The Evening Blues - 8-4-25
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features New Orleans r&b singer, guitarist and songwriter Alvin Robinson. Enjoy!
Alvin Robinson - The Blues
"Historically, those who commit genocide have always had stated justifications for their actions. They’ve always claimed they were defending themselves. They’ve always denied they were in the wrong. They didn’t twist their mustaches like cartoon supervillains cackling about how fun it is to do genocide and be evil, they provided reasons and explanations for why what they were doing was right.
The fact that Israel has arguments and apologia defending its actions doesn’t negate the conclusively established fact that Israel is committing genocide. Of course they’re justifying their actions and claiming they’re in the right; that’s what always happens."
-- Caitlin Johnstone
News and Opinion
“What Was Israel Supposed To Do After October 7?” Is Asking The Wrong Question
As Israel and its supporters continue to lose control of the narrative around the world with more and more people awakening to the reality that a genocide is taking place in Gaza, I’m seeing the resurrection of a talking point that western Israel apologists have been trying to make work off and on since this mass atrocity began.
“What was Israel supposed to do in response to October 7?” they ask confidently, taking it as a given that there is no possible answer to this brilliant checkmate question besides “Rain vast quantities of military explosives on a giant concentration camp full of children and deliberately starve a civilian population using siege warfare.”
But the real problem is that they are asking the wrong question.
A much more useful and interesting question than “What was Israel supposed to do in response to October 7?” is “What were Palestinians supposed to do in response to all of Israel’s abuses prior to October 7?”
Nobody’s ever been able to give me a serious response to this question which doesn’t entail mountains of lies and/or the dehumanizing expectation that Palestinians should accept conditions that none of us would willingly accept ourselves.
That’s why you never see me criticizing Hamas. If someone could tell me what specifically Palestinians should have done in response to Israel’s tyranny that they haven’t already tried in order to obtain real material justice, I’d happily say Hamas should have taken that option instead of resorting to violent force. But if that option truly existed, Hamas never would have been created in the first place. That’s why nobody’s been able to tell me what such an option would have looked like without lying.
What was Israel supposed to do after October 7? Same thing they should have done before October 7: dismantle the apartheid state, give everyone equal rights, pay massive reparations, and right all the wrongs of the past. October 7 was a response to the tyranny and abuse of Israel; the correct thing to do when things finally came to a head with the Hamas attack would have been to remove all the tyranny and abuse which gave rise to it.
That’s what Israel should have done. Of course Israel was never going to do this, for the same reason they spent decade after decade murdering, displacing and oppressing Palestinians since Israel was created. Israel would never allow justice and equality after October 7 for the same reason Israel would never allow justice and equality before October 7: because Israel has always been a settler-colonialist project that can only be sustained by nonstop violence and tyranny and theft and abuse and lies and breathtaking immorality.
That is the reason October 7 happened, and it’s the problem all decent people in the world are trying to address right now.
Those who suggest that everything Israel is doing in Gaza can be explained by October 7 have got it exactly backwards: everything we’re seeing in Gaza explains why October 7 happened in the first place.
The sadism and psychopathy we’re witnessing in Gaza didn’t magically appear 22 months ago; everyone in Gaza has been experiencing Israel’s abusiveness in various manifestations throughout their entire lives.
Israel has always been this way. October 7 just gave it the excuse to completely unleash its genocidal impulses.
Rashid Khalidi: U.S. Complicity in Gaza Genocide
Israel closes 88% of cases of alleged war crimes or abuse without charges
Nearly nine out of 10 Israeli military investigations into allegations of war crimes or abuses by its soldiers since the start of the war in Gaza have been closed without finding fault or left without resolution, according to a conflict monitor. Unresolved investigations include the killing of at least 112 Palestinians queueing for flour in Gaza City in February 2024, Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) said, and an airstrike that killed 45 in an inferno at a tented camp in Rafah in May 2024.
Also unresolved is an inquiry into the killing of 31 Palestinians going to pick up food at a distribution point in Rafah on 1 June. They were killed after Israeli forces opened fire, witnesses said. Shortly after, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said the reports were “false” but the IDF told the Guardian that the incident was “still under review”.
Iain Overton and Lucas Tsantzouris, the team at AOAV, said the statistics suggested Israel was seeking to create a “pattern of impunity” by failing to conclude or find no fault in the vast majority of cases involving “the most severe or public accusations of wrongdoing by their forces”. The IDF said it “conducts examination and investigation processes regarding exceptional incidents that occurred during operational activity, in which there is a suspicion of a violation of the law” in accordance with its obligations under Israeli and international law.
Whistleblower VINDICATED After IDF Smear Campaign
Israeli forces kill at least 27 at food site while minister’s al-Aqsa visit causes outrage
At least 27 people were killed by Israeli forces while trying to get food and six others died from starvation or malnutrition in Gaza on Sunday, Palestinian officials said, amid a regional outcry over an Israeli minister’s visit to Jerusalem’s most sensitive holy site. Witnesses said Israeli forces fired on hungry crowds who were attempting to get food aid from a distribution site run by the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) in the south of the territory, with some describing the fire as indiscriminate. ...
Sunday’s killings were the latest in a string of deadly shootings targeting hungry people. At least 1,400 people have been killed while seeking aid since 27 May, most of whom were killed near GHF sites, while others were killed along the routes of aid convoys, the UN said on Friday. The GHF says it only uses pepper spray or fires warning shots to control crowds. In total, 119 people were killed in Gaza by Israeli shootings and strikes over the last 24 hours, including those seeking aid, the Gaza health ministry said.
The Palestinian Red Crescent said the Israeli military targeted its headquarters in Khan Younis, southern Gaza, on Sunday, killing one staffer and wounding three more. Video taken by an employee showed the headquarters in flames after the strike, which had destroyed much of the building. A separate Israeli strike hit a school in Khan Younis that displaced people had been using as shelter, killing at least two people.
While Israeli strikes continued in Gaza, Israel’s far-right national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, led prayers at al-Aqsa mosque in occupied East Jerusalem, provoking outrage among regional powers. Ben-Gvir was among a group of about 1,250 people who prayed at the compound on Sunday under the protection of the Israeli military. The compound, which Jews call the Temple Mount, is a highly revered site – the holiest in Judaism and the third holiest in Islam. The site is under Jordanian custodianship; under a decades-old agreement, Jews are allowed to visit but not pray there. ...
Ben-Gvir called for the annexation of Gaza and for Palestinians to leave the territory while at al-Aqsa on Sunday. He said in a post on
“A message must be sent: to ensure that we conquer all of the Gaza Strip, declare sovereignty …. This is the only way that we will return the hostages and win the war.”
The Perfect Example Of News Media BLATANTLY Lying For Israel!
US Israeli Ambassador Mike Huckabee praises IDF and GHF killers in visit to Gaza
On Friday, US special envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff and US Ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, visited Gaza on behalf of President Donald Trump. In social media posts prior to and immediately after the trip, Witkoff and Huckabee said the purpose was to uncover the “truth” (Huckabee) and gain a “clear understanding” (Witkoff) concerning mass starvation in Gaza. In reality, the purpose of the trip is to whitewash and obscure the deliberate, state-engineered program of mass starvation undertaken by Israel with the full support of the US government and its imperialist allies.
The Trump administration officials were photographed wearing body armor. Witkoff wore a black “Make America Great Again” hat while meeting with Israeli officials and private contractors. Since the outset of Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign nearly 22 months ago, the Israeli government has severely limited food, electricity, medicine and other basic necessities into the besieged and largely destroyed enclave. This starvation campaign was intensified following the imposition of an Israeli blockade on March 2, which prevented entry of virtually all food, fuel, medicine or other humanitarian supplies, including baby formula.
The results of this starvation campaign have been predictably horrifying. Millions of people around the world have seen images and videos of emaciated bodies of humans, mothers and babies. On Friday, the Gaza Health Ministry confirmed that three more people, including two children, had died of hunger and malnutrition in the previous 24 hours. ... In order to provide cover for the famine operation, which is provoking widespread outrage among millions of people, including many workers who voted for Trump falsely believing his lying claims that he was a “peace president” intent on ending war, on Thursday and Friday, Trump envoy Witkoff and ambassador Huckabee visited a distribution site where they took photos and met with Israeli officials.
In comments to Fox News Friday, Huckabee, a far-right Christian Zionist, presented the-US backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) which began distributing limited food at four distribution sites in Gaza beginning in May, as the pinnacle of success. “Look, here’s what we saw,” Huckabee said. “The GHF food program is working, it’s working very well. In fact, today we passed over 100 millions meals having been served in two months.” While there are many reasons to doubt this figure, even if true, 100 million meals for 2.1 million people spread over 60 days is approximately .79 meals per person, per day, that is, less than one meal a day for every adult and child in Gaza. In other words, Huckabee is explicitly endorsing and praising a program that provides food in such small quantities that it is nowhere near enough to sustain life, let alone improve health under conditions of siege and forced displacement.
Huckabee’s boastful admission is proof that the purpose of the visit by US officials was not to uncover the “truth,” but to provide political cover for the Trump administration, the Israeli government and the GHF, all of whom are implicated in crimes against humanity. In social media posts and interviews, Huckabee claimed that Hamas is responsible for the famine, stealing “as much as 80 percent of the food,” a lie debunked by the Israeli military, hardly neutral arbiters, last week.
Israel Preparing To Escalate Military Offensive in Gaza
The Israeli military is drawing up plans to escalate its genocidal war in the Gaza Strip that will soon be presented to Israeli political leadership, Haaretz reported on Sunday.
An Israeli official said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “is pushing for the release of hostages as part of a military resolution,” and he is set to discuss the matter with his cabinet on Tuesday. According to the Haaretz report, the idea is to extend ground operations into sensitive areas, including Gaza’s central refugee camps, where Israeli captives are believed to be held.
Israeli officials are now claiming that Hamas doesn’t want a deal, even though the group has long said it is willing to release all remaining Israeli captives in exchange for a permanent ceasefire. Officials are pointing to Hamas’s denial of a claim by US envoy Steve Witkoff, who said the group was willing to disarm. Hamas responded that it would only give up its weapons if an independent Palestinian state were established.
Witkoff was in Israel on Friday and Saturday and met with family members of Israelis being held in Gaza. He told them that President Trump no longer seeks a temporary ceasefire deal but wants a comprehensive one that will free the remaining 20 living Israeli captives. However, Netanyahu hasn’t shown interest in a deal, and there’s no sign that Trump is willing to put pressure on him.
TikTok Installs IDF CENSOR Over Platform
An estimated 300,000 people marched against Israel's war on Gaza in Sydney, according to organisers.
This particular protest marked a significant win for pro-Palestine groups in Australia, as Supreme Court ruled in favour of the 'Palestine Action Group' pic.twitter.com/9DnCP7UoYj— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) August 3, 2025
Alastair Crooke : Will Trump Attack Iran Again?
Israel's Ben Gvir, under heavy guard, leads settler raid on Al-Aqsa Mosque
Israel's far-right National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir led hundreds of settlers in storming Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on Sunday, were they loudly performed Jewish Talmudic prayer, under a heavy police guard, and attempted to antagonise Muslim worshippers.
Videos seen by Middle East Eye showed hundreds of settlers storming the courtyards of Al-Aqsa Mosque where some could be seen dancing and shouting, disrupting the sanctity of the Muslim place of worship.
The status quo in Jerusalem has long maintained that Jewish prayer is forbidden on the raised plateau in occupied East Jerusalem's Old City, where Al-Aqsa Mosque stands.
However, over the past century, Zionist groups have repeatedly violated the fragile arrangement, launching unprecedented attacks on one of Islam's holiest sites.
Residents in Jerusalem's Old City told MEE that before and after Ben Gvir's raid, the area had come to resemble a "military base" due to the "many checkpoints" that had been set up and the "heavy Israeli security presence". They said that Israeli forces severely restricted Palestinians from accessing the mosque, with only a few local residents allowed to pass.
Alastair Crooke: Putin Vows to FINISH OFF Ukraine, EU & Trump SABOTAGED Peace
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Trump's Dangerous Moves
White House officials rush to defend Trump after shaky economic week
Donald Trump administration officials fanned out on Sunday’s US political shows to defend the president’s policies after a bruising week of poor economic, trade and employment numbers that culminated with the firing of labor statistics chief Erika McEntarfer.
US trade representative Jamieson Greer said Trump has “real concerns” about the jobs numbers that extend beyond Friday’s report that showed the national economy added 73,000 jobs in July, far below expectations. Job growth numbers were revised down by 285,000 for the two previous months as well.
On CBS News’s Face the Nation, Greer defended Trump’s decision to fire McEntarfer, a respected statistician, saying: “You want to be able to have somewhat reliable numbers. There are always revisions, but sometimes you see these revisions go in really extreme ways.” He added: “The president is the president. He can choose who works in the executive branch.” ...
Uproar over McEntarfer’s firing has come as a series of new tariff rates are due to come into effect this month. While the president has predicted a golden age for the US economy, many economists warn that higher import tariffs could ultimately weaken American economic activity. ...
The first six months of Trump’s second terms have been characterized by a seesawing of tariff rate announcements that earned the president the moniker on Wall Street of Taco – “Trump always chickens out”. But last week he issued an executive order outlining tariff modifications for dozens of countries after he had twice delayed implementation.
Leaked Hegseth Memo Suggests More US Troops on US Streets
New reporting based on a leaked briefing memo from a recent meeting between high-level officials at the Department of Homeland Security and Defense Department sparked fresh warnings on Saturday about the Trump administration's internal plans to increase its domestic use of the U.S. military.
According to Greg Sargent of The New Republic, which obtained the memo, the document "suggests that Trump's use of the military for domestic law enforcement on immigration could soon get worse."
The "terrifying" memo—which the outlet recreated and published online with certain redactions that concealed operational and personnel details—"provides a glimpse into the thinking of top officials as they seek to involve the Defense Department more deeply in these domestic operations, and it has unnerved experts who believe it portends a frightening escalation."
Circulated internally among top Trump officials, TNR reports the memo was authored by Philip Hegseth, the younger brother of U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. The younger sibling, though lesser known by the public than his controversial brother, currently serves as a senior adviser to Homeland Security secretary Kristi Noem and acts as DHS liaison officer to the Pentagon.
The meeting between DoD and DHS officials and the memo centers on Philip Hegseth's push for closer collaboration between the two departments, especially with regard to operations on the ground, like those that happened earlier this year in Los Angeles when National Guard units and later U.S. Marines were deployed in the city to help Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents and local law enforcement put down local protests sparked by raids targeting immigrants and workers.
As Sargent noted in a social media post:
Strikingly, the memo says straightforwardly that what happened in Los Angeles is the sort of operation that may be necessary "for years to come." As one expert told me: "They see Los Angeles as a model to be replicated."
"To Make America Safe Again, DHS and DoD will need to be in lockstep with each other, and I hope today sets the scene for where our partnership is headed," states the memo, which also compares transnational criminal gangs and drug cartels to Al Qaeda.
Lindsay Cohn, an associate professor at the U.S. Naval War College, was among the experts TNR spoke with who called that comparison particularly worrying. "The conflation of a low-level threat like transnational criminal organizations with Al Qaeda, which was actually attempting to topple the United States government, is a clear attempt to use excessive force for a purpose normally handled by civil authorities," said Cohn.
Sociology professor Kim Lane Scheppele, a scholar who studies the rise of autocracy at Princeton University, was among those who raised alarm in response to the published reporting and the contents of the memo.
"Here it comes," wrote Kim Lane Scheppele. "The worst we've been waiting for."
According to TNR:
The memo outlines the itinerary for a July 21 meeting between senior DHS and Pentagon officials, with the goal of better coordinating the agencies' activities in "defense of the homeland." It details goals that Philip Hegseth hopes to accomplish in the meeting and outlines points he wants DHS officials to impress on Pentagon attendees.
Participants listed comprise the very top levels of both agencies, including Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and several of his top advisers, Joint Chiefs chairman Dan Caine, and NORTHCOM Commander Gregory Guillot. Staff include Phil Hegseth and acting ICE commissioner Todd Lyons.
"Due to the sensitive nature of the meeting, minimal written policy or background information can be provided in this briefing memo," the memo says.
Joseph Nunn, counsel for the Liberty and National Security Program at the Brennan Center for Justice, told TNR it was "disturbing to see DHS officials pressuring the U.S. military to turn its focus inward even further." Nunn added that the memo suggests that "military involvement in domestic civilian law enforcement" is set to become "more common" if the policy recommendations put forth by Phillip Hegseth take hold.
Following publication of his reporting, Sargent said he wanted to flag something specific for readers.
"It looks plausible that the Hegseth brothers are trying to push military leaders further on involving military in domestic law enforcement," he noted. "Two experts I spoke with read the memo that way. There may be a bigger story here to get."
Experts Reveal Mystery 'Third Figure' In Epstein Tapes
Legal cases could prise open Epstein cache despite Trump’s blocking effort
Where political pressures have so far failed, legal pressures that have largely sailed under the radar of the fierce debate about Epstein’s crimes could yet succeed and bring crucial information in the public eye. ... One lawsuit brought by the news website Radar Online and investigative journalist James Robertson stems from their April 2017 public records request for documents related to the FBI’s investigation of Epstein. This request came years after Epstein pleaded guilty to state-level crimes in Florida for soliciting a minor for prostitution – and before his 2019 arrest on child sex-trafficking charges in New York federal court.
Radar and Robertson filed suit in May 2017 after the FBI did not respond to their request; the agency ultimately agreed that it would process documents at a rate of 500 pages per month, per court documents. “Despite the FBI identifying at least 11,571 pages of responsive documents, 10,107 of those pages remain withheld nearly 20 years after the events at issue,” according to court papers filed by Radar and Robertson. Although Epstein killed himself in custody awaiting trial, and Maxwell is serving a 20-year prison sentence, the FBI is fighting release of more documents. The agency has invoked an exception to public records disclosure that allow for documents to be withheld if their release would interfere with law enforcement proceedings.
The Manhattan federal court judge overseeing this public records suit sided with the FBI’s citation of these exemptions, but Radar is pursuing an appeal that could be heard in the second circuit court of appeals this fall. “In court, they insist that releasing even one additional page from the Epstein file would hurt their ability to re-prosecute Ghislaine Maxwell in the event the supreme court orders a new trial,” a spokesperson for Radar said. “It’s a flimsy rationale and we are challenging it head on in the court of appeals. Our only hope of understanding how the FBI failed to hold Epstein accountable for over a decade – and preventing future miscarriages of justice – is if the government releases the files.”
It’s also possible that the justice department’s request to release grand jury transcripts in Epstein and Maxwell’s cases could bolster arguments for the release of records. “The DoJ’s core argument against disclosure for the past six years has been that it would jeopardize their ability to put – and keep – Ghislaine Maxwell in prison. They say that releasing even a single page could threaten their case,” the Radar spokesperson said. “Naturally, any support they offer to release material undermines their claims.”
Separately, developments in civil litigation involving Epstein and Maxwell could also potentially lead to the disclosure of more documents surrounding their crimes. A federal judge in 2024 unsealed a cache of documents in the late Epstein accuser Virginia Giuffre Roberts’s defamation case against Maxwell. Some documents were kept under seal, however, and journalists pursuing release of documents appealed against that decision. On 23 July, the second circuit decided that it found “no error in the district court’s decisions not to unseal or make public many of the documents at issue”, but it also ordered the lower court to review possibly unsealing them.
Most Powerful U.S. Zionists TARGETING Thomas Massie!
Texas Democrats flee state to prevent vote on redrawing congressional map
In a statement, Texas Democrats accused their counterparts, the Texas Republicans, of a “cowardly” surrender to Donald Trump’s call for a redrawing of the congressional map to “continue pushing his disastrous policies”.
“Texas Democratic lawmakers are halting Trump’s plan by denying his bootlickers a quorum,” the statement read.
The scheme to flee the state is reported to have been put together by the Illinois governor, JB Pritzker, who met with the Texas Democratic caucus late last month and has directed staff to provide logistical support for their stay. ...
The plan to flee the state is not without potential consequences. Members of the Texas Democrats face a $500-a-day fine and possible arrest, a measure that was introduced in 2023, two years after Democrats left the state for three weeks to block election legislation that included several restrictions on voting access.
Jeremy Corbyn Interview: Why We Launched Your Party
World in $1.5tn ‘plastics crisis’ hitting health from infancy to old age
Plastics are a “grave, growing and under-recognised danger” to human and planetary health, a new expert review has warned. The world is in a “plastics crisis”, it concluded, which is causing disease and death from infancy to old age and is responsible for at least $1.5tn (£1.1tn) a year in health-related damages.
The driver of the crisis is a huge acceleration of plastic production, which has increased by more than 200 times since 1950 and is set to almost triple again to more than a billion tonnes a year by 2060. While plastic has many important uses, the most rapid increase has been in the production of single-use plastics, such as drinks bottles and fast-food containers.
As a result, plastic pollution has also soared, with 8bn tonnes now polluting the entire planet, the review said, from the top of Mount Everest to the deepest ocean trench. Less than 10% of plastic is recycled. Plastics endangered people and the planet at every stage, the review said, from the extraction of the fossil fuels they were made from, to production, use and disposal. This results in air pollution, exposure to toxic chemicals and infiltration of the body with microplastics. Plastic pollution can even boost disease-carrying mosquitoes, as water captured in littered plastic provides good breeding sites.
The review, published in the leading medical journal the Lancet, was released before the sixth and probably final round of negotiations between countries to agree a legally binding global plastics treaty to tackle the crisis. The talks have been dogged by a deep disagreement between more than 100 countries that back a cap on plastic production and petrostates such as Saudi Arabia that oppose the proposal. The Guardian recently revealed how petrostates and plastic industry lobbyists are derailing the negotiations. ...
Petrostates and the plastics industry have argued the focus should be on recycling plastic, not cutting production. But, unlike paper, glass, steel and aluminium, chemically complex plastics cannot be readily recycled. The report said: “It is now clear that the world cannot recycle its way out of the plastic pollution crisis.”
Michigan’s governor replaces clean energy advocate on utilities board with ‘industry ally’
Michigan’s governor, Gretchen Whitmer, has effectively ousted a clean energy advocate from serving on a board that regulates the state’s energy utilities monopoly, and replaced her with someone who environmental groups charge is an “industry ally”, campaigners say.
The groups allege the move was made at utility giant DTE Energy’s behest because it was unhappy with Michigan public services commission (MPSC) board member Alessandra Carreon’s position on clean energy and opposition to rate increases, among other issues.
Each MPSC board vote is important because the commission is made up of three gubernatorial appointees, and Whitmer’s decision amid a debate over rate increases could slow the state’s ambitious clean energy transition and lead to higher energy bills, opponents warn.
The decision marks the latest in a series of environmental controversies for Whitmer, a Democrat whose name has been discussed as a potential leading candidate for the party’s nominee for president in 2028, but now faces increasing scrutiny over her record.
Appointing someone with industry ties to a board that is supposed to protect the public from utility wrongdoing “reflects incredibly poorly on Governor Whitmer”, said Chris Gilmer-Hill, policy associate with the Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition non-profit. “This is part of this pattern of this administration being very quick to give utilities what they want and not giving Michiganders what they need,” Gilmer-Hill added.
Monarch butterflies’ mass die-off in 2024 caused by pesticide exposure
A 2024 mass monarch butterfly die-off in California was probably caused by pesticide exposure, new peer-reviewed research finds, adding difficult-to-obtain evidence to the theory that pesticides are partly behind dramatic declines in monarchs’ numbers in recent decades.
Researchers discovered hundreds of butterflies that had died or were dying in January 2024 near an overwintering site, where insects spend winter months. The butterflies were found twitching or dead in piles, which are common signs of neurotoxic pesticide poisoning, researchers wrote.
Testing of 10 of the insects revealed an average of seven pesticides in each, and at levels that researchers suspect were lethal. Proving that pesticides kill butterflies in the wild is a challenge because it is difficult to find and test them soon after they die. Though the sample size is limited, the authors wrote, the findings provide “meaningful insight” into the die-off and broader population decline.
“The incident gave us a rare opportunity to directly document pesticide exposure and its impacts on monarchs in the real world,” said Staci Cibotti, the study’s lead author, and an entomologist and pesticide program specialist with the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. She added: “Even though laboratory studies and population models have shown that pesticides are harmful to monarchs, it can be difficult to capture the impacts of pesticides in the field on wild populations. This study helps to fill that gap.”
As much as 90% of the monarch butterfly population in some US regions has been wiped out in recent decades, and evidence has pointed to pesticides, climate crisis and habitat loss as the drivers.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Assange Joins Historic Anti-Genocide March Across Sydney’s Harbour Bridge
300,000 March Across Sydney Bridge for Gaza
Hala Jaber - What The World Is Offering Palestinians Isn’t A State
Uncertainty Increases As Real Tariffs Reach Higher Levels
Rashid Khalidi on Why He Won't Teach at Columbia This Fall
BRICS united as NEOCONS take over US foreign policy
Chief Dennis Fritz : Why the DoD Wants War
A Little Night Music
Alvin Robinson - Something You Got
Alvin Robinson - Let the Good Times Roll
Alvin Robinson - You Brought My Heart Right Down to My Knees
Alvin Robinson - Whatever You Had You Ain't Got It No More
Alvin Robinson - I'm Gonna Put Some Hurt On You
Alvin 'Shine' Robinson - I Wanna Know
Alvin Robinson - Down Home Girl
Alvin Robinson- Searchin'
Alvin 'Shine' Robinson - Lazy Mary
Alvin Robinson - Dedicated To Domino
Comments
Aaron Mate
has written a very good sequential analysis of Russiagate criminal activity and the Gabbard document releases that expose it. Worth a full read:
evening linda...
mate has done yeoman's work birddogging russiagate and in the process he would seem to have nailed a bunch of deep staters and democrats. it will be interesting to see if there's ever any accountability.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. It was good to see Crooke
bring up the question of not merely will Trump do x, but can he do x. I think that needs a ton more emphasis here as well as abroad. Candidates and officeholders are always promising shit under conditions such that even IF they really intended and wanted to do so they might not actually be able to do.
Dedicated to Domino is new for me, and a good tune. I've heard Dpwn Home Girl a lot, but this is the first time I;ve heard knowing that it's the original version. Very nice.
Britain's "Your Party" sounds like it might make things interesting over there for a while, should be fun to watch.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
yeah, trump seems to be getting away with doing a lot more than any president ought to be able to in a constitutional republic constructed as ours is. i keep waiting for the shoe to drop, but it never seems to.
your party seems interesting and i'm glad to see that it seems to be getting some traction. i am preparing to put aside some stocks of popcorn should things continue on the current trend line.
have a great evening!
Hey, joe!
Searchin' is a thing.
There was the black guy who drove a big cattle truck all over Texas for my best friend's Dad. James. We all loved James. My Dad put cattle on the trailer from time to time, and James played music for us all while we rounded up the cattle or rested afterwards. He introduced us to Searchin'.
He taught us kids to dance, taught the teens to drive. Introduced us to Wolfman Jack.
Good times, joe. Maybe great times, in the grand scheme of things.
Thanks for all you do, my friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
evening otc...
it's funny how much certain songs trigger memories for me, my memories of life are greatly affected by what music i was listening to at a given time. i see it's the same for you.
have a great evening!
I think it is some flash back
to a time when friends were alive and enjoying it with me. Everyone in that environment that loved that song are dead except me, my brother, and one friend. 15 (or more) are dead. But I remember them.
Because of the song.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981