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The Evening Blues - 12-10-25

Submitted by joe shikspack on Wed, 12/10/2025 - 2:49pm

eb1pt12

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Eddie Taylor

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues guitarist Eddie Taylor. Enjoy!

^{Eddie Taylor - Looking For Trouble}

"Repression breeds hate; hate menaces stable government."

-- Louis D. Brandeis

News and Opinion

The Bondi memorandum: FBI, DOJ seek to outlaw political opposition

A memorandum from US Attorney General Pam Bondi, issued December 4, instructs all federal prosecutors and law enforcement agencies to compile lists of organizations to be slandered and criminalized as “domestic terrorists” because they oppose fascism and capitalism and advocate for socialism. The six-page document, uncovered and made public by journalist Ken Klippenstein, is a blueprint for federal officials on how to implement National Security Presidential Memorandum-7 (NSPM-7), issued by Trump on September 25, after the assassination of ultra-right activist Charlie Kirk, a close associate of the fascist cabal in the White House. ...

The latest document from Bondi spells out a series of steps by federal officials and agencies to fulfill Trump’s demand for a sweeping crackdown on political opposition. Within 14 days of the issuance of the Bondi memorandum—December 18, 2025—all federal law enforcement agencies are to deliver to the FBI all files “for Antifa and Antifa-related intelligence and information.” Given that Antifa is not an actual organization but rather a label applied to anyone engaged in anti-fascist political activity of any kind, this means the centralization into the hands of the FBI of all information on virtually all left-wing political groups.

Within 30 days—January 3, 2026—the FBI is to compile a master list of “groups or entities engaged in acts that may constitute domestic terrorism” (emphasis added), provide it to the Deputy Attorney General, and issue an initial report on the development of strategies “to disrupt and dismantle entire networks of criminal activity” (i.e., the suppression of political opposition). Also within 30 days, the FBI is to upgrade its telephone and social media tip lines for domestic terror threats “so that witnesses and citizen journalists can send media of suspected acts of domestic terrorism to law enforcement online.” The aim, as demonstrated in Portland and other cities, is to use fascist vigilantes as spotters to direct violent police attacks against left-wing protests.

Within 60 days, the FBI and its partner agencies “shall disseminate an intelligence bulletin on Antifa and Antifa-aligned anarchist violent extremist groups. The bulletin should describe the relevant organizations’ structures, funding, sources and tactics …” The aim here is to frame up organizers of peaceful protests at which supposed Antifa or police provocateurs engage in violence.In addition, in order to recruit paid informants to spy on and infiltrate left-wing organizations, the FBI “shall establish a cash reward system for information that leads to the successful identification and arrest of individuals in the leadership of domestic terrorist organizations that conspire with others to commit violations of provisions of law … or other offenses against the United States.

“As investigations continue and potential prosecutions begin,” the memorandum continues, the FBI “shall aim to establish cooperators to provide information and eventually testify against other members and leadership” of the targeted organizations. In other words, informants will become stool pigeons and state witnesses in show trials of the supposed “domestic terrorists.” The Bondi memorandum lists no less than 25 separate legal provisions that could potentially be used against targeted groups. This lumps together such crimes as murder for hire and planting explosives with non-violent civil disobedience tactics, described as “resisting or impeding federal officers” and “picketing or parading with intent to obstruct the administration of justice.” Virtually any political act of protest against Trump’s immigration Gestapo would be criminalized on this basis.

Netanyahu BRAINWASHES 1,000 Pastors In Israel

More than 9,000 children in Gaza hospitalised for acute malnutrition in October

Malnutrition continues to take a toll among Gaza’s young despite a ceasefire declared two months ago, with more than 9,000 children hospitalised for acute malnutrition in October alone, according to the latest UN figures. While the immediate threat of famine has receded for most of the 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza after the ceasefire announcement on 10 October, the UN and other aid agencies report continuing Israeli restrictions on their humanitarian aid shipments, which they say fall well below the needs of a population weakened and traumatised by two years of war, homelessness and living in flimsy shelters.

Tess Ingram, a spokesperson for the UN child protection agency Unicef, said: “In Gaza’s hospitals I have met several newborns who weighed less than one kilogramme, their tiny chests heaving with the effort of staying alive.”

According to Unicef figures, 9,300 children were treated for severe acute malnutrition in October. That is significantly less than the peak of 14,000 children in August, but much more than the child malnutrition rate during the previous ceasefire in February and March of this year. “It’s still a shockingly high number,” Ingram said, briefing journalists by video from Gaza.

In October, about 8,300 pregnant and breastfeeding women were also hospitalised for acute malnutrition. “This pattern is a grave warning and it will likely result in low birthweight babies being born in the Gaza Strip for months to come,” Ingram added. “This is not over. Generations of families, including those being born now into this ceasefire, have been forever altered by what was inflicted upon them.”

Unicef and other UN agencies say that aid deliveries crossing into Gaza have increased since the height of the war, but are still completely inadequate in relation to the humanitarian needs.

Max Blumenthal : Netanyahu's Fears; DEA Drug Gangsters

New Leader of Gaza’s Biggest Israeli-Backed Militia Previously Fought for ISIS-Aligned Group

After the killing of Yasser Abu Shabab, the Israeli-backed gang leader who led the largest anti-Hamas militia in Gaza, his deputy, Ghassan al-Duhaini, has taken over as head of the group, officially known as the “Popular Forces.”

According to Al Jazeera, al-Duhaini’s history includes working for the Palestinian Authority and later joining the Army of Islam, or Jaysh al-Islam (not to be confused with a Syrian group with the same name), a Gaza-based Salafi jihadist group with a similar ideology to al-Qaeda that declared its allegiance to ISIS in 2015.

Israeli media has also reported on al-Duhaini’s jihadist past, with The Jerusalem Post saying he was once a “commander in a terrorist group in Gaza that was associated with al-Qaeda.”

In 2011, the Egyptian government accused the Army of Islam of being responsible for a New Year’s Eve bombing of a Coptic Orthodox church in Alexandria, which killed 24 Christians. According to reports at the time, the group denied responsibility but also expressed support for the attack.

Over the years, the Army of Islam has clashed with both Israel and Hamas, which it considers an “apostate” group. “The Jaysh al-Islam group believes that all who rule by man-made laws are apostate disbelievers,” a member of the Army of Islam said in a 2019 interview when asked about Hamas. “The Hamas government has arrested a number of members of Jaysh al-Islam, and that deed has been repeated.”

Laith Marouf: Hezbollah’s Resistance Reaches “Bulletproof” Level

Tufts student can resume research after Trump officials revoked her visa, judge rules

A federal judge has allowed a Tufts University student from Turkey to resume research and teaching while she deals with the consequences of having her visa revoked by the Trump administration, leading to six weeks of detention.

Rümeysa Öztürk, a PhD student studying children’s relationship to social media, was among the first people arrested as the Trump administration began targeting foreign-born students and activists involved in pro-Palestinian advocacy. She had co-authored an op-ed criticizing her university’s response to Israel and the war in Gaza. Immigration enforcement officers took her away in an unmarked vehicle, in an encounter caught on video in March outside her Somerville residence.

Öztürk has been out of a Louisiana immigrant detention center since May and back on the Tufts campus. But she has been unable to teach or participate in research as part of her studies because of the termination of her record in the government’s database of foreign students studying temporarily in the US.

In her ruling on Monday, chief US district judge Denise J Casper wrote that Öztürk is likely to succeed on claims that the termination was “arbitrary and capricious, contrary to law and in violation of the First Amendment”.

EU Rushes Seize Assets Give Kiev Loan Next Week US Furious Japan Opposed; Zelensky Mocks US; Siversk

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Can Europe Save Ukraine?

Zelenskyy ‘ready for elections’ after Trump questions Ukrainian democracy

Volodymyr Zelenskyy has said he is ready to hold a wartime election within the next three months, if Ukraine’s parliament and foreign allies will allow it, after Donald Trump accused him of clinging on to power. Zelenskyy, clearly irritated by Trump’s intervention, said that “this is a question for the people of Ukraine, not people from other states, with all due respect to our partners”.

However, he promised to explore avenues for holding a vote in the coming months. “Since this question is raised today by the president of the United States of America, our partners, I will answer very briefly: look, I am ready for elections,” Zelenskyy said on Tuesday evening. “Moreover, I am asking … the United States to help me, possibly together with European colleagues, to ensure security for the elections, and then in the next 60 to 90 days Ukraine will be ready to hold the elections. I personally have the will and readiness for this,” he added.

Trump made the comments in a rambling interview with Politico published earlier on Tuesday. “They haven’t had an election in a long time,” said the US president. “You know, they talk about a democracy, but it gets to a point where it’s not a democracy any more.”

Zelenskyy’s five-year term expired in May last year, but the Ukrainian constitution prohibits elections in wartime, and even his political opponents have said repeatedly that the security and political considerations do not allow for holding an election during wartime.

"It's a fraud": Trump and MS-13 helped rig Honduran vote, top official says

Honduras president alleges ‘electoral coup’ under way amid Trump ‘interference’

Honduras’s president, Xiomara Castro, has alleged that an “electoral coup” is under way in the country’s presidential election, which she says has been marked by “interference from the president of the United States, Donald Trump”. The leftist president also said that “the Honduran people must never accept elections marked by interference, manipulation and blackmail … Sovereignty is not negotiable, democracy is not surrendered.”

Since Hondurans went to the polls on 30 November, the vote count has dragged on, with repeated interruptions and outages on the electoral council’s website. Two rightwing candidates have been neck and neck ever since and, with 99.4% of tally sheets counted in the preliminary results, Nasry “Tito” Asfura is ahead with 40.52%, followed closely by Salvador Nasralla on 39.48% – a margin of only 42,000 votes.

A construction magnate and former mayor of the capital, Tegucigalpa, Asfura received open backing from Trump, who said the US would support the next government only if he won.

At a press conference on Tuesday, Honduras’s president “condemned” Trump’s “interference … when he threatened the Honduran people that if they voted for a brave and patriotic candidate of the Liberal party, Rixi Moncada, there would be consequences”. A former finance minister under Castro, Moncada was chosen by the president to run in her place, as Honduras’s constitution does not allow re-election.

Before the vote, Trump had claimed Moncada was a communist and that her victory would hand the country to the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro – the target of an escalating US military buildup – “and his narco-terrorists”. Moncada is in third place in the preliminary count, with 19.29%.

Trump Says Ground Attack on Venezuela Imminent—Plus Colombia, Mexico Also in US Crosshairs

President Donald Trump said in an interview published Tuesday that a US land attack on Venezuela is coming and signaled that he is open to launching similar military action against Colombia and Mexico.

“We’re gonna hit ’em on land very soon, too,” Trump told Politico's Dasha Burns, citing the pretext of stopping fentanyl from entering the United States.

Trump repeated his baseless claim that during the administration of his predecessor, the "very stupid" former President Joe Biden, Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro "sent us millions of people, many from prisons, many drug dealers, drug lords," and "people in mental institutions."

Burns then noted that most of the illicit fentanyl sold in the United States "is actually produced in Mexico," which along with Colombia is "even more responsible" for trafficking the potent synthetic opioid into the US. She asked Trump if he would "consider doing something similar" to those countries.

"I would," Trump replied. "Sure, I would." ...

The Trump administration argues that it is not bound by the War Powers Resolution, citing as precedent the Obama administration's highly questionable claim of immunity from the law when the US attacked Libya in 2011.

A bipartisan bid to block the boat bombings on the grounds that they run afoul of the War Powers Act failed to muster enough votes in the Senate in October.

"Note that it’s now taken as a given—as an unremarkable and baked-in fact about our politics—that Trump is mulling a ground invasion of Venezuela and a dramatic expansion in his bombing campaign with no congressional authorization," New Republic staff writer Greg Sargent observed Tuesday in response to the president's remarks to Politico.

"What emerges from this interview," he added, "is that Trump is pulling all of this—the substantive case for these bombings, the legal justification for them, the rationale for mulling a massive military escalation in the Western Hemisphere—out of his rear end."

‘Cold-Blooded Murder’: US Rights Coalition Sues Trump Over Unlawful Boat Strikes

A coalition of US rights organizations is suing the Trump administration to obtain its documentation outlining the legal justifications for its campaign of military strikes against suspected drug boats in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean.

The ACLU, the Center for Constitutional Rights, and the New York Civil Liberties Union on Tuesday announced they had filed a complaint under the Freedom of Information Act demanding the release of the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) opinion that provided the legal framework for the strikes, which many human rights organizations have decried as acts of murder.

The groups said that the Trump administration's rationales for the strikes deserve special scrutiny because their justification hinges on claims that the US is in an "armed conflict" with international drug cartels akin to past conflicts between the US government and terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda.

The groups argued there is simply no way that drug cartels can be classified under the same umbrella as terrorist organizations, given that the law regarding war with nonstate actors says that any organizations considered to be in armed conflict with the US must be an "organized armed group" that is structured like a conventional military and engaged in "protracted armed violence" with the US government.

Baher Azmy, legal director of the Center for Constitutional Rights, accused the administration of warping the law beyond recognition in defense of its boat-bombing campaign.

"The Trump administration is displacing the fundamental mandates of international law with the phony wartime rhetoric of a basic autocrat," Azmy explained. "If the OLC opinion seeks to dress up legalese in order to provide cover for the obvious illegality of these serial homicides, the public needs to see this analysis and ultimately hold accountable all those who facilitate murder in the United States’ name."

NYT RAILS Against Peace, DEMANDS War Footing

Trump Gives Economy A++++ As Bankruptcies SKYROCKET

Justice department can release Ghislaine Maxwell court materials, judge says

The justice department can publicly release investigative materials from a sex-trafficking case against Ghislaine Maxwell, the longtime confidant of Jeffrey Epstein, a federal judge said on Tuesday. Judge Paul A Engelmayer ruled after the justice department in November asked two judges in New York to unseal grand jury transcripts and exhibits from Maxwell and Epstein’s cases, along with investigative materials that could amount to hundreds or thousands of previously unreleased documents.

The ruling, in the wake of the passage last month of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, means the records could be made public within 10 days. The law requires the justice department to provide Epstein-related records to the public in a searchable format by 19 December. Engelmayer is the second judge to allow the justice department to publicly disclose previously secret Epstein court records. Last week, a judge in Florida granted the department’s request to release transcripts from an abandoned federal grand jury investigation into Epstein in the 2000s.

A request to release records from Epstein’s 2019 sex-trafficking case is still pending. The justice department said Congress intended the unsealing when it passed the transparency act, which Donald Trump signed into law last month.

Three judges – two in New York and one in Florida – had previously refused an unusual department request to unseal grand jury transcripts. The latest request, though, dramatically enlarged the files that the department said it planned to release to encompass 18 categories of investigative materials gathered in the vast sex-trafficking investigation. ...

In response to a request by the New York judges for more specifics on what it would release, the department said in recent submissions in Manhattan federal court that the materials would include 18 categories including search warrants, financial records, survivor interview notes, electronic device data and material from earlier Epstein investigations in Florida.

"Torture & Enforced Disappearances" at Florida's ICE Jails "Alligator Alcatraz" & Krome

Officers at Texas immigration detention facility accused of beatings and sexual abuse

Officers at the large immigration detention camp located at the Fort Bliss army base in Texas are allegedly mistreating detainees, with accusations including beatings, sexual abuse and clandestine deportations of non-Mexican nationals into Mexico, according to a coalition of local and national US civil rights organizations.

In a 19-page letter, addressed to senior government officials at the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency and Fort Bliss military command, the coalition accuses officers at the immigration detention facility on the base, called Camp East Montana, of being “in violation of agency policies and standards, as well as statutory and constitutional protections”.

The advocates called for the immediate closure of the camp, where more than 2,700 detainees are being held in a complex of tents. “In light of these abuses, we urge the end to detention of immigrants at Fort Bliss,” said the letter signed by eight organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, Humans Rights Watch, Estrella del Paso, the Texas Civil Rights Project and Las Americas Immigrant Advocacy Center.

The letter was addressed to ICE acting director Todd Lyons and others, and copied to the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) office of inspector general and the Senate armed forces committee. ICE officials in El Paso directed media inquiries to the DHS, which denied all the allegations. ...

Texas congresswoman Veronica Escobar, whose district covers El Paso, has demanded immediate transparency from the DHS, describing having been told of “dangerous and inhumane” conditions at the detention facility and describing it as a “public health hazard” that is deteriorating.

New Dem LANDSLIDES Spark GOP Tariff PANIC

After Judge Tosses GOP Lawsuit, Missouri Voters Submit Signatures for Referendum on Rigged Map

Opponents of Missouri's GOP-rigged congressional map on Tuesday submitted more than twice the required number of signatures supporting a referendum on the redistricting scheme backed by US President Donald Trump, a move that followed a federal judge's refusal to block the initiative.

The political action committee People Not Politicians turned in more than 300,000 signatures in support of the referendum to Republican Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins' office in what the group called an "unprecedented show of grassroots power."

The submission—which filled 691 boxes—will be reviewed by state election officials tasked with certifying the validity of the roughly 110,000 signatures required for qualification on the November 2026 ballot. If the signatures are approved, the state would be temporarily prohibited from adopting the new map until after the referendum vote.

Hoskins initially rejected People Not Politicians' referendum petition because Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe, a Republican, had not yet signed the redrawn map into law. Hoskins said he would reject any signatures collected before Kehoe approved the map in September. At that time, People Not Politicians had collected around 92,000 signatures.

“The citizens of Missouri have spoken loudly and clearly: They deserve fair maps, not partisan manipulation,” People Not Politicians executive director Richard von Glahn said in a statement. “We are submitting a record number of signatures to shut down any doubt that Missouri voters want a say.”

The submission followed a Monday ruling by US District Judge Zachary Bluestone—a Trump appointee—rejecting Republican Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway's bid to block the referendum on grounds that the court had no jurisdiction over a lawsuit filed by Hoskins and the GOP-controlled state Legislature arguing that state referendums on congressional maps are unconstitutional.

Supporters of Missouri's referendum are seeking to block redistricting legislation passed in September as part of Trump's push for Republican-controlled state legislatures to rig congressional maps in a bid to preserve GOP control of Congress by eliminating Democratic-leaning districts.

Trump Approval PLUMMETING, White House in PANIC MODE?

the evening greens

US judge strikes down Trump order blocking wind energy projects

A federal judge on Monday struck down Donald Trump’s executive order blocking wind energy projects, saying the effort to halt virtually all leasing of windfarms on federal lands and waters was “arbitrary and capricious” and violated US law. Judge Patti Saris of the US district court for the district of Massachusetts vacated Trump’s 20 January executive order blocking wind energy projects and declared it unlawful.

Saris ruled in favor of a coalition of state attorneys general from 17 states and Washington DC, led by Letitia James, New York’s attorney general, that challenged Trump’s day one order that paused leasing and permitting for wind energy projects.

Trump has been hostile to renewable energy, particularly offshore wind, and prioritizes fossil fuels to produce electricity. Andrea Joy Campbell, the Massachusetts attorney general, hailed the ruling as a victory for green jobs and renewable energy. “Massachusetts has invested hundreds of millions of dollars into offshore wind, and today, we successfully protected those important investments from the Trump administration’s unlawful order,” Campbell said in a statement.

A White House spokesperson, Taylor Rogers, said on Monday night that offshore wind projects were given unfair, preferential treatment during the Biden administration while the rest of the energy industry was hindered by burdensome regulations. “President Trump has ended Joe Biden’s war on American energy and unleashed America’s energy dominance to protect our economic and national security,” Rogers said in a statement to the Associated Press.

The coalition that opposed Trump’s order argued that Trump does not have the authority to halt project permitting, and that doing so jeopardizes the states’ economies, energy mix, public health and climate goals.

‘Food and fossil fuel production causing $5bn of environmental damage an hour’

The unsustainable production of food and fossil fuels causes $5bn (£3.8bn) of environmental damage per hour, according to a major UN report. Ending this harm was a key part of the global transformation of governance, economics and finance required “before collapse becomes inevitable”, the experts said.

The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) report, which is produced by 200 researchers for the UN Environment Programme, said the climate crisis, destruction of nature and pollution could no longer be seen as simply environmental crises. “They are all undermining our economy, food security, water security, human health and they are also [national] security issues, leading to conflict in many parts of the world,” said Prof Robert Watson, the co-chair of the assessment.

All the environmental crises were worsening as the global population grows and required more food and energy, most of which was produced in ways that pollute the planet and destroy the natural world, the experts said. A sustainable world was possible, they said, but required political courage. “This is an urgent call to transform our human systems now before collapse becomes inevitable,” said Prof Edgar Gutiérrez-Espeleta, another co-chair and the former environment minister in Costa Rica.

“The science is good. The solutions are known. What is required is the courage to act at the scale and speed that history demands,” he said, adding that the window for action was “rapidly narrowing”.

Caribbean reefs have lost 48% of hard coral since 1980

Caribbean reefs have half as much hard coral now as they did in 1980, a study has found. The 48% decrease in coral cover has been driven by climate breakdown, specifically marine heatwaves. They affect the microalgae that feed coral, making them toxic and forcing the coral to expel them.

In 2023-24, the region’s coral experienced “the most destructive thermal stress ever recorded”, said Dr Jérémy Wicquart of the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, one of the study’s editors. It caused a 16.9% decrease in cover year-on-year.

Forty years ago, a diver would have seen a colourful, vibrant ecosystem that nurtured hundreds of marine species such as spiny lobsters, queen conchs, parrotfish, turtles and sharks. Coral reefs cover less than 1% of the world’s seafloor, but support at least 25% of marine species. ...

Coral reefs in the Caribbean generate $6.2bn (£4.6bn) a year through fisheries and tourism, with reef tourism accounting for 10% of the Caribbean’s GDP. But where there was once coral, macroalgae is thriving. Without competition from coral, its coverage has increased by 85% since 1980. Its growth is encouraged by human activities in the area – overfishing their herbivorous predators in particular.