The Evening Blues - 9-8-25
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist Pee Wee Crayton. Enjoy!
Pee Wee Crayton – Bounce Pee Wee
“Everyone’s worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there’s really an easy way: Stop participating in it.”
-- Noam Chomsky
News and Opinion
The Word “Terrorist” Becomes More And More Of A Joke By The Day
British police arrested nearly 900 people over the weekend for expressing support for the peace activist group Palestine Action. Under UK law it is illegal to express favorable opinions about the group because London has deemed Palestine Action a terrorist organization, in the same category as ISIS or Al Qaeda.
At the same time, the Trump administration is defending its assassination of a boat full of Venezuelans on the allegation that they were “narcoterrorists”, an imaginary category designed to lump garden variety drug traffickers in with suicide bombers and mass shooters.
The word “terrorist” becomes more and more of a joke by the day.
I used to think a terrorist looks like a deranged maniac killing large numbers of civilians. Now I know a terrorist actually looks like a woman in a wheelchair holding a piece of cardboard with forbidden words written on it. https://t.co/ruQUknjNRr
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 6, 2025
In the UK a terrorist is someone with a cardboard sign saying “I support Palestine Action”.
In the US a terrorist is a Venezuelan suspected of drug trafficking.
In Israel a terrorist is someone resisting occupation.
We’re told Yemen is full of terrorists because they’re trying to stop a 21st century holocaust.
We’re told Lebanon is full of terrorists because they oppose a genocidal apartheid state.
We’re told Iran is full of terrorists because its government resists imperial regime change agendas.
We were told Al Qaeda were terrorists because they perpetrated the 9/11 attacks, but when Al Qaeda helped the west get rid of Assad they suddenly weren’t terrorists anymore.
Uyghur militants used to be terrorists, but they came off the list when they were deemed useful operatives against Beijing and Damascus.
Iraq needed to be invaded because Saddam wanted to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists, but after the invasion it turned out that there were no weapons of mass destruction, and then Iraq was suddenly plagued by an epidemic of suicide bombings.
Afghanistan needed to be invaded because the Taliban was providing a safe haven for terrorists, but after 20 years of military occupation the empire needed its war machinery for other duties so they let the Taliban retake Afghanistan.
In 2010, then-vice president Joe Biden proclaimed Julian Assange a “high-tech terrorist” because his journalism with WikiLeaks exposed US war crimes.
Terrorism was used as an excuse to roll out the Patriot Act in the US and the Terrorism Act in the UK, and countless other authoritarian measures throughout the western world which tyrannical empire managers had been seeking to impose for years.
Such undignified bootlickery how American right wingers suddenly started pretending "narcoterrorists" is a real term and that assassinating drug dealers is actually killing terrorists just because the president commanded them to believe that. Pure 1984 Orwellian doublethink.
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 7, 2025
Really “terrorist” just means someone the empire wants to kill or imprison, or a group whose terrorist designation might be used to justify the advancement of preexisting geostrategic agendas.
Propaganda is used to sear events like 9/11 into western consciousness as examples of terrorism which must be prevented at all cost, and then this label “terrorism” is applied to literally anyone who poses an obstacle to the agendas of the western empire.
Once it is accepted that there should be no rules restricting how the state responds to the threat of terrorism, all the state needs to do is label someone a terrorist to remove all rules which might stop them from doing whatever they want to do. Nowhere is this more clearly illustrated right now than the ongoing genocide in Gaza which is being justified by the need to eliminate terrorists.
When power-seeking empire architects are given limitless power to fight terrorism, we suddenly find ourselves in a world full of designated terrorists.
The more despised the western empire becomes, the more “terrorists” there are going to be. Because a terrorist is anyone who takes action which inconveniences the empire.
If this keeps up, soon we will all be “terrorists”.
Col. Lawrence Wilkerson: World War 3 is ALREADY HERE, Netanyahu is INTENT on Greater Israel
Israel bombs third Gaza City residential high-rise in as many days
Israel has bombed a third Gaza City residential high-rise in as many days as the military carried out further attacks ahead of a threatened ground offensive. Israel said it hit Al-Roya Tower on Sunday after issuing an evacuation warning. It followed the destruction of the 15-storey Sousi Tower by war planes on Saturday, with footage posted to social media by the Israeli defence minister. Witnesses confirmed the tower was destroyed. A Gaza City hospital said one person was killed in the strike.
Air attacks overnight on the city into Sunday had earlier killed 14 people, local health officials said, including a strike on a school in southern Gaza City sheltering displaced Palestinians. Evacuation warnings for the two towers surrounding tents sheltering displaced Palestinians were issued on Saturday. Avichay Adraee, a military spokesperson, claimed without providing evidence that the buildings were targets because Hamas had infrastructure inside or near them. Hamas said the allegations were “baseless lies” and that the high-rises were residential towers.
Residents of Sousi Tower said on Saturday that the Israeli army gave them about 20 minutes to grab their belongings and flee before warplanes razed the building to the ground. “Suddenly, we were sitting at home and people started shouting,” Aida Abu Kas, a resident, told the Associated Press, recalling the panic and confusion rippling through the building. “Some said it was a lie and other said it was real. We went out and didn’t know what to do.”
Israel Katz, Israel’s defence minister, later posted a video to social media of the Sousi Tower collapsing in an enormous cloud of smoke along with the words: “We continue.” On Friday, he had posted the evacuation order on X, saying: “The gates of hell are being unlocked in Gaza City.”
Report from Gaza: Aid Coordinator Describes Disease, Famine as Israel Blows Up Residential Towers
Israel’s top court says government is not giving Palestinian prisoners enough food
Israel’s supreme court has ruled that the government has failed to provide Palestinian security prisoners with adequate food for basic subsistence and ordered authorities to improve their nutrition. Sunday’s decision was a rare case in which the country’s highest court ruled against the government’s conduct during the nearly two-year war.
Since the war began, Israel has seized thousands of people in Gaza that it suspects of having links to Hamas. Thousands have also been released without charge, often after months of detention. Rights groups have documented widespread abuse in prisons and detention facilities, including insufficient food and health care, as well as poor sanitary conditions and beatings. In March, a 17-year-old Palestinian boy died at an Israeli prison and doctors said starvation was likely the main cause of death.
The ruling came in response to a petition brought last year by the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and the Israeli rights group Gisha. The groups alleged that a change in the food policy enacted after the war in Gaza began has caused prisoners to suffer malnutrition and starvation.
Last year, the national security minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, who oversees the prison system, boasted that he had reduced the conditions of security prisoners to what he described as the bare minimum required by Israeli law. In Sunday’s ruling, the panel of three justices ruled unanimously that the state is legally obliged to provide prisoners with enough food to ensure “a basic level of existence”.
A Year After Activist's Killing By Israel, Family Still Demands Justice
Israel TOADY Bari Weiss Paid $200 Million To Run CBS News!
Trump issues ‘last warning’ to Hamas to accept Gaza ceasefire deal
Donald Trump on Sunday issued what he called his “last warning” to Hamas, urging the Palestinian militant group to accept a deal to release hostages from Gaza. “The Israelis have accepted my Terms. It is time for Hamas to accept as well,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “I have warned Hamas about the consequences of not accepting. This is my last warning, there will not be another one!”
Hamas said in a later statement that it received some ideas from the US side through mediators to reach a ceasefire deal in Gaza. The group said it was discussing with mediators ways to develop those ideas, without giving specifics. Hamas also reiterated its readiness for negotiations to release all hostages in exchange for a “clear announcement of an end to the war” and the complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from the enclave.
“I think we’re going to have a deal on Gaza very soon,” Trump told reporters as he traveled back to Washington from New York, without offering any details. He added that he thought all the hostages would be returned, dead or alive. “I think we’re going to get them all.”
Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : What I'd Tell the UN About Trump
Palestinians to ask UK to own up to ‘law violations’ between 1917 and 1948
A group of Palestinians will serve a legal petition asking the UK to take responsibility for what they call “serial international law violations”, including war crimes committed during the British occupation of Palestine from 1917 to 1948, the consequences of which it says still reverberate today. The 400-plus page document, drafted by human rights KCs, details “incontrovertible evidence” of the UK’s unlawful legacy. This includes the 1917 Balfour declaration, acting as an occupying power during the mandate period – an authority to rule the territory that it says had no legal basis – and the subsequent “systematic abuse” of the Palestinian people.
The submission says the Palestinian people face their gravest crisis since 1948, which Britain bears its own distinct responsibility for and so owes them a special debt. Among the petitioners is the 91-year-old philanthropist Munib al-Masri, who was shot in the leg by British soldiers when he was 13.
The submission, served on the UK government on Sunday, marks the launch of a campaign, Britain Owes Palestine, which is pressing for official UK acknowledgment of wrongdoing, apology and reparations for what it calls a “century of oppression”. A legal petition is a formal request to the government to act based on evidence and legal analysis, often used by victims of colonial wrongdoing. If the government does not respond it could lead to judicial review proceedings at the high court in London.
Al-Masri, a Nablus-born businessman, who was a close friend of the late Palestinian political leader Yasser Arafat, said: “The current crisis in Palestine was ‘made in Britain’ through a catalogue of neglect and abuse of the Palestinian people. Together we have suffered more than a century of oppression. “Britain can only play its part in building a just peace in the region today if it acknowledges its defining role in the horrors of the past. An apology would be a just start to what Palestinians expect from the British government.”
Alastair Crooke : The Gloves Are Off!
Republican condemns Vance for ‘despicable’ comments on Venezuelan boat strike
The Republican senator who heads the homeland security committee has criticized JD Vance for “despicable” comments apparently in support of extrajudicial military killings.
“Killing cartel members who poison our fellow citizens is the highest and best use of our military,” the vice-president said in an X post on Saturday, in defense of Tuesday’s US military strike against a Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean Sea, which killed 11 people the administration alleged were drug traffickers. ...
The Republican senator Rand Paul, who chairs the Senate committee on homeland security and government affairs, condemned Vance’s comments.
“JD ‘I don’t give a shit’ Vance says killing people he accuses of a crime is the ‘highest and best use of the military.’ Did he ever read To Kill a Mockingbird?” Paul wrote on X, alluding to Harper Lee’s 1960 novel about a wrongly convicted Black man who is killed as he tries to escape prison.
“Did he ever wonder what might happen if the accused were immediately executed without trial or representation? What a despicable and thoughtless sentiment it is to glorify killing someone without a trial.”
Zelensky Desperate; Syrsky: Russia's 3-1 Advantage, Biggest Offensive Coming; Kupiansk About To Fall
John Mearsheimer: West's Failure to Adjust to a Multipolar World
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
US treasury secretary denies Trump tariffs are tax on Americans
US treasury secretary Scott Bessent has refused to acknowledge that the sweeping trade tariffs imposed by Donald Trump around the world are taxes on Americans. In a new interview on Sunday with NBC host Kristen Welker, Bessent, a former billionaire hedge fund manager, dismissed concerns from major American companies including John Deere, Nike and Black and Decker who have all said that Trump’s tariffs policy will cost them billions of dollars annually.
Addressing Welker, Bessent said: “You’re taking these from earnings calls, and on earnings calls, they have to give the draconian scenario. There aren’t companies coming out and saying, ‘Oh, because of the tariffs, we’re doing this.’” He went on to add: “If things are so bad, why was the GDP 3.3%? Why is the stock market at a new high? Because, you know, with President Trump, we care both about big companies and small companies.”
As concerns continue to grow over American companies trying to pass on the cost of US tariffs on to everyday Americans, Welker asked: “Do you acknowledge that these tariffs are attacks on American consumers?” To which Bessent replied: “No, I don’t.”
Bessent’s latest interview follows a ruling by a federal appeals court which found that Trump had overstepped his presidential authority when he imposed sweeping tariffs on dozens of countries earlier this year that sent shockwaves across global markets. The tariffs established a 10% baseline for nearly all of the US’s trading partners. Trump also imposed so-called “reciprocal” tariffs imposed on countries that he accused of unfairly treating the US in trade. Lesotho, a south African nation of 2.3 million people faced a 50% tariff, while Trump also imposed a 10% tariff on a group of uninhabited islands home to penguins near Antarctica.
In response to the federal appeals court’s decision, the Trump administration has recently asked the US supreme court to overturn the ruling. Speaking on whether the Trump administration would be prepared to offer rebates if the supreme court rules against the administration, Bessent said: “We would have to give a refund on about half the tariffs which would be terrible for the treasury… There’s no ‘be prepared.’ If the court says it, we’d have to do it.”
Arizona Republicans seek to expel lawmaker who reposted Ice raid information
A Democratic lawmaker in Arizona who is facing calls for expulsion for resharing an Instagram post warning of immigration enforcement activity near an elementary school said that state senate Republicans “absolutely are trying to make an example out of me”. Analise Ortiz, a Democratic state senator in Arizona, shared an Instagram post from a community organization that warned, in text only, that immigration enforcement agents were near a local elementary school.
“Alert/Alerta: ICE activity near Southwest Elementary,” the post in early August said, adding the cross streets of the school. “ICE is present. La migra esta presente.” That post is at the center of an ethics complaint filed this week against Ortiz and a viral rightwing campaign against her. “The ethics complaint very clearly says that they want to stop other people from sharing this type of information,” she said, calling it “a stunning escalation of intimidation”.
The controversy began when Libs of TikTok, the X account known for going after liberals online, posted about Ortiz’s reshare, claiming she was “actively impeding and doxxing ICE by posting their live locations on instagram” and that law enforcement officials should “charge her”.
No photos of agents were shared, nor were names or other identifying information about agents. ... The Libs of TikTok post went viral, leaving Ortiz with an inbox full of harassing and threatening messages. The mischaracterization that she “doxed” agents had led to the vast majority of the threats she had received, she said. ...
“What surprised me about the ethics complaint was the level of punishment they want to inflict upon me for simply exercising my first amendment right,” Ortiz said.
ICE Conducts Largest-Ever Raid at Georgia Hyundai Plant
300 South Koreans detained at Hyundai plant in US to be released, says Seoul
South Korea announced on Sunday that the roughly 300 of its nationals detained during an immigration raid in Georgia would be released and flown home, as the sudden detention of workers appeared to strain the longstanding diplomatic and economic relationship between the two nations. Nearly 500 workers, among them at least 300 South Koreans and at least 23 Mexicans, were arrested at the Hyundai-LG battery plant in the city of Ellabell on Thursday.
US authorities released footage of the raid, which showed detained workers, restrained in handcuffs and ankle chains, loaded on to buses. The raid marked the largest single site sweep carried out under Donald Trump’s nationwide anti-immigration campaign.,“As a result of the swift and united response … negotiations for the release of the detained workers have been concluded,” Kang Hoon-sik, chief of staff to South Korea’s president Lee Jae Myung, told reporters. “Only administrative procedures remain. Once these are completed, a chartered flight will depart to bring our citizens home,” he said. ...
Park Yoon-joo, South Korea’s first vice foreign minister, reportedly told US secretary of state for political affairs, Allison Hooker, that it was lamentable the raid unfolded “at a critical time, when the momentum of trust and cooperation between the two leaders, forged through their first summit, must be maintained”.
“The economic activities of our companies that have invested in the US and the rights and interests of our citizens should not be unfairly infringed upon during the course of US law enforcement,” Park also said, according to a foreign ministry statement.
“Trump Was Undercover FBI Agent In Epstein Sting” Says Speaker Mike Johnson’s
I'm shocked, shocked I tell you, to find that there are pedophile enthusiasts in the White House!
‘No outreach’ to Epstein victims despite Trump’s vow to investigate, lawyers say
For more than six months, Donald Trump and his justice department have insisted they would get to the bottom of Jeffrey Epstein’s crimes, but nine attorneys – who have represented approximately 50 Epstein survivors – told the Guardian they have not been recently contacted by the justice department.
The revelation casts doubt on the effort by the Trump administration to fully investigate Epstein’s crimes and activities and reveal everything that the government knows about him. It comes as Trump faces intense political pressure, including from his own base, over his social ties to Epstein, who was famed for courting rich and powerful figures into his circle.
“There has still been no outreach from the DoJ or members of Congress to me seeking to interview my clients,” said the top civil attorney Gloria Allred, who has represented 27 Epstein survivors. Lisa Bloom, who has represented 11 Epstein survivors, said: “No, haven’t heard anything. As usual the survivors are being ignored in the political battle.”
Spencer Kuvin, the chief legal officer of Goldlaw, similarly said there had not been outreach by law enforcement officials or Congress. The House oversight committee has issued subpoenas regarding Epstein and met with some victims earlier this week; the panel did release a tranche of documents the justice department provided pursuant to a subpoena, but virtually none contained new information.
“I have heard nothing from the DoJ and they have provided me no updates to give to my clients. I have even sent a letter to the committee chair volunteering to speak with them about the original investigation and litigation. This letter was completely ignored,” Kuvin said. “It is appalling that the federal government is again failing to keep the victims at the center of this investigation. Instead, it appears that all the government is interested in is attempting to whitewash the prior investigation.”
Higher defence spending is pointless without climate aid, says UN chief
Spending more on defence will be pointless unless western governments also tackle the climate crisis in poor countries, the UN’s departing chief of international development has warned. “The more you restrict your ability to act by simply focusing on what’s happening inside your country, the more vulnerable you become,” said Achim Steiner, who recently completed his second term as administrator of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), which works on overseas aid and lifting people out of poverty. “Vulnerability can then very quickly translate into a very real crisis scenario.”
Many countries – the US, the UK and some EU member states included – are increasing their defence budgets, but sharply reducing their spending on international aid. Steiner said this was shortsighted. “The more we defund [aid to and cooperation with developing countries], the more we lose the ability to act,” he said. “There is a loss of control, because you no longer can cooperate with countries that you depend on to solve these problems [such as the climate]. You are curtailing your own ability to create a more resilient national economy, in this world of interconnectedness.”
The climate crisis will potentially spiral out of control unless countries recognise their international obligations, he warned. “The greatest risk is not necessarily the territorial threat of a neighbouring country’s army, though that will always remain a potential risk,” he said. “It is cyberterrorism; the next pandemic for which we are not prepared; and most certainly the domino effect of runaway climate change.” Governments should plan for the medium and longer term by viewing spending on climate finance for the poorest countries, and on development and cooperation with the developing world, in that light, perhaps even classing it under, or allied to, defence budgets.
“That kind of security perspective could make it much more justifiable that we have a defence and deterrence track in which we invest, but also a development and resilience track that by definition will have to have a strong international component, and both are ultimately integral to a national security strategy,” Steiner said. A growing number of national security experts want governments to remodel their approach to climate breakdown, which has the potential to trigger problems that swiftly turn into security crises, such as migration and food price rises.
Climate crisis will increase frequency of lightning-sparked wildfires, study finds
The climate crisis will continue making lightning-sparked wildfires more frequent for decades to come, which could produce cascading effects and worsen public safety and public health, experts and new research suggest.
Lightning-caused fires tend to burn in more remote areas and therefore usually grow into larger fires than human-caused fires. That means a trend toward more lightning-caused fires is also probably making wildfires more deadly by producing more wildfire smoke and helping to drive a surge in air quality issues from coast to coast, especially over the past several years.
Over the last 40 years, thunderstorms and other weather conditions favoring lightning have been happening more often across many parts of the US west, including western Washington, western Oregon, the California Central valley, and higher elevations throughout the Rocky Mountains. ...
Despite the well-documented trend toward worsening fires, most climate models have been too coarse to resolve how the relationship between lightning and wildfires will change as the climate crisis deepens. [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/sep/06/climate-crisis-lightning... A new study published last week is the first to use machine learning techniques to tackle this problem, simultaneously looking at future changes in lightning frequency and changes in weather variables like air temperature, humidity, wind and soil moisture that can predict how likely a fire is to spread.]
“The overall signal is that we will have more risk of lightning-caused fires,” said Dmitri Kalashnikov, a climate scientist at the Sierra Nevada Research Institute at University of California-Merced and the study’s lead author.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Patrick Lawrence: The State of the ‘State of Palestine’
The Israeli Army's Black Hoods Can't Cover Its War Crimes in Gaza
Yemeni Drone Hits Israel’s Ramon Airport
Ukraine - "Due to the detonation of the warhead of the downed missile ..."
The British Media Again Ignores the Corbyn Insurgency
The Power of Siberia 2 Pipeline Deal Signifies the Failure of Trump’s Eurasian Grand Strategy
US Federal Judge: Trump Isn’t National Police Chief
‘There is only one player’: why China is becoming a world leader in green energy
Texas attorney general wants students to pray in school – unless they’re Muslim
LEAKED ISRAELI DOCS: World Views Israel As 'Genocidal Apartheid'
A Little Night Music
Pee Wee Crayton - Do Unto Others
Big Joe Turner w/ Pee Wee Crayton – Piney Brown
Pee Wee Crayton - The Telephone Is Ringing
Pee Wee Crayton - Let The Good Times Roll
Pee Wee Crayton - I Love You So
Pee Wee Crayton - Red Rose Boogie
Pee Wee Crayton - Texas Hop
Pee Wee Crayton & his Guitar - Blues After Hours
Pee Wee Crayton – Twinky
Comments
Attorney Yoon seemed very cautious
...perhaps wisely so. She has clients, so she has to be very careful.
JS, thanks for posting the DN video on the ICE detention of South Korean nationals working on the Hyundai battery factory in Georgia. I believe these people are basically just hostages to coerce South Korea in the trade negotiations. When Trump said he didn't know, that's bs. It's also part of a scheme to undermine Lee's domestic support in South Korea, coordinated with more US regime change schemes: Lee is a Chinese agent, dictator, persecuting churches, blah, blah, blah. This is the same rationale used to defend Yoon's coup attempt.
The latest reports I've heard indicate that the Trump administration has not acknowledged any deal to release the South Korean detainees directly. I'll believe it when I see it. They are trying to extort concessions from South Korea on the special military agreement as well. Keep in mind that Lee fired all the four star generals left over from the Yoon administration and replaced them with lower ranking generals who didn't cooperate during the coup attempt. They also want Lee to turn South Korea into a base for anti-China military operations if the need arises.
I understand Trump may want to attend the APEC conference in South Korea Oct. 31-Nov. 1. I wonder how well that will go over.
語必忠信 行必正直
evening soryang...
it is somewhat suspicious that the hyundai plant was the first really big target when throughout america, there are so many well-known large scale employers of undocumented immigrant labor.
i guess we will see what trump is trying to pull soon, it will probably come tumbling out of his mouth at some future press availability when he brags about it.
have a great evening!
Although it does not prove that Trump is a pedophile but it says
a lot about his character.
The rest of the tweet:
Since the image was cropped here is the rest of it.
evening humphrey...
heh, another interesting artifact. if these sorts of things continue, it will be increasingly harder for trump to call them fake.
Good evening Joe. Thanks for the eBs.
Always got a kick out of Blues After Hours, still do.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
evening el...
i've always liked "after hours" as well and had always heard versions of it by guitarists. then i looked up the guy who wrote it and found out that he wrote it and the arrangements for the erskine hawkins band. i was kind of surprised that it started out as a piano-driven tune. i think this is the first recording of it:
Israel believes that it can do anything that it desires fully
aware that they will not be on the receiving end of severe repercussions for their actions.
interesting...
i guess israel figures that there is no likelihood of reprisals. apparently that boat is the one that greta thunberg is travelling on, whom israel has already threatened.
Website exposes pro-genocide EU lobbyists
https://lobbyagainst.eu.org/
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/david-cronin/eu-pushed-censorship-w...