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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bobby Blue Bland

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer Bobby Blue Bland. Enjoy!

^{Bobby Blue Bland – Ain't That Loving You}

"Wherever morality is based on theology, wherever the right is made dependent on divine authority, the most immoral, unjust, infamous things can be justified and established."

-- Ludwig Feuerbach

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News and Opinion

Sorry If This Is Antisemitic But I Think It’s Wrong To Train Dogs To Rape Prisoners

One thing I try not to think about very often is how many reports we’ve been seeing about Israeli prison guards training dogs to rape Palestinian captives in torture camps like Sde Teiman.

Drop Site News has a new write-up about a testimony from a journalist published by the Palestinian Journalists Protection Center. The reporter says that during his 20 months of hell in Israeli prisons he was electrocuted, beaten, starved, and sexually assaulted on film. He also says he was sexually assaulted by a “trained dog” — just the latest in a long string of such allegations coming out of Israel’s notorious network of torture prisons.

Last month Novara Media published an article titled “Israeli Prison Guards Are Using Dogs to Rape Palestinians, Former Detainees Say,” based on information collected by the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. The Electronic Intifada published an article titled “Palestinians recount gang rapes by Israeli soldiers, dogs” based on the same testimonies.

“They know once they rape someone with a dog or with a stick that these people won’t be able to carry out their jobs or live their lives normally." https://t.co/ovzOZn4Xdv

— Novara Media (@novaramedia) November 27, 2025

In August of last year The New Arab interviewed a Palestinian law graduate who was detained by Israeli forces and said he watched as “a dog raped another hostage before my eyes” after the Israelis poured some sort of liquid on him.

In June of last year Euro-Med Monitor published a report saying it had “received horrific testimonies from recently released detainees confirming the brutal and inhumane use of Israeli police dogs to rape prisoners and detainees.”

There are records of Nazis and Chilean fascists using dogs to rape prisoners in this way, though according to the IHRA definition of antisemitism that western governments have been shoving down our throats lately it is against the rules to draw any comparisons between Israel and the Nazis.

So I am very sorry if this comes across as antisemitic, but I think it’s wrong to sexually assault prisoners using trained rape dogs. I actually think it’s one of the most evil things I’ve ever heard of.

Popular kids’ presenter Rachel Accurso, better known as ‘Ms. Rachel,’ has been nominated for “Antisemite of the Year” by the advocacy group StopAntisemitism, with supporters saying it is due to her being outspoken about Israel’s genocide in Gaza. pic.twitter.com/LDCBmYt6Wm

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 3, 2025

I am taking great pains to say I don’t mean to be antisemitic with my anti-rape dog rhetoric because apparently literally any criticism of literally any Israeli atrocity can land one with that label. Just this past weekend, for example, the pro-Israel group StopAntisemitism announced that children’s YouTube star Ms Rachel is a nominee for its annual Antisemite of the Year designation.

To be clear, Ms Rachel has never at any time said anything negative about Jewish people or Judaism. Her one and only offense making her an Antisemite of the Year nominee is that she has been saying on social media that it is wrong to kill children. Opposition to murdering children by starvation and bombing campaigns is what led to this celebrity being accused of hating Jews.

Why is an institution which calls itself StopAntisemitism equating the mass murder of children with the Jewish faith? Why are they suggesting that opposition to slaughtering kids is the same as opposition to Jews? If it was my job to stop antisemitism, I personally would not be actively circulating the idea that massacring children is synonymous with Judaism or plays some special role in the religious practices of its adherents.

To clarify, I am absolutely not suggesting that the mass murder of children is an important part of Jewish life. I think that would be a terrible thing to say, not much different from the libels which have been spread about Jewish people since medieval times. But it sure does sound like StopAntisemitism is saying that.

Maybe I’m just confused by this whole “antisemitism” label. Maybe it doesn’t mean what I think it means.

In any case, I do think it’s wrong to murder children, and I do think it’s wrong to rape prisoners with trained rape dogs. I truly do not mean to hurt anyone’s feelings or offend anybody when I say this.

Gaza: Israeli strike kills five, including two children, says civil defence agency

An Israeli strike on Palestinian territory has killed five people including two children, Gaza’s civil defence agency told AFP on Wednesday.

“Five citizens, including two children, killed and others injured, some seriously, as a result of an Israeli missile strike,” in al-Mawasi, west of Khan Younis, civil defence spokesperson Mahmud Bassal told AFP.

The agency said the strike hit near the Kuwaiti field hospital in Khan Younis and “targeted” a shelter camp.

The hospital said the five people killed included two children aged eight and 10, and another 32 people were wounded.

The Israeli military said it had struck a “Hamas terrorist” in southern Gaza in response to a clash with Palestinian militants in the area that left five soldiers wounded.

Israel’s genocide in Gaza has not stopped, despite the ceasefire

On October 10, 2025, a ceasefire was supposed to have put an end to Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza. But two months on, Israel has violated the ceasefire more than 500 times, killing at least 356 Palestinians, and sending the total death toll in Gaza above 70,000.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made his position clear, saying that the war “has not ended”. Analysts say that while the rate of Israel’s killing of Palestinians in Gaza has slowed since the ceasefire, the war, for all intents and purposes, has continued.

“If you break genocide down to its essence, it’s not only mass killing,” Muhammad Shehada, a visiting fellow with the Middle East and North Africa programme at the European Council on Foreign Relations, told Al Jazeera. “It is also destroying the population’s ability to exist together as a group, and that is being achieved by the mass destruction [of infrastructure], the killing, ethnic cleansing, and starvation,” he said.

Israel continued attacking. It has also failed to allow the entry of the amount of aid it agreed to, destroyed more than 1,500 buildings, and expanded deeper into Gaza, cutting people off from their homes.

Israel-backed Gaza militia leader Yasser Abu Shabab reportedly killed in Rafah

Israeli Conference: Treat US Enemies Like Gazans

Democrats in Congress Are Out of Touch With Constituents on Israeli Genocide

Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same conclusion. But such clarity is sparse in Congress.

And no wonder. Genocide denial is needed for continuing to appropriate billions of dollars in weapons to Israel, as most legislators have kept doing. Congress members would find it very difficult to admit that Israeli forces are committing genocide while voting to send them more weaponry.

Three weeks ago, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) introduced a resolution titled “Recognizing the genocide of the Palestinian people in Gaza.” Twenty-one House colleagues, all of them Democrats, signed on as co-sponsors. They account for 10 percent of the Democrats in Congress.

In sharp contrast, a national Quinnipiac Poll found that 77 percent of Democrats “think Israel is committing genocide.” That means there is a 67 percent gap between what the elected Democrats are willing to say and what the people who elected them believe. The huge gap has big implications for the party’s primaries in the midterm elections next year, and then in the race for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination.

One of the likely candidates in that race, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), is speaking out in ways that fit with the overwhelming views of Democratic voters. “I agree with the UN commission's heartbreaking finding that there is a genocide in Gaza,” he tweeted as autumn began. “What matters is what we do about it—stop military sales that are being used to kill civilians and recognize a Palestinian state.” Consistent with that position, the California congressman was one of the score of Democrats who signed on as co-sponsors of Tlaib’s resolution the day it was introduced.

In the past, signers of such a resolution would have reason to fear the wrath—and the electoral muscle—of AIPAC, the Israel-can-do-no-wrong lobby. But its intimidation power is waning. AIPAC’s support for Israel does not represent the views of the public, a reality that has begun to dawn on more Democratic officeholders.

“With American support for the Israeli government’s management of the conflict in Gaza undergoing a seismic reversal, and Democratic voters’ support for the Jewish state dropping off steeply, AIPAC is becoming an increasingly toxic brand for some Democrats on Capitol Hill,” the New York Times reported this fall. Notably, “some Democrats who once counted AIPAC among their top donors have in recent weeks refused to take the group’s donations.”

Khanna has become more and more willing to tangle with AIPAC, which is now paying for attack ads against him. On Thanksgiving, he tweeted about Gaza and accused AIPAC of “asking people to disbelieve what they saw with their own eyes.” Khanna elaborated in a campaign email days ago, writing: “Any politician who caves to special interests on Gaza will never stand up to special interests on corruption, healthcare, housing, or the economy. If we can’t speak with moral clarity when thousands of children are dying, we won’t stand for working Americans when corporate power comes knocking.”

AIPAC isn’t the only well-heeled organization for Israel now struggling with diminished clout. Democratic Majority for Israel, an offshoot of AIPAC that calls itself “an American advocacy group that supports pro-Israel policies within the United States Democratic Party,” is now clearly misnamed. Every bit of recent polling shows that in the interests of accuracy, the organization should change its name to “Democratic Minority for Israel.”

Yet the party’s leadership remains stuck in a bygone era. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, typifies how disconnected so many party leaders are from the actual views of Democratic voters. Speaking in Brooklyn three months ago, she flatly claimed that “nine out of 10 Democrats are pro-Israel.” She did not attempt to explain how that could be true when more than seven out of 10 Democrats say Israel is guilty of genocide.

The political issue of complicity with genocide will not go away.

Last week, Amnesty International released a detailed statement documenting that “Israeli authorities are still committing genocide against Palestinians in the occupied Gaza Strip, by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” But in Congress, almost every Republican and a large majority of Democrats remain stuck in public denial about Israel’s genocidal policies.

Such denial will be put to the electoral test in Democratic primaries next year, when most incumbents will face an electorate far more morally attuned to Gaza than they are. What easily passes for reasoned judgment and political smarts in Congress will seem more like cluelessness to many Democratic activists and voters who can provide reality checks with their ballots.

Kiev Troops Mirnograd Admit Trap Beg Food Help; EU Officials Say Ursula's Asset Plan Is Crazy; India

Witkoff and Kushner Hold Five-Hour Meeting With Putin, No Sign of Breakthrough

US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, held five hours of talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and his advisers at the Kremlin on Tuesday to discuss a potential peace plan to end the war in Ukraine, but the meeting ended with no sign of a breakthrough.

Yury Ushakov, a top aide to Putin, said that the talks were “useful, constructive and meaningful” but that no compromises were reached. “Some American proposals are acceptable to Russia, while others are not,” he said.

Ushakov said that the US presented proposals on territorial control, one of the main sticking points in the negotiations, and declined to share more details about the conversation. ...

Another main sticking point in the negotiations is the issue of security guarantees, and Ukraine’s European backers are insisting on deploying troops to a post-war Ukraine, an idea that’s been repeatedly rejected by Moscow. The insistence on a troop deployment or NATO-style security guarantees could ultimately sabotage the chances of a deal.

Zelensky political crisis, enter Zaluzhny

Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson: EU–US Split? EU Moves as the UK Economy Collapses

European Commission plans ‘reparations loan’ to Ukraine using frozen Russian assets

The European Commission will move ahead with controversial plans to fund Ukraine with a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets, but in a concession to concerns raised by Belgium, which hosts most of the assets, the EU executive has also proposed another option: an EU loan based on common borrowing. The European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said on Wednesday the two proposals would ensure “Ukraine has the means to defend [itself] and take forward peace negotiations from a position of strength”.

EU leaders will be asked to decide on the options later this month, as Ukraine faces a looming funding crunch, while the latest round of US-Russia peace talks appear to have made little progress.

A Kremlin official said on Wednesday, a day after talks between Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump’s envoys, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, that the discussions had been “positive” and Trump told reporters that Putin “very strongly” wanted to end the war, but there was little sign that Putin was ready for compromise on his maximalist goals.

European leaders, having been left on the sidelines of the White House effort to push through a peace deal, have instead been focusing on the need to plug the gap in Ukraine’s finances as the war grinds into a fourth winter. ... The aid would be funded by common EU borrowing or a loan based on Russia’s frozen assets in Europe. EU officials said these two options could be combined, but have always made clear the frozen assets loan was their preferred choice – despite stiff opposition from Belgium.

The publication on Wednesday of a long-awaited legal text of the reparations loan will be followed by an EU summit this month at which EU leaders are being urged to agree a two-year funding plan for Ukraine to avert the looming cash crunch. Leaders failed in October to agree on a proposed “reparations loan” to Ukraine using the Russian assets, but the question is becoming increasingly urgent, with Kyiv forecast to run out of money from next spring.

The Department of War

Trying in the House this time. A bipartisan group of Congressmen is introducing a War Powers Resolution in the House of Representatives to block (potential) military action against Venezuela. Two previous efforts in the Senate were defeated, so let's see... https://t.co/O0Cw4w1F7h

— Venezuelanalysis (@venanalysis) December 3, 2025

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Are Trump’s Killings and Threats a Bluff?

Republican lawmakers scrutinize Trump administration over ‘drug boat’ strikes

As the Trump administration continues military strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Caribbean, several Republican lawmakers are ramping up scrutiny on the administration over a double strike in early September. The strikes on suspected drug boats from Venezuela have drawn pushback from both parties – in particular, the second strike on a single boat to kill remaining survivors. The Washington Post reported that the order for a second strike came from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, which Hegseth has denied.

At Donald Trump’s cabinet meeting on Tuesday, Hegseth reaffirmed that the decorated US navy admiral Frank Bradley ultimately “sunk the boat and eliminated the threat”. Hegseth said that while he “watched that first strike”, he did not “stick around for the hour or two hours” after.

Congress is now getting involved. Bradley is due to sit with top lawmakers on both the House and Senate armed services committees for a classified briefing on Thursday about the events of 2 September. ... Republican senator Rand Paul of Kentucky said he wasn’t convinced by the administration’s explanation of the second strike. “In this sense, it looks like they’re trying to pin the blame on someone else,” Paul told reporters on Capitol Hill on Tuesday evening. He cited the shifting explanations given by Hegseth and the White House.

“On Sunday, Secretary Hegseth said he had no knowledge of this, and it did not happen,” Paul added. “And then the next day, from the podium at the White House, are saying it did happen. So, either he was lying to us on Sunday, or he’s incompetent and didn’t know it had happened.”

Max Blumenthal : The Venezuelan Deception

Trump officials say second strike aimed to destroy drug boat instead of crew

Trump administration officials have defended carrying out a follow-up strike on a drug boat that killed survivors on 2 September by arguing that its objective was to ensure the complete destruction of the boat, an action the Pentagon had internal legal approval to conduct. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said in a briefing on Monday that Adm Frank Bradley, who oversaw the operation and gave the order for the second strike, directed it to sink the boat.

“Adm Bradley worked well within his authority and the law, directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed, and the threat to the United States of America was eliminated,” Leavitt said. The defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, also said for the first time at a cabinet meeting on Tuesday that the second strike “sunk the boat and eliminated the threat” even as he sought to downplay his own involvement.

In framing the strikes as specifically targeting the boat – mirroring the language in a secret justice department office of legal counsel (OLC) memo blessing the strikes – officials technically put the attack on the firmest legal ground since questions surfaced about the incident.

According to three lawyers directly familiar with the matter, the OLC memo says it is permissible for the US to use lethal force against unflagged vessels carrying cocaine since the cartels use the proceeds to fund violence. The reasoning goes that the cartels are in a so-called “armed conflict” with allies in the region and as part of collective self-defense, the US can destroy the cocaine on the boats to choke off cartels’ money supply to buy weapons.

And perhaps most crucially for the administration, the Guardian previously reported, the OLC memo says the fact that anyone on board would probably die from a strike does not make a boat an improper military target.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson : The Consequences of Attempted Regime Change

Colombia’s president warns Trump: ‘Do not wake the jaguar’ with threats of military strikes

Colombia’s president has warned Donald Trump that he risked “waking the jaguar” after the US leader suggested that any country he believed was making illegal drugs destined for the US was liable to a military attack.

During a cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the US president said that military strikes on land targets inside Venezuela would “start very soon”. Trump also warned that any country producing narcotics was a potential target, singling out Colombia, which has long been a close ally in Washington’s “war on drugs”.

Shortly afterwards, Colombia’s president, Gustavo Petro, hit back in a social media post, saying: “To threaten our sovereignty is to declare war; do not damage two centuries of diplomatic relations.” Petro also invited Trump to visit Colombia – the world’s largest producer of cocaine – to see his government’s efforts to destroy drug-producing labs. “Come with me, and I’ll show you how they are destroyed, one lab every 40 minutes,” he wrote. ...

“We’re going to start doing those strikes on land, too,” said Trump on Tuesday. “You know, the land is much easier, much easier. And we know the routes they take. We know everything about them. We know where they live. We know where the bad ones live, and we’re going to start that very soon too. When asked whether the efforts would be limited to Venezuela, the US president said they would not.

“I hear Colombia, the country of Colombia, is making cocaine. They have cocaine manufacturing plants, OK? And then they sell us their cocaine. We appreciate that very much. But yeah, anybody that’s doing that and selling it into our country is subject to attack,” he said. Longtime allies in the “war on drugs”, the US and Colombia have found their relationship fractured almost from the moment Trump took office for his second term.

"Making America White Again": Trump Further Restricts Immigration, Ramps Up ICE Raids

Federal agents launch immigration crackdown in New Orleans

Federal agents descended on New Orleans on Wednesday, making Louisiana’s most populous city the latest front in the Trump administration’s sweeping crackdown on immigrant communities.

Masked agents patrolled a heavily Latino suburb in marked and unmarked vehicles, and a resident told the Associated Press he watched agents arresting men outside a home improvement store in New Orleans – a familiar scene that has played out in several major cities in recent months.

Gregory Bovino, the border patrol chief and frequent Fox News guest who has become the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts, was filmed leading a group of masked agents through the historic French quarter. One woman heckled the agents as they marched along Poydras Street, shouting “we hate you” from her car, and “fucking losers”.

Tricia McLaughlin, homeland security department assistant secretary, said in a statement that the aim of “Operation Catahoula Crunch” was to capture immigrants who were released after their arrests for crimes including home invasion, armed robbery, grand theft auto and rape. “It is asinine that these monsters were released back onto New Orleans streets to COMMIT MORE CRIMES and create more victims,” she said.

It is unclear how long the crackdown would last – one report suggested it could continue into January – but roughly 250 agents are reportedly targeting 5,000 arrests. The Democrat-led city has been bracing for weeks for the arrival of federal agents, with rumors swirling of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) crackdown led by border patrol initially referred to as “Swamp Sweep”.

Judge blocks widespread immigration arrests in DC made without warrants or probable cause

A federal judge late on Tuesday blocked the Trump administration from making widespread immigration arrests in the nation’s capital without warrants or probable cause that the person would be an imminent flight risk. The US district judge Beryl Howell in Washington granted a preliminary injunction sought by civil liberties and immigrants’ rights groups in a lawsuit against the US Department of Homeland Security.

The lawsuit alleged that since Donald Trump declared an emergency in Washington in August, there has been a pattern of widespread, unlawful immigration arrests. Community members have reported living in fear of being stopped while driving or walking through their neighborhoods and many have avoided going to work, walking children to school or other daily activities in an attempt to avoid checkpoints and immigration enforcement agents.

Officers making civil immigration arrests generally have to have an administrative warrant. Under the Immigration and Nationality Act, they may make arrests without a warrant only if they have probable cause to believe the person is in the US illegally and is likely to escape before a warrant can be obtained, according to Howell’s ruling.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and other plaintiffs’ attorneys argued that federal officers were frequently patrolling and setting up checkpoints in Washington DC neighborhoods with large numbers of Latino immigrants and then stopping and arresting people indiscriminately. They provided sworn declarations from people they say were arrested without warrants or a required assessment of flight risk and cited public statements by administration officials that they said showed the administration was not using the probable cause standard.

MASS Job Loss as Small Businesses GUTTED

RIP

Steve Cropper, legendary guitarist for Booker T & the MGs, dies aged 84

Steve Cropper, the legendary guitarist whose work as an instrumentalist, producer and songwriter at Stax Records left an indelible impression on Memphis soul music, has died at the age of 84. ...

A prolific musician, Cropper was best known as the guitarist in Booker T & the MGs, an interracial soul quartet widely considered the best backing band in soul music, and perhaps still best remembered for their timeless blues track Green Onions. But Cropper’s distinctive guitar work animated many of the tracks out of Stax Records, the influential Memphis soul label that released a string of international hits by such soul luminaries as Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam & Dave, Rufus and Carla Thomas, and Eddie Floyd.

Cropper played, and sometimes produced and engineered, on the MG tracks Soul-Limbo and Time is Tight, and such huge R&B hits as Redding’s (Sittin’ on) The Dock of the Bay and Mr Pitiful; on Pickett’s In the Midnight Hour and 634-5789; on Floyd’s Knock On Wood and Raise Your Hand; and Don Covay’s See Saw and Sookie Sookie. ...

As a member of the MGs, Cropper was inducted into the Rock and Rock Hall of Fame in 1992. He is survived by his wife Angel and four children.

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Platner 20 Points Ahead of Mills in Maine Senate Race as Critics Spotlight Her Anti-Worker Veto Record

It's been more than a month since a media firestorm over old Reddit posts and a tattoo thrust US Senate candidate Graham Platner into the national spotlight, just as Maine Gov. Janet Mills was entering the Democratic primary race in hopes of challenging Republican Sen. Susan Collins—a controversy that did not appear at the time to make a dent in political newcomer Platner's chances in the election.

On Wednesday, the latest polling showed that the progressive combat veteran and oyster farmer has maintained the lead that was reported in a number of surveys just after the national media descended on the New England state to report on his past online comments and a tattoo that some said resembled a Nazi symbol, which he subsequently had covered up.

The Progressive Change Campaign Committee (PCCC), which endorsed Platner on Wednesday, commissioned the new poll, which showed him polling at 58% compared to Mills' 38%.

Platner crushing Mills in yet another poll https://t.co/zRksvphs9X

— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) December 3, 2025

Nancy Zdunkewicz, a pollster with Z to A Polling, which conducted the survey on behalf of the PCCC, said the poll represented "really impressive early consolidation" for Platner, with the primary election still six months away.

“Platner isn’t just leading in the Democratic primary. He’s leading by a lot, 20 points—58% are supporting him,” Zdunkewicz told Zeteo. “Only 38% are supporting Mills. There are very few undecided voters or weak supporters for Mills to win over at this point in the race."

Platner has consistently spoken to packed rooms across Maine since launching his campaign in August, promoting a platform that is unapologetically focused on delivering affordability and a better quality of life for Mainers.

He supports expanding the popular Medicare program to all Americans; drew raucous applause at an early rally by declaring, “Our taxpayer dollars can build schools and hospitals in America, not bombs to destroy them in Gaza"; and has spoken in support of breaking up tech giants and a federal war crimes investigation into Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over his deadly boat strikes in the Caribbean.

Mills entered the race after Democratic leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) urged her to. She garnered national attention earlier this year for standing up to President Donald Trump when he threatened federal funding for Maine over the state's policy of allowing students to play on school athletic teams that correspond with their gender.

But the PCCC survey found that when respondents learned details about each candidate, negative critiques of Mills were more damaging to her than Platner's old Reddit posts and tattoo.

Zdunkewicz disclosed Platner's recent controversy to the voters she surveyed, as well as his statements about how his views have shifted in recent years, and found that 21% of voters were more likely to back him after learning about his background. Thirty-nine percent said they were less likely to support him.

The pollster also talked to respondents about the fact that establishment Democrats pushed Mills, who is 77, to enter the race, and about a number of bills she has vetoed as governor, including a tax on the wealthy, a bill to set up a tracking system for rape kits, two bills to reduce prescription drug costs, and several bills promoting workers' rights.

Only 14% of Mainers said they were more likely to vote for Mills after learning those details, while 50% said they were less likely to support her.

At The Lever, Luke Goldstein on Wednesday reported that Mills' vetoes have left many with the "perception that she’s mostly concerned with business interests," as former Democratic Maine state lawmaker Andy O'Brien said. Corporate interests gave more than $200,000 to Mills' two gubernatorial campaigns.

Earlier this year, Mills struck down a labor-backed bill to allow farm workers to discuss their pay with one another without fear of retaliation. Last year, she blocked a bill to set a minimum wage for farm laborers, opposing a provision that would have allowed workers to sue their employers.

She also vetoed a bill banning noncompete agreements and one that would have banned anti-union tactics by corporations.

"In previous years," Goldstein reported, "she blocked efforts to stop employers from punishing employees who took state-guaranteed paid time off, killed a permitting reform bill to streamline offshore wind developments because it included a provision mandating union jobs, and vetoed a modest labor bill that would have required the state government to merely study the issue of paper mill workers being forced to work overtime without adequate compensation."

Speaking to PCCC supporters on Wednesday, Platner suggested the new polling shows that many Mainers agree with the central argument of his campaign: "We need to build power again for working people, both in Maine and nationally.”

The survey, he said, “lays clear what our theory is, which is that we are not going to defeat Susan Collins running the same exact kind of playbook that we’ve run in the past—which is an establishment politician supported by the power structures, supported by Washington, DC, coming up to Maine and trying to run a kind of standard race... We are really trying to build a grassroots movement up here."

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Trump says he will repeal Biden-era fuel efficiency standards for cars and trucks

Donald Trump announced on Wednesday that he is repealing the Biden-era federal fuel economy standards, significantly weakening fuel efficiency requirements for tens of millions of new gasoline-powered cars and light trucks.

It marks the US president’s latest effort to dismantle pollution regulations and federal support for cleaner-running vehicles and renewable energy. Burning gasoline is a significant contributor to global heating and transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States.

“We are officially terminating Joe Biden’s ridiculously burdensome, horrible actually, Cafe standards that imposed expensive restrictions,” Trump said in an Oval Office announcement, flanked by top auto executives including the CEOs of Ford and Stellantis. “It put tremendous upward pressure on car prices, combined with the insane electric vehicle mandate.” The Corporate Average Fuel Economy (Cafe) standards, first established in 1975, set the average fuel economy targets for new vehicles and have been tightened over the years to make vehicles more fuel-efficient.

The Biden administration proposed modest increases to the requirements for the vehicles most Americans drive as part of a push to promote electric vehicles and address the climate emergency. Joe Biden required automakers to increase the fuel efficiency of passenger cars and light trucks to about 50 miles per gallon by 2031. Trump is now rolling that back, loosening regulatory pressure on automakers to control pollution from gasoline-powered cars and trucks. The standards proposed by him would require cars to get about 34 miles to the gallon by 2031, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

Wednesday’s announcement marks the latest action by the Trump administration to reverse Biden-era policies that encouraged cleaner energy vehicles, including relaxing auto tailpipe emissions rules, repealing fines for automakers that don’t meet federal mileage standards and terminating consumer credits of up to $7,500 for electric vehicle purchases.

‘There’s no monitoring of earthquakes’: new British Columbia pipeline could spell catastrophe

When an earthquake in 2002 struck in a remote pocket of Alaska, the shock was the strongest ever recorded in the interior of the state. But, miraculously, an oil pipeline that crossed directly over the fault line was unscathed. Engineers behind the design of the 800-mile system were prepared. Knowing the high likelihood of seismic activity along the route, which bisected the Denali fault, they constructed sections where the pipeline rested on rail girders, allowing it to sway and shear without snapping.

“It worked because they could pinpoint how and where to build: they could put their hand right on the fault,” said Edwin Nissen, a seismologist at the University of Victoria. “The problem for Canada is that there’s nothing like that in British Columbia, where a pipeline has been proposed. There’s never been a study as detailed as they one they did for the pipeline in Alaska and as a result, there’s just so much we don’t know.”

Canada’s prime minister, Mark Carney, has given his government’s blessing to an oil pipeline last week that would cross Alberta and British Columbia and terminate at the Pacific. But amid fierce debate over the political, environmental and economic implications of the project, experts warn that the multibillion-dollar project faces immense – and poorly understood – geological hazards.

While no route for a heavy oil pipeline has been officially proposed, nor has any company stepped forward to build it, the most efficient route from Edmonton, Alberta, would invariably pass through the Rocky Mountain trench and along the sparsely populated north of British Columbia before terminating at the Douglas Channel, a region with a crenulated landscape of deep fjords. The project has already faced strong opposition from First Nations over fears that Carney’s government will lift a five-decade oil tanker ban in the region. ...

David Eby, British Columbia’s premier, has emerged as a sharp critic of the project, expressing frustration over being excluded from discussions between Ottawa and Alberta even though the route would cross through his province. “The oil sands in Alberta will get most of the profit from this pipeline, but all of the risk is being placed on British Columbia and particularly the First Nations along the west coast,” said Nissen. “In a way, it feels like the global financial crisis of 2008: the profit was private, the bailouts were for the big bank and the risk was basically subsidized by all taxpayers.”

The environmental costs of corn: should the US change how it grows its dominant crop?

For decades, corn has reigned over American agriculture. It sprawls across 90m acres – about the size of Montana – and goes into everything from livestock feed and processed foods to the ethanol blended into most of the nation’s gasoline. But a growing body of research reveals that the US’s obsession with corn has a steep price: the fertilizer used to grow it is warming the planet and contaminating water.

Corn is essential to the rural economy and to the world’s food supply, and researchers say the problem isn’t the corn itself. It’s how we grow it. Corn farmers rely on heavy fertilizer use to sustain today’s high yields. And when the nitrogen in the fertilizer breaks down in the soil, it releases nitrous oxide, a greenhouse gas nearly 300 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Producing nitrogen fertilizer also emits large amounts of carbon dioxide, adding to its climate footprint.

Agriculture accounts for more than 10% of US greenhouse gas emissions, and corn uses more than two-thirds of all nitrogen fertilizer nationwide – making it the leading driver of agricultural nitrous oxide emissions, studies show. Since 2000, US corn production has surged almost 50%, further adding to the crop’s climate impact.

The environmental costs of corn rarely make headlines or factor into political debates. Much of the dynamic traces back to federal policy – and to the powerful corn and ethanol lobby that helped shape it.

The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), passed in the mid-2000s, required that gasoline be blended with ethanol, a biofuel that in the United States comes almost entirely from corn. That mandate drove up demand and prices for corn, spurring farmers to plant more of it. Many plant corn year after year on the same land. The practice, called “continuous corn”, demands massive amounts of nitrogen fertilizer and drives especially high nitrous oxide emissions. ... Researchers say proven conservation steps – such as planting rows of trees, shrubs and grasses in cornfields – could sharply reduce these emissions. But the Trump administration has eliminated many of the incentives that helped farmers try such practices.

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Also of Interest

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

Zionism on the Upper East Side

The US bulldozed the prospect of Uniting for Peace in Palestine

Israel-Turkey rift dampens Gaza force plans as allies get cold feet

The Double Tap on Venezuela

Trump Goes Full Biden, Insists No Inflation, Affordability a Con as Strained Consumers Know Better and Trump’s Polls Sink Further

Trump Regulators Ripped for ‘Rushed’ Approval of Bill Gates’ Nuclear Reactor in Wyoming

Report Shows How Recycling Is Largely a ‘Toxic Lie’ Pushed by Plastics Industry

New Epstein Images Released

Here’s Why Trump Pardoned Corrupt DEMOCRATIC Congressman Henry Cuellar!

Here’s Why Luigi Mangione Will Get Off! w/ Nick Cruse

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A Little Night Music

Bobby Blue Bland – Farther Up The Road

Bobby Blue Bland – 36 22 36

Bobby Blue Bland – You Got Me (Where You Want Me)

Bobby Blue Bland - I Pity The Fool

Bobby Blue Bland - Ain't Nothing You Can Do

Bobby Blue Bland - That's The Way Love Is

Bobby Bland - Don't Cry No More

Bobby Blue Bland - That Did It

Bobby Blue Bland - Blind Man

Bobby 'Blue' Bland - Yield Not To Temptation

Bobby Blue Bland – Turn On Your Love Light

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