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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Rory Gallagher

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Irish blues-rock guitarist Rory Gallagher. Enjoy!

^{Rory Gallagher - Walk on Hot Coals}

"It is the habit of every aggressor nation to claim that it is acting on the defensive."

-- Jawaharlal Nehru

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News and Opinion

If Iran Kills US Troops, The Blame Rests Solely On The US And Israel

White House officials reportedly want Israel to provoke Iran into attacking US military bases in the region, because it will make Americans more willing to go to war.

Politico reports:

“Senior advisers to President Donald Trump would prefer Israel strike Iran before the United States launches an assault on the country, according to two people familiar with ongoing discussions.

“These Trump administration officials are privately arguing that an Israeli attack would trigger Iran to retaliate, helping muster support from American voters for a U.S. strike.

“The calculus is a political one — that more Americans would stomach a war with Iran if the United States or an ally were attacked first. Recent polling shows that Americans, and Republicans in particular, support regime change in Iran, but are unwilling to risk any U.S. casualties to achieve it. That means Trump’s team is considering the optics of how an attack is conducted in addition to other justifications — such as Iran’s nuclear program.”

“There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action,” an anonymous White House source told Politico.

Report: Trump Advisors Want Israel To Attack Iran First To Provoke Iranian Retaliation Against US Assets
According to POLITICO, senior US officials think the 'politics' would be better if Israel started the war#Iran #Israel #Trump https://t.co/WI4tXk763Y

— Antiwar.com (@Antiwarcom) February 26, 2026

So according this report the plan is to let Israel initiate the war, draw out an aggressive Iranian response against Israel and US military assets in the area, and then let the media saturate American airwaves with photographs of slain US soldiers so that Americans will support a new war in the middle east.

As a plan to drum up domestic support for war, it would probably work. Israel would certainly be all too happy to initiate another war. The US media would certainly be all too happy to drum up support for American retaliation. And many Americans, God bless them, would be dumb enough to swallow it.

We all saw how easily the American public can be persuaded to sign off on any US military operation after 9/11. We know the drill: Americans get killed, the imperial propaganda machine kicks into hyperdrive, and all of a sudden you’ve got every war plan and domestic surveillance agenda ever dreamed up by Washington’s nastiest swamp monsters being advanced at breakneck pace.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio is already laying the groundwork for this narrative push, literally doing the “look how close they put their country to our military bases” meme during a press conference on Wednesday.

“Iran possesses a very large number of ballistic missiles, particularly short-range ballistic missiles that threaten the United States and our bases in the region and our partners in the region, and all of our bases in the UAE, in Qatar, in Bahrain,” Rubio said. “And they also possess naval assets that threaten shipping and try to threaten the U.S. Navy. So I want everybody to understand that, and beyond just the nuclear program they possess these conventional weapons that are solely designed to attack America and attack Americans, if they so choose to do so.”

He did the meme. https://t.co/wc5kMWEwPc pic.twitter.com/ArlQP3PKDS

— Harrison H. Smith (@HarrisonHSmith) February 26, 2026

They’re already blatantly lying to the American public about this thing. In addition to the propaganda narratives we discussed recently like Steve Witkoff claiming Iran is “probably a week away” from having the materials necessary to make a nuclear bomb and The New York Post publishing evidence-free atrocity propaganda about Iran cutting out the reproductive organs of female protesters, President Trump falsely claimed during his State of the Union address on Tuesday that Iran refuses to say it will never develop a nuclear weapon.

“We are in negotiations with them; they want to make a deal but we haven’t heard those secret words: We will never have a nuclear weapon,” Trump said during his speech before Congress.

As Antiwar’s Dave DeCamp pointed out, Iran has been explicitly saying they will never develop a nuclear weapon this entire time, and they literally said it again on the day of Trump’s speech. Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi tweeted on Tuesday that “Our fundamental convictions are crystal clear: Iran will under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.”

Whether or not you believe Iran’s claims that it has no intention of developing nuclear weapons, it is an indisputable fact that Trump and his speech writers brazenly lied to the American public about Iran refusing to say the words “We will never have a nuclear weapon”.

They say that all the time, and literally said it again today https://t.co/kU8bLvEtXY pic.twitter.com/rkc3aA7gr3

— Dave DeCamp (@DecampDave) February 24, 2026

The fact that they would lie so blatantly about something so significant means they’ll lie about anything, and nothing these people tell us about Iran and its activities can be trusted.

Trump made other evidence-free claims in the same speech, as DeCamp explains:

“Trump also said that Iran was ‘working to build missiles that will soon reach the United States of America,’ a claim that lacks any evidence, and repeated that 32,000 people were killed in the recent protests, an inflated number that lacks real sourcing and is far beyond the 3,317 acknowledged by the Iranian government.”

So let’s be very clear here: if any US troops are killed by Iranian missiles, the US and Israel are solely to blame for this. If any Israelis are killed by Iranian missiles, the US and Israel are solely to blame for this. Not Iran.

Iran didn’t surround itself with US military bases. Iran didn’t tear up the Obama nuclear deal. Iran isn’t flooding the region with a quantity of US war machinery you never see unless Washington plans on launching an attack. The US did these things.

The US is the one who bombed Iran’s energy infrastructure last June. The US is the one who is openly admitting that it deliberately crushed the Iranian economy with the goal of inciting a violent uprising. The US is the one whose National Endowment for Democracy smuggled Starlink terminals into Iran to help facilitate domestic unrest.

If any foreign government had been doing these things to the United States, the US would have wiped them off the face of the earth a long time ago. Iran has been demonstrating superhuman forbearance in the midst of extremely aggressive provocations by Israel and the United States. If Tehran calculates that it can no longer sustain its policy of restraint and needs to push back to protect itself from an existential threat, then the blame for this will not rest on Iran. It will rest solely and entirely on the United States and Israel.

If any US troops die in the upcoming standoff, it will be Washington and Tel Aviv who killed them.

Prof. Glenn Diesen : Does Trump have an Off Ramp?

US-Iran nuclear talks end without a deal as threat of war grows

High-stakes talks between the US and Iran over the future of Tehran’s nuclear programme ended on Thursday without a deal, as the White House weighs a military operation that would mark its largest intervention in the Middle East in decades. The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, claimed “good progress” had been made at the talks and Omani mediators predicted negotiations would reconvene at a technical level next week in Vienna.

But there was no immediate evidence to support suggestions that the two sides had drawn closer on the fundamental issues of Iran’s right to enrich uranium and the future of its highly enriched uranium stocks. Nonetheless, the Iranian and Omani mediators sought to cast the talks in a hopeful light, likely seeking to avert a US threat to launch strikes from its fleet of aircraft and warships that have massed in the region.

Araghchi described the talks as “one of our most intense and longest rounds of negotiations”. He confirmed that further contacts would take place in less than a week.

The indirect talks in Geneva were held in two sessions, with reports that the US team led by Donald Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East, Steve Witkoff, had been disappointed by the proposals put forward by Iran.

The brevity of the second session of talks appeared ominous, observers said.

The MOMENTUM of WAR in IRAN /Alastair Crooke & Lt Col Daniel Davis

Anxiety mounts across Middle East amid fears of US-Iran war

Anxiety is growing over a potential war between Iran and the US in the Middle East, with embassies evacuating staff and airlines cancelling flights as tensions mount. As critical talks over Iran’s nuclear programme entered their second round on Thursday night, and a vast US military buildup continued in the Middle East, the Trump administration warned of drastic consequences if Iranian negotiators failed to make significant concessions.

Citizens of countries in the Middle East are bracing themselves for the possibility of regional war once again, following the numerous conflicts that have broken out since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and the ensuing Israeli war on Gaza.

In Lebanon, all eyes are on Hezbollah, as war weary citizens fear the Iran-backed proxy group could enter aany war between Washington and Tehran. Israel has said in no uncertain terms that all of Lebanon would suffer if Hezbollah attacked, passing the Lebanese government a message that said critical infrastructure such as Beirut airport would be bombed.

Elsewhere in the region, citizens have been left to read the tea leaves themselves, trading interpretations of major news events as indications that war will or will not happen. Many have taken the decision by foreign countries to call on their citizens and diplomats to evacuate Iran and to take precautions when visiting surrounding countries as an ominous sign that escalation is imminent.

The repercussions of another war between the US and Iran, which could spill overto Israel and Iranian-backed groups across the region, extend to people’s livelihoods in the region. Many, particularly Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, are heavily dependent on tourism – any renewed bout of conflict would further hobble their already crippled tourism sectors.

Col. Larry Wilkerson: Pentagon warns Trump: Iran war risks chaos

The White House wants Iran to attack Americans

Trump administration officials are apparently aware that Americans do not want to go to war with Iran. Indeed, poll after poll (after poll) shows that voters have no interest in starting another Middle East conflict, let alone embarking on an Iraq war-style regime change operation.

But the White House is working on ways around that. Trump officials’ latest thinking, according to a new report from Politico, is to have the Israelis attack Iran first and hope the Iranian retaliation targets U.S. forces in the region, which, in turn the theory apparently goes, Americans back home would be more supportive of a U.S. counterstrike in defense of U.S. troops.

A person “familiar with” the White House’s internal discussions on Iran told Politico: “There’s thinking in and around the administration that the politics are a lot better if the Israelis go first and alone and the Iranians retaliate against us, and give us more reason to take action.”

Think about that: Trump administration officials are apparently willing to use U.S. troops as pawns to garner public support for an unpopular war.

But at least they’re consistent. That kind of thinking has gotten us to the “crisis” that we currently find ourselves in with Iran in that it is — like this half baked scheme — entirely manufactured.

INTEL Roundtable w/ Johnson & McGovern - Week of 27 -FEB

The fix must be in for Israel to start the war prompting an Iranian attack on the U.S. in the middle east and clearing the way for the trained seals in congress to vote for moar war!

House To Vote on Iran War Powers Next Week as Trump Has US on Brink of a Major Conflict

Democrats in the House and Senate vowed on Thursday that they will hold a vote next week on War Powers Resolutions aimed at blocking President Trump from launching an attack on Iran without congressional authorization, as required by the US Constitution.

Contact your representatives in the House and tell them to support H.Con.Res. 38 to prevent the president from conducting an illegal attack on Iran.

The resolution in the House was a bipartisan bill introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) during the 12-Day War in June 2025, but a ceasefire was reached before a vote was held. Khanna announced last week that he would bring the bill to the floor for a vote, and after initially delaying the vote, Democratic leadership is now on board.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) also said on Thursday that he expects to vote on an Iran War Powers Resolution in the Senate “early next week.” Kaine’s resolution is also bipartisan since it has been co-sponsored by Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY).

Israel Responsible for Two-Thirds of Journalist Deaths in 2025: Press Freedom Group

A new report from a major press freedom group has found that a record 129 journalists were killed in 2025, and that Israel was responsible for two-thirds of the worldwide total.

The Tuesday report from the Committee to Protect Journalists says that the Israeli military has cumulatively killed more journalists than any other government since CPJ started tracking reporter deaths in 1992, with the vast majority being Palestinian media workers in Gaza.

The report also finds an increase in the use of drones to attack journalists, with Israel accounting for more than 70% of the 39 documented instances of reporters killed by drone strikes.

The number of journalists killed by Israel is remarkably high even when compared to the number of journalists killed in other conflict zones.

Only nine journalists were killed in Sudan, for example, while just four journalists were killed in Ukraine, despite both countries being in the midst of brutal conflicts that have collectively killed hundreds of thousands of people.

A report issued in December by Reporters Without Borders similarly found that Israel was responsible for the most journalists deaths in 2025, the third consecutive year that the country had held that distinction.

The CPJ report also points the finger at governments for not taking their responsibilities to protect journalists seriously.

“The rising number of journalist deaths globally is fueled by a persistent culture of impunity,” the report states. “Very few transparent investigations have been conducted into the 47 cases of targeted killings (classified as ‘murder’ in CPJ’s longstanding methodology) documented by CPJ in 2025—the highest number of journalists deliberately killed for their work in the past decade—and no one has been held accountable in any of the cases.”

CPJ CEO Jodie Ginsberg said that attacks on the media are “a leading indicator of attacks on other freedoms, and much more needs to be done to prevent these killings and punish the perpetrators,” adding that “we are all at risk when journalists are killed for reporting the news.”

US Iran Talks Fail; Embassies Evacuated Attack Imminent; Konstaninovka Defence Collapses; UK Crisis

Anthropic says it ‘cannot in good conscience’ allow Pentagon to remove AI checks

Anthropic said Thursday it “cannot in good conscience” comply with a demand from the Pentagon to remove safety precautions from its artificial intelligence model and grant the US military unfettered access to its AI capabilities. The Department of Defense had threatened to cancel a $200m contract and deem Anthropic a “supply chain risk”, a designation with serious financial implications, if the company did not comply with the request by Friday.

Chief executive Dario Amodei said in a statement that the threats from the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth, would not change the company’s position, and that he hoped Hegseth would “reconsider”.

“Our strong preference is to continue to serve the Department and our warfighters – with our two requested safeguards in place,” he said. “We remain ready to continue our work to support the national security of the United States.” At the core of the Department of Defense and Anthropic’s standoff is a disagreement over how the AI company will permit its product, Claude, to be used. The Pentagon has demanded that Anthropic turn off safety guardrails and allow any lawful use of Claude, while Anthropic has pushed back against allowing Claude to be used for mass domestic surveillance or in autonomous weapons systems that can kill people without human input.

Whether Anthropic would concede was seen as a high-profile test of its claim to be the most safety-conscious of the major AI firms, as well as whether any part of the AI industry would push back against government desires to use the technology for controversial, potentially lethal purposes. In his statement, Amodei said using AI for autonomous weapons and mass domestic surveillance is “simply outside the bounds of what today’s technology can safely and reliably do”.

If Hegseth follows through with his threat to categorize Anthropic as a supply chain risk, it would be a huge blow to the AI company. The designation, which is more commonly intended to be used for foreign adversaries, would prohibit other vendors that do business with the US military from using Anthropic’s products.

Heh, I wonder if any of those waste, fraud and abuse shouters in congress can spot the waste, fraud and abuse here.

Homeland security awarded $250,000 contract to Trump-aligned consulting firm

The US Department of Homeland Security has awarded a $250,000 public relations contract to a Republican political consulting firm led by former Trump campaign officials with connections to Corey Lewandowski, a senior adviser to the DHS secretary, Kristi Noem, according to federal records reviewed by the Guardian.

On 26 September 2025, the DHS posted an opportunity for “public affairs consulting services”, specifying that the successful applicant would provide “strategic counsel” to top officials at the department including Noem. The work would also include ensuring that media outlets in “alignment with DHS priorities” were present at appearances with Noem, as well as drafting position papers and devising negotiation strategies “tailored to DHS’s priorities in border security, immigration enforcement, and cyber defense”.

Bids were due the next day. In a departure from federal procurement guidelines, the description of the work posted by the DHS also demanded partisan loyalty. “The contractor must demonstrate an established track record of promoting Trump administration policies in the media,” it stated. Preference would also be given to applicants “with prior experience in Cabinet-level communications, particularly those who served in a cabinet agency during the first Trump presidency”.

Four days after the opportunity was made public, the contract was awarded to American Made Media Company (AMMC) LLC, a political consultancy formed in early 2025, merging several existing GOP-oriented political operations. The company, based in Arlington, Virginia, is led by veterans of Donald Trump’s presidential campaigns: Sean Dollman, deputy director of operations on the 2016 run and chief financial officer in both 2020 and 2024; Nick Trainer, a special assistant to Trump during the first administration and director of battleground strategy in 2020; and Justin Clark, deputy national political director in 2016 and deputy campaign manager in 2020. Clark also served in the first Trump administration as director at both the White House office of public liaison and office of intergovernment affairs.

AMMC is an avowedly partisan, Republican firm with no apparent record of past government work. Its components include a data and polling agency, a direct mail operation and film production service, the latter having produced ads for the 2024 Trump campaign, former Trump personal physician turned Texas congressman Ronny Jackson and the labor secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer. A similarly named shell company, American Made Media Consultants, was a conduit for $782m in Trump campaign spending in 2020, the Associated Press reported; that company was run by AMMC’s Dollman.

"Abandoned By Border Patrol": Blind Refugee in Buffalo Dies in the Cold; Family Demands Answers

Mamdani Intervenes to Free Columbia Student Taken By ICE & Calls to Dismiss More Cases

Detained Columbia student released after Mamdani talks with Trump

The Columbia University student arrested and detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on Thursday morning has been released, according to social media. The student, Elmina Aghayeva, posted a story to her Instagram account in which she confirmed her release. “I just got out a little while ago,” the statement reads. “I am safe and okay. In an uber otw [on the way] home.” ... Aghayeva’s post was made shortly after New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, confirmed that Donald Trump had agreed to release Aghayeva, following a previously unannounced meeting between the two leaders.

Just got off the phone with President Trump.

In our meeting earlier, I shared my concerns about Columbia student Elmina Aghayeva, who was detained by ICE this morning.

He has just informed me that she will be released imminently. https://t.co/rvmTWpq83r

— Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani (@NYCMayor) February 26, 2026

Later on Thursday evening, the acting president of the elite institution in New York City, Claire Shipman, issued a video clarifying how Aghayeva’s arrest happened. “Shortly after 6am, five federal agents from the Department of Homeland Security – without any kind of warrant – entered an off-campus Columbia residential building. The agents gained entry by stating they were police searching for a missing child. They made their way to the apartment of the student they were targeting with this same story. Our security cameras captured the agents in the hallway, showing pictures of the alleged missing child. Once inside the apartment, it became clear they had misrepresented themselves,” Shipman explained.

She went on to share that a public safety officer had repeatedly asked the agents for a search warrant, which was not produced, and asked whether he could call his boss. The agents declined and Aghayeva was taken. “This was a frightening and fast-moving situation and utterly unacceptable for our students and staff,” Shipman continued, adding: “Let me be clear: misrepresenting identity and other facts to gain access to a residential building is a breach of protocol. All law enforcement agencies are obligated to follow established legal, ethical standards.”

A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the parent agency of ICE, denied that agents impersonated the NYPD. “The Homeland Security Investigators verbally identified themselves and visibly wore badges around their necks,” they said in a statement. “They did NOT and would not identify themselves as NYPD.” The DHS confirmed the student’s identity but appeared to suggest she was no longer a student. “ICE arrested Elmina Aghayeva, an illegal alien from Azerbaijan, whose student visa was terminated in 2016 under the Obama administration for failing to attend classes,” the spokesperson wrote in a statement. “The building manager and her roommate let officers into the apartment. She has no pending appeals or applications with DHS.”

Following Aghayeva’s detention, friends at the university frantically reached out to local officials for help. They said she was in her final semester at Columbia and majoring in neuroscience and political science.

UK Greens win big. Labour and Starmer suffer big defeat

Boss of World Economic Forum quits after links to Epstein revealed

The boss of the World Economic Forum (WEF) has quit following criticism of his connections to the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein. Børge Brende said he will step down as president and chief executive after more than eight years leading the body, which is best known for its annual meeting held each January in the Swiss mountain resort of Davos.

His departure comes after the forum launched an independent review after Brende admitted dining with Epstein on three occasions in 2018 and 2019. Recently published documents also showed texts and emails between the pair. Brende, who was previously the Norwegian foreign minister, claims he had been unaware of the crimes of the financier, who had been convicted in 2008 for soliciting prostitution from a minor.

In November, Brende denied having any contact with Epstein – but has since admitted to knowing him after their relationship came to light following the release of documents by the US Department of Justice.

Hillary Clinton accuses Republicans of ‘fishing expedition’ in Epstein testimony

Hillary Clinton delivered a withering rebuke to a congressional committee investigating her supposed links to Jeffrey Epstein on Thursday, accusing its Republican members of embarking on a “fishing expedition” intended to cover up and deflect attention from the actions of Donald Trump.

In a furious opening statement, the former secretary of state suggested the event was “partisan political theatre” and “an insult to the American people” while repeating her insistence that she had never met Epstein, the disgraced financier and convicted sex trafficker who died in 2019.

“You have compelled me to testify, fully aware that I have no knowledge that would assist your investigation, in order to distract attention from President Trump’s actions and to cover them up despite legitimate calls for answers,” she said, according to remarks she shared during the closed-door testimony.

Clinton’s onslaught came on the first day of a session that will also include a deposition on Friday by her husband, Bill Clinton, the former US president. The hearing is being staged at an arts center near the couple’s home in Chappaqua in upstate New York.

The Clintons reluctantly agreed to appear in response to a subpoena from the committee’s Republican chair, James Comer, after being threatened with contempt of Congress charges.

Massie GOES OFF on DOJ After MORE EPSTEIN COVERUPS Revealed

Epstein files contain explicit but unsubstantiated claim that Trump abused minor

Three memos that describe four interviews conducted by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in 2019 contain explicit but unsubstantiated claims that Donald Trump sexually abused a woman when she was a minor in the early 1980s with the assistance of Jeffrey Epstein, according to a Guardian review of those documents.

The Department of Justice did not release those records when it uploaded millions of pages of files related to Epstein beginning in December. The existence of the missing documents was first reported by independent journalist Roger Sollenberger and subsequently confirmed by NPR, causing outrage in Washington and sparking an investigation from congressional Democrats.

The Guardian obtained the missing FBI form 302 reports, which memorialize 25 pages of agents’ notes from the four interviews conducted in the summer and fall of 2019. The notes describe how the woman came forward to tell agents she recognized Epstein from a photo sent by a childhood friend. Only the first session, in which she did not name Trump, made it into the public release. The Guardian has chosen not to publish the woman’s name.

Her allegations have not been verified, and the FBI never brought charges related to her claims, which at times appear outlandish. Her statements also contradict what is known about Epstein’s life in the early 1980s. The millions of investigative documents released by the DoJ have contained explosive allegations that have led to resignations and arrests, but also specious claims that have later proven false. Trump has consistently denied wrongdoing related to Epstein, and said last week: “I did nothing.”

An administration official confirmed the three missing reports obtained by the Guardian are authentic. The DoJ told NPR “nothing has been deleted” and that any withheld material was either duplicative or privileged, a claim echoed by an administration official to Breitbart, which has also reviewed the files. The three missing documents contain an expanded version of the allegations that were summarized in an internal FBI slideshow about the Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell investigations created in 2025.

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Political storm in Wyoming as far-right activist caught handing checks to lawmakers

Controversy has engulfed Wyoming’s state legislature after a conservative activist was photographed handing checks to Republican lawmakers on the state house floor, in an incident that has highlighted intra-conservative divisions and the role of money in the Cowboy state’s politics.

The political storm started on 9 February, when Karlee Provenza, a Democratic lawmaker, took a photo showing Rebecca Bextel, a conservative activist and committeewoman for the Teton county Republican party, handing a check to Darin McCann, a Republican representative, on the legislative floor. Marlene Brady, another Republican representative, stands in the photo’s background, a similar piece of paper pinched between her fingers.

“You have a person from the richest county in the country coming down to Cheyenne to hand out checks on the house floor,” Provenza said. “I have never seen something so egregious.”

Questions around the checks were soon swirling, and answers weren’t forthcoming. When asked what Bextel gave to her, Brady told a reporter for local outlet WyoFile: “I can’t remember.” Then Bextel herself addressed the incident. “I raised $400,000 in the last election cycle for conservative candidates, and I will be doubling that amount this year,” Bextel wrote on Facebook on 11 February. “There’s nothing wrong with delivering lawful campaign checks from Teton county donors when I am in Cheyenne.”

Since then, it has emerged that the checks came from Don Grasso, a wealthy Teton county donor, who told the Jackson Hole News and Guide that he wrote the checks for Bextel to deliver to 10 Freedom caucus-aligned politicians. Grasso said the checks were intended as campaign contributions, and were not tied to specific legislation. It is unclear how many checks were ultimately delivered, but two of four confirmed recipients include the speaker of the house, Chip Neiman, and John Bear, the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The Wyoming house has formed a legislative investigative committee, and the Laramie county sheriff’s office said they would open a criminal investigation.

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Judge sides with salmon against Trump administration in hydropower ruling

A federal judge in Oregon sided with salmon against the Trump administration on Wednesday, ordering the federal government to change hydropower system operations long considered at the heart of native fish populations’ sharp decline.

At the center of the dispute are eight dams and reservoirs on the Columbia and Snake Rivers in the Pacific north-west that have created devastating obstacles for salmon and steelhead unable to breach their deadly turbines or navigate through the large, warm, artificial pools. The federal agencies and their supporters, which include a group of utilities, water managers and farming organizations, argued that reservoir drawdown would put power reliability in peril.

Legal battles waged for decades over the harms were paused in 2021 as stakeholders – which include the states of Oregon and Washington, four Native American tribes and a coalition of conservation and fishing groups – began working with the Biden administration on a solution. In the Resilient Columbia Basin Agreement, a landmark salmon recovery plan brokered in late 2023, the federal government committed more than $1bn over a decade to support depleted salmon runs and new investments into clean energy projects in the area to replace the hydropower generated by the dams. The plan, however, would be short-lived.

Months after returning to office, Trump withdrew from the agreement, calling it “radical environmentalism”, and the parties quickly returned to court. But in a strongly worded ruling, issued late on Wednesday, the Oregon US district court judge Michael Simon rebuked the administration’s position and the “disappointing history of government avoidance and manipulation instead of sincere efforts at solving the problem”, and the evidence presented, which he said was created for the lawsuit and contradicted the scientific record.

In a report issued under Biden in 2024 and removed from public access by the Trump administration, the Department of the Interior acknowledged that the dams inflicted harm on the river and the Native American tribes that depend on it. Construction of the dams at the turn of the 20th century transformed riparian ecosystems and devastated salmon runs, flooded villages and burial grounds, and pushed tribal members from their lands, traditions, culture and food sources. The Columbia River basin, which sprawls across a swath of land the size of Texas, once produced more salmon than any other system in the world. But out of the 16 stocks of salmon and steelhead that once thrived here, seven are listed under the Endangered Species Act and four have already been wiped from existence.

Democrats urge dropping plan to double gas exports as US energy prices soar

As energy prices for US households soar nationwide, Democratic and progressive lawmakers are calling on the energy department to end its plan to double exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG). “The Trump administration’s LNG export policies are not putting America first: they have jacked up utility prices for families, leaving many Americans struggling with the cost of heating their homes this winter,” reads a letter to the energy secretary, Chris Wright, sent the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Independent senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and seven others.

Exports of LNG – methane gas that is cooled and turned into a liquid for easier long-distance transport – boomed under former president Joe Biden. Since Trump re-entered office last January, they have soared even higher, growing 26% in 2025 with an additional 8% increase expected this year, according to federal data.

Trump officials have repeatedly stated their desire to continue increasing LNG exports. Last fall, Wright declared that he wants to “double the natural gas exports”, the letter notes. That increase is at odds with Trump’s repeated pledges to slash Americans’ utility bills, the lawmakers write in the letter, sent Wednesday night. In a June report, the senators note, the Energy Information Administration found that 2025’s higher natural gas prices, and projected increases in 2026, “are the result of strong export growth that persistently outpaces US natural gas production”. Utilities and state regulators have confirmed that increased exports have pushed up bills, the letter also says.

“The mechanism is simple supply and demand: increased exports leave less natural gas available for domestic consumers, increasing prices for residential ratepayers,” reads the letter.

Bird flu kills dozens of elephant seal pups at California state park

An outbreak of a highly pathogenic strain of bird flu has killed more than two dozen elephant seal pups in California, leading to the temporary closure of seal-viewing areas at a popular Bay Area park. California’s Año Nuevo state park is home to an elephant seal colony with about 5,000 seals during the marine mammals’ breeding season, which runs from mid-December through March. Researchers said about 30 seals had died as of Thursday, nearly all of them weaned pups, amid the rise of avian influenza.

A team of researchers from the University of California at Davis and UC Santa Cruz has intensified its monitoring efforts since detecting the outbreak last week, which marks the first cases of HPAI H5N1 in marine mammals in California. This strain was catastrophic farther south, in Argentina, where the outbreak led to a 70% mortality rate among pups born during the 2023 breeding season.

“Our team has been so dedicated working around the clock, over time, whatever it takes to continue monitoring this outbreak,” Roxanne Beltran, a professor and leader of UC Santa Cruz’s northern elephant seal research program at Año Nuevo, told the Guardian. “It’s a really hard, emotional thing to go through as undergraduate, graduate students and young scientists to watch the seals that you’ve gotten to know over the years get sick.”

Beltran noted that, as of Thursday, deaths had remained at a steady, relatively low number rather than increasing exponentially. It remains unclear how the seals contracted the virus or whether it will spread beyond California.

“We don’t yet know where the seals got the virus, and we don’t know if, for example, they got it from birds, if the birds move in a way that could transmit the virus outside of California,” she said. It also remains uncertain why weaned pups seem more susceptible to contracting the strain.

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Also of Interest

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

Chris Hedges: The Suicidal Folly of a War with Iran

Iran – U.S. Negotiators Block Progress With Unreasonable Demands

Palestinian Nerdeen Kiswani files civil rights lawsuit against Zionist Betar USA under Ku Klux Klan Act

Pakistan strikes Kabul hours after Afghanistan attack on border troops

Cuba vows to fight ‘terrorist aggression’ after attack from US-registered boat

Pentagon Doesn’t Know What to Do With $500 Bn

Family of Ruben Ray Martinez Demands Answers After Grand Jury Declines to Indict ICE Agent Who Killed Him

The IRS broke the law by disclosing confidential information to ICE 42,695 times

Kristi Noem meets with Democratic lawmaker in ‘combative’ meeting about ICE conduct

‘Batshit Authoritarianism’: Trump Allies Drafting Order to Give Him ‘Extraordinary Power Over Voting’

Trump Policies and “Donald Dash” Expats Produce Net Emigration for US, Prospective Population Shrinkage

Ancient stepwells brought back to life as India begins to run out of water

Research suggests mating direction bias between Neanderthals and humans

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A Little Night Music

Rory Gallagher – It Takes Time

Rory Gallagher – Edged In Blue

Rory Gallagher – Used To Be

Rory Gallagher – Don't Know Where I'm Going

Rory Gallagher - I Fall Apart

Rory Gallagher – Off The Handle

Rory Gallagher – Hands Up

Rory Gallagher – Never Asked You For Nothin'

Rory Gallagher - Let Me In

Rory Gallagher – Whole Lot Of People

Rory Gallagher – Unmilitary Two Step

Rory Gallagher live (full show) | Rockpalast | 1977

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