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This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player Alec "Rice" Miller, Sonny Boy Williamson II. Enjoy!

“Even though there are no ways of knowing for sure, there are ways of knowing for pretty sure.”

-- Lemony Snicket

News and Opinion

To Future Generations: They Knew. They All Knew What Was Happening In Gaza.

A note to future generations for historical record:

Every pundit, politician and reporter of our time who claims they didn’t know what was happening in Gaza is lying.

They knew what was happening. They knew Israel was telling lies. They knew about everything.

They had access to the same information as all the rest of us. We watched them make excuses and ignore indisputable facts every step of the way. There was absolutely no confusion about what they were looking at. It was all right out in the open.

Don’t let them get away with saying they didn’t know. They knew. They knew the entire time. Brand them permanently with this shame, and force them to carry it with them for the rest of their lives.

Israel BRAGS After Assassinating ENTIRE Al Jazeera Crew

Prominent Al Jazeera journalist killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza

A prominent Al Jazeera journalist who had raised concerns about being killed has died in an Israeli airstrike. Anas al-Sharif, known for documenting the release of hostages and for removing his body armour after a ceasefire, was killed while inside a tent for journalists outside al-Shifa hospital in Gaza City along with three colleagues. “Our colleagues at Al Jazeera Arabic report that journalists Anas al-Sharif and Mohammed Qreiqeh were killed along with camera operators Ibrahim Zaher and Mohammed Noufal in an Israeli strike on Gaza,” said Al Jazeera.

The Israel Defense Force confirmed the strike, claiming the reporter had “served as the head of a terrorist cell in the Hamas terrorist organisation and was responsible for advancing rocket attacks against Israeli civilians and IDF forces”. In July, al-Sharif told the Committee to Protect Journalists that he lived with the “feeling that I could be bombed and martyred at any moment”.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : Can Netanyahu Invade Gaza?

Netanyahu defends Gaza City plan as UN warns of ‘calamity’ and starvation

Benjamin Netanyahu has defended his plan to take control of Gaza City in the face of widespread international outrage, even as senior UN officials warned that the move risked unleashing “another calamity” on a territory already experiencing “starvation, pure and simple”. In a rare press conference with foreign journalists in Jerusalem, the Israeli prime minister said the plan, signed off last week by the security cabinet to criticism both at home and abroad, was “the best way to end the war and the best way to end it speedily.”

But during an emergency weekend session of the UN security council in New York, there were repeated warnings that rather than end the 22-month war, the move would exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation. “If these plans are implemented, they will likely trigger another calamity in Gaza, reverberating across the region and causing further forced displacement, killings, and destruction,” said UN assistant secretary general, Miroslav Jenca.

Amid the heated rhetoric, Gaza’s health ministry said that five more people, including two children, had died of malnutrition-related causes, bringing the number of children who have died from such causes to 100. Including adults, the total death toll from malnutrition stands at 217, the ministry says. Ramesh Rajasingham, Ocha’s coordination director, told the security council meeting: “This is no longer a looming hunger crisis – this is starvation, pure and simple.”

Israel has imposed a blockade and restrictions on aid entering the territory, but in his press conference Netanyahu said it was “completely false” that his government was pursuing a “starvation policy”. He acknowledged hunger, and problems with the food distribution system run by the US and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), but accused the media of “lies” about the scale of the problem.

A few hours before he spoke, at least 26 Palestinians were killed while seeking aid in Gaza, hospitals and witnesses said. They included 15 killed while waiting for aid trucks close to the newly built Morag corridor that separates the southern cities of Rafah and Khan Younis, according to Nasser hospital. A further six were killed while waiting for aid in northern Gaza near the Zikim crossing, according to Gaza’s health ministry and Shifa hospital in Gaza City. According to the UN, more than 1,370 Palestinians have been killed since 27 May while seeking food.

"This Is Orchestrated Killing": MSF Condemns GHF Aid Sites, Says They Were Set Up to Be Death Traps

Israeli Forces Kill 59 Palestinians in Gaza Over 24 Hours, Including 35 Who Were Seeking Aid

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Sunday that Israeli forces killed 59 Palestinians and wounded 363 over the previous 24-hour period as US-backed Israeli attacks continue across the Strip and as Israel is planning to escalate its genocidal war.

The Health Ministry said the bodies of another two Palestinians killed by previous Israeli attacks were also recovered. “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 Health Ministry said.

The majority of the dead, 35, were killed by Israeli forces while attempting to reach food aid, and another 304 aid seekers were injured. The Health Ministry said that since the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating at the end of May, it has recorded the deaths of 1,778 aid seekers and the injury of 12,894.

Activists in Netherlands protest on roof of Microsoft site storing Israeli military data

Activists have staged a protest on the roof of a Microsoft datacentre in the Netherlands after revelations the Israeli military is storing large volumes of data in the country. Images posted on social media showed some of the activists blocking access to the large Microsoft facility in the north-west of the country on Sunday, while others scaled the building’s roof and lit flares.

The group, Geef Tegengas (Push Back), said its protest was in response to a recent Guardian investigation that revealed how the Israeli military surveillance agency Unit 8200 has used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast collection of intercepted Palestinian phone calls. The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found that Microsoft’s Azure servers in the Netherlands have held large volumes of Israeli military data.

Leaked Microsoft documents suggest that by July this year 11,500 terabytes of Israeli military data, equivalent to approximately 200m hours of audio files, was stored in Azure’s servers in the Netherlands. In a statement, the activists said they were “calling on all employees of the datacentre to lay down their work until all Israeli intelligence has been removed from the servers”.

The Microsoft facility, a 14-hectare campus located near Middenmeer in the North Holland province, is part of a global network of datacentres used to store Azure customers’ data. Disclosures about the Israeli military’s reliance on the Netherlands-based datacentres prompted questions in the Dutch parliament this week at an emergency parliamentary debate about Israel’s war on Gaza.

During the debate, Christine Teunissen, an MP for the leftwing Party for the Animals, asked the government how it would prevent data held in the country from “being used to commit genocide” in the besieged Palestinian territory.

Palestine Action ban protest: half of those arrested were 60 or over, data shows

Half of the people arrested during the protest in relation to Palestine Action in London on Saturday were aged 60 or above, according to police figures. A total of 532 people were arrested at the largest demonstration relating to the group since it was proscribed last month. All but 10 were under Section 13 of the Terrorism Act for displaying supportive placards or signs.

An age breakdown released by the Metropolitan police on Sunday revealed that nearly 100 of those detained were in their 70s and 15 were in their 80s. Of the 519 arrested people with confirmed dates of birth, 49.9% were 60 or older.

Hundreds attended the event in Parliament Square organised by Defend Our Juries, which asked participants to hold up signs saying: “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action.” ...

The home secretary proscribed Palestine Action last month after activists caused an estimated £7m of damage to jets at the RAF Brize Norton military base in Oxfordshire.

Cooper has said the decision was based on strong security advice and followed what she described as “disturbing information referencing planning for further attacks,” the details of which cannot yet be publicly reported because of ongoing legal proceedings.

Alastair Crooke : The Pressures on Trump

Europe’s leaders raise pressure on Trump to involve Ukraine in Putin talks

Europe’s leaders have raised the pressure on Donald Trump to involve Ukraine in a planned summit with Vladimir Putin, as Germany warned the White House against any deal hatched “over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians”.

Speaking before a bilateral meeting expected to take place between the US and Russian leaders on Friday in Alaska, the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said he hoped and assumed that Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, would also be involved. Merz told the broadcaster ARD that Berlin was working closely with Washington to try to ensure Zelenskyy’s attendance at the talks.

“We cannot accept in any case that territorial questions are discussed or even decided between Russia and America over the heads of Europeans and Ukrainians,” he said. “I assume that the American government sees it the same way.” ...

Announcing there would be an emergency meeting of EU ministers for Monday, Brussel’s top diplomat, Kaja Kallas, echoed that sentiment. “President Trump is right that Russia has to end its war against Ukraine. The US has the power to force Russia to negotiate seriously. Any deal between the US and Russia must have Ukraine and the EU included, for it is a matter of Ukraine’s and the whole of Europe’s security,” Kallas said.

The US vice-president, JD Vance, speaking a day after meeting the UK foreign minister, David Lammy, during his holiday in England, said Washington was working towards talks between Putin, Zelenskyy and Trump. But Vance said he did not think it would be productive for the Russian president to meet his Ukrainian counterpart before speaking with Trump. “We’re at a point now where we’re trying to figure out, frankly, scheduling and things like that, around when these three leaders could sit down and discuss an end to this conflict,” he told Fox News.

“In Russia You’d Be Arrested,” EU President Tells Man As He’s Arrested

Trump administration threatens to strip Harvard University of lucrative patents

The latest phase of the Trump administration’s offensive against Harvard University is a comprehensive review of the university’s federally funded research programs, and the threat to strip the school’s lucrative portfolio of patents. In a letter to the Harvard president, Alan Garber, posted online on Friday, Donald Trump’s commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, accused Harvard of breaching its legal and contractual requirements tied to federally funded research programs and patents.

Lutnick also said the commerce department has begun a “march-in” process under the federal Bayh-Dole Act that could let the government take ownership of the patents or grant licenses. “The Department places immense value on the groundbreaking scientific and technological advancements that emerge from the Government’s partnerships with institutions like Harvard,” Lutnick wrote. He said that carried a “critical responsibility” for Harvard to ensure that its intellectual property derived from federal funding is used to maximize benefits to the American people.

Friday’s letter ratchets up White House pressure on Harvard, which it has accused of civil rights violations for failing to take steps dictated by the administration in response to accusations that student protests against Israel’s assault on Gaza were antisemitic. ...

As of 1 July 2024, Harvard held more than 5,800 patents, and had more than 900 technology licenses with over 650 industry partners, according to the Harvard Office of Technology Development.

The Epstein/Trump/Israel Connection Unpacked (w/ Whitney Webb)

Companies aiding Trump’s immigration crackdown see ‘extraordinary’ revenues

The tech, surveillance and private prison providers arming Donald Trump’s massive expansion and weaponization of immigration enforcement are running a victory lap after reporting their latest financial results. Palantir, the tech firm, and Geo Group and CoreCivic, the private prison and surveillance companies, said this week that they brought in more money than Wall Street expected them to, thanks to the administration’s crackdown on immigrants.

“Well, as usual, I’ve been cautioned to be a little modest about our bombastic numbers,” said Alex Karp, the Palantir chief executive, in an investor call earlier this week. Then he crowed about the company’s “extraordinary numbers” and his “enormous pride” in its success. Private prison company executives, during their respective calls, could barely contain their excitement, flagging to investors opportunities for “unprecedented growth” in the realm of immigration detention.

Palantir saw 53% growth in revenue from US government contracts in the second quarter of 2025 compared with the same period the year prior and surpassed $1bn in total quarterly revenue for the first time. Analysts had expected the company to bring in $939.4m in revenue. ...

While Palantir is making it easier to deport immigrants, private prison corporations GeoGroup and CoreCivic are bringing in more money than expected helping detain them. GeoGroup reported $636.2m in revenue this quarter, beating analyst predictions of $623.4m, while CoreCivic announced $538.2m in the second quarter of this year, a 9.8% increase from last year’s second quarter. George Zoley, the GeoGroup company chief executive, said its detention facilities are fuller than they’ve ever been, with Ice using 20,000 beds across 21 GeoGroup detention centers, about one-third of the estimated 57,000 beds in Ice detention centers across the country. GeoGroup executives also said in the call they have begun exploring detention centers at US military sites, one of the many “unprecedented growth opportunities” Zoley spoke of during the call.

Trump orders homeless he passed en route to golf course to leave Washington DC

In a social media post on Sunday, Donald Trump has demanded homeless residents of Washington DC leave the country’s capital or face eviction, and again promised to use federal officers to jail criminals, even though violent crime in the city was at a 30-year low when he took office in January.

“The Homeless have to move out, IMMEDIATELY,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform Sunday morning, shortly after being driven from the White House to his golf club in Virginia. “We will give you places to stay, but FAR from the Capital.”

The post was illustrated with four photographs, all apparently taken from the president’s motorcade along the route from the White House to his golf course. Two of the images showed a total of 10 tents pitched on the grass along a highway on-ramp just over a mile from the White House. The third image showed a single person sleeping on the steps of the American Institute of Pharmacy Building on Constitution Avenue. The fourth image showed the line of vehicles that whisk Trump to his golf course passing a small amount of roadside litter on the E Street Expressway, near the Kennedy Center.

Trump’s post promoted a previously announced news conference on Monday, which he has promised, “will, essentially, stop violent crime” in the capital district, without explaining how. In a subsequent post, he said that the news conference at 10am Monday, “will not only involve ending the Crime, Murder, and Death in our Nation’s Capital, but will also be about Cleanliness”.

Texas redistricting fight with Democrats ‘could last years’, threatens Greg Abbott

Texas governor, Greg Abbott, has stepped up his war of words with Democratic lawmakers who have left the state to foil an aggressive redistricting plan aimed at giving his Republican party five additional seats in Congress, saying on Sunday that the fight “could literally last years”.

Abbott issued his new threat on Fox News Sunday, saying that he would use his powers to call a special session of the Texas legislature to extend the battle indefinitely. The special session lasts 30 days, he said, “and as soon as this one is over, I’m going to call another one, then another one, then another one, then another one”.

Whenever the absent Democrats return to Texas, Abbott said, they would be arrested for violating their oath of office. “If they want to evade that arrest, they’re going to stay outside Texas for literally years,” he remarked. “And they might as well start voting in California or Illinois, or wherever they may be.”

Sunday’s TV political talk shows were dominated by the increasingly acrimonious dispute over Texas’s audacious gerrymandering plans which were instigated at the direct behest of Donald Trump.

The move to flip five US House seats to the Republicans is being made as polls indicate that the US president’s party will struggle to hang on to its razor-slim majority in the chamber in next year’s midterm elections. The Republicans currently hold a margin of just three seats.

I guess now the Demorats can utilize the skills they developed fighting progressives and leftish 3rd party challenges on the Reptiles.

‘We are at war – bring it on’: Democrats ready to fight dirty to stop Trump

It was a stirring speech that brought Democrats to tears. “When someone is cruel or acts like a bully, you don’t stoop to their level,” Michelle Obama told them in Philadelphia in 2016. “No, our motto is: ‘When they go low, we go high.’” Fast forward to Ken Martin, chair of the Democratic National Committee, speaking in Chicago this week. “This is not the Democratic party of your grandfather, which would bring a pencil to the knife fight,” he insisted. “This is a new Democratic party. We’re bringing a knife to a knife fight, and we are going to fight fire with fire.”

It was a brutally honest acknowledgement of what a decade of Donald Trump’s politics has wrought. Out go the courtly and courteous playing-by-the-rules Democrats convinced that Maga is a passing phase, a fever that will break. In come a new generation of pugnacious Democrats prepared to take off the gloves and fight dirty.

The trigger for this scorched-earth approach is Trump’s push to find more Republican seats in the House of Representatives ahead of next year’s crucial midterm elections through gerrymandering, a process of manipulating electoral maps to benefit one party over another. At the president’s urging, Texas Republicans have proposed new congressional districts aimed at flipping five Democratic-held seats, diluting the voting power of millions of people of colour and further skewing an already deeply partisan map in that state.

Trump also dispatched his vice-president, JD Vance, to Indiana to discuss redistricting with the state governor and legislative leaders in the hope of gaining one or two Republican seats. Separately, a top Republican leader in Florida announced plans to begin redistricting efforts in the president’s adopted home state. ...

Democrats have long been accused of timidity, showing more concern about being right than about being in power, eschewing vicious attacks on opponents with the notable exception of their own left wing.

Climate change is killing fireflies – threatening a US summer ritual

Even in areas of the US where there are typically fireflies, people are especially excited to see them this year because there appear to be more this summer after a steady decline in recent years, according to scientists. Despite that welcome news, researchers caution that it does not necessarily signal a reversal of the downward trend. They remain concerned about the long-term viability of the firefly family, which includes more than 2,000 species, some of which are at risk of extinction due to factors such as light pollution and climate change.

“It’s been really uplifting to hear all of the reports of huge increases in fireflies,” said Candace Fallon, senior endangered species conservation biologist for the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation. “But they are also insects, and insects are notorious for having populations that bounce up and down each year, and so it’s hard to say that their populations are increasing from a single year of data.” ...

Scientists in the US and Canada do not have baseline data on firefly species, which makes it difficult to quantify how much the population has decreased, and they must instead rely on anecdotal reports and documented habitat loss, which point to a downward trajectory, Fallon said. ...

The primary factor behind fireflies’ decline is habitat loss and degradation, according to the Xerces Society. That includes land being disrupted by development, light pollution and pesticide use. Artificial lighting at night makes it hard for the bugs to communicate and mate, Fallon said. Climate change, including an increase in droughts and rising sea levels, also affect firefly populations, she said.
Scientists say the lightning bugs’ apparent revival is probably due to increased rainfall this year.

Human connection to nature has declined 60% in 200 years

People’s connection to nature has declined by more than 60% since 1800, almost exactly mirroring the disappearance of nature words such as river, moss and blossom from books, according to a study. Computer modelling predicts that levels of nature connectedness will continue to decline unless there are far-reaching policy and societal changes – with introducing children to nature at a young age and radically greening urban environments the most effective interventions.

The study by Miles Richardson, a professor of nature connectedness at the University of Derby, accurately tracks the loss of nature from people’s lives over 220 years by using data on urbanisation, the loss of wildlife in neighbourhoods and, crucially, parents no longer passing on engagement with nature to their children.

In the research published in the journal Earth, Richardson also identified the disappearance of natural words from books between 1800 and 2020, which peaked at a 60.6% decline in 1990.

The modelling predicts an ongoing “extinction of experience” with future generations continuing to lose an awareness of nature because it is not present in increasingly built-up neighbourhoods, while parents no longer pass on an “orientation” towards the natural world. Other studies have found parental nature connectedness is the strongest predictor of whether a child will become close to nature.

“Nature connectedness is now accepted as a key root cause of the environmental crisis,” said Richardson. “It’s vitally important for our own mental health as well. It unites people and nature’s wellbeing. There’s a need for transformational change if we’re going to change society’s relationship with nature.”

Colorado prison evacuated as wildfire becomes one of largest in state history

A Colorado prison was evacuated as one of the largest wildfires in state history continued to grow, and officials warned residents of remote areas to be ready to leave on Sunday as gusty winds and low humidity fed the flames. Evacuation orders were already in place for mountain communities as the Lee fire charred more than 167 sq miles (433 sq km) across Garfield and Rio Blanco counties, with just 6% containment. No injuries or structural damage has been reported. ...

The Lee fire, churning through trees and brush about 250 miles (400km) west of Denver, is now the sixth-largest single fire in the state’s history, according to the Colorado division of fire prevention and control. ...

In southern California, crews reached 62% containment on the 8-sq-mile (20-sq-km) Canyon fire that forced evacuations and destroyed seven structures after breaking out Thursday near the Los Angeles county and Ventura county line. ... The Gifford fire, California’s largest blaze so far this year, has scorched at least 180 sq miles (466 sq km) of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties since erupting on 1 August. It was 32% contained on Sunday.

Also of Interest

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

Russia Says Israel Has Forgotten Lessons of the Holocaust

Chris Hedges Report: Israel Also Sponsored a Genocide in Guatemala

In Swipe at UK, Huckabee Cites Allied Bombing of Dresden to Defend Israel's Gaza Genocide

My years reporting on Gaza broke me down. Why did it take so long for the world to become outraged?

European Soccer League Criticized for 'Insulting' Tribute to 'Palestinian Pelé' Killed by Israel

Syria Spurns Kurdish Integration Talks in Paris as Tensions Mount

Ukraine - Setting The Stage For U.S.-Russia Talks

As the Colorado River Slowly Dries Up, States Angle for Influence Over Future Water Rights

US Politicians Double Down On Israel Support As Public Revolts

Starmer's mechanism to control UK internet

A Little Night Music

Sonny Boy Williamson, Jimmy Page & Brian Auger - Walking

Sonny Boy Williamson – Nine Below Zero

Sonny Boy Williamson - All My Love In Vain

Sonny Boy Williamson - I`m A Lonely Man

Sonny Boy Williamson - Don't Start Me Talkin'

Sonny Boy Williamson - Fattening Frogs For Snakes

Sonny Boy Williamson - Checkin' Up On My Baby

Sonny Boy Williamson – Mr. Downchild

Sonny Boy Williamson - Help Me