---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Junior Wells

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues harmonica player & singer Junior Wells. Enjoy!

^{Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - Hoodoo Man Blues}

“Righteous anger is usually not about oneself. It is about those whom one sees being harmed and whom one wants to help." In short, righteous anger is a tool of justice, a scythe of compassion, more than a reactive emotion. Although it may have its roots deep in our fight-or-flight desire to protect those in our family or group who are threatened, it is a chosen response and not simply an uncontrollable reaction. And it is not about one's own besieged self-image, or one's feelings of separation, but of one's collective responsibility, and one's feeling of deep, empowering connection.”

-- Archbishop Desmond Tutu

---

News and Opinion

Gaza Doesn’t Need Our Tears, It Needs Our Anger

Celebrities are finally speaking out about Gaza after two years of genocide, but there’s been something off about it that hasn’t been sitting right. A Palestinian named Maria Odeh Fakhouri made a great point on Instagram which put her finger on it:

Notice how celebrities speaking up now aren’t really all that angry. Their statements are about “heartbreak” and sadness.

They are modeling passivity to the masses as we enter into this next stage of societal awareness.

They communicate to their fans: be sad about genocide but ignore it for awhile first. And then start talking about how sad it is a couple of years later.

They are agents of colonial brainwashing.

After a long silence, U2 frontman and self-appointed humanitarian, Bono, released a statement on Gaza. pic.twitter.com/IVrUbvAc8C

— MintPress News (@MintPressNews) August 14, 2025

I feel this so hard. Gaza doesn’t need our sadness, it needs out anger. It needs our rage. That’s the only appropriate response to a live-streamed genocide supported by your own government.

Sadness and grief are for natural disasters. Cancer diagnoses. Terrible accidents. This is not something that has passively happened to the people of Gaza, it’s something that’s been done to them by other people, and the people who are doing it have names and faces. It’s not a tragedy, it’s a crime. A crime that is still currently being perpetrated and urgently needs to be stopped, by any means necessary.

The correct response is rage. Rage toward the people who are responsible for this mass atrocity. The officials of the Israeli government and all their western allies. Their apologists and propagandists in the mainstream press. The war profiteers who are benefiting from an active genocide. Individual members of the IDF. The hasbarists who swarm social media and pollute our information ecosystem with manipulation and lies.

Celebrities and influencers who urge us to weep for Gaza are pushing us into passivity and defeatism by urging us to treat this like an unavoidable tragedy that has already happened instead of an unforgivable atrocity that is still underway. This is power-serving propaganda, and it deserves nothing but scorn.

You seem to have a great
friendship with Netanyahu, why don't you call him yourself, @Madonna? https://t.co/W6dgjO2LpY pic.twitter.com/ziT09Uucuc

— Khalissee (@Kahlissee) August 12, 2025

People often use anger in unwholesome ways in our society, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a healthy place for it. Every human emotion has healthy applications and unhealthy applications, and anger is no different. When someone is crossing a line which does harm to someone else, anger is an entirely appropriate and correct response in that moment, and when it’s applied consciously and with care it can yield very positive results. Sometimes people need to be pushed back to the other side of the line they are crossing with red hot heat.

Emotions are tools; they only become unhealthy when those tools are pointed at things other than their intended purpose. Anger at someone who made an innocent mistake. Delight in the suffering of others. Sadness and heartbreak in the face of monstrous injustice. These are emotions applied incorrectly.

Do not weep for Gaza. Rage for Gaza. Protest for Gaza. Take direct action for Gaza. Ruin people’s day for Gaza. Ruin people’s careers for Gaza. Don’t let the facilitators of this nightmare have a moment’s peace. Don’t let them go on with their lives like what they did was no big deal. This isn’t sad, it’s enraging. And it deserves a response of unmitigated forceful aggression.

Amb. Chas Freeman & Trita Parsi: The Next Israel-Iran War Is Coming

UN Expert: Send Navies to Break Israeli Blockade, End Genocide in Gaza

The United Nations human rights expert assigned to the Palestinian territories illegally occupied by Israel is calling on countries around the world to send military forces to end the genocidal Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip.

Since March 2024, "I've warned the UN I serve at great personal cost: the destruction of Gaza's health system is clear proof of genocidal intent," Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said on social media Wednesday. "I'm in disbelief at its paralysis. States must break the blockade, send NAVIES with aid, and stop the genocide. History will not forget."

Albanese also shared her new joint statement with Dr. Tlaleng Mofokeng, special rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health. They said that "in addition to bearing witness to an ongoing genocide we are also bearing witness to a 'medicide,' a sinister component of the intentional creation of conditions calculated to destroy Palestinians in Gaza which constitutes an act of genocide."

"Deliberate attacks on health and care workers, and health facilities, which are gross violations of international humanitarian law, must stop now," the pair continued. "There is a moral imperative for the international community to end the carnage and allow the people of Gaza to live on their land without fear of attack, killing, and starvation, and free from permanent occupation and apartheid."

Gaza’s cities, towns and villages have been almost totally destroyed by Israel’s war on the Strip. Footage filmed from planes and drones reveals once bustling communities reduced to rubble. Gaza’s Palestinians have suffered the loss of their homes, farmland and infrastructure. pic.twitter.com/SAkMn68KyS

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) August 14, 2025

Their comments came as a growing number of governments are recognizing the state of Palestine or threatening to do so. In a Wednesday interview with The Guardian, Albanese stressed that the renewed push for Palestinian statehood should not "distract the attention from where it should be: the genocide."

"Ending the question of Palestine in line with international law is possible and necessary: End the genocide today, end the permanent occupation this year, and end apartheid," she said. "This is what's going to guarantee freedom and equal rights for everyone, regardless of the way they want to live—in two states or one state, they will have to decide."

As Common Dreams reported earlier Thursday, Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, claimed that the Israeli and U.S. governments have approved an expansion of settlements in the West Bank, which he said "finally buries the idea of a Palestinian state, because there is nothing to recognize and no one to recognize."

Meanwhile, in Gaza, the 22-month Israeli assault has left the coastal enclave in ruins and killed at least 61,776 Palestinians and wounded 154,906 others—though experts warn the real figures are likely far higher. Those who have survived so far are struggling to access essentials, including food, largely due to Israeli restrictions on humanitarian aid and killings of aid-seekers.

On Thursday, over 100 groups—including ActionAid, American Friends Service Committee, Médecins Sans Frontières, Oxfam, and Save the Children—released a letter stressing that since Israel imposed registration rules in early March, most nongovernmental organizations "have been unable to deliver a single truck of lifesaving supplies."

"This obstruction has left millions of dollars' worth of food, medicine, water, and shelter items stranded in warehouses across Jordan and Egypt, while Palestinians are being starved," the letter notes. As of Thursday, the Gaza Health Ministry put the hunger-related death toll at 239, including 106 children.

Both the registration process and the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation "aim to block impartial aid, exclude Palestinian actors, and replace trusted humanitarian organizations with mechanisms that serve political and military objectives," the letter argues, noting that Israel is moving to "escalate its military offensive and deepen its occupation in Gaza, making clear these measures are part of a broader strategy to entrench control and erase Palestinian presence."

The coalition called on all governments to "press Israel to end the weaponization of aid," insist that NGOS not be "forced to share sensitive personal information," and "demand the immediate and unconditional opening of all land crossings and conditions for the delivery of lifesaving humanitarian aid."

During an emergency United Nations Security Council meeting on Sunday, Riyad Mansour, the state of Palestine's permanent observer to the UN, formally requested "an immediate international protection force to save the Palestinian people from certain death."

In response, Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of the US-based advocacy group DAWN, said in a Tuesday statement, "Now that Palestine has formally requested protection forces, the UN General Assembly should move urgently to mandate such a force under a Uniting for Peace resolution."

"Israel has made clear for the past two years that no amount of pleading, pressure, or negotiation will end its atrocities and deliberate starvation in Gaza; only international peacekeeping forces can achieve that," she added.

Israeli Forces Kill 50 Palestinians in Gaza Over 24 Hours

Gaza’s Health Ministry said on Thursday that Israeli forces killed 50 Palestinians over the previous 24-hour period as relentless US-backed Israeli attacks continue across the Strip, amid Israel’s preparation to escalate its genocidal war.

The Health Ministry said that the bodies of another four Palestinians killed by previous attacks were 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 ministry wrote on Telegram.

On top of the violent deaths, Palestinians continue to starve to death due to the Israeli blockade and restrictions on aid. The Health Ministry said that it recorded four malnutrition deaths over 24 hours. “This brings the total number of victims of famine and malnutrition to 239, including 106 children,” it said.

Among those violently killed by the IDF were desperate Palestinians seeking food aid. The Health Ministry said that 22 aid seekers were killed and another 269 were injured. Since the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) began operating at the end of May, the Health Ministry has recorded the deaths of 1,881 aid seekers and the injuries of 13,863.

Netanyahu SLIPS UP & Reveals His True Plan For Conquest!

One Killed, Several Wounded as Israeli Strikes Continue on Southern Lebanon

Israel has continued carrying out drone strikes across southern Lebanon, with strikes Wednesday evening killing one person in a car in Hadatha and wounding two others after striking a motorcycle in Zibqin.

Thursday morning saw the strikes continue, with another attack on another motorcycle in Aitaroun wounding two more civilians. The motorcycle appears to have been parked near a residential building in the town when multiple missiles were fired at it.

Israeli ground troops also crossed the border at Wadi Hounin, raiding multiple homes. There was no apparent pretext for these raids, and the IDF has yet to issue any statement about what they were doing or why. A drone also attacked Yaroun, destroying a construction vehicle.

Israel has been attacking southern Lebanon on a near daily basis since the ceasefire went into effect, and while ground raids are more unusual they’re not unheard of. In general drone strikes target active vehicles that didn’t get destroyed during the 2024 invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon, and the IDF tends to present anyone killed as a Hezbollah leader, whether it’s a lone courier on a motorcycle or a government worker helping clear debris from a farmer’s field on a bulldozer.

Israel appears set to approve highly controversial 3,400-home West Bank settlement

Israel appears set to give formal planning approval to a highly controversial settlement project for more than 3,400 new homes that has been frozen for decades and which critics say would split the occupied West Bank in half. Strongly opposed by the international community, the so-called E1 plan would extend the existing Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim towards Jerusalem, further cutting occupied east Jerusalem from the West Bank, and further separating the north and south of the territory.

The decision from the Supreme Planning Council, which meets next week, is expected to support the plan after rejecting objections by Israeli NGOs. The expected decision in favour will come after Israel’s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich – who backs both the plan and the imposition of Israeli sovereignty through the occupied West Bank – gloated that he believed construction on E1 would “bury the idea of a Palestinian state”.

Smotrich is a junior minister who also holds a position at Israel’s defence ministry with oversight of planning issues in the occupied Palestinian territories. He was placed under sanctions along with fellow far-right minister Itamar Ben-Gvir by the UK, Canada, Australia and New Zealand in June for “repeated incitements of violence against Palestinian communities”.

Standing at the site of the planned settlement in Ma’ale Adumim on Thursday, Smotrich, a settler himself, said the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and US president, Donald Trump, had agreed to the revival of the E1 development, though there was no immediate confirmation from either. While approval for the plan would be a significant step, it remained unclear on Thursday how much buy-in Smotrich has from Netanyahu and the Trump administration.

Netanyahu has not commented on Smotrich’s remarks, while the US state department appeared to dodge the issue of E1 when questioned.

Voters BOO Congressman Off Stage Over ISRAEL Support!

‘Censorship’: over 115 scholars condemn cancellation of Harvard journal issue on Palestine

More than 120 education scholars have condemned the cancellation of an entire issue of an academic journal dedicated to Palestine by a Harvard University publisher as “censorship”. In an open letter published on Thursday, the scholars denounced the abrupt scrapping of a special issue of the Harvard Educational Review – which was first revealed by the Guardian in July – as an “attempt to silence the academic examination of the genocide, starvation and dehumanisation of Palestinian people by the state of Israel and its allies”.

The writers note that the issue’s censorship is also an example of “anti-Palestinian discrimination, obstructing the dissemination of knowledge on Palestine at the height of the genocide in Gaza”. ... The special issue of the prestigious education journal was planned six months into Israel’s war in Gaza to tackle questions about the education of Palestinians, education about Palestine and Palestinians, and related debates in schools and colleges in the US, as the Guardian previously reported.

More than a year later, the special issue was just about ready – all articles had been edited, contracts with most authors had been finalized, and the issue had been advertised at academic conferences and on the back cover of the previous one. But late in the process, the Harvard Education Publishing Group (HEPG), a division of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, which publishes the journal, demanded that all articles be submitted to a “risk assessment” review by Harvard’s general counsel – an unprecedented demand. When the authors protested, the publisher responded by abruptly cancelling the issue altogether. ...

Last week, the Middle East Studies Association of North America (Mesa) and its committee on academic freedom also wrote a public letter to Harvard’s president, Alan Garber, condemning the issue’s cancellation as an “egregious violation of the principles of academic freedom and a blatant betrayal of Harvard University’s avowed commitment to scholarly integrity and freedom of expression”.

Andrei Martyanov: Putin Beating Trump at His Own Game - Can Israel Survive a War W/ Iran W/o the US?

Putin ready to make Ukraine deal, Trump says before Alaska summit

Donald Trump has said he believes Vladimir Putin is ready to make a deal on the war in Ukraine as the two leaders prepare for their summit in Alaska on Friday, but his suggestion the Russian leader and Volodymyr Zelenskyy could “divvy things up” may alarm some in Kyiv. The US president implied there was a 75% chance of the Alaska meeting succeeding, and that the threat of economic sanctions may have made Putin more willing to seek an end to the war.

Trump insisted that he would not let Putin get the better of him in Friday’s meeting, telling reporters: “I am president, and he’s not going to mess around with me. “I’ll know within the first two minutes, three minutes, four minutes or five minutes … whether or not we’re going to have a good meeting or a bad meeting. “And if it’s a bad meeting, it’ll end very quickly, and if it’s a good meeting, we’re going to end up getting peace in the pretty near future,” said Trump.

He also said a second meeting – not yet confirmed – between him, Putin and Zelenskyy would be the more decisive. “The second meeting is going to be very, very important, because that’s going to be a meeting where they make a deal. And I don’t want to use the word ‘divvy’ things up, but you know, to a certain extent, it’s not a bad term, OK?” Trump told Fox News Radio.

Johnson & McGovern - Trump/Putin Summit

'Corporate Crime Pays' Under Trump as His Agencies Drop Enforcement Against 165 Companies

During the first six months of his second term, President Donald Trump's administration has withdrawn or suspended enforcement actions against 165 companies in sectors across the U.S. economy, with Big Tech benefiting most from federal agencies' lax approach to corporate crime.

A report released Wednesday by the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen found that the Trump administration has halted or ended a third of misconduct investigations and enforcement actions targeting technology firms—including behemoths such as Meta, Tesla, and Google.

Both Meta and Google donated to Trump's inaugural fund, and Tesla CEO Elon Musk spent big in support of the president's 2024 White House bid. Public Citizen found that the tech corporations that have benefited from Trump administration decisions to drop enforcement efforts have spent a combined $1.2 billion trying to influence the president.

"The Trump administration is protecting lawbreaking corporate insiders from accountability instead of protecting Americans from corporate lawbreaking," said Rick Claypool, a research director for Public Citizen and author of the new report. "To Big Tech corporations, this sends the message there is little risk in breaking the law in pursuit of profit—especially if you are an ally of the administration."

"For insiders," Claypool added, "corporate crime pays."

Public Citizen's report comes amid growing scrutiny of what one critic recently described as "the incredible shrinking Trump antitrust enforcers."

Despite claims of a "surging MAGA antitrust movement," Trump's Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission have repeatedly shown a willingness to bow to White House-connected lobbyists and allow corporate consolidation to proceed unabated. Last week, as Common Dreams reported, the Trump DOJ settled a Biden-era legal challenge against UnitedHealth Group, allowing the monopolist to swallow yet another competitor.

"The second Trump administration has now become a pay-to-play operation where influential MAGA lobbyists paid millions by large corporations use their clout with the president and Attorney General Pam Bondi to overrule the enforcers and push through mergers," The American Prospect's David Dayen wrote following news of the UnitedHealth settlement.

"It seems that if you're a company and can pony up the money," Dayen added, "you can get whatever regulatory treatment you wish. Bribery has gone in a few short months from a prohibited activity to the coin of the realm in Trump's America."

As Public Citizen's report showed, tech giants have been the chief beneficiaries of what the group characterized as the Trump administration's corrupt approach to corporate crime enforcement.

At the start of Trump's second term, at least 104 tech corporations faced more than 140 federal investigations and enforcement actions. The Trump administration has withdrawn or halted nearly 50 of those enforcement actions, Public Citizen found.

"Although he pretends to be tough on Big Tech, Donald Trump is a willing enabler of Big Tech's wrongdoing," Robert Weissman, co-president of Public Citizen, said in a statement. "For Big Tech, a relative pittance in political spending has generated gigantic returns in dropped prosecutions, policy U-turns, and aggressive administration support for Big Tech's global agenda."

Key Inflation Indicator Comes in ‘Scorching Hot’ Just as Trump Tariffs Hit

A leading inflation indicator surged much more than expected last month, just as the impact of U.S. President Donald Trump's tariffs started to weigh on American businesses and consumers.

New Producer Price Index (PPI) numbers released on Thursday showed that wholesale prices rose by 0.9% over the last month and by 3.3% over the last year. These numbers were significantly higher than economists' consensus estimates of a 0.2% monthly rise and a 2.5% yearly rise in producer prices.

PPI is a leading indicator of future readings of the Consumer Price Index, the most widely cited gauge of inflation, as increases in wholesalers' prices almost inevitably get passed on to consumers. Economists have been predicting for months that Trump's tariffs on imported goods, which at the moment are higher than at any point in nearly 100 years, would lead to a spike in inflation.

Reacting to the higher-than-expected PPI number, some economic experts pinned the blame directly on the president.

"So much for foreigners paying tariffs," commented Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at tax consulting firm RSM US, on X. "If they did, PPI would be falling. Wholesale prices up 3.3% from a year ago and 3.7% in the core. The temperature is definitely rising in the core. This implies a hot PCE reading lies ahead."

Liz Pancotti, the managing director of policy and advocacy at the Groundwork Collaborative, took a deep dive into the numbers and found that Trump's tariffs were having an impact on a wide range of products.

"There is no mistaking it: President Trump's tariffs are hitting American farmers and driving up grocery prices for American families," she said. "Wholesale prices for grocery staples, like fresh vegetables (up 39% over the past month) and coffee (up 29% over the past year) are rising, squeezing American families even further in the checkout line."

Pancotti singled out the rise in milk prices as particularly worrisome for American families.

"Milk drove more than 30% of the increase in prices for unprocessed goods, rising by 9.1% in just the past month," she explained. "Tuesday's CPI print showed that milk prices rose by 1.9% in July, and this PPI data suggests further price hikes are on the way."

Betsey Stevenson, who served on former President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers, also pointed the finger at Trump's policies.

"Tariffs will cause higher prices," she said. "Volatility and uncertainty will cause higher prices. The PPI jump is not a surprise, it was inevitable."

On his Bluesky account, CNBC's Carl Quintanilla flagged analysis from economic research firm High Frequency Economics stating that the new PPI numbers were "a kick in the teeth for anyone who thought that tariffs would not impact domestic prices in the United States economy."

The firm added that it "will not be a long journey for producers' prices to translate into consumer prices" in the coming months.

Liz Thomas, the head of investment strategy at finance company SoFi, argued that the hot PPI numbers could further frustrate Trump's goal of getting the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates given that doing so would almost certainly boost inflation further.

"The increase in PPI was driven by services, and there were increases in general services costs and in the Trade component (i.e., wholesale/retail margins)," she commented. "The Fed won't like this report."

Ross Hendricks, an analyst at economic research firm Porter & Co., described the new report as "scorching hot" and similarly speculated that it would stop the Federal Reserve from cutting rates.

"Good luck with them rate cuts!" he wrote. "Can't recall the last time we've seen a miss that big on a single monthly inflation number."

Hedge fund manager and author Jeff Macke jokingly speculated that the bad PPI print would cause Trump to fire yet another government statistician just as he fired Erika McEntarfer, the former commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

"Whoever compiles the PPI needs to update their CV," he wrote.

Just as with the monthly jobs report, the Bureau of Labor Statistics collects and publishes PPI data.

Conservatives join backlash over Trump pick for head of labor statistics: ‘Not a credible source of information’

Donald Trump fired Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) commissioner Erika McEntarfer, a veteran economist with decades of experience inside the federal government, after claiming without evidence that official jobs data had been “rigged” against him.

In her place, the US president has lined up an ardent supporter of his agenda accused of regularly misrepresenting and exaggerating statistics, who previously urged Trump’s officials to “take a chainsaw” to the agency he has been tapped to oversee.

EJ Antoni, an economist at the Heritage Foundation and contributor to Project 2025, the rightwing blueprint drawn up ahead of Trump’s re-election, has been nominated by the president to take charge of US government labor statistics. He did not respond to a request for comment.

McEntarfer’s abrupt dismissal had already raised fears in Washington, on Wall Street and far beyond about the integrity of official US government data. Plans to replace her with Antoni – confirmed hours after he had called on the BLS to halt the publication of monthly jobs data – have only heightened concern among leading economists.

“From selectively presenting data from particularly convenient dates to misrepresenting axes to exaggerate magnitudes, he has used all the tricks in the book and shown time and again that he is not a credible source of information,” Dave Hebert, an economist at the American Institute for Economic Research, a conservative thinktank, told the Guardian. “Worse, he has repeatedly shown that he fundamentally misunderstands what some of the data the BLS puts out actually means.

Benny Johnson Calls To BULLDOZE DC Neighborhoods, DISPLACE Residents

Trump falsely claims crime in Washington DC is ‘worst it’s ever been’

Donald Trump falsely claimed that crime in Washington DC is “the “worst it’s ever been” on Thursday, amid a federal takeover of the city’s police department and deployment of the national guard and federal agents in the city.

“Washington DC is at its worst point,” Trump said from the Oval Office. “It will soon be at its best point.” He also baselessly accused DC law enforcement officials of giving “phony crime stats” and said “they’re under investigation”.

The president’s comments came after protesters heckled federal law enforcement officials as they reportedly stopped dozens of cars at a checkpoint along a busy street in Washington DC on Wednesday night.

About 20 law enforcement officers, some of whom appeared to be from the Department of Homeland Security, pulled over drivers for infractions such as broken taillights and not wearing seatbelts, according to the Washington Post.

At least one woman was reportedly arrested as more than 100 protesters gathered and reportedly yelled things like “get off our streets”, according to NBC News. Some protesters began warning drivers to avoid the area, the outlet reported.

---

---

Gavin Newsom says California will move forward with map redrawing plan in response to Texas effort

Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, on Thursday said state Democratic lawmakers would move forward with a redistricting plan intended as a direct response to a Republican-led effort in Texas to redraw congressional maps to control of the House majority after the midterm elections.

Newsom, joined by congressional Democrats and legislative leaders, unveiled his plan, known as the election rigging response act, to override the state’s independent map-making commission and approve new congressional lines that would aim to “neuter and neutralize” Texas’s proposal.

“Today is liberation day in the state of California,” Newsom said in Los Angeles, formally calling for a 4 November special election that would ask voters to approve a new congressional map. “We can’t stand back and watch this democracy disappear district by district all across the country.”

As he spoke, at the intentionally chosen National Center for the Preservation of Democracy within the Japanese American National museum, federal agents, armed and masked, appeared outside of the building, led by Gregory Bovino, head of the border patrol’s El Centro sector. Local news footage showed one man being led away in handcuffs.

Speaking to reporters after the rally, Newsom called the presence of border patrol agents “sick and pathetic” and accused Donald Trump of organizing the raid in an attempt to intimidate Democrats. “Wake up, America,” he said. “You will not have a country if he rigs this election.”

---

---

Trump’s space order risks environmental disaster while rewarding Musk and Bezos

A draft executive order from Donald Trump that aims to largely exempt space launches from environmental review is viewed as a gift to commercial space industry players such as Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and others who have long targeted the regulations.

But its central components may be illegal and the US president “is trying to do an end run around” the law, said Jared Margolis, an attorney with the Center for Biological Diversity, which has litigated environmental issues around launches.

If successfully implemented, the launches could create an environmental disaster, advocates say. Rocket launches create a huge amount of pollution that can contaminate local waterways and air with high levels of mercury, Pfas, particulate matter and other highly toxic substances. The vibration, sound waves, heat and explosions damage habitat and kill wildlife, some of which are protected by the Endangered Species Act.

The executive order directs the US transportation department to “use all available authorities to eliminate or expedite” environmental reviews. Among the few protections during space launches is the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) review that considers a wide range of impacts on the environment and human health, and the Coastal Zone Management Act, a federal law that allows states to decide how coastlines are used. The order targets both, and suggests the agency could attempt to circumvent the Endangered Species Act. “The order is directing the transportation department to do whatever they can to avoid Nepa, but it doesn’t mean that’s possible, or that they have the authority to do so,” Margolis said.

Democrats demand answers on cuts to firefighters during critical fire season

As federal firefighters grapple with strained resources in an intense year of fire activity, Democratic lawmakers are demanding answers from the Trump administration about how severe cuts to staffing and budgets at the US Forest Service may have hamstrung wildfire preparation and response.

Leaders at the agency and the US Department of Agriculture, which oversees it, have repeatedly assured the public and Congress that they were fully prepared for the critical fire season that’s already well under way.

But internal data, first reported by the Guardian last month, painted a dangerously different picture, with more than a quarter of firefighting roles left unfilled in mid-July, just as fire activity and risks spiked. Trump administration policies designed to rapidly shrink the federal government have also left significant gaps in the workforce that supports wildfire mitigation and suppression.

In a letter issued Thursday, the representative Robert Garcia, the top Democrat on the House oversight committee, gave USDA secretary Brooke Rollins two weeks to provide documents with a detailed accounting of firefighter staffing and support personnel, and called for clarity from the USFS on information that’s largely been shielded from the public.

“The Forest Service’s firefighting capacity has been dangerously hampered by Department of Government Efficiency and Trump Administration layoffs, deferred resignations, and other early retirements and resignations just as climate change is extending the fire season,” Garcia wrote in the letter, requesting specifics that would show “the extent to which the Trump Administration’s policies have affected the ability of firefighters to protect the American public”.

More at the link:

Why our broken food system remains a climate disaster: ‘broiling the planet to stuff our faces’

Ridding ourselves of fossil fuels has been a tortuously ponderous process and, in the current political era, one that can seem to be in full retreat. But we do have the tools to run our cities, vehicles and industries on clean energy and even through the murk of vested interest, the contours of a post-fossil world are becoming clearer. Our system of producing food, though, is in a relative stone age when it comes to the climate crisis. We continue to raze vast tracts of carbon-rich forests for crop and grazing land thereby creating, by some estimates, as much as a third of all global planet-heating emissions.

As parts of the developing world get wealthier, people eat more meat, meaning more forest and grassland is obliterated and greater emissions are belched out by livestock and its attendant machinery, feed and chemicals. Even if we do manage to kick the habit of coal, oil and gas, modern agriculture now has enough heft on its own to shove us headlong into environmental catastrophe.

Why our food system remains a climate disaster, and how we can extricate ourselves from this mess, are central questions pondered in a new book called We Are Eating the Earth by the journalist Michael Grunwald. Grunwald is unsparing in his diagnosis of the challenge, estimating that agricultural production will need to expand by about 50% in the next 25 years to feed a growing human population of 10 billion people while somehow also not wiping out the world’s biodiversity and carbon-storing trees while doing so.

Given the world has already, according to Grunwald, devoted an amount of land equivalent to all of Asia and all of Europe for farming, however, the maths in doing this is “terrible” and “remorseless”. As so little funding and thought has gone into making our food climate-friendly, there is no obvious template for ramping up food production in a way that doesn’t eat more of the Earth. “We’re clear-cutting and broiling the planet to stuff our faces,” Grunwald writes, adding that “feeding the world without frying it” will be an even bigger task than ending the age of oil. “This carbohydrate problem will be even trickier to solve than the hydrocarbon problem,” he states.

For much of the rest of this 300-plus page tome, Grunwald sets about exploring potential solutions to this problem and talking to those working on them, often with dispiriting results. Some favorites of the environmental movement, such as locking up more carbon in soils, are, he finds, a chimera. Another, the use of biofuels, where foodstuffs such as corn are turned into fuel, are actively harmful, Grunwald argues in painstaking detail.

---

Also of Interest

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

The Nuremberg Movement

Ray McGovern: Applying the Lost Art of Kremlinology

Some Thoughts On The Upcoming Summit

‘Legitimization Cell’: Israeli unit tasked with linking Gaza journalists to Hamas

Craig Murray: The UK Home Secretary is Lying

The New Normal of US Domestic Spying

The Latest Chapter in the Ghislaine Maxwell Saga

Trump reportedly called Norwegian minister ‘out of the blue’ to ask about Nobel prize

Ukraine trapped, operational crisis Donbass

---

A Little Night Music

Junior Wells – You Don't Love Me

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - A Poor Man's Plea

Junior Wells – You Lied To Me

Junior Wells – Mystery Train

Junior Wells – 'Bout The Break Of Day

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - She Left Me A Mule To Ride

Junior Wells – Watch Me Move

Junior Wells w Buddy Guy – Chitlin Con Carne

Buddy Guy & Junior Wells - Checking On My Baby

Junior Wells Live @ The Lonesome Pine Specials

---