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The Evening Blues - 8-13-25



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Larry Davis

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer Larry Davis. Enjoy!

Larry Davis - Texas Flood

"The refusal to take sides on great moral issues is itself a decision. It is a silent acquiescence to evil. The Tragedy of our time is that those who still believe in honesty lack fire and conviction, while those who believe in dishonesty are full of passionate conviction."

-- Fulton J. Sheen


News and Opinion

Stopping The Gaza Holocaust Is The First Step Toward A Healthy World

Palestine is the moral question of our time because the abuse of the Palestinians is the most glaring, in-your-face symptom of the imperial disease. You can see the effects of so many of the empire’s abusive dynamics in how this thing is playing out, from racism to colonialism to militarism to war profiteering to mass media propaganda to empire-building to government corruption to suppression of free speech to ecocide to the heartless, mindless, soul-eating nature of the capitalist system under which we all live.

But there’s more to it than that. The primary reason to place Palestine front and center as the moral issue of our time is because if we can’t sort out the morality of an active genocide backed by our own western governments, we’re not going to be able to sort out anything else. Stopping the Gaza holocaust and bringing justice to the Palestinians is the very first step toward a healthy civilization.

Palestine is the moral issue of our time for the same reason if you saw someone in your family torturing another member of your family to death, it would be the most urgent matter happening in your life at that moment. You’d have other problems in your life, but that would come first.

If we’re the sort of society that would allow a live-streamed genocide to take place with the support of our own government and its allies, then we’re not the sort of society that can steer away from its trajectory toward dystopia and armageddon. If you’re the sort of individual who would allow a live-streamed genocide to take place with the support of your own government and its allies, then you’re not the sort of individual who can help steer our species away from disaster.

Gaza is not the only thing that matters in the world. But if you’re not forcefully opposing the Gaza holocaust, you definitely don’t have a healthy enough conscience to address any of the world’s other problems.

I sometimes see Israel supporters refer to pro-Palestine sentiment as “virtue signaling”, which is funny because it means they view themselves as holding the unpopular, unvirtuous position. But really there’s nothing particularly virtuous about supporting Gaza, and it’s not some cool, special thing you’d want to signal about yourself. It’s just what you do when you’re not an extremely shitty person. It’s the basic, bare-minimum expectation of normal human morality.

I don’t want to be friends with anyone who doesn’t oppose the Gaza holocaust. I don’t want to follow any commentators or analysts who don’t speak out against the Gaza holocaust. At this point I don’t even want to listen to any music or read any poetry from people who don’t take a stand against the Gaza holocaust. Since 2023 I’ve moved from rejecting anyone who actively sided with Israel to rejecting anyone who is even complicit in their silence.

The other day I saw some Australian influencer forcefully trying to assert that it’s okay not to take a position on Gaza, and nobody in her replies was buying it. Supporting Israel and aligning with US foreign policy comes with a lot of career benefits for high-profile individuals, and you don’t get to both enjoy those perks and also keep ethical people interested in what you have to say. You can’t have it both ways. You have to choose between the perks and the people. You actually do.

Opposition to the Gaza holocaust is the very first step in assessing if someone is worth my time. If you can’t even meet the basic, bare-minimum expectation of opposing an active genocide, then you are too callous and apathetic to be my friend. If you can’t even get this basic, kindergarten-level moral question right, then your mind is too shallow and your heart too hardened for me to be interested in your analysis, your ideas, your politics, or your art.

There are so many terrible things in our world, and there is so much work that needs to be done to address them. I don’t know what ideas, strategies and movements will get us out of this mess, but I do know that if any are going to emerge they’re going to come from the people who’ve been taking a strong stand against Israel and its western allies these last two years. Those are the individuals, movements, and political factions to pay attention to going forward. Nobody else is equipped to help.

Max Blumenthal : Netanyahu Murders Journalists

Israel intensifies bombing of Gaza, killing 89 Palestinians in 24 hours

Israel has stepped up bombing Gaza, killing at least 89 Palestinians in 24 hours, including at least 15 people queueing for food, despite global outcry over the deaths of six journalists in the territory the previous day. Gaza’s civil defence agency said Israeli airstrikes on Gaza City had intensified in the three days after Benjamin Netanyahu’s security cabinet approved plans to expand the war in the territory.

Five more people, including two children, were reported to have died of starvation, as the foreign ministers of 24 countries including the UK, Australia, France, Spain and Japan warned that “humanitarian suffering in Gaza has reached unimaginable levels”. The ministers and the EU foreign policy chief, Kaja Kallas, called on the government of Israel to let in aid shipments immediately and allow essential humanitarian actors to operate in Gaza. “Urgent action is needed now to halt and reverse starvation,” they said.

Late on Tuesday, Netanyahu again raised the prospect that Palestinians would leave the Gaza Strip, telling Israeli broadcaster i24NEWS that “we are not pushing them out, but we are allowing them to leave”.

“Give them the opportunity to leave, first of all, combat zones, and generally to leave the territory, if they want,” he said, drawing a parallel with refugee outflows during wars in Syria, Ukraine and Afghanistan.

Orthodox Nun X Tucker SLAM Israel For Israeli Attacks On Christians

‘It’s a horrible picture’: Gaza faces new threat from antibiotic-resistant disease

Gaza is facing a new threat as diseases resistant to antibiotics spread across the devastated territory, research has revealed. Medical supplies are desperately scarce and tens of thousands of people have been injured in the 22-month war, while many others have been weakened by malnutrition, so the high levels of drug-resistant bacteria will mean longer and more serious illnesses, a more rapid transmission of infectious diseases and more deaths, experts said.

The findings published on Tuesday, in a peer-reviewed research comment in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, are the first since the conflict began in October 2023 to suggest a prevalence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria in Gaza.

“This will mean longer and more serious illnesses and a high risk of transmission to others. It means an increased risk of death from really common infections. It means more amputations. It’s a horrible picture,” said Krystel Moussally, epidemiology adviser to Médecins Sans Frontières and a co-author of studies on drug-resistant bacteria in Gaza and other conflict zones in the Middle East, who was not involved in the research.

The study is based on more 1,300 samples from at al-Ahli hospital, where one of the few microbiology laboratories that is still functional in Gaza is based. Two-thirds of the samples, taken from patients over a 10-month period last year, showed the presence of multi-drug-resistant bacteria. Bilal Irfan, one of the authors of the study, described the results as “particularly alarming”. ....

Gaza has suffered for decades from high levels of multi-drug-resistant bacteria as a consequence of repeated conflicts and an Israeli blockade since 2007, when Hamas seized control.

YouTube Star Ms. Rachel on Her Gaza Advocacy: "My Deep Care for Children Doesn't Stop at Any Border"

US State Dept Releases 'Shameful' Human Rights Report Revamped to Shield Allies, Including Israel

After leaked drafts exposed the Trump administration's plans to downplay human rights abuses in some allied countries, including Israel, the U.S. Department of State released the final edition of an annual report on Tuesday, sparking fresh condemnation.

"Breaking with precedent, Secretary of State Marco Rubio did not provide a written introduction to the report nor did he make remarks about it," CNN reported. Still, Amanda Klasing, Amnesty International USA's national director of government relations and advocacy, called him out by name in a Tuesday statement.

"With the release of the U.S. State Department's human rights report, it is clear that the Trump administration has engaged in a very selective documentation of human rights abuses in certain countries," Klasing said. "In addition to eliminating entire sections for certain countries—for example discrimination against LGBTQ+ people—there are also arbitrary omissions within existing sections of the report based on the country."

Klasing explained that "we have criticized past reports when warranted, but have never seen reports quite like this. Never before have the reports gone this far in prioritizing an administration's political agenda over a consistent and truthful accounting of human rights violations around the world—softening criticism in some countries while ignoring violations in others. The State Department has said in relation to the reports less is more. However, for the victims and human rights defenders who rely on these reports to shine light on abuses and violations, less is just less."

"Secretary Rubio knows full well from his time in the Senate how vital these reports are in informing policy decisions and shaping diplomatic conversations, yet he has made the dangerous and short-sighted decision to put out a truncated version that doesn't tell the whole story of human rights violations," she continued. "This sends a chilling message that the U.S. is willing to overlook some abuses, signaling that people experiencing human rights violations may be left to fend for themselves."

"Failing to adequately report on human rights violations further damages the credibility of the U.S. on human rights issues," she added. "It's shameful that the Trump administration and Secretary Rubio are putting politics above human lives."


The overarching report—which includes over 100 individual country reports—covers 2024, the last full calendar year of the Biden administration. The appendix says that in March, the report was "streamlined for better utility and accessibility in the field and by partners, and to be more responsive to the underlying legislative mandate and aligned to the administration's executive orders."

As CNN detailed:

The latest report was stripped of many of the specific sections included in past reports, including reporting on alleged abuses based on sexual orientation, violence toward women, corruption in government, systemic racial or ethnic violence, or denial of a fair public trial. Some country reports, including for Afghanistan, do address human rights abuses against women.

"We were asked to edit down the human rights reports to the bare minimum of what was statutorily required," said Michael Honigstein, the former director of African Affairs at the State Department's Bureau of Human Rights, Democracy, and Labor. He and his office helped compile the initial reports.

Over the past week, since the draft country reports leaked to the press, the Trump administration has come under fire for its portrayals of El Salvador, Israel, and Russia.


The report on Israel—and the illegally occupied Palestinian territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank—is just nine pages. The brevity even drew the attention of Israeli media. The Times of Israel highlighted that it "is much shorter than last year's edition compiled under the Biden administration and contained no mention of the severe humanitarian crisis in Gaza."

Since the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack on Israel, Israeli forces have slaughtered over 60,000 Palestinians in Gaza, according to local officials—though experts warn the true toll is likely far higher. As Israel has restricted humanitarian aid in recent months, over 200 people have starved to death, including 103 children.

The U.S. report on Israel does not mention the genocide case that Israel faces at the International Court of Justice over the assault on Gaza, or the International Criminal Court arrest warrants issued for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The section on war crimes and genocide only says that "terrorist organizations Hamas and Hezbollah continue to engage in the
indiscriminate targeting of Israeli civilians in violation of the law of armed conflict."

As the world mourns the killing of six more Palestinian media professionals in Gaza this week—which prompted calls for the United Nations Security Council to convene an emergency meeting—the report's section on press freedom is also short and makes no mention of the hundreds of journalists killed in Israel's annihilation of the strip:

The law generally provided for freedom of expression, including for members of the press and other media, and the government generally respected this right for most Israelis. NGOs and journalists reported authorities restricted press coverage and limited certain forms of expression, especially in the context of criticism against the war or sympathy for Palestinians in Gaza.

The Tuesday release came after a coalition of LGBTQ+ and human rights organizations on Monday filed a lawsuit against the U.S. State Department over its refusal to release the congressionally mandated report.

COL. Douglas Macgregor : Is War With Iran Coming?

Ukraine will not cede land that could be Russian springboard for new war, Zelenskyy says

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said Ukraine could not agree to a Russian proposal to give up more of his country’s territory in exchange for a ceasefire because Moscow would use what it gained as a springboard to start a future war.

The Ukrainian president said he did not believe that Donald Trump supported Russia’s demands, and he expressed hope the US leader would act as an honest mediator when he meets Vladimir Putin in Alaska on Friday.

He added there was no sign that Russia was preparing to implement a ceasefire, as reports emerged that small sabotage groups had pierced Ukrainian defences in the eastern Donbas, advancing about six miles in three days. Zelenskyy also warned that Russia was planning new offensives on three parts of the frontline.

Speaking to journalists in the run-up to the Trump-Putin summit, and a day before a virtual meeting with US and European leaders, Zelenskyy said he believed Putin wanted to dominate his country because he “does not want a sovereign Ukraine”.

It was therefore dangerous, Zelenskyy said, for Ukraine to be forced by the US into accepting Russia’s demand to take over the parts of Donbas it does not control after the Alaska summit. The region sought by Russia amounted to “about 90,000 square kilometres” of the country, he said.

John Mearsheimer: Trump EU Leaders & Zelensky Summit - Road to Nowhere

Pepe Escobar : A Pre-Alaska Analysis

South Korea’s former first lady arrested after court issues warrant on corruption charges

South Korea’s former first lady Kim Keon Hee, the wife of the impeached former president Yoon Suk Yeol, has been arrested on corruption charges, a special prosecutor leading a wide-reaching probe said. The arrest, which came after a Seoul central district court ruling, creates an unprecedented situation in which both members of a former presidential couple are simultaneously in custody. The court granted the warrant citing the risk of tampering with evidence, according to Yonhap news agency. “The arrest warrant against Kim has been issued,” the prosecutors said in a brief statement.

The charges against Kim include violations of capital market and financial investment laws, as well as political funds laws. She denies the charges. Yoon Suk Yeol was sent back into detention in July as prosecutors investigate his failed attempt to impose martial law in December last year.

A special counsel was established after Lee Jae Myung was elected president in June to investigate 16 criminal allegations against Kim. However, Wednesday’s arrest warrant covered only three charges. Prosecutors allege she made over 800 million won (£428,000) through manipulating the stock prices of Deutsch Motors, a local BMW dealership, between 2009 and 2012, by conspiring with others to artificially inflate shares.

She is also accused of receiving over 270 million won worth of illegal political funding through free opinion polling services, and using this to influence candidate selections for the conservative People Power party in the country’s 2022 byelections. The third charge involves accepting luxury gifts including Chanel handbags and expensive jewellery from the Unification Church through a shaman intermediary, in exchange for favourable treatment of development projects in Cambodia.

Canadians steer clear of US as travel from north falls for seventh month

Travel to the US by Canadian residents has continued to drop significantly for the seventh month in a row, as new data confirms that Donald Trump’s threats have helped upend the summer tourism season.

Months of aggressive rhetoric from the White House have prompted widespread boycotts of US products by Canadians, who have also sworn off visits to their southern neighbour amid lingering feelings of betrayal and anger.

Statistics Canada said on Monday that the number of Canadian residents who made a return trip to the US by car dropped 36.9% in July 2025, compared with the same month in 2024.

There were declines in air travel as well, where Canadian residents returning from the US by commercial airlines dropped by 25.8% in July compared with the previous year.

Trump officials ordered to urgently improve conditions at New York Ice jail

A federal judge ordered the Trump administration Tuesday to immediately improve conditions at a New York City immigration holding facility, acting on complaints by jailed migrants that it is dirty, smelly and overcrowded. Judge Lewis Kaplan, ruling in a lawsuit filed on behalf of detainees, issued a temporary restraining order requiring Immigration and Customs Enforcement to limit capacity, ensure cleanliness and provide sleeping mats in so-called hold rooms at 26 Federal Plaza, a government building in Manhattan.

Cellphone video recorded last month by a detainee showed about two dozen men crowded in one of the building’s four hold rooms, many lying on the floor with thermal blankets but no mattresses or padding. In court filings, detainees complained they had no soap, toothbrushes or other hygiene products. They said they were fed inedible “slop” and endured the “horrific stench” of sweat, urine and feces, in part because the rooms have open toilets. One woman having her period could not use menstrual products because women in her room were given just two to divvy up, the lawsuit said.

Kaplan ordered immigration officials to allocate 50 sq feet per person – shrinking the largest hold room’s capacity to about 15 people after detainees said 40 or more were being jammed in. The building, home to immigration court and the FBI’s New York field office, has become an epicenter of Donald Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration. The judge ordered the government to thoroughly clean the cells three times a day and provide an adequate supply of hygiene products. Addressing concerns that detainees were not able to communicate with lawyers, Kaplan ordered the government to make accommodations for confidential legal telephone calls.

“My conclusion here is that there is a very serious threat of continuing irreparable injury, given the conditions that I’ve been told about,” Kaplan said at a hearing Tuesday where a government lawyer conceded that some of the complaints were valid.

Hmmm... does it sound like the Trumpsters are expecting something?

Trump could expand role of national guard for ‘quick reaction’ to unrest

Donald Trump could expand the use of national guard troops in US cities even further, if a plan from the Pentagon comes to fruition. The Washington Post, reporting on internal documents on Tuesday, says Pentagon officials are “evaluating plans” to create a “Domestic Civil Disturbance Quick Reaction Force” that would deploy to crack down on cities in events of unrest or during protests.

The newly revealed plans come as Trump has used the national guard in ways beyond the norm. He deployed troops to Los Angeles against the state and city’s wishes to tamp down protests against immigration enforcement, and sent troops to Washington DC and took over the local police citing allegedly increased crime. ...

In the documents, the Post reports, it calls for 600 troops to be placed at the ready at military bases in Alabama and Arizona, able to deploy quickly if called. This force could cost “hundreds of millions of dollars”. The documents have timestamps from late July and early August, though they are marked as “pre-decisional”.

The plan, if implemented, would be an expansion of the use of troops in US cities and is legally questionable. National guard troops are frequently deployed in their states to respond to disasters and, particularly in 2020, to civil unrest, when many states called on their units to deploy amid protests over police brutality. Hina Shamsi, the director of the ACLU’s National Security Project, said in a statement that the move would be a “breathtakingly dangerous power grab”.

“Sending armed troops into cities to suppress protest should be a non-starter in any healthy democracy, but especially in a country founded on a strong presumption against the military policing civilians,” Shamsi said. “The right to protest is core to the constitution and who we are as a nation, yet the Trump administration seems ready to betray our basic values in order to muzzle political expression across the country.”

Trump Deploys NATIONAL GUARD in TAKEOVER of DC Law Enforcement

National guard begins deploying on DC streets after Trump police takeover

The Washington DC national guard will begin deploying on the city’s streets on Tuesday night, a day after Donald Trump ordered their arrival and took control of the city’s police force, calling Washington DC a “lawless” city, despite official crime statistics saying otherwise, a White House official confirmed.

The national guard is expected to “begin being on the streets starting tonight”. Defense officials said a small number of the roughly 800 guard members planned for the mission had already been mobilized by Tuesday afternoon, with more expected to arrive in the coming days. ...

Press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters on Tuesday: “As part of the president’s massive law enforcement surge, last night approximately 850 officers and agents were surged across the city. They made a total of 23 arrests, including multiple other contacts.” ...

Trump’s intervention has been widely condemned as an authoritarian power grab that undermines the autonomy of Washington’s DC local government and seeks to distract attention from political problems such as the Jeffrey Epstein files.



the horse race



Zohran Mamdani SLAMS Cuomo For Epstein Ties

New York City mayoral race: Mamdani leads Cuomo by 19 points

The closely watched New York mayoral and governor’s races appear to be forming into shapes that will bring little comfort to centrist Democrats, with elections happening in November this year in New York City and the gubernatorial vote a year later.

A new Siena Institute poll released on Tuesday shows New York City’s Democratic socialist mayoral candidate, Zohran Mamdani, leading former New York governor Andrew Cuomo by 19 percentage points – while the Republican congresswoman Elise Stefanik is chipping away at incumbent Democrat Kathy Hochul’s lead in a hypothetical contest for the New York governor’s mansion in 2026.

Hochul’s lead over Stefanik, who was nominated to be US ambassador to the United Nations before withdrawing to help Republicans maintain a majority in Congress, has now dropped from 23 points in June to 14 points. ...

In the mayoral race, the poll found 44% of registered New York City voters backing Mamdani, followed by 25% for Cuomo, 12% for the Republican party nominee, Curtis Sliwa, and only 7% for the incumbent mayor, Eric Adams.

However, Cuomo leads among Black and Jewish voters, two groups that Mamdani underperforms with. But Mamdani holds a towering lead with younger voters, leading Cuomo by 49% among voters aged 18 to 34 but trailing Cuomo by 6% among voters 55 years and older.



the evening greens


Rise in dengue fever outbreaks across the Pacific driven by the climate crisis

The climate crisis is driving a sharp rise in dengue fever cases across the Pacific islands, experts say, as infections hit their highest level in a decade and several countries declare emergencies. Pacific Island countries and territories have reported 16,502 confirmed cases and 17 deaths since the start of 2025, according to the Pacific Syndromic Surveillance System (PSSS), which collaborates with the World Health Organization (WHO) and other agencies. Infections across the region are at the highest level since 2016, the WHO said. Fiji, Samoa and Tonga are among the worst affected.

Dr Paula Vivili, deputy director general of the Pacific Community (SPC), said historically dengue outbreaks were seasonal. “However, due to climate change, transmission seasons are lengthening, and some areas are experiencing year-round dengue risk,” Vivili said.

Dengue fever, a viral illness spread by Aedes mosquitoes, causes high fever, severe headache, joint and muscle pain, rash, and in severe cases can be fatal. Rising temperatures, rainfall and increased humidity are creating ideal breeding conditions for Aedes mosquitoes, even in areas previously unsuitable for transmission.

“Dengue is one of the first real disease-related phenomena that we can lay at the foot of climate change,” said Dr Joel Kaufman, epidemiologist and director of the Center for Exposures, Diseases, Genomics and Environment at the University of Washington. “Rainfall raises the waterline over mosquito eggs laid just above the surface, which then hatch – that’s part of the natural breeding cycle. Heavy rains can also increase stagnant water sources, creating more opportunities for mosquitoes to breed,” he said.

Kaufman warned these outbreaks pointed to a wider public health challenge. “It is in the vanguard of what will certainly be many types of human disease that become more common and more serious as the planet warms.”

Buoyant, the size of a lentil and almost impossible to recover: how nurdles are polluting the oceans

When a Liberian-flagged container ship, the MSC Elsa 3, capsized and sank 13 miles off the coast of Kerala, in India, on 25 May, a state-wide disaster was quickly declared. A long oil slick from the 184-metre vessel, which was carrying hazardous cargo, was partially tackled by aircraft-borne dispersants, while a salvage operation sealed tanks to prevent leaks. But almost three months later, a more insidious and persistent environmental catastrophe is continuing along the ecologically fragile coast of the Arabian Sea. Among the 643 containers onboard were 71,500 sacks of tiny plastic pellets known as nurdles. By July, only 7,920 were reportedly recovered.

Millions of these plastic balls have continued to wash ashore with the fierce monsoon storm surges that demolished a stretch of palm-fringed beach in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala’s capital, in June. They lie scattered by the sea-facing Catholic church at Vettukadu and in tide lines on the beach, where giant jute bags of them, gathered by volunteers, await collection. Lightweight, buoyant and almost impossible to recover, they will circulate in moving sand and ocean currents for years, experts say.

“The nurdles haven’t just polluted the sea – they’ve disrupted our entire way of life,” says Ajith Shanghumukham, a fish worker in the town. A fishing ban, imposed after the spill by local authorities in four Kerala districts, has since been lifted but fears over contamination have hit fishing communities already struggling with declining fish populations and the changing climate’s intensifying storms. “Very few people now venture out to sea because the local markets simply aren’t buying fish,” says Shanghumukham. Those who do report nets full of nurdles and declining catches. “People continue to worry about contamination,” Shanghumukham says. ...

Nurdles, a colloquial term for the plastic pellets, are the raw material used for nearly all plastic products. Lentil-sized, at between 1-5mm, and thus potentially classifying as microplastics, or fragments smaller than 5mm, they can be devastating to wildlife, especially fish, shrimps and seabirds that mistake them for food. They also act as “toxic sponges” attracting so-called forever chemicals such as PCBs and PFAs in seawater on to their surfaces, and also carry harmful bacteria such as E coli.

“When ingested by marine life, these pellets introduce a cocktail of toxins directly into the food web,” says Joseph Vijayan, an environmental researcher from Thiruvananthapuram. “Toxins can accumulate in individual animals and increase in concentration up the food chain, ultimately affecting humans who consume seafood.”


Also of Interest

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

The West’s Calculations & Gaza’s Betrayal

Ukraine - Russian Troops Breach Into Second Donbas Defense Line

On the United States’ “Imminent” Military Intervention Against Mexico

Myanmar army detaining two-year-olds as proxies for parents

Trump and Democrats Fuel the Washington DC Crime Panic

The Dems Could Have Shielded DC From Trump By Pushing for Statehood When It Mattered

US court says Trump’s Doge team can access social security numbers and other sensitive data

Trump law will cut food stamps for 2.4 million people as work rules widen

STUNNING! Reporter Lists ALL Of Israel’s Lies About Gaza!

What They NEVER TOLD YOU About Epstein’s Final Cellmate!

Armenia capitulates to Azerbaijan and Trump corridor


A Little Night Music

Larry Davis - I Tried

Larry Davis - Angels In Houston

Larry Davis - Come Home

Larry Davis - (My) Little Girl

Larry Davis - Will She Come Home

Larry Davis - The Years Go Passing By

Larry Davis - It can only hurt for so long

Larry Davis - For Five Long Years

Larry Davis - Woke Up This Morning


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Comments

janis b's picture

The tragedy and the truth of the Sheen quote is despairing The rest of the news is too. Not that he's the only one, but Trump is the pinnacle of dishonest, and as passionately crazy as they come. Larry Davis helps to shift the mood, thank you. There are still so many steps to heal the world.

We need spirits from up above ...

Enjoy the evening all

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joe shikspack's picture

@janis b

the only good thing about the passionate evils of trump and his backers is that, like the israelis behavior, most ordinary folks are finally able to see that this is wrong and that things need to change. i guess we'll see if the inertia is finally overcome.

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janis b's picture

@joe shikspack

I think the ercia, desire, is there, but kept inert by the systems that silence our voices, and threaten our lives. How can we overcome it without more war, as everything is so militarised?

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joe shikspack's picture

@janis b

well, it's hard to tell, but i think that we can count on trump to fail miserably at most all of his initiatives. the way he has bullied people, acting like a mafia don, has certainly won him the esteem and support of people both foreign and domestic (/s) - so we may get a lot of help internally and externally overcoming the inertia.

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enhydra lutris's picture

@janis b

yourself.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

enhydra lutris's picture

Thanks for the EBs and for hanging n there to get this posted.

be well and have a good one

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2 users have voted.

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 --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

heh, i guess i lucked out, i just posted tonight's eb at my usual time and everything went ok other than a little bit of lag waiting for pages to load.

anyway, i'm glad you all can read it.

have a great evening!

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janis b's picture

@enhydra lutris

Although quite trying, it really wasn’t that long ago (was it?) that communicating took a lot longer ; ).

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soryang's picture

...moves me every time I see it. That little girl, reminds me so much of my youngest granddaughter who is one year older. She's got such spirit. Breaks me up. More power to Ms. Rachel.

I can't stomach the vicious evil people responsible for this.

Changing the subject a bit. Kim Gon-hee is on a hunger strike. But her lawyers insist that's not what it is. Rather, they say, she can't eat, because she's very ill. Also, I see this article on her arrest above, makes the connection between the Unification Church and gifts of jewelry, and indicates bribes related to construction in Cambodia. I saw another report today which identified someone who had made a confession to the effect that the necklace bribe was for his construction company. It's not really clear to me at this point whether Geonjin or the Unification Church were specifically involved in these alleged jewelry transactions. As the article below explains the necklace accusations require more investigation and charges are not yet filed on these allegations.

How a knockoff diamond necklace sealed the fate of South Korea’s ex-first lady

The special counsel team placed particular emphasis on concerns about destruction of evidence. During the pre-detention hearing, the team presented a written confession received the previous day from Lee Bong-kwan, the chairman of Seohee Construction, in which Lee admitted to buying a Van Cleef & Arpels necklace worth 60 million won (US$43,800) for Kim.

Now that Kim — the center of these allegations — is in custody, the special counsel team will presumably begin investigating whether the Van Cleef & Arpels necklace was compensation for Lee’s son-in-law (an attorney named Park Seong-geun) being appointed the prime minister’s chief of staff, and whether a Vacheron Constantin watch worth 54 million won was compensation for granting a contract for robot guard dogs.

Kim’s detention will also accelerate the investigations into the rerouting of a planned expressway between Seoul and Yangpyeong, preferential treatment for Kim’s family in a development project in Yangpyeong’s Gongheung area, inappropriate involvement in the relocation of the presidential office and residence, and obstruction of investigations and attempts to cover up criminal behavior.

Last night I misnamed the Yangpyeong Expressway highway extension project, which appears just above. I tried to make the correction throughout the day, but couldn't get anything to upload.

Jimmy's coverage of the Epstein cellmate story, is consistent with what I believe was a murder. When I saw his picture a few months ago I thought he would be suspect number one, a neck breaker. I didn't know his history of multiple homicides and being a cop.

Thanks for the EBs Joe. I hope I can get this uploaded.

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語必忠信 行必正直

joe shikspack's picture

@soryang

i don't know a lot about ms. rachel, i've never watched her shows, but from what i have seen of her, she strikes me as an admirable person and that maybe there is hope for humanity after all.

thanks for following the twists and turns of the drama in south korea and reporting it here.

when i saw what jimmy posted, several possible plot lines ran through my head, i guess maybe we'll see which one turns out to be the truth in another few decades.

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5 users have voted.

I still believe Epstein is alive and well, but the cop. a person who knows crimes scenes and what evidence leads to convictions, is a distraction. But, that's just me.
Cuomo needs to go. To jail. Again, that's just me.
Thanks for all you do, dear friend. FWIW,Jimi Hendrix is still an ear worm. I'm old? WTF?

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

joe shikspack's picture

@on the cusp

i think that it's quite plausible that epstein is still alive and slithering around somewhere under some government's protection. perhaps we'll find out someday.

jimi is a persistent, intermittent earworm. i've listened to an awful lot of music over the years, so jimi has competition for earworm space. Smile

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soryang's picture

Yippie!

Japan Eyes Turkish Drones To Check China; May Also Acquire Israeli UAVs That Indian Military Operates

Japan’s drone acquisition program is a key component of its defense modernization strategy, driven by regional security threats. The country is focusing on acquiring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to enhance intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance (ISR), and strike capabilities, particularly for maritime and territorial defense from China.

Japan warned of China’s swift escalation of military operations from its southwestern shores to the Pacific, calling the actions the most strategic challenge in its latest defense report released in July 2025. “The international society is in a new crisis era as it faces the biggest challenges since the end of World War II,” the report said.

The nation’s Defense Buildup Program, drafted in 2022, emphasized the utility of drones in modern warfare. The program stated that the SDF will “expeditiously procure various types of unmanned assets” to “accomplish missions while minimizing human loss.”

The Japanese Defense Ministry established a drone task force in April 2025 to explore the use of drones in future combat.

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語必忠信 行必正直

Pluto's Republic's picture

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...about what to expect from the meeting tomorrow (Friday) between President Putin and President Trump regarding the Ukrainian Proxy War and other matters. I cut to the interviews and essays of Dmitry Orlov, who has covered this war from inside Russia. Orlov reminds readers that Russia is embodying the "Realist" position in debate on this conflict.

This means Russia’s narratives relies initially on the Facts on the Ground (common reality) — and it will not entertain paranoid speculations or delusional projections that sneak into the negotiations. Russia, of course, also continuer to adheres to its original motives and objectives for the Special Military Operation (SMO) — which Russia presented in advance of its engagement the proxy war. In brief: Russia will not sacrifice its national sovereignty by allowing the Western NATO-NAZI alliance (currently clustered in the failed state of Ukraine) to install NATO missiles on the outskirts Moscow — along the recently established Russian border with Ukraine (c.1997).

Western nuclear missiles that are deployed in Ukraine will create an existential threat to the Russian civilization. People-Who-Can-Think will be immediately reminded of the Soviet nuclear missiles that were installed in Cuba in 1962 — to which the US vehemently objected. People-Who-Can-Think are also aware that those Russian missiles were placed in Cuba as a retaliation for America’s aggressive installation of nuclear missiles in Italy and Turkey — pointed at Russia. The US removed its missiles, which ended the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Orlov advises Alaskan-summit observers to review Cold War historical realities — and to set their hopes and fantasies about a cease fire a bit lower. He suggests that this summit may lay the groundwork for new strategic weapons treaties that limit the proliferation of nuclear weapons — treaties that the US allowed to expire after the "Little Pearl Harbor" cosplay that occurred on 9/11. The creation of sane nuclear weapons agreements would be a positive outcome for the entire world, says. Orlov.

It would then make a fine preliminary for the next Russia-US summit, to be held just across the Bering Strait in Russia's Far East, if all goes well. And if not, then it would be a preliminary to more of Trump's incoherent babbling to a chorus of hysterical Western talking heads.

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The Realist's view, of the US Proxy War in Ukraine is that there is a side that is winning, and it is not Trump's side. The Russians remain keenly aware of this — while the propagandized, misinformed Americans are off in the weeds and being hysterical about it.
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Another realistic hint about the summit’s possibilities was given by the Belorussian president Alexander Lukashenko during an interview he gave to an American journalist: "[Trump] should always keep in mind that he could just be told to go fuck himself." That is, if Trump tries to pull any stunts out of his book The Art of the Deal, or attempt to put pressure on Russia, or serve up ultimatums and otherwise start acting like an asshole, Putin could very easily just refuse to deal with him.

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Russia has very specific tasks to achieve and complete in Ukraine, which includes Ukraine’s future neutrality and non-NATO stance as a nation. Another condition is the deNAZIfication of Ukraine, itself. Russi9a has already lost millions of souls defeating the NAZIs 70 years ago. It does not intend to fight a war with the tattooed NAZI fan-boys mercenaries who inhabit Ukraine, at the moment. Russia is also intent on the International Criminal Court investigation and prosecution of war crimes committed during this conflict.

There are several additional Russian conditions that must be met before the war can simply stop and negotiations can begin. Dmitry Orlov covers these in his reports.
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Read Dmitry Orlov at https://boosty.to/cluborlov

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