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"When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America, you get a front row seat."

-- George Carlin

News and Opinion

If You Think Our Rulers Do Bad Things In Secret, Wait Til You See What They Do Out In The Open

They launched a live-streamed genocide
in full view of the entire world.

They’re openly targeting civilian populations with siege warfare in Iran and Cuba in full view of the entire world.

They openly kidnapped the president of a sovereign nation in full view of the entire world.

They deliberately provoked a horrific and dangerous proxy war in Ukraine in full view of the entire world.

They spent years actively backing Saudi Arabia’s monstrous genocidal atrocities in Yemen in full view of the entire world.

They’re plundering and exploiting the resources and labor of the global south in full view of the entire world.

They’re killing the biosphere we all depend on for their own enrichment in full view of the entire world.

They’re circling the globe with hundreds of military bases to secure planetary domination in full view of the entire world.

They engage in nuclear brinkmanship and wave around armageddon weapons like pistols in full view of the entire world.

People go homeless and die of exposure while billionaires buy private islands and choose the next president in full view of the entire world.

Weapons manufacturers lobby for wars and then profit from the death and destruction they cause in full view of the entire world.

The president of the United States has repeatedly admitted to being bought and owned by the world’s richest Israeli in full view of the entire world.

The US Treasury Secretary has been repeatedly admitting that the US deliberately sparked the violence and unrest in Iran by methodically immiserating the population via economic warfare, in full view of the entire world.

I keep seeing people freaking out and asking how it’s possible that the individuals in the Epstein files haven’t been arrested for their secret nefarious behavior. And I always want to ask them, mate, have you seen the nefarious behavior they’re engaging in right out in the open?

Pay attention to the Epstein files. Pay attention to what little we can learn about how these freaks conduct themselves behind closed doors. By all means, pay close attention to these things.

But don’t forget to also pay attention to the far greater evils they are inflicting in full view of the entire world.

Chris Hedges on America's Final Straw

Trump says he is still seeking Iran anti-nuclear deal after Netanyahu meeting

Donald Trump has said that he is still seeking a deal with Iran to prevent it from seeking a nuclear weapon following a three-hour meeting with Benjamin Netanyahu in which the Israeli leader was expected to advocate for a more forceful intervention by the US military. Netanyahu’s sixth visit to the White House since Trump returned to office ended without any public remarks between the two leaders. The results of the hastily arranged meeting were announced by Trump in an online post.

“There was nothing definitive reached other than I insisted that negotiations with Iran continue to see whether or not a Deal can be consummated,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “If it can, I let the Prime Minister know that will be a preference. If it cannot, we will just have to see what the outcome will be.” ...

In his online post, Trump suggested that he was restraining Netanyahu but also said that further strikes could be a result if Iran does not agree to a new nuclear deal with the US.

Pepe Escobar : The Strategy Behind the Iran–China Relationship

Venezuela Ships First Crude Cargo to Israel as Oil Exports Reopen After Maduro’s Ouster

Venezuela is sending its first crude oil cargo to Israel in years as the Latin American country’s exports open up following the capture of its president Nicolas Maduro.

The cargo is being transported to Bazan Group, the Mediterranean country’s top crude processor, people with knowledge of the deal said, asking not to be identified because the information isn’t public.

At the start of the year, US forces captured Maduro and the Trump administration said it would take over Venezuelan oil sales.

Israel doesn’t advertise where it gets its crude oil from, and tankers have sometimes disappeared from digital tracking systems once they near the country’s ports.

When the cargo arrives, it would mark the first shipment of its kind since mid-2020, when Israel took about 470,000 barrels, according to Kpler data.

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Political Pressure and Trump’s Peace Options

Israel ‘Evaporated’ Nearly 3,000 Palestinians in Gaza

An Al Jazeera investigation based on evidence collected by the Civil Defense in the Gaza Strip has concluded that nearly 3,000 Palestinians were “evaporated” by Israel using thermal weapons — some of them supplied by the U.S.

Al Jazeera reported Tuesday the investigation found that 2,842 Palestinians were killed due to Israel’s “systematic use of internationally prohibited thermal and thermobaric weapons, often referred to as vacuum or aerosol bombs, capable of generating temperatures exceeding 3,500 degrees Celsius [6,332 degrees Fahrenheit].”

The heat generated by these weapons is so intense, investigators noted, that they leave behind almost no detectable human remains other than blood stains or pieces of flesh.

Israel’s use of such weapons was flagged last year in a social media post by Omar Hamad, a Gaza pharmacist who posted a video purportedly showing a thermobaric bomb being detonated in Beit Hanoun.

Israel is using thermobaric (vacuum) bombs in Beit Hanoun. These are shock waves that spread in a circular and low pattern near the ground surface, preceding the appearance of the dust cloud by far, indicating a speed faster than the speed of sound.

This is genocide. pic.twitter.com/tA7jC61g33

— Omar Hamad (@OmarHamadD) July 13, 2025

Mahmoud Basal, spokesperson for the Gaza Civil Defense, said that the investigation was not a mere estimate of Palestinians incinerated by thermal and thermobaric weapons, but the result of painstaking forensic work.

“We enter a targeted home and cross-reference the known number of occupants with the bodies recovered,” Basal explained. “If a family tells us there were five people inside, and we only recover three intact bodies, we treat the remaining two as ‘evaporated’ only after an exhaustive search yields nothing but biological traces—blood spray on walls or small fragments like scalps.”

Unlike the explosions caused by traditional bombs, the thermobaric weapons used by Israel in Gaza first disperse clouds of fuel in a given area that are then ignited to create an enormous and intense fireball.

The investigation found that the fuel typically used in Israeli thermobaric weapons was tritonal, a mixture consisting of 80 percent TNT and 20 percent aluminum powder often found in U.S.-manufactured weapons such as the Mark 84 aircraft bomb.

Dr Munir al-Bursh, director general of the Palestinian Ministry of Health in Gaza, told Al Jazeera that the heat generated by these weapons is so intense that any living creatures’ bodily fluids will immediately boil.

“When a body is exposed to energy exceeding 3,000 degrees combined with massive pressure and oxidation, the fluids boil instantly,” al-Bursh explained. “The tissues vaporize and turn to ash. It is chemically inevitable.”

Gaza resident Yasmin Mahani told Al Jazeera that her son, Saad, was incinerated by a 2024 Israeli strike that hit a school in the Daraj neighborhood of Gaza City.

“We found nothing of Saad,” Mahani said. “Not even a body to bury. That was the hardest part.”

Russia China Rush Military Aid To Iran Trump Backs Off Argues With Netanyahu; Bondi Epstein Meltdown

US House backs bid to block Canada tariffs in rebuke of Trump

The US House on Wednesday voted to rescind tariffs that Donald Trump imposed on Canada last year, a rare bipartisan rebuke of the White House’s trade policy as the president threatened electoral retaliation against any Republican who defied him.

The largely symbolic resolution to disapprove of the national emergency Trump declared to impose tariffs on Canada passed 219 to 211, with six Republicans – Don Bacon of Nebraska, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Kevin Kiley of California, Dan Newhouse of Washington and Jeff Hurd of Colorado – voting with all Democrats except Jared Golden of Maine, who voted against it.

“Any Republican, in the House or the Senate, that votes against TARIFFS will seriously suffer the consequences come Election time, and that includes Primaries!” Trump wrote on Truth Social before the vote was finalized, adding: “TARIFFS have given us Economic and National Security, and no Republican should be responsible for destroying this privilege.” Undoing Trump’s tariff policy would ultimately require his approval, which was unlikely. On Wednesday, he warned Republicans against voting for the resolution, which GOP leaders had worked to forestall.

“Canada has taken advantage of the United States on Trade for many years,” Trump wrote in a separate post. “They are among the worst in the World to deal with, especially as it relates to our Northern Border. TARIFFS make a WIN for us, EASY. Republicans must keep it that way!” The measure next goes to the Senate.

Trump believes in the power of tariffs to force trading partners to the negotiating table. But US lawmakers are facing unrest from businesses caught in the trade wars and constituents navigating pocketbook issues and high prices.

Richard D. Wolff & Michael Hudson: Is Trump Killing American Capitalism? The 2026 Economic Breakdown

Data Reveals Trump Economy Added Hundreds of Thousands Fewer Jobs in 2025 Than Previously Reported

Revised federal data released Wednesday shows that the US economy under the stewardship of President Donald Trump added hundreds of thousands fewer jobs in 2025 than previously reported, further undercutting the president’s claim to have ushered in the “greatest” economy in history.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said Wednesday that US employers added just 181,000 jobs last year, an average of roughly 15,000 per month. That’s roughly 69% fewer than the previous estimate of 584,000 jobs created in 2025.

Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive advocacy group, said the updated figures paint “a grim picture” of the job market under Trump, who has repeatedly promised—and taken credit for bringing about—an economic boom.

“Today’s numbers show that the economy spent 2025 treading water while costs surged and families fell further behind,” said Alex Jacquez, chief of policy and advocacy at Groundwork. “Job growth was dramatically weaker than advertised and concentrated nearly entirely in healthcare, leaving the rest of the labor market to stall. Opportunities are drying up outside a handful of sectors, and more and more workers are settling for part-time hours or have stopped looking for work entirely. 2025 was a lost year for American workers.”

A separate analysis released Wednesday by Democrats on the Joint Economic Committee (JEC) found that the US lost 108,000 manufacturing jobs during the first year of Trump’s second term in the White House, despite the president’s pledge to revive American industry through his tariff regime.

“While President Trump promised us a manufacturing boom, the reality of his first year has been a bust,” said Sen. Maggie Hassan (D-NH), the JEC’s ranking member. “It is critical for both our national security and our economic future that we grow our manufacturing sector. The president has instead spent his first year burdening manufacturers with reckless tariffs, and this loss of jobs is the result.”

GOP Women THROW SHADE at Trump's DOJ Over Maxwell, Epstein

Bondi Stonewalls Congress on the ‘Enemies List’ She Directed DOJ to Compile

Along with refusing to acknowledge the harm her Department of Justice has done to victims of convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and yelling personal insults at Democratic members of Congress, US Attorney General Pam Bondi stonewalled at Wednesday’s House Judiciary Committee hearing when Rep. Mary Gay Scanlon asked her direct questions about the Trump administration’s attempts to label dissenters “domestic terrorists.”

At the hearing focusing on oversight of the DOJ, Scanlon (D-Pa.) asked about National Security Presidential Memorandum 7 (NSPM-7), which President Donald Trump signed in September, weeks after claiming the “radical left” was “directly responsible” for the assassination of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

The memo directs federal agencies to develop a “national strategy to investigate and disrupt networks, entities, and organizations that foment political violence so that law enforcement can intervene in criminal conspiracies before they result in violent political acts,” with an exclusive focus on anti-fascist or left-wing groups.

It classifies anti-capitalism; “extremism” on migration, race, and gender; and “hostility” toward “traditional American views on family” as some of the viewpoints that are held by groups that the Trump administration aims to disrupt, and the memo was expanded on by another memo in which Bondi directed the DOJ to compile a list of possible “domestic terrorism” groups that hold the views identified in NSPM-7.

The memos were signed months after Bondi said under oath that there would “never be an enemies list” compiled by the DOJ.

Scanlon noted in the hearing Wednesday that “Americans across the political spectrum were immediately alarmed by the memo’s blurring of the line between unlawful conduct and constitutionally protected speech and activity, as well as its call to investigate, prosecute, and dismantle groups” with which the administration disagrees.

When the congresswoman asked Bondi to confirm whether the list she called for in her December memo has been compiled, the attorney general said she was “not going to answer yes or no” before saying that “an antifa member” was arrested earlier this month in Minneapolis for “cyberstalking.”

The exchange was typical of the proceedings; members of the committee were continually frustrated during the hearing as Bondi refused to respond to straightforward questions about the Epstein files and other issues. Ranking Member Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) at one point implored the attorney general not to “go off on a wild goose chase, another tangent,” when asked a question.

Scanlon later asked Bondi if she would commit to providing the committee with the list of entities that the DOJ believes should be “designated as domestic terrorist organizations.”

“I’m not going to commit to anything to you because you won’t let me answer questions,” the attorney general replied.

Scanlon responded, “We understand your current position is that you have a secret list of people or groups who you are accusing of domestic terrorism, but you won’t share it with Congress.”

The exchange came two weeks after independent journalist Ken Klippenstein reported that he had learned from senior administration officials that the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) have already compiled over a dozen “secret and obscure” watchlists of pro-Palestinian and anti-Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) protesters and other people who have been labeled “domestic terrorists.”

An ICE agent deployed in Maine also sparked alarm last month when he told a woman who was filming him that doing so would land her in a “nice little database” the department has, where she would be labeled a domestic terrorist. Filming ICE agents is protected under the First Amendment.

And CNN reported that DHS sent a memo to ICE agents deployed in Minneapolis directing them to fill out forms with personal data about protesters and people the department labeled “agitators.”

Despite the mounting evidence that the administration is compiling data about dissenters, DHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tricia McLaughlin said late last month that “there is NO database of ‘domestic terrorists’ run by DHS.”

While Bondi similarly refused to confirm that DOJ has compiled a list of what it claims are domestic terrorist groups, Scanlon issued a warning that “Americans have never tolerated political demagogues who use the government to punish people on an enemies list.”

Doing so “brought down” former Sen. Joseph McCarthy during the Red Scare, she said, as well as former President Richard Nixon.

“And it will bring down this administration as well,” said Scanlon.

Judge orders US to provide California ICE detainees with medical care, attorneys and blankets

The US government must provide detainees at a California immigration detention center with adequate medical care, access to attorneys, and “temperature-appropriate clothing and blankets”, a federal judge has ruled. The order came on Tuesday in response to a lawsuit filed by seven people detained at the California City detention facility in November, alleging they had been denied essential medications, sufficient food and sanitary housing conditions. Residents at the facility had previously described the center as a “torture chamber” and “hell on earth” in interviews with the Guardian.

The US district judge Maxine M Chesney ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to ensure that the facility, which is operated by the private prison corporation CoreCivic, provides “adequate health care staffing” and “timely access to prescribed medications” to those held there, as well as access to attorneys through in-person and telephone meetings, temperature-appropriate clothing and access to outdoor spaces at least one hour per day.

The judge also ordered the government “to provide access to a qualified, independent, third-party monitor” to enable “review of medical records and on-site inspection and interviews with patients and staff”.

“Most of the people held in California City have no criminal record whatsoever, and yet the government treats them worse than the highest-security criminals,” said Cody Harris, a partner at Keker, Van Nest & Peters, the law firm representing the plaintiffs alongside the Prison Law Office and the ACLU National Prison Project.

BodyCam Footage EXPOSES CBP Lies In Shooting of US Citizen

Border patrol chief praised federal agent who shot US citizen in Chicago

Newly released evidence has shown that Gregory Bovino, a border patrol chief who was the face of the Trump administration’s mass deportation efforts until last month, praised a federal agent who shot a Chicago woman during an immigration crackdown last year.

Marimar Martinez, a US citizen, was shot five times by a border patrol agent in October while in her vehicle. She was charged with a felony after officials at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) accused her of trying to ram agents with her vehicle. But the case was abruptly dismissed after video evidence emerged showing that an agent had steered his vehicle into Martinez’s car.

Lawyers for Martinez have pushed to make evidence in the dismissed criminal case public, saying they were especially motivated to do so after a federal agent fatally shot Renee Nicole Good in Minneapolis under similar circumstances. The new evidence – which includes emails, text messages and videos – was released this week after a US district judge, Georgia Alexakis, lifted a protective order. Federal prosecutors had argued the documents could “further sully” reputation of the agent who shot Martinez. “I don’t know why the United States government has expressed zero concern for the sullying of Ms Martinez’s reputation,” Alexakis countered.

The border patrol agent who shot Martinez, Charles Exum, was not wearing his body camera during the incident, according to Martinez’s lawyer, but body camera video recorded by another agent and released on Tuesday showed the moments that led up to the shooting from inside Exum’s vehicle. After Exum gets out of the car, the sound of five shots being fired can be heard on the video.

Text messages, meanwhile, show Bovino sending encouragement to Exum after the shooting. “In light of your excellent service in Chicago, you have much yet left to do!!” Bovino wrote to Exum on 4 October, hours after Martinez was shot, in an email urging him to put off his retirement. Another text exchange highlighted by lawyers for Martinez showed that when a fellow agent asked Exum if his superiors were being “supportive” after the shooting, Exum replied: “Big time. Everyone has been including Chief Bovino, Chief Banks, Sec Noem and El Jefe himself … according to Bovino.”

Support for Trump’s immigration efforts drops sharply after Minnesota shootings

Support for Donald Trump’s immigration efforts has dropped dramatically following a wave of public revulsion over violent scenes in Minneapolis involving Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents, new poll figures show. The figures arrive as administration officials continue to double down on ICE enforcement, which has been getting increasingly dangerous.

Nearly half (49%) of all American adults strongly disapprove of the Trump administration’s handling of border security and immigration, according to an NBC survey. The figures represent a double-digit decline in backing for the president’s performance on immigration – the subject central to Trump’s electoral appeal – compared with a similar poll last summer, when 38% said they strongly disapproved. An earlier poll last April showed 34% disapproving.

Pollsters link the rising disapproval rates to the shooting deaths of two US citizens, Renee Good and Alex Pretti, in separate incidents by federal agents deployed in Minneapolis. Senior administration officials, including the homeland security secretary, Kristi Noem, denounced both Good and Pretti as “domestic terrorists” in the immediate aftermath of their deaths. About 60% of those asked in the week following the death of Pretti, an intensive care nurse at a VA hospital, said they disapproved of Trump’s immigration and border policies.

The decline in Trump’s support on a key issue matches his diminishing approval ratings overall; a range of recent polls, including NBC’s, showed Trump’s support also at 39%.

The survey also showed an underlying hostility towards ICE, with nearly three-quarters of respondents saying they wanted to see the agency reformed or abolished. A vast majority said immigration officers had gone too far. About 63% expressed opposition to agents wearing masks, with 58% disagreeing with the proposition that regular, “law-abiding citizens” had nothing to fear from immigration agents. More people blamed violent street clashes on the administration rather than protesters, while 63% said the federal government had acted excessively in ignoring or overriding local or state governments.

Point of no return: a hellish ‘hothouse Earth’ getting closer

The world is closer than thought to a “point of no return” after which runaway global heating cannot be stopped, scientists have said. Continued global heating could trigger climate tipping points, leading to a cascade of further tipping points and feedback loops, they said. This would lock the world into a new and hellish “hothouse Earth” climate far worse than the 2-3C temperature rise the world is on track to reach. The climate would also be very different to the benign conditions of the past 11,000 years, during which the whole of human civilisation developed.

At just 1.3C of global heating in recent years, extreme weather is already taking lives and destroying livelihoods across the globe. At 3-4C, “the economy and society will cease to function as we know it”, scientists said last week, but a hothouse Earth would be even more fiery.

The public and politicians were largely unaware of the risk of passing the point of no return, the researchers said. The group said they were issuing their warning because while rapid and immediate cuts to fossil fuel burning were challenging, reversing course was likely to be impossible once on the path to a hothouse Earth, even if emissions were eventually slashed.

It was difficult to predict when climate tipping points would be triggered, making precaution vital, said Dr Christopher Wolf, a scientist at Terrestrial Ecosystems Research Associates in the US. Wolf is a member of a study team that includes Prof Johan Rockström at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany and Prof Hans Joachim Schellnhuber at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.

“Crossing even some of the thresholds could commit the planet to a hothouse trajectory,” said Wolf. “Policymakers and the public remain largely unaware of the risks posed by what would effectively be a point-of-no-return transition. It’s likely that global temperatures are [already] as warm as, or warmer than, at any point in the last 125,000 years and that climate change is advancing faster than many scientists predicted.” It is also likely that carbon dioxide levels are the highest they have been in at least 2m years.

Western US gripped by extreme snow drought: ‘I’ve never seen a winter like this’

A record snow drought is plaguing the western US, leaving some of the thirstiest states bracing for less water and elevated fire risks through the drier months to come. Snow cover is roughly a third of what it typically is for this time of year across the west, according to measurements from the National Snow and Ice Data Center, prompting widespread concern among experts and water managers that several key basins will be severely affected through the rest of the year.

Oregon, Colorado and Utah have all reported their lowest statewide snowpack since the early 1980s, as far back as records go. “The snowpack is essentially as bad as it’s ever been in recorded history for the time of year in at least some portion of every single western US state,” climate scientist Daniel Swain said in a weather and conditions discussion shared to his website last week, calling the record-breaking warmth that preceded it “astonishing”.

The dire conditions are fueled by an extremely warm winter, according to federal forecasters, with unseasonable weather breaking records across the region. “I have not seen a winter like this before,” said Mark Serreze, the director of the the National Snow and Ice Data Center, who has been in Colorado almost 40 years. “This pattern that we’re in is so darned persistent.”

The snowpack is an essential source of water that feeds basins relied on by millions of people, sprawling agricultural centers and ecosystems already under strain. Water content within the snow, an important measurement that offers a sense of how much melt will be available for use, was measured below the median at 91% of weather stations across the west on 1 February.

The strikingly low levels have added pressure to the urgent negotiations under way over the future of the Colorado River, the 1,450-mile (2,300km) waterway that snakes through the western US and supplies roughly 40 million people in seven states, 5.5m acres (2.23m hectares) of farmland, dozens of tribes and parts of Mexico. Roughly 80% of the river’s supply goes to agriculture, including water-intensive crops such as alfalfa and hay, which are used as feed for livestock. Representatives from states that depend on its flows have remained at an impasse about how to manage the imperiled basin as the resources grow increasingly scarce. Long-term overuse and rising pressures from the climate crisis have served as a one-two punch that has left the system in crisis.

Also of Interest

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

Netanyahu Officially Joins ‘Board of Peace’ During US Visit as His Forces Continue Killing Palestinians in Gaza

NY Times Reports Russian Capture of Ukrainian Cities Months After It Happened

Suffocating an Island: What the US Blockade Is Doing to the People of Cuba

Texas Lawmakers Sound Alarm on ‘Torture, Killing, and Inhumane Treatment’ of Detainees in Fort Bliss ICE Facility

Call Trump ‘Detention Camps’ by Their Real Name

‘You’re a washed-up loser lawyer’: Pam Bondi taunts Democrats over Epstein

Washoe Tribe buys 10,000 acres in one of California’s largest ever land returns

Costs of Device-Reliant Parenting: Kids Deficient in Empathy and Storytelling Skills, Can’t Read, Show Declining Cognitive Performance

Jewish Rep. Balint Walks Out of Hearing After Bondi Calls Her Antisemitic

Dangerous times w/ Larry Johnson

A Little Night Music

Bill Jackson - Titanic Blues

Bill Jackson - Blues In The Morning

Bill Jackson - Freight train blues

Bill Jackson - Trouble in Mind

Bill Jackson - Jailhouse Blues

Bill Jackson - Moaning Guitar Blues

Bill Jackson - Old Rounder Blues

Bill Jackson - The 22nd Day Of November

Bill Jackson - Long Steel Rail

Bill Jackson - Don't You Put Your Hands on Me