny how Trump has stopped even pretending to be a populist. As soon as he was re-elected he was just “Yeah okay so Israel comes first and forget everything I said about free speech and the Ukraine war is continuing and there will be no Epstein investigation, fuck you.”

It has long been obvious to anyone with half a brain that Donald Trump is just another Republican swamp monster playing on public discontent with the status quo to win votes and support, but it is genuinely surprising how completely he has stopped pretending to care about fighting the deep state and sticking up for ordinary Americans as soon as he got back into office. He’s just dropped the populist schtick entirely and is giving the finger to anyone who complains.

The president has been aggressively and repeatedly demanding that his entire base shut up about Jeffrey Epstein and move on after years of MAGAworld fixation on the story, bizarrely going as far as claiming that interest and attention on the Epstein files was a concoction of the Democrats. He is doing this even as his Department of Justice releases a video which it claims disproves conspiracy theories that the sexual predator was murdered in his prison cell — but the video is edited and missing minutes of footage.

NEW: Metadata from the “raw” Epstein prison video shows approximately 2 minutes and 53 seconds were removed from one of two stitched-together clips. The cut starts right at the “missing minute.”https://t.co/akGXqznId6

— WIRED (@WIRED) July 15, 2025

This happens as the Financial Times reports that Trump is now encouraging Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky to ramp up deep strikes into Russian territory and asking whether it would be possible to hit Moscow. This would be the same President Trump who falsely promised on the campaign trail that he would end the Ukraine war in “no longer than one day.”

After pledging to restore and protect free speech in the United States, Trump has been aggressively stomping out speech that is critical of the state of Israel and its genocidal atrocities, scoring yet another win for government censorship on Tuesday with Columbia University’s announcement that it is adopting the IHRA definition of “antisemitism” which conflates criticism of Israel with hate speech against Jews, in accordance with the wishes of the Trump administration.

After promising to “restore peace, stability, and harmony all throughout the world,” Trump has bombed Iran, poured weapons into Israel and Ukraine, backed Israel’s genocide in Gaza and its numerous acts of war against its neighbors, slaughtered hundreds of civilians with a savage bombing campaign in Yemen, and conducted dozens of airstrikes in renewed operations in Somalia, all while leading the nation into the era of official trillion-dollar Pentagon budgets.

In 2023 Trump proclaimed that “if you put me back in the White House… I will totally obliterate the deep state.” In 2025 he’s advancing pretty much every longstanding deep state agenda in the book.

Trump: “I will totally obliterate the deep state.”

Crowd goes wild. Many Americans now understand the enemy isn’t Russia or China. The enemy is the US deep state oligarchy that weaponizes intelligence services, bribes politicians and controls the media.pic.twitter.com/t8UluiBi2t

— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 5, 2023

Every single part of Trump’s platform where he could have claimed to be standing up for the little guy against the powerful has been completely flushed down the toilet in the first six months of his second term, leaving only a standard George W Bush Republican in its place. If you wanted tax cuts for the rich and cruel treatment for immigrants then Trump is still your man, but if you were hoping he’d benefit ordinary Americans or do anything to drain the swamp in Washington he’s just peeing on you and writing a wall of text on Truth Social explaining why the pee is actually rain.

Which again should come as no surprise to anyone who’s been paying attention. No real change will ever come from either of America’s two power-serving major parties.

But what’s so funny is people are probably just going to fall for it again. Trump’s base is very upset about the Epstein thing and many of them might actually abandon Trump himself, but you know next election cycle someone like Tucker Carlson or JD Vance will run on his platform and these suckers will swallow it hook, line and sinker. I actually said this on Twitter the other day and got multiple people telling me that actually Tucker Carlson getting elected would be a major blow to the deep state, so you know they’re already primed for it. They can’t wait to fall in line behind the next phony Republican populism scam.

Whatever. People will be fed whatever slop they keep asking for. The lesson will keep on repeating until it is learned.

New 'Hague Group' DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY For Israeli War Crimes

Israeli strike on Gaza church kills three and injures priest Pope Francis called daily

An Israeli strike has hit the only Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people and injuring 10 others including the parish priest, who used to receive daily calls from the late Pope Francis. The Catholic charity Caritas Internationalis said the three victims were Saad Salameh, the 60-year-old janitor of the Holy Family church; Fumayya Ayyad, an 84-year-old woman who was receiving psychological support in a Caritas tent in the church’s compound when the blast occurred, and Najwa abu Daoud, 69, who was sitting close to Ayyad.

“We are devastated by this latest attack on people who were simply trying to survive and had taken sanctuary in the church,” the secretary general of Caritas Internationalis, Alistair Dutton, said. “Their deaths are a painful reminder of the appalling conditions that civilians and medical personnel are living in under siege. We grieve the lives lost and call on all parties to respect the sacredness of life and the spaces that protect it.”

Ibrahim Saqallah, a paramedic at the nearby al-Ahli Arab hospital, told the Guardian that about 10 people were wounded, some critically. The injuries were caused by shrapnel from an exploding artillery shell. Saqallah said the hospital was notified that the church had been hit. “I got into the ambulance and headed straight to the church,” he added. “This [Israeli] army is arrogant – it does not distinguish between Christian or Muslim, nor does it care whether it’s a church, a mosque, a home, or even a school. We are living in the midst of a brutal war.”

The shelling of the church also damaged its compound, where hundreds of Palestinians, including children and people with disabilities, have been sheltering during the 21-month war. Israel issued a rare apology and said it was investigating.

Israeli Settler REFUSES To Show ANY EMPATHY For Palestinian Children

UN report documents Israel’s relentless destruction of Palestinian education and culture

A recent report by the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem and Israel, was presented to the Human Rights Council of the UN on June 17. The report, while taking note of Israel’s ongoing murder and maiming of Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself, focuses primarily on the destruction of educational and cultural institutions by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) since October 7, 2023. The report was the subject of debate during the session of the Human Rights Council, its 59th, with representatives from the State of Palestine, South Africa, Pakistan, Indonesia, Brazil, Egypt Cuba, Venezuela and others endorsing it.

A joint statement from the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand reiterated purely verbal opposition to military action and human suffering in Gaza and claimed that the Commission of Inquiry was “biased.” The European Union delegates expressed concern over the 'catastrophic humanitarian situation' in Gaza but condemned Hamas’s incursion into Israel on October 7. The United States did not participate in the dialogue over the report and Israel does not recognize the legitimacy of the Commission of Inquiry. Taken together, these actions prevented the resolution from being officially adopted by the Human Rights Commission.

The report, however, is devastating, and deserves to be circulated and read widely. While it does not contain material that is “new,” the various incidents have been previously reported in the world media, it fulfills two essential functions: First, it scrupulously assembles evidence that enables the world’s population to understand the full scope and intent of Israeli government’s actions in Gaza.

Second, by focusing on the deliberate destruction of Palestinian educational and cultural institutions in not only Gaza but also the West Bank, it highlights the course of a “sociocide” – “the deliberate and systematic murder of an entire society” – over and above the relentless starvation, maiming, torture and killing of men, women and children. This “sociocide” includes the extensive destruction of education in Gaza and the West Bank and the wanton decimation of cultural sites in Palestine.

Larry C. Johnson: Yemen CUTS OFF Israel’s Airport and Eilat Port - Russia’s Bombshell Reply to Trump

Lobby Fumes as US Teachers Drop Zionist Curriculum

National Education Association teachers in support of Palestinian rights are celebrating their breakthrough success at the NEA’s Representative Assembly in Portland this summer.

After years of organizing with both one-on-one conversations and state delegation talks, NEA delegates voted to pass a Drop the Anti-Defamation League motion that rejects the ADL as a curriculum and professional development partner.

“We are witnessing a sea change in people’s understanding of who the Palestinians are and what colonialism has done to them,“ said Merrie Najimy, former president of the Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA) and Founder of MTA Rank and File for Palestine.

“In the past, too many people didn’t see the humanity of Palestinians because Israeli propaganda erased and dehumanized them. We call that anti-Palestinian racism,” she said.

While the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), and CODEPINK applauded the motion, the Anti-Defamation League blamed a “pro-Hamas” cabal inside the NEA for rejecting an organization that smears peace activists and slams Muslims and anti-Zionist Jews.

The “pro-Hamas” accusation echoes the verbiage of Project Esther, the Heritage Foundation’s MAGA blueprint for crushing pro-Palestinian voices amid Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

The product of Christian nationalists, Project Esther has earned the ire of the Academic Council of Jewish Voice for Peace for blasting anti-genocide protesters as members of a fictitious U.S. Hamas Support Network.

In response to the motion’s passage at the NEA Representative Assembly (RA), an enraged ADL sent out a mass email urging its supporters to tell the NEA executive committee to reverse the NEA delegates’ recommendation that teachers not “use, endorse, or publicize” ADL materials, nor “participate in ADL programs or publicize ADL professional development offerings.”

A national Drop the ADL From Schools campaign has long criticized the ADL’s materials for whitewashing the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, where Zionist militias destroyed over 500 Palestinian villages in the Nakba (Arabic word for catastrophe) of 1947-48 when the State of Israel was declared.

The ADL’s mass email made no mention, however, of Palestine, focusing instead on the urgency of providing resources to fight antisemitism. “Don’t let the radical anti-Israel advocates within the NEA marginalize Jewish voices,” read the ADL email. ...

With the ADL appealing to the NEA’s nine-member executive committee to reconsider the motion, union President Becky Pringle walks a tightrope as the committee studies whether to say yay or nay to the majority of delegates rejecting the ADL. ...

The NEA executive committee will forward its recommendation on the motion to the NEA board, which will then circle back with the Representative Assembly for a final vote, according to Najimy.

Israeli Forces Kill 93 Palestinians in Gaza Over 24 Hours

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that at least 93 Palestinians were killed and 367 were wounded as a result of Israel’s genocidal war over the past 24-hour period, as relentless US-backed Israeli strikes continue.

The Health Ministry said that another body was recovered from the rubble. “A number of victims are still under the rubble and on the streets, where ambulance and civil defense crews are unable to reach them at this time,” the ministry wrote on Telegram.

The ministry recorded a total of 26 aid-related deaths and 32 injuries. The latest violence brings the total number of aid seekers killed since the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation began operating at the end of May to 877, and the number of wounded to 5,666. The UN has been reporting a slightly higher aid death toll than the Health Ministry.

Russia UNBOTHERED by Trump's 50-Day Ultimatum, Drone War of Attrition Continues

Migrants deported by the US to Eswatini being held in solitary confinement

Five migrants deported by the US to the small southern African country of Eswatini, under the Trump administration’s third-country program, will be held in solitary confinement for an undetermined time, an Eswatini government spokesperson says.

Thabile Mdluli, the spokesperson, declined to identify the correctional facility or facilities where the five men are held, citing security concerns. She told the Associated Press that Eswatini planned to ultimately repatriate the five to their home countries with the help of a UN agency. Mdluli said it wasn’t clear how long that would take.

The International Organisation for Migration (IOM) – the UN agency tasked with ensuring migration is managed in a way that respects human rights – said on Thursday it was not involved in the removal of the migrants from the US and has not been contacted to help send them back home. “As always, IOM stands ready to support Member States, upon request and where operationally feasible, in line with its humanitarian mandate,” an official from the organisation told Reuters.

The men, who the US says were convicted of serious crimes and were in the US illegally, are citizens of Vietnam, Jamaica, Cuba, Yemen and Laos. Their convictions included murder and child rape, according to the US Department of Homeland Security said. US officials also said the men’s home countries would not take them back.

Luigi Mangione DEMANDS Charges Dropped After Prosecutors ILLEGALLY Got Medical Records

DoJ seeks single-day sentence for officer who fired into Breonna Taylor’s home

The US Department of Justice is recommending a one-day jail sentence and supervised release for the former police officer convicted of violating the civil rights of Breonna Taylor, who was fatally shot in her bedroom by Louisville, Kentucky, police in March 2020.

Brett Hankison is set to be sentenced on Monday after being found guilty in November 2024 of one count of civil rights abuse for shooting into Taylor’s bedroom window, which was covered by blinds and a blackout curtain, during a narcotics raid on the wrong home. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, which justice department attorneys argued should be drastically reduced.

Hankison’s bullets pierced the apartment nextdoor, where a couple with a five-year-old child lived. None of his shots hit Taylor, her boyfriend Kenneth Walker, who was in the room, or her neighbors, investigators found.

In a 16 July sentencing memorandum, assistant attorney general for civil rights Harmeet K Dhillon and senior counsel Robert J Keenan said that because Hankison did not shoot anyone and has a clean record otherwise, he should only serve three years of supervised release. It also said that Hankison has suffered psychological stress from the trials.

MAGA World NOT HAPPY With Trump's INSULTS Over Epstein Case

Trump supporters burn Maga hats after he dismisses Epstein files furor as ‘hoax’

Donald Trump’s efforts to dismiss the criticism over his administration’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein files as a “hoax” showed no sign of working on Thursday as more prominent figures from across the political spectrum emerged to attack the US president and some of his supporters recorded videos burning their signature Make America Great Again hats.

Days after the Republican speaker of the House, the Trump loyalist Mike Johnson, called for the release of all documents relating to the late financier, a convicted sex offender and longtime former friend of Trump’s, rebellion continued to simmer within the president’s normally diehard base.

Trump’s former vice-president, Mike Pence, told CBS News on Wednesday that “I think the time has come for the administration to release all of the files regarding Jeffrey Epstein’s investigation and prosecution”, while the conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer, a frequent close adviser to Trump, called for the appointment of a special counsel to handle the Epstein files investigation. “Obviously, this is not a complete hoax given the fact that [Epstein associate] Ghislaine Maxwell is currently serving 20 years in prison in Florida for her crimes and activities with Jeffrey Epstein, who we know is a convicted sexual predator,” she said. ...

Even some of Trump’s most loyal allies in Congress say they are not satisfied by his decision to not release additional files from the Epstein case. Senator Josh Hawley questioned the justice department’s claims about the files, saying: “I think it is maybe a little difficult to believe the idea that DoJ and the FBI … don’t have any idea who Epstein’s clients were”, and called for Maxwell to testify.

In rare moment of friction between Trump and Johnson, meanwhile, the House speaker broke with the president on Tuesday, calling for the justice department to make more Epstein documents public, and urging Pam Bondi, the attorney general, to “come forward and explain” the situation. Bondi has come under particular attack for appearing to claim earlier in the year that she had a client list of Epstein’s, then declaring last week no such list existed.

Tensions over Epstein files complicate Republican plan to vote on cuts bill

Tensions over the release of documents related to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein have complicated House Republicans’ plans to hold a vote on Thursday on legislation demanded by Donald Trump to cancel $9bn in government spending.

The House of Representatives faces a Friday deadline to pass the rescissions package demanded by Trump and approved by the Senate in the wee hours of Thursday morning, otherwise the administration will be obligated to spend about $8bn meant for foreign assistance programs, and $1.1bn budgeted for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds NPR and PBS.

But before the House can vote on the package, it must be approved by the rules committee, where the Democratic minority has sought to capitalize on a growing furor among Republicans and their supporters over the Trump administration’s handling of documents related to the Epstein case by forcing the majority to take politically tricky votes.

After several hours of delay, the committee announced it would hold a hearing into the package on Thursday evening, setting the stage for House Republicans to pass the legislation later in the night. Ranking member Jim McGovern accused the GOP of “stalling” the rules committee hearing, and said Democrats would propose an amendment to the rescissions package meant to win release of any files related to Epstein.

“They’re afraid to meet again to have another vote. Well, we’re going to keep the heat on and you need to keep the pressure on members of Congress,” McGovern said. “Release the files. Full transparency.”

Newsom threatens to redraw California House maps in protest at Texas plan

Seeking to offset a Republican plan to pick up congressional seats in Texas, California Democrats say they are prepared to redraw the state’s 52 congressional districts in a longshot and controversial effort to pick up Democratic seats. Governor Gavin Newsom, seen as a likely presidential candidate in 2028, has been leading the threat in recent days. And Democratic members of California’s delegation in the US House appear to be on board.

“We want our gavels back,” Representative Mark Takano, a California Democrat, told Punchbowl News. “That’s what this is about.” Democrats hold 43 of California’s 52 seats and reportedly believe they can pick up an additional five to seven seats by drawing new maps.

Newsom is pushing the plan as Texas Republicans are poised to redraw its 38 congressional districts in a special session that begins next week. Texas’s governor, Greg Abbott, put redistricting on the agenda at the request of Donald Trump, who wants Republicans to add five seats in Texas as he seeks to stave off a loss in congressional seats next year. The effort has been widely criticized by Democrats as an anti-democratic ploy to make Republicans unaccountable to their voters.

Newsom’s plan in California is unlikely to succeed. More than a decade ago, California voters approved a constitutional amendment that stripped lawmakers of their ability to draw congressional districts and gave it to an independent redistricting commission. Newsom has only offered vague ideas for how to get around that requirement. He has suggested the legislature could call a quick voter referendum to potentially strip the commission of its power. He also said on Wednesday there was a possibility of the legislature trying to enact new maps on its own – a novel legal theory.

“It’s not lawful in any way,” said Dan Vicuña, a redistricting expert at the watchdog group Common Cause. “It was clear that this was meant to be done one time after the census, through a public and transparent process that centers community feedback, and then to be not touched again until the next decade.” He added: “It’s not an invitation to them to circumvent the independent process and gerrymander maps in the middle of a decade. That would completely undermine the purpose of the independent process voters approved.”

Democrats suffer MASSIVE BLOW in latest poll numbers

Inside Elon Musk’s plan to rain SpaceX’s rocket debris over Hawaii’s pristine waters

The north-west Hawaiian island of Mokumanamana is said to be touched by the gods. Bisected by the Tropic of Cancer latitude line, it is deep in the Pacific Ocean, about 400 miles from Honolulu. The island’s steep rocky cliffs give way to indigo blue waters dotted with monk seals and stony coral. No humans have lived on Mokumanamana, but it has the world’s highest density of ancient Hawaiian religious sites. ...

The hundreds of miles of ocean that surround Mokumanamana and other Hawaiian islands are now under threat, according to environmentalists and scientists. The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the agency that oversees air and space travel in the US, announced in May that it had given Elon Musk permission to detonate rocket ships from his company SpaceX over these protected waters.

SpaceX first brought its request, a proposal called the Starship Super Heavy Project, to the FAA in 2022. In 2023, the company was given a license to launch its massive Starship rocket five times a year. In 2024, Musk proposed quintupling that number to 25 a year. SpaceX’s launch base is located in Boca Chica, Texas, surrounded by a state park and federal wildlife refuge. To date, 10 Starship rockets have attempted to take off from there, the majority of which have ended in scattershot explosions, blasting metal shrapnel and debris from the Gulf of Mexico to the Indian Ocean.

In conjunction with the increased number of launches, Musk proposed expanding the area in the Pacific Ocean where debris from his exploded Starships can land by roughly 75 times its original scope. This new area encompasses vast regions throughout the Pacific, including around the eight main Hawaiian islands, Mokumanamana and the entire north-west Hawaiian chain of islands – which lie within the Papahānaumokuākea marine national monument, a Unesco world heritage site.

The monument is considered one of the most ecologically unique and diverse areas in the world, with 7,000 species of birds, turtles, marine mammals, fish and coral, some of which are critically endangered. It is also the largest protected area on Earth, covering nearly 600,000 sq miles of water. Ancestors of modern Hawaiians explored the open ocean here, navigating by stars. During Joe Biden’s final days in office, his administration designated the monument as a sanctuary, giving it enhanced legal protections.

Once SpaceX ramps up launches, bird and sea life could face hazardous material spills, falling objects and sonic booms, according to thousands of pages of government documents reviewed by the Guardian and interviews with more than a dozen people, including oceanographers, aerospace engineers, former government employees, lawyers and Hawaiian residents. They fear Musk’s “fail fast” approach to rocket launches, along with his ties to the US government, could mean SpaceX will have free rein over the region. Many in Hawaii say the FAA’s review of potential environmental consequences is not thorough enough.

Trump’s $1tn for Pentagon to add huge planet-heating emissions

Donald Trump’s huge spending boost for the Pentagon will produce an additional 26 megatons (Mt) of planet-heating gases – on a par with the annual carbon equivalent (CO2e) emissions generated by 68 gas power plants or the entire country of Croatia, new research reveals.

The Pentagon’s 2026 budget – and climate footprint – is set to surge to $1tn thanks to the president’s One Big Beautiful Act, a 17% rise on last year. Military emissions are closely tied to military spending.

The budget bonanza will push the Pentagon’s total greenhouse emissions to a staggering 178 Mt of CO₂e, resulting in an estimated $47bn in economic damages globally, according to new analysis by the Climate and Community Institute (CCI), a US-based research thinktank, shared exclusively with the Guardian.

The huge increase in military spending comes amid worsening climate breakdown, and as Americans – many of them Trump voters – are being hit by destructive extreme weather events such as wildfires, extreme heat and the recent floods in Texas, as well as sea-level rise and other slow-onset climate effects. ...

The US is the largest historical contributor to the climate crisis, and currently the second worst emitter after China – a country with quadruple the population.

How Trump’s anti-immigrant policies could collapse the US food industry

The Trump administration’s assault on immigrants is starting to hit the American food supply. In Texas, farmers who have for years depended on undocumented people for cheap labor – to plant, harvest and haul produce – have reported that workers are staying home to avoid raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). In Los Angeles, restaurants and food trucks have been forced to close as the immigrants who cook and wait tables fear Ice and other law enforcement.

“Farm workers in many states are thinking about leaving the country because they are facing more obstacles to work under this anti-immigrant administration,” said Elizabeth Rodriguez, director of farm worker advocacy with National Farm Worker Ministry, a longstanding organization in south Texas. “They are scared, there are fewer opportunities, and they are no longer prospering here. Their fear will soon be seen in the harvest, when the quantities of produce are depleted.”

From farm to table, at least one in five jobs in the food industry is carried out by immigrants, the equivalent of 14 million workers across the sector. This includes 27% of agricultural workers nationwide and 33% of meatpackers. In restaurants, 46% of chefs and 31% of cooks were born outside the US – mostly in Mexico, China, Guatemala and El Salvador. These jobs are critical: immigrants made up a disproportionate number of “essential” workers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and many were exposed to unsafe conditions so that crops could be harvested, cows milked and takeout delivered.

“Whether it’s the workers behind the scenes in meatpacking plants or on the frontlines of the grocery store, our country relies heavily on the labor of immigrants to keep our food system running and our families fed,” said Mark Lauritsen, international vice-president at United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. “Without a stable, skilled workforce, safety and quality can decline, shelves can sit empty and grocery prices could rise even more.”

Also of Interest

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

Why Is the Media Normalizing Nuclear War and Its Effects on US Populations?

Mike Huckabee Said He Told Netanyahu There Must Be Justice, Father of Slain Palestinian-American Tells Zeteo

Superman Isn’t About Gaza—But It Sure Feels Like It

AI Is A Fever Dream of Despots

Dmitry Orlov: RUSSIA JUST DROPPED THE HAMMER Warning the West

How Public Media Cuts Hurt Native Americans

A Little Night Music

John Hammond – Rag Mama

John Hammond – Tell Me

John Hammond – Move On Up The Line

John Hammond & The Nighthawks – You Better Watch Yourself

John Hammond – Barbecue Blues

Bloomfield / Hammond / Dr. John – Last Night

John Hammond – Fattening Frogs For Snakes

John Hammond – So Many Roads, So Many Trains

John Hammond – Guitar King

John Hammond - Ride 'Til I Die