The Evening Blues - 1-22-26
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features "The lost queen of New Orleans soul," Betty Harris. Enjoy!
Betty Harris - Trouble With My Lover
"Liberty is meaningless where the right to utter one's thoughts and opinions has ceased to exist. That, of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down."
-- Frederick Douglass
News and Opinion
Oppose Israel’s Abuses While You Still Can
I’ve seen some Australians expressing confusion as to whether or not they can still legally criticize Israel online after new “hate speech” laws were passed on Tuesday under the pretense of combatting “antisemitism”. The answer is yes, and you definitely should keep opposing Israel and its genocidal atrocities.
I am worried that these new laws may indirectly have a bit of a chilling effect on pro-Palestine activism due to Australians not understanding these new laws and what people are allowed to do without being jailed. So let’s clear this up thoroughly so we’re all on the same page.
To be perfectly clear: it is still legal for Australians to oppose Israel and to associate with pro-Palestine groups — and we should. What’s changed is that now those groups can be classified as “hate groups” and banned, similarly to how Palestine Action has been banned in the UK. But this hasn’t happened yet, and hopefully never will. We need to push for these new laws to be repealed, because they look guaranteed to be abused at some point in the future.
Know your rights, Australians:
It is still legal to criticize Israel. So we should criticize it as much as possible, because we don’t know how much longer we’ll have that right.
It is still legal to associate with pro-Palestine groups. So we should do so at every opportunity, because we don’t know when they’ll start listing them as “hate groups” and imprisoning anyone who continues to associate with them.
Unless you are in certain parts of Sydney while the post-Bondi protest ban remains in effect, it is presently fully legal to hold pro-Palestine marches. So attend as many as you are able, because you don’t know when they’ll be shut down altogether.
It is still legal to say that Israel is a genocidal apartheid state, and to share information and opinions about its abuses. So we should do so as much as we can, because we don’t know when that right will be taken away.
It is still legal to state the fact that Zionism is a racist and murderous political ideology and that everything we’ve seen in Gaza is the result of Zionists getting everything they want. So we should say it frequently, because that right could vanish at any time.
It is still legal to say “Fuck Israel, free Palestine.” So we should say it loud and say it often, because we don’t know how much longer we’ll be allowed to do so without getting thrown into prison.
The Israel lobby is working frenetically to crush free speech in Australia, and the swamp monsters in Canberra are either actively facilitating this agenda or doing far too little to stop it. The more aggressively they work to take away our right to oppose Israel, the more aggressively we need to oppose both them and Israel.
We’re not just fighting for Gaza anymore, we’re fighting for our own civil rights, and for our children, and for our grandchildren. They’re actively assaulting our ability to speak critically of power and make this nation a more tyrannical place. The only appropriate response to this is ferocious defiance.
Our future depends on it.
“An Abomination”: Yanis Varoufakis on Trump’s “Board of Peace” & Threat to Democratic World Order
Three journalists among 11 Palestinians killed by Israeli forces in Gaza
Hospitals in Gaza say Israeli forces killed at least 11 Palestinians on Wednesday, including two 13-year-old boys and three journalists, in the latest violence to undermine a three-month-old ceasefire. Palestinian health officials said the Israeli airstrike killed three Palestinian journalists who were travelling in a car to film a newly established displacement camp in the Netzarim area of central Gaza. The Palestinian Journalists Syndicate said in a statement that the reporters who died “were carrying out a humanitarian, journalistic mission to film and document the suffering of civilians”.
In separate incidents on the same day, two boys aged 13 were killed in different parts of Gaza. In one strike, a boy, his father and a 22-year-old man were hit by Israeli drones on the eastern edge of the Bureij refugee camp, according to officials at al-Aqsa Martyrs hospital in Deir al-Balah, which received the bodies. In another case, a 13-year-old boy, Moatsem al-Sharafy, was shot dead by Israeli troops while collecting firewood in the eastern town of Bani Suheila, according to Nasser hospital. Footage shared online showed the boy’s father weeping over his body on a hospital bed.
The journalists killed were named as Mohammed Salah Qashta, Abdul Raouf Shaat and Anas Ghneim. Shaat was a regular contributor to Agence France-Presse as a photo and video journalist, although the agency said he was not on assignment at the time of the strike. Local journalists said their work was sponsored by the Egyptian Relief Committee, which oversees Egypt’s relief operations in Gaza. Mohammed Mansour, a spokesperson for the committee, said the vehicle had been known to the Israeli military.
Piers Morgan ADMITS Iran Regime Change Is ISRAEL FIRST Policy
Netanyahu to join Trump ‘board of peace’ despite previous objections
Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, said on Wednesday that he had agreed to join a US-backed “board of peace” proposed by Donald Trump, despite his office having earlier criticised the composition of its executive committee.
The body, chaired by the US president, was initially presented as a limited forum of world leaders tasked with overseeing a ceasefire in Gaza. More recently, however, the initiative appears to have expanded well beyond that remit, with the Trump camp extending invitations to dozens of countries and suggesting the board could evolve into a vehicle for brokering conflicts far beyond the Middle East.
Diplomats have warned that the board could harm the work of the UN. When asked by a reporter on Tuesday if the board should replace the UN, Trump said: “It might.” He said the world body “hasn’t been very helpful” and “has never lived up to its potential”, but also said the UN should continue “because the potential is so great”.
Netanyahu’s office had previously objected to the makeup of the board’s executive committee, which includes Turkey, a regional rival of Israel. In a brief statement, it said the committee had been formed without coordination with the Israeli government and was “contrary to its policy”, without elaborating further.
Far-right members of Israel’s governing coalition on Sunday rejected the US-backed plan for postwar governance in Gaza, criticising Netanyahu for failing to annex the Palestinian territory and establish new Israeli settlements there.
Max Blumenthal : Did U.S. Policy Deliberately Harm Civilians in Iran?
Trump Asks For ‘Decisive’ Military Operations for Iran
The White House is developing military options for President Donald Trump to attack Iran.
According to sources speaking with The Wall Street Journal, Trump is pressing top American officials to develop plans for attacking Iran that would be “decisive.” The options under development range from striking Iranian military facilities or attempting to overthrow the government with a bombing campaign.
Trump will have more options for a larger attack on Iran in the coming weeks as the US is moving military assets to the Middle East. The President has ordered an aircraft carrier strike group, air defense systems, and additional fighter jets to the Middle East.
Richard Wolff & Michael Hudson: This Could Break NATO: Trump, Rutte, and Europe’s Last Stand
Donald Trump has walked back his threat to impose sweeping US tariffs on eight European countries, claiming he had agreed “the framework of a future deal” on Greenland at the same time a Danish lawmaker called the deal “not real”. Four days after vowing to introduce steep import duties on a string of US allies over their support for Greenland’s continued status as an autonomous Danish territory, the president backed down. ...
After what he called a “very productive” meeting with the Nato secretary general, Mark Rutte, on Wednesday, Trump claimed he had formed “the framework” of a deal over Greenland, without providing more information. “Based upon this understanding, I will not be imposing the Tariffs that were scheduled to go into effect on February 1,” the president said.
Trump did not give further details of the agreement, but said talks were continuing concerning a US missile defense shield that would be in part based in Greenland. The deal would be in force “for ever”, he claimed at the Davos economic forum in Switzerland. “We have a concept of a deal. I think it’s going to be a very good deal for the United States, also for them,” Trump told CNBC, the financial news network. “It’s a little bit complex, but we’ll explain it down the line.”
A Nato spokesperson, Allison Hart, said: “Discussions among Nato allies on the framework the president referenced will focus on ensuring Arctic security through the collective efforts of allies, especially the seven Arctic allies. She added: “Negotiations between Denmark, Greenland, and the United States will go forward aimed at ensuring that Russia and China never gain a foothold – economically or militarily – in Greenland.”
Aaja Chemnitz Larsen, a Greenlandic member of the Danish parliament, wrote on Facebook Wednesday night that, despite Trump’s claim of having struck an agreement over her homeland with Nato, the military alliance has no mandate to negotiate anything about Greenland. “Nothing about us, without us,” she wrote. Amid rumors that a mineral deal might have been discussed by Trump and Rutte in Davos, Chemnitz Larsen called the idea that Nato should have anything to say about Greenland’s sovereignty or minerals “completely out of the question”.
Russia, China Prepare for Dollar COLLAPSE as U.S. Empire DECLINES | Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski
Trump says Canada should be grateful for ‘freebies’ it gets from the US
Donald Trump has said Canada should be “grateful” for the “freebies” it gets from the US, a day after its prime minister, Mark Carney, warned the world was undergoing a geopolitical “rupture”. Speaking those attending the World Economic Forum annual meeting in Switzerland, the US president singled out Carney’s speech that was sharply critical of US foreign policy.
“Canada gets a lot of freebies from us, by the way. They should be grateful, also, but they’re not. I watched your prime minister yesterday. He wasn’t so grateful,” Trump told the audience. “Canada lives by the United States. Remember that, Mark, next time you make your statements.”
In the rambling and peevish speech, Trump repeated his intention to seize control of Greenland in order to build his proposed Golden Dome missile defence system, which Canada is hoping to join. Trump said the Golden Dome was “going to be defending Canada”. The prime minister’s office said it had no plans to comment on Trump’s remarks, adding that there were no plans for the two leaders to meet.
Trump’s jab at Carney came a day after a closely watched speech in which the prime minister lamented the erosion of international institutions and called for new global to combat the rise of “hegemons” upending global norms.
Ontario’s premier, Doug Ford, who oversees the country’s largest provincial economy, said the US president’s remarks at Davos were “disappointing” but “typical” of Trump. “Over the last few days, we have watched as president Trump has threatened Greenland, he has threatened Canada and he has threatened Nato allies,” Ford said. “President Trump remains relentless in his campaign to create a more unstable unsafe and uncertain world. There has never been a more important time for Team Canada to stay united.”
House Just Voted To Fund MORE Foreign Interventions! w/ Thomas Massie
Sheinbaum defends transfer of Mexican cartel members amid efforts to appease Trump
Mexico’s President Claudia Sheinbaum has defended the latest transfer of 37 Mexican cartel operatives to the US as a “sovereign decision”, as her government strives to alleviate pressure from the Trump administration to do more against drug-trafficking groups. It was the third such flight in the year since Donald Trump returned to the White House, but analysts warn that while it remains an effective pressure valve, the returns may be diminishing.
“I think they will have to find other solutions, and the issue of [Mexican] politicians connected to criminal networks is going to have ever more weight,” said Rodrigo Peña, a security expert. “There will be more pressure on the president to confront these networks.” Since Trump returned to White House he has repeatedly stated that Mexico is “run by cartels”, demanding Sheinbaum do more to take them on, under the looming threat of unilateral action.
That threat weighs heavier than ever since the US military extracted Nicolás Maduro from Venezuela at the start of the year, and amid ongoing strikes on alleged drug-trafficking boats in the Pacific and Caribbean. Since then, the US government has reportedly redoubled its push for the US military to be involved in joint operations on Mexican soil to dismantle laboratories making fentanyl, the potent synthetic opioid behind the US overdose crisis.
But the prospect of US boots on the ground in Mexico is a sensitive issue given the history of US interventions in the country, and Sheinbaum has repeatedly rejected the offer as a matter of sovereignty.
Palantir - The ‘World’s Most Evil Company’
“The United States government is looking for ways around that pesky Fourth Amendment,” an investigative journalist said of Wednesday reporting by the Associated Press on an internal US Immigration and Customs Enforcement memo claiming that ICE agents can forcibly enter a private residence without a judicial warrant, consent, or an emergency.
The Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution states, “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
ICE’s May 12 memo, part of a whistleblower disclosure obtained by the AP, says that “although the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has not historically relied on administrative warrants alone to arrest aliens subject to final orders of removal in their place of residence, the DHS Office of the General Counsel has recently determined that the US Constitution, the Immigration and Nationality Act, and the immigration regulations do not prohibit relying on administrative warrants for this purpose.”
The January 7 disclosure was sent to the US Senate by the group Whistleblower Aid, which is “keeping the whistleblowers’ identities anonymous even from oversight investigators,” according to the document. It notes that despite being addressed to “All ICE Personnel,” the seemingly unconstitutional memo “has not been formally distributed to all personnel.”
Instead, it “has been provided to select DHS officials who are then directed to verbally brief the new policy for action. Those supervisors then show the memo to some employees, like our clients, and direct them to read the memo and return it to the supervisor,” the disclosure details. “Newly hired ICE agents—many of whom do not have a law enforcement background—are now being directed to rely solely on” an administrative warrant drafted and signed by an ICE official to enter homes and make arrests.
Asked about the May 12 memo, signed by acting ICE Director Todd Lyons, Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin told the AP that everyone DHS serves with an administrative warrant has already had “full due process and a final order of removal,” and the US Supreme Court and Congress have “recognized the propriety of administrative warrants in cases of immigration enforcement.”
However, as Whistleblower Aid senior vice president and special counsel David Kligerman stressed in a Wednesday statement, “no court has ever found that ICE agents have such legal authority to enter homes without a judicial warrant.”
“This administration’s secretive policy advocates conduct that the Supreme Court has described as ‘the chief evil against which the wording of the Fourth Amendment is directed’—that is the warrantless physical entry of a home,” he noted. “This is precisely what the Fourth Amendment was created to prevent.”
“If ICE believes that this policy is consistent with the law, why not publicize it?” he asked. “Perhaps they’ve hidden it precisely because it cannot withstand legal scrutiny. Policies which impact fundamental constitutional rights, particularly one which the Supreme Court has called the greatest of equals among the Bill of Rights, should be discussed openly with the American people. It cannot be undone by hidden policy memos.”
Other lawyers, journalists, and critics responded similarly to the AP‘s reporting on social media. Alejandra Caraballo of the Harvard Law Cyberlaw Clinic declared that “the Fourth Amendment literally exists to prevent this.”
Bradley P. Moss, an attorney specializing in litigation related to national security, federal employment, and security clearance law, said, “Remember when the Fourth Amendment was still a thing?”
American Immigration Council senior fellow Aaron Reichlin-Melnick wrote: “It has been accepted for generations that the only thing which can authorize agents to break into your home is a warrant signed by a judge. No wonder ICE hid this memo!”
“This is the Trump administration trashing the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution in pursuit of its mass deportation agenda,” he continued, highlighting a footnote that suggests “they won’t even rule out authorizing home invasions with no judicial warrant for people not even ordered removed!”
“In short, this secret memo explains SO MUCH of what we’ve been seeing over the last months, including this raid of a home in Minneapolis where ICE officers presented no judicial warrant before breaking in the door,” he said. “Turns out they were secretly told they don’t need one!”
While Reichlin-Melnick shared photos of a scene in which armed immigration agents used a battering ram to enter a Minneapolis home and arrest a Liberian man, federal agents also recently broke down the door of a residence in neighboring Saint Paul, Minnesota, and arrested ChongLy “Scott” Thao, a US citizen who was later freed.
At a time of unprecedented daily scandals, this this whistleblower complaint, and the memo it reveals for the first time, breaks through for me as beyond the pale.
It's the federal government conspiring in secret to subvert the Fourth Amendment.
Read: https://t.co/7CBT5SBcBE
— Aaron Reichlin-Melnick (@ReichlinMelnick) January 21, 2026
The AP reporting and responses to the leaked memo came as the Trump administration on Wednesday surged immigration agents to Maine for what it dubbed “Operation Catch of the Day,” mirroring the federal deployment to not only Minnesota—where ICE officer Jonathan Ross fatally shot Renee Good, a US citizen, in her vehicle earlier this month—but also Illinois and California.
US Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), ranking member of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, opened an inquiry into reports of unconstitutional detentions of US citizens by immigration agents in October and on Wednesday demanded answers about the new whistleblower disclosure.
Blumenthal sent lists of questions and requests for records to Lyons and US Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem as well as Benjamin C. Huffman, director of the Federal Law Enforcement Training Centers. The senator also wrote to Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Chair Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), urging them to call the ICE and DHS leaders to testify before their panels.
“Every American should be terrified by this secret ICE policy authorizing its agents to kick down your door and storm into your home,” Blumenthal said in a statement. “It is a legally and morally abhorrent policy that exemplifies the kinds of dangerous, disgraceful abuses America is seeing in real time.”
“In our democracy, with vanishingly rare exceptions, the government is barred from breaking into your home without a judge giving a green light,” he continued. “Government agents have no right to ransack your bedroom or terrorize your kids on a whim or personal desire. I am deeply grateful to brave whistleblowers who have come forward and put the rights of their fellow Americans first.”
“My Republican colleagues who claim to value personal rights against government overreach now have an opportunity and obligation to prove that rhetoric is real,” the senator added. “They must hold hearings and join me in demanding the Trump administration answer for this lawless policy.”
MN Family Teargassed By ICE SPEAKS OUT
ICE detains five-year-old Minnesota boy as he came home, say school officials
US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detained a five-year-old Minnesota boy on Tuesday as he returned home from school and transported him and his father to a Texas detention center, according to school officials. Liam Ramos, a preschooler, and his father were taken into custody while in their driveway, the superintendent of the school district in Columbia Heights, a Minneapolis suburb, said at a press conference on Wednesday. Liam, who had recently turned five, is one of four children in the school district who have been detained by federal immigration agents during the Trump administration’s enforcement surge in the region over the last two weeks, the district said.
Liam and his father had just arrived home when they were detained, according to Zena Stenvik, the superintendent, who said she drove to the home when she learned of the detentions. When she arrived, Stenvik said the father’s car was still running and the father and son had already been apprehended. An agent had taken Liam out of the car, led the boy to his front door and directed him to knock on the door asking to be let in, “in order to see if anyone else was home – essentially using a five-year-old as bait”, the superintendent said in a statement.
Stenvik said another adult living in the home was outside during the encounter and had pleaded to take care of Liam so the boy could avoid detention, but was denied. Liam’s older brother, a middle schooler, came home 20 minutes later to find his father and brother missing, Stenvik said. Two school principals from the district also arrived at the home to offer support.
Marc Prokosch, an attorney representing the family, said the family has an active asylum case and shared paperwork showing the father and son had arrived to the US at a port of entry, meaning an official crossing point. “The family did everything they were supposed to in accordance with how the rules have been set out,” he said. “They did not come here illegally. They are not criminals.” He said there was no order of deportation against them and he believes the father and son have remained together in detention.
"Catch of the Day": Latest ICE Operation in Maine Targets Somali Community
ICE targets Somali communities in Maine in new Trump administration crackdown
The Trump administration has begun another targeted immigration crackdown, sending a surge of federal personnel to Maine, an ocean fishing state, in a plan dubbed by the government Operation Catch of the Day. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is aiming the push at Somali immigrants living in the north-eastern state, according to reporting by the New York Times.
The initiative officially began on Tuesday. In comments provided to the Guardian, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, said: “Some of the arrests of the worst of the worst from the first day of operations include criminal illegal aliens convicted of horrific crimes including aggravated assault, false imprisonment, and endangering the welfare of a child.” The government provided criminal histories related to four arrestees out of approximately 50 ICE said had been arrested so far, with no details on the backgrounds of the others.
The move follows similar efforts occurring in Minneapolis over recent weeks that have sparked demonstrations and prompted criticism of forceful methods used by ICE and border patrol officers, both on people pursued for deportation and on protesters and activists who warn communities when immigration enforcement activity is spotted nearby.
Patricia Hyde, deputy assistant director of ICE, told Fox News on Tuesday that close to 50 people have been detained so far in Maine as part of what she described as an immigration enforcement surge. Hyde also said ICE has compiled a list of 1,400 individuals in Maine it intends to target. Many asylum seekers from a number of African nations who have entered the US have made Maine their home, adding to the Somali community that began forming there in the early 2000s when refugees settled in Lewiston. Maine is still largely white and has one of the oldest populations nationwide.
Meanwhile, many businesses have increasingly turned to immigrant workers to address labor shortages, as many native-born workers have retired or left the labor force.
Inside Trump’s War on Minneapolis — What We Saw on the Ground
US court allows ICE to arrest and pepper-spray peaceful protesters in Minnesota
An appeals court has temporarily lifted restrictions from a federal judge in Minnesota that blocked ICE agents from pepper-spraying and arresting peaceful protesters. In a victory for the Trump administration, the eighth US circuit court of appeals on Wednesday granted the justice department’s request for an administrative stay of a preliminary injunction issued last Friday by Judge Katherine Menendez.
Menendez’s preliminary injunction would have prohibited ICE agents from retaliating against peaceful protesters, arresting or detaining people who are participating in peaceful protests, using pepper spray or similar non-lethal munitions and crowd dispersal tools, as well as stopping or detaining drivers without reasonable cause. When Menendez imposed the restrictions, she ruled that federal immigration agents’ actions had a “chilling effect” on protesters’ first amendment rights.
Following Menendez’s preliminary injunction last week, the homeland security department defended ICE’s tactics. Spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said: “DHS is taking appropriate and constitutional measures to uphold the rule of law and protect our officers and the public from dangerous rioters.”
ICE activity in Minnesota has drawn mounting criticism in recent weeks, intensified by the killing of Renee Good, a 37-year-old woman and mother of three, by a federal agent. Her death has prompted large-scale protests statewide and across the country. In response, DHS has stood by ICE’s actions, maintaining that agents operated within the law and used force only in self-defense when they perceived threats.
‘Sometimes You Need a Dictator,’ Trump Says Following Threats to Cancel Election
After weeks of authoritarian threats to crush protests with the military, cancel elections, conquer foreign countries, and send masked agents door-to-door to round up anyone who can’t prove their citizenship, Trump on Wednesday told an already uneasy room full of world leaders that “sometimes you need a dictator.”
The offhanded comment came in the middle of a rambling speech at the reception dinner for the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Wednesday, in which Trump congratulated himself on a different rambling speech he’d given earlier that day at the summit.
“We had a good speech, we got great reviews. I can’t believe it, we got good reviews on that speech,” Trump said of the widely mocked address in which he continued to demand the US take over Greenland (which he repeatedly referred to as “Iceland”) and made new tariff threats against Canada and Europe if they resist the annexation.
“Usually they say ‘he’s a horrible dictator-type person,’ I’m a dictator,” Trump continued. “But sometimes you need a dictator! But they didn’t say that in this case... It’s all based on common sense, it’s not conservative or liberal, or anything else.”
Trump: Sometimes you need a dictator pic.twitter.com/l7KkB3DpgI
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 21, 2026
At least twice over the past month, Trump has suggested that the 2026 midterm elections should be canceled, since his party is likely to lose.
The first time he brought up the idea, on the five-year anniversary of the January 6, 2021, Capitol insurrection, he seemed to back off the idea for fear of being called a dictator by his detractors: “I won’t say cancel the election; they should cancel the election, because the fake news would say: ‘He wants the elections canceled. He’s a dictator.’ They always call me a dictator.”
But if being called a dictator was the only thing holding him back from attempting to suspend democracy, he no longer appears to care.
As political commentator Charlotte Clymer wrote on social media, “Trump is now openly referring to himself as a dictator” in front of the whole world.
Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels for EU power generation in 2025
Wind and solar overtook fossil fuels in the European Union’s power generation last year, a report has found, in a “major tipping point” for clean energy. Turbines spinning in the wind and photovoltaic panels lit up by the sun generated 30% of the EU’s electricity in 2025, according to an annual review. Power plants burning coal, oil and gas generated 29%.
Beatrice Petrovich, an analyst at the Ember thinktank and the lead author of the report, said it was a “major tipping point” that was of strategic importance to the EU, which has grown increasingly panicked about its reliance on other countries for energy. “The importance of this goes beyond the power sector,” she said. “The danger of relying on fossil fuels looms large in destabilised geopolitics.”
Europe faces growing tensions with the US – its chief supplier of liquefied natural gas – over Donald Trump’s desire to take over Greenland. At a summit in Davos on Tuesday, the US commerce secretary, Howard Lutnick, criticised Europe’s adoption of solar and wind, arguing that its lack of domestic battery factories risked making it “subservient” to China. “If you are going to be dependent on someone, it had better be your best allies,” he said in a justification of the “America first” approach that he encouraged other countries to emulate.
Analysts said the trend was driven by a boom in solar, which generated a record 13% of EU power. In five countries – including the Netherlands, which is not known for its sun – it provided more than 20%. Wind turbines generated slightly less than the previous year, the report found, but remained the second-largest source of electricity, responsible for 17% of EU power.
The role of fossil gas increased by 8% – largely because of a weather-related drop in hydropower output – but remained well below its most recent 2019 peak, the report found. Coal-burning fell to a new historic low, accounting for less than 10% of EU power, most of it in Germany and Poland.
Half of world’s CO2 emissions come from just 32 fossil fuel firms
Just 32 fossil fuel companies were responsible for half the global carbon dioxide emissions driving the climate crisis in 2024, down from 36 a year earlier, a report has revealed. Saudi Aramco was the biggest state-controlled polluter and ExxonMobil was the largest investor-owned polluter. Critics accused the leading fossil fuel companies of “sabotaging climate action” and “being on the wrong side of history” but said the emissions data was increasingly being used to hold the companies accountable.
State-owned fossil fuel producers made up 17 of the top 20 emitters in the Carbon Majors report, which the authors said underscored the political barriers to tackling global heating. All 17 are controlled by countries that opposed a proposed fossil fuel phaseout at the Cop30 UN climate summit in December, including Saudi Arabia, Russia, China, Iran, the United Arab Emirates and India. More than 80 other nations had backed the phaseout plan.
Saudi Aramco was responsible for 1.7bn tonnes of CO2, much of it from exported oil. If it were a country, Aramco would be the world’s fifth biggest carbon polluter, just behind Russia. ExxonMobil’s fossil fuel production led to 610m tonnes of CO2 – it would be the ninth biggest polluter, ahead of South Korea.
Since a blip during the Covid pandemic, continued fossil fuel burning has led to carbon emissions resuming their annual rise to record levels each year. Emissions would have to fall by 45% by 2030 to meet the Paris agreement’s goal of 1.5C, a target now seen as impossible. But limiting the overshoot is vital, say experts, as every fraction of a degree of heating worsens the climate impacts on communities. ...
Tzeporah Berman, of the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty Initiative, said: “This latest analysis reinforces a stark reality: a powerful, concentrated group of fossil fuel corporations are not only dominating global emissions but are actively sabotaging climate action and weakening government ambition.”
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some which defied fair-use abstraction.
Chris Hedges: The Last Election
Racist, Imperialist U.S. Vassal Denmark Now Cries Over Greenland
Carney Declares Death Of The ‘Rules-Based Order’
Canada Prepares for ‘Hypothetical’ US Invasion
Carney’s Speech Transcript + Comments: Time For the Truth & For the Middle Powers To Align
The Gaza ‘Board of Peace’ Is Dividing the Globe
Patrick Lawrence: All Unquiet on the Ukrainian Front
We ran high-level US civil war simulations. Minnesota is exactly how they start
When Will Democrats Realize That You Can’t Reform Fascism?
Trump paints himself as great white hope in racism-drenched Davos speech
Bond Collapse Forces U.S. REVERSAL As Investors CANCEL Treasuries For China RMB Debt
ICE Kidnaps Native Americans & Kills 2 More People!
A Little Night Music
Betty Harris - 12 Red Roses
Betty Harris - Lonely Hearts
Betty Harris - Cry to Me
Betty Harris - All I Want Is You
Betty Harris - It's Dark Outside
Betty Harris - What did I Do Wrong
Betty Harris- I'll Be A Liar
Betty Harris- There's a Break in the Road
Betty Harris - Mean Man
Betty Harris - I'm Gonna Git Ya
Betty Harris - Mo Jo Hannah
Betty Harris - Ride Your Pony
Comments
It is supposed to
get down to single digits for the next 3 nights here south of Denver, and highs in the teens for the next couple of days, with a little scenic (but non-accumulating) snow. So winter is finally going to arrive for 2 days, right at the end of the National Western Stock Show- we're finally getting our annual dose of Stock Show weather. No moisture, of course, but chilly.
Speaking of chilly (and some creative graph-drawing):
https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/2014469498720715032
And I suspect that our Owners have decided to blow up Iran on the Shabbat, so that the residents of the Zionist entity won't have to lift a finger. We're nice shiksas and sheygets that way, after all.
https://x.com/DD_Geopolitics/status/2014483962224394273
As John Cougar Mellencamp said:
Be safe out there, and hold your loved ones very tightly.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
evening usefewersyllables...
heh, it's relatively warm here (40ish degrees) but the weatherman is telling me that we're going to drop down into the teens on friday and over sunday and monday we're going to have 10-20 inches of snow dumped on us. i like the look of snow, but i'm not that wild about shoveling it any more. hopefully we'll get through this without any major power outages. i guess we'll see if the weatherman was correct or not.
i presume that trump the "peace president" will pull the trigger on iran when the aircraft carrier groups get situated and whatever additional air defense systems they can find that weren't blown up in ukraine are set.
have a good one!
Thanks Joe
Looks like the TACO traders are back in business. Sure be interesting to know who the biggest market winners were after Dopey don's latest walk backs. Not like there would have been any insider info being passed around...
Speaking of tarriffs. research
by the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, concluded that American businesses and consumers are paying 96% of the cost of Trump's sweeping tariffs
and that
"The tariff functions not as a tax on foreign producers, but as a consumption tax on Americans,"
As always, your work is much appreciated. Have a nice evening.
All I want is the truth. Just give me some truth. John Lennon
evening burnt...
yeah, it looks like the taco traders are going to make serious dough on all of the volatility that trump generates.
heh, it's pretty amusing to watch the maga morons cheering on trump creating a massive new federal tax scheme. i guess when they complain about wealth taxes or some other progressive programs there's tariff taxes to remind them of what a bunch of hypocrites they are.
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs.
You do realize that 40 is only 8 debrees above freezing, don't you? I mean, out here refrigerators are set between 35 and 38. Makes my hands numb just talking about it.
I do tend to agree that it looks like big trouble as woon as the US gets that carrier group gets where it needs to be, especially if Congress gives him what he wants, which they almost certainly will. Why would they not?
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...
heh, well, now it's 34 degrees on my backporch thermometer, still better than denver's single digits, but getting closer to the threshold of unpleasantness.
by "congress," you mean the wholly-owned subsidiary of benjamin netanyahu, correct? no need to ask whether they will support a barbaric intervention in iran.
have a great evening!
I think the NYTimes got it right, for once:
.
The New York Times — focusing on the words rather the speaker — dropped a definitive interpretation of President Trump’s unusual keynote address at the at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland: "The US President" according to the Times review, "Publicly renounced the last vestiges of the liberal democratic order."
.
.
One wonders how his handlers allow him
.
to spew such non-sense. Guess he couldn't help himself
self-censor while being on the stage. Pretending to be the
King of the World is challenging, even for a psychopath.
Zionism is a social disease
Thank you for the great music program, Professor!
As far as the Current (Crapola) Events go: I just skim them. I don't trust anything that comes out of Maggot Brain's and his bosses'/cronies' orifices. I go on auto-pilot and believe the opposite. Rec'd!! P.S.: ECFL weather is 78 and partly cloudy today. It will be changing soon. We really need rain though.
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.