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The Evening Blues - 4-13-26

Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 4:34pm


eb1pt12

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Bo Carter

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features a guitarist with a one-track mind, Bo Carter. Enjoy!

Bo Carter - All Around Man

“They got money for wars, but can’t feed the poor.”

-- Tupac Shakur

News and Opinion

Nobody’s “Obsessed” With Israel — It’s Just A Uniquely Horrible Country

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar has accused Spain of an “anti-Israel obsession” for its criticisms of the US-Israeli war on Iran and its refusal to allow its airspace to be used in the onslaught, a perceived slight to which Israel has responded by banning Madrid from participation in a coordination center for the oversight of the so-called “ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip.

We’ve been hearing this “obsession” talking point from Israel and its apologists a lot lately. A recent article from the Jewish News Syndicate carries the headline “Why is the media obsessed with violent Israelis?”, bizarrely trying to argue that the western press likes to “smear Israelis” in order “to distract attention from Palestinian terror.” The other day right-wing pundit Meghan Murphy had a strange conversation with Tablet Magazine editor Jacob Siegel about our society’s “recent insane obsession with Israel,” speaking as though everyone just randomly began fixating on this genocidal apartheid state out of nowhere a short while ago, for no valid reason.

The argument, as I understand it, is that Israel is just a normal small country like any other small country, and any special focus on it suggests a sinister desire to single out Jews for discrimination.

But have you ever noticed how the same people who accuse Israel’s critics of “obsession” with a tiny insignificant country will also fall all over themselves to tell you that Israel is an indispensable ally whose interests are inextricably intertwined with the interests of western civilization?

When Israel is being criticized they try to frame it as unworthy of special attention; when alliances and military aid for Israel are being criticized they frame it as worthy of all our resources and energy. When Israel’s evil actions are making headlines, its apologists try to frame it as an itty bitty country the size of New Jersey trying to mind its own business while being victimized by obsessive hatred from the entire world because its inhabitants happen to be Jewish. When people question why their tax dollars and military resources need to support that small nation in west Asia, suddenly the argument pivots in the exact opposite direction: Israel is massively important, and is absolutely central to the wellbeing of the west.

You can claim Israel is a crucial ally in the middle east, OR you can claim it’s discriminatory to focus more on Israel’s crimes than the abuses of other countries. You can’t claim both are true, because they’re contradictory. Israel can’t be (A) immensely significant and intimately involved in the fate of our own society, and also (B) insignificant and unworthy of special attention. It’s either A or B. It can’t be simultaneously deserving AND undeserving of special treatment.


In reality, everyone in the world has every right to focus their attention on Israel — especially right now while its efforts to sabotage the ceasefire with Iran threaten to cause a global fuel crisis. You don’t get to cause a global fuel crisis and then act like you’re just an uwu smol bean who’s being singled out because of your religion.

But really Israel has always been worthy of critical attention in the west, exactly because it is so intimately intertwined with western power structures. Its genocide in Gaza is our genocide. Its abuses are our abuses. Its wars directly impact us. The aggressive push from its lobbyists to stomp out free speech throughout our society is taking away our rights.

Israel is our business, and it always has been. We are right to spotlight its criminality, and the complicity of our own western governments in those crimes.

Israel supporters will tell me “Oh yeah well how come you don’t criticize Egypt’s humanitarian abuses, huh? How come you’re not tweeting every day about the human rights violations of Iran? Something in particular about this one specific middle eastern country that draws your attention, is there? Perhaps you just HATE JEWS??”


But the reason I criticize Israel more than Egypt or Iran has nothing to do with religion. Egyptian aggressions aren’t starting wars of immense consequence which directly affect me. Nobody’s trying to make it illegal to criticize Iran in my country. My government is providing material and diplomatic cover for wars and genocides for this one country in particular, and eroding my free speech rights in order to protect its information interests. This would be true regardless of what religion or ethnicity happens to be favored in this one particular nation.

I’m not “obsessed” with Israel. Does it look like I’m having a great time talking about this horrible apartheid state every day? Does it look fun having people call me a Nazi in my replies all the time?

I wish I could ignore Israel completely. If it were up to me, I would. But because my own society is so complicit in its abuses, and because its abuses affect my society directly, I have an obligation to call out its wrongdoing. And so does every other westerner.

Seyed M. Marandi: Negotiations Collapsed - Return to War

Planeloads of negotiators and too little time: US and Iran’s 21 hours of talks

It was as if the two delegations in the Iran-US peace talks in Islamabad hoped that the sheer number of negotiators flown into Pakistan could overcome the handicap of having only a finite number of hours in which to settle a 20-year dispute over Iran’s nuclear ambitions, now overlaid by complex new issues such as future control of the strait of Hormuz and US compensation for its attack on Iran. Iran sent two planeloads of negotiators. They included many members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), present to ensure that no gains made in the field were relinquished at the diplomatic table. Diplomats fanned out across political, legal, security, economic and military files. One Iranian-drafted technical explanation on nuclear facility safety ran to more than 100 pages.

The US, often accused of leaving talks to the “noteless” special envoy Steve Witkoff, sent not just the vice-president, JD Vance, but nearly 300 other officials. It was if it finally realised that the Iranian negotiating team, including figures such as Ali Bagheri Kani, the deputy secretary of the supreme national security council and the chief negotiator in previous nuclear talks, and Abbas Araghchi, the chief negotiator in 2015 and now the foreign minister, might be on top of their brief.

Vance spoke to Donald Trump at least a dozen times during the talks, and even once to Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu, a conversation Araghchi was quick to claim led to a hardening of the US position. But it was probably unrealistic to expect issues that took up two years of negotiations in Vienna between 2013 and 2015 over the nuclear deal to be resolved in one marathon session.

Robert Malley, a veteran of nuclear talks with Iran under Joe Biden, noted pithily: “Twenty-one hours was 20 hours too many if the goal was to reiterate a demand Iran had already rejected. It was many hours too few if the goal was to negotiate.” Another US state department veteran, Aaron David Miller, noted if the administration believed that after only 21 hours of negotiations Iran would give up enrichment – which is what Vance implied – it totally misread the moment and the Iranian delegation.

In that context, it was unfortunate that Vance spoke of coming to Islamabad to see “if we could get to a situation where the Iranians were willing to accept our terms”. The former Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, a brave advocate of talks with the US even in wartime, was not the only Iranian to claim this sentence revealed an unchanging US take-it-or-leave-it arrogance. “No negotiations at least with Iran will succeed based on our/your terms,” he said. “The US must learn: you cannot dictate terms to Iran. It’s not too late to learn. Yet.”

Alastair Crooke : Iran Will Not Be Bullied


Scott Ritter : Who Controls Hormuz?

‘This is not serious leadership’: Donald Trump and Marco Rubio watch UFC in Miami as Iran talks fail

Donald Trump and US secretary of state Marco Rubio attended a UFC event in Miami night on Saturday night as peace talks with Iran failed on the other side of the world.

Trump entered the Kaseya Center shortly after 9pm alongside several members of his family and UFC chief Dana White, who has been a supporter of the president since his first term. Seated nearby was Rubio as well as the US ambassador to India, Sergio Gor, the rapper Vanilla Ice and former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino.

“The Secretary of State skipped the Iran negotiations in Pakistan to attend a UFC fight. So did the Special Envoy for South and Central Asia, while Pakistan has no confirmed U.S. ambassador,” the House Democrats Foreign Affairs Committee wrote on X. “Tens of thousands of Americans are in harm’s way. Gas prices are rising. This is not serious leadership. It’s amateur hour.”


Despite his falling approval ratings and the unpopularity of the war with Iran among the American public, Trump was given a rousing greeting by the crowd as a Kid Rock song blasted in the background. The president shook hands with fans, smiled for cameras and greeted the UFC broadcast team, which included influential podcaster Joe Rogan.

As Trump watched the evening’s fights, the US vice-president, JD Vance, was telling reporters that peace talks with Iran in Pakistan had failed. Trump did not show any signs the conflict in the Middle East was on his mind and was intent on the fighters in the cage, although he leaned over to talk to Rubio occasionally.

Norm Finkelstein RESPONDS To Tucker Saying Trump Israel's "Slave"


Candace, Tucker Give BRUTALLY ACCURATE Responses To Trump's Tirade

Trump says US will blockade strait of Hormuz after Iran peace talks fail

Donald Trump has said the US will begin blockading the strait of Hormuz in an attempt to take control of the strategic waterway from Iran in the aftermath of failed peace negotiations between the countries in Pakistan. The US president also threatened to bomb Iran’s water treatment facilities, power plants and bridges if Tehran did not agree to abandon its nuclear weapons programme [the weapons program that exists only in netanyahu's fevered imagination. -js], the key sticking point between the two sides.

Trump’s surprise announcement of a blockade came after face-to-face peace negotiations between the US and Iran in Islamabad that lasted 21 hours collapsed on Sunday morning.

JD Vance, the vice-president and head of the US team, said Iran had refused to give up the possibility of developing nuclear weapons, while the Iranian delegates said Washington needed to do more to win their trust.

Risking another increase in oil prices, Trump said he had instructed the US navy to begin “blockading any and all ships trying to enter, or leave, the strait of Hormuz,” and he accused Iran of extortion with its own scheme of charging tolls to tankers. US Central Command announced the blockade would begin on Monday at 10am ET (2pm GMT). Iran’s Revolutionary Guards responded by declaring that if any warships approached the strait to enforce a blockade – usually considered an act of war – it would be considered a breach of the current ceasefire and would be dealt with strongly. They insisted the strait remained under Iranian control.

Trump said US warships would “seek and interdict every vessel” that had paid Iran since the start of the conflict and begin de-mining the central section of the strait, previously declared a “hazardous area” by Tehran, although it is unclear how many mines have been laid. About 100 tankers have transited the strait since the US and Israel started bombing Iran, paying up to $2m each time for passage. Many were bound for China and India, carrying Iranian oil products, and chasing them down could complicate relations between the US and the importing nations.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : No Peace Without a Free Palestine


UK will not join any Trump blockade of strait of Hormuz

The UK will not be involved in any blockade of the strait of Hormuz, the Guardian understands, after claims by Donald Trump on Sunday that the US would be blockading the waterway with the assistance of Nato allies. Speaking to Fox News, Trump said “it won’t take long to clean out the strait” and claimed “numerous countries are going to be helping us”, adding that the UK and other nations were sending minesweepers.

The UK has previously suggested it could play a role in making the strait of Hormuz safe to pass, and it has mine-hunting systems and anti-drone capabilities already in the region. But there have been concerns in Whitehall that complying with Trump’s demand to send ships could escalate the crisis. The UK’s willingness to consider a role in mine-removal operations is seen as distinct from Trump’s blockade proposal.

A government spokesperson said the UK would continue to “support freedom of navigation and the opening of the strait of Hormuz, which is urgently needed to support the global economy and the cost of living back home”. They added: “The strait of Hormuz must not be subject to tolling. We are urgently working with France and other partners to put together a wide coalition to protect freedom of navigation.” Starmer has previously said talks were ongoing between allies in Europe, the Gulf partners and the US to create a “credible, viable plan” for reopening the strait after Iran blocked traffic.

Trump’s comments around a blockade of the strait of Hormuz came hours after Wes Streeting criticised his rhetoric on Iran as “incendiary, provocative and outrageous”. On Sunday Trump again hit out at the UK’s actions during the conflict and repeated a jibe that appeared to compare Starmer to Neville Chamberlain.

How Kushner SCREWED Iran Negotiations

New Evidence Bolsters Claim That US Lied About Another Iran Airstrike Massacre

New information published Friday by the New York Times further suggests that the US military may have lied when it tried to pin the blame for a February airstrike that killed 21 people in Iran on the Iranian government, with evidence indicating that the US carried out the attack with a new missile designed to inflict maximum casualties.

While much of the world knows about the February 28 massacre of around 175 children and staff at the Shajareh Tayyebeh girls’ elementary school in Minab—and about how President Donald Trump initially blamed Iran for the slaughter—the strike that hit a sports hall and playground in Lamerd on the same day, the first day of the war, received far less media coverage.

Munitions experts and the Times concluded that US-made Precision Strike Missiles, or PrSMs—pronounced “prism”—struck the residential area of the southern Iranian city. Developed by Lockheed Martin, PrSMs are airburst weapons, exploding above their targets and blasting 180,000 lethal tungsten pellets in every direction. Video footage of the Lamerd strike shows multiple airbursts.

The Times verified the identities of 21 people killed in the strike. At least five victims were children, the youngest of them just 2 years old. Helma Ahmadizadeh, 10, and Elham Zaeri, 11, were attending volleyball practice at the sports hall when it was bombed. Helma survived the strike with no visible injuries. However, she told her coach that she felt something enter her body. A medical examination at a local hospital revealed a small object in her body. She subsequently died.

“A young boy, Ilia Khatami, was killed alongside his coach, Mahmoud Najaf,” the newspaper said. “The Times confirmed their deaths, and the death of a second boy, Abdul Mosavar Rahmani, who was from Afghanistan.”

The 2-year-old, Avina Barzegar, was mortally wounded by a small object while she was playing outside her home. Video posted on Telegram shows her being treated in a local hospital before she died.

Local officials said 100 other people were injured in the attack.

Pentagon officials previously denied US responsibility for the attack following the March 29 publication of a Times investigation that used video analysis to identify PrSMs as the missiles used in the strike. US Central Command (CENTCOM) spokesperson Capt. Tim Hawkins issued a statement on March 31 calling reports that the US carried out the attack “false” and suggesting that weapon used in the strike was an Iranian Hoveyzeh cruise missile.

The Times’ latest analysis is “based on new video footage of detonations, new photo evidence of the damage, a missile-trajectory assessment, and the perspectives of multiple experts, including three US government officials.”

Findings include distinctive damage patterns consistent with tungsten pellet dispersion from a PrSM airburst, the discovery of a third detonation site consistent with a PrSM, a strike trajectory indicating the missile was launched from where US forces are based, and the sports hall’s proximity to an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base. The Minab girls’ school is also located very close to an IRGC base.

Critically, Iran does not have any missiles in its arsenal that function in a similar manner to PrSMs.

“The problem is that CENTCOM chose as an alternative a very identifiable missile,” Amaël Kotlarski, who leads the weapons team at the defense intelligence firm Janes, told the Times. “And the Hoveyzeh’s distinct features aren’t seen in the video.”

Shahryar Pasandideh, another military analyst consulted by the Times, said “there is no public information to suggest that Iranian cruise missiles, including the Hoveyzeh, are equipped with an airburst fuse, let alone an airburst fuse and pre-formed tungsten pellets.”

After the Minab massacre, Trump claimed that Iran had somehow acquired a US Tomahawk missile and used it to blow up the school.

An earlier investigation by the BBC Verify also concluded that the Lamerd strike was carried out using US PrSM missiles.


More than 3,000 people have been killed over 42 days of US and Israeli strikes on Iran, according to medical officials there. This figure reportedly includes over 1,300 civilians, hundreds of whom are women and children.

IRAN THREATENS BAB EL-MANDEB STRAIT AS U.S. IMPOSES STRAIT OF HORMUZ BLOCKADE

Israel destroys entire villages in Lebanon

The Israeli military has demolished entire villages as part of its invasion of south Lebanon, rigging homes with explosives and razing them to the ground in massive remote detonations. The Guardian reviewed three videos posted by the Israeli military and on social media, which showed Israel carrying out mass detonations in the villages of Taybeh, Naqoura and Deir Seryan along the Israel-Lebanon border. Lebanese media has reported more mass detonations in other border villages, but satellite imagery was not readily available to verify these claims.

The demolitions came after Israel’s minister of defence, Israel Katz, called for the destruction of “all houses” in border villages “in accordance with the model used in Rafah and Beit Hanoun in Gaza” to stop threats to communities in northern Israel. The Israeli military destroyed 90% of homes in Rafah, in south Gaza. The tactic of mass destruction of homes in Gaza, where Israel has been accused of committing genocide, was described as domicide by academics, a strategy that is used to systematically destroy and damage civilian housing to render entire areas uninhabitable.

The Israeli military has said they are targeting Hezbollah infrastructure such as tunnels and military facilities, which it claims the armed group has embedded in civilian homes, through these demolitions. Israel has said that it will occupy vast swathes of south Lebanon, establishing a “security zone” in the entire area up to the Litani River, and that displaced people would not be allowed to return to their homes until the safety of Israel’s northern cities is guaranteed, prompting concern there will be long-term displacement.

Rights groups, however, have said these mass remote detonations could amount to wanton destruction: a war crime. The laws of war prohibit the deliberate destruction of civilian homes, except when necessary for lawful military reasons. “The possibility that Hezbollah may use some civilian structures in Lebanon’s border villages for military purposes does not justify the wide-scale destruction of entire villages along the border,” said Ramzi Kaiss, the Lebanon researcher for Human Rights Watch.

For residents of border villages, who watched the videos of the destruction of their houses with horror, the detonations erased not only their homes, but also generations of memories. “The first thing we saw was the town square being blown up. I have a shop there. A person’s whole life is in that place, their work, their memories, everything. Suddenly you see it exploding in front of you,” said Ahmad Abu Taam, a 56-year-old construction supply shop owner from Taybeh. “From that moment, I felt that I had become a refugee. I feel like I have no home.”

Ray McGovern : Israel Lost the War and Netanyahu Back on Trial

US lawmakers split on party lines over negotiations’ failure to end Iran war

The failure of negotiations to end the US war with Iran has unleashed a barrage of starkly partisan political responses, with leading Republicans making hawkish calls for Donald Trump to “finish the job” while top Democrats warned that it would be disastrous for the president to resume hostilities.

The former UN ambassador during Trump’s first presidency, Nikki Haley, led the Republican charge. She told CNN’s State of the Union on Sunday that the current two-week ceasefire was a test of nerves. “This is like a game of chicken,” she said. “It’s who caves first. The Iranian regime is hoping that Trump will cave. Today, he showed he’s not.”

Speaking on ABC’s This Week, US senator Ron Johnson – a Wisconsin Republican – also urged Trump to take a hard line. He advocated the total removal of the Iranian regime, admitting that the task “could be longer term”. A top priority for Republican war hawks is to prevent Iran ever acquiring nuclear weapons by seizing its supplies of enriched uranium. Haley gave a rosy appraisal of how that could be accomplished. The US could launch a relatively small and quick special forces operation to grab the country’s stash of enriched uranium, she told CNN. “This is a special forces mission,” she said. “It would take about a week to 10 days to get done. They know how to do it.”

US senator Mark Warner of Virginia, who is the top Democrat on the Senate’s intelligence committee, fiercely rebutted Haley’s bellicose remarks. He told State of the Union that attempting to seize Iran’s 1,000lb canisters of highly volatile enriched uranium would be “very, very dangerous”. Warner’s fellow Democratic senator from Virginia, Tim Kaine, told This Week that he would be pressing again for a war motion in the Senate in the coming days to try to stop Trump returning to full-scale hostilities. He argued that even an imperfect ceasefire would be preferable to resuming war.

“Returning to full war will just compound the suffering of American troops and the American citizenry who are suffering under a devastated economy because of what Donald Trump has done,” Kaine said.

Maker of Pro-Iran Lego Videos Breaks Silence on Viral Propaganda Clips

Collapse of US-Iran talks heightens fears of prolonged energy shock

The failure of the US and Iran to reach a peace deal after marathon negotiations has put markets on alert for further oil and gas price rises. With large numbers of oil tankers remaining stuck in the Gulf, the US vice-president, JD Vance, blamed the collapse of the talks on Tehran’s refusal to abandon its nuclear weapons programme, while Iranian sources hit back at “excessive” demands from Washington.

Vance, who left Islamabad on Sunday morning after 21 hours of talks with Iranian officials in the Pakistani capital, said his team had been very clear on its red lines as hopes faded of a quick end to the war that began on 28 February with US and Israeli airstrikes on Tehran.

A weekend market in US crude oil operated by the broker IG indicated that the oil price was going to rise when trading begins on Sunday night, UK time, to about $98 a barrel, from about $96.50 on Friday night before the peace talks in Pakistan. Tony Sycamore, market analyst at IG Australia, said: “Unless a sudden U-turn emerges, energy markets are set for a rocky open when regular trading resumes tomorrow morning.”

Analysts at JPMorgan Chase expect oil prices to stay high in the second quarter, above $100 a barrel, before easing in the second half of the year. Oil prices fluctuated wildly last week and fell below $100 a barrel on Wednesday after a two-week ceasefire was announced. They ended the week lower, with Brent crude at $94.26 a barrel, compared with a peak of $119.45 during the war and about $72 a barrel before the conflict began.

Korean Pres FLAMES Israel As Asia SCREWED By Trump

‘I feel helpless’: college graduates can’t find entry-level roles in shrinking market amid rise of AI

American college graduates are facing the worst entry-level job market since the pandemic, with the underemployment rate reaching 42.5% – its highest level since 2020. Several young graduates told the Guardian about their struggles navigating a job market shaped by tightening opportunities, the rise of AI and shifting employer expectations.

Gillian Frost, a 22-year-old student at Smith College in Massachusetts, has been searching for work since last September. Majoring in quantitative economics with a minor in government and set to graduate in May, she described a grueling and often discouraging process. “Every weekend, I dedicate over two hours to job applications. As of today, I’ve applied to over 90 jobs. I’ve been ghosted by nearly 25% of them and rejected automatically from around 55%,” she said. Despite securing some interviews, Frost said the lack of communication from employers had been particularly frustrating.

For Jeff Kubat, a 31-year-old in St Cloud, Minnesota, the challenge is different but no less severe. After spending eight years optimizing accounts payable at a construction company, he returned to school to pursue a master’s in accounting. He has since struggled to secure a role. “I should be about to graduate and it’s been a struggle to job hunt … Even companies out in small-town Minnesota are being incredibly literal in who they’re looking for and it’s just a dearth of willingness to train people who have relatable backgrounds into what they need,” Kubat said. As his job search continues, Kubat said he was beginning to lower his expectations.

Others said the difficulty lies not just in finding jobs, but in meeting increasingly demanding requirements. A 25-year-old graduate from New York University who majored in media, culture and communications said many so-called entry-level roles felt out of reach. The graduate also described the growing influence of automated hiring systems, saying: “For every job, especially ones for larger entities who are likelier to use AI in the hiring process, it’s essential to tailor my resume explicitly for that position and include as many keywords as possible. It’s aggravating and exhausting, but sadly a necessity in this fucked-up market and point in technological development.”

Entire State Of Ohio Being BOUGHT UP By Epstein Benefactor Lex Wexner! w/ Whitney Webb

Trump’s new budget ignores dying Americans and gives away record sums to the US military

Americans are dying in droves. Deaths due to avoidable causes in the United States –which could be dealt with via prevention or proper healthcare – far outpace those in most of country’s peers in the industrialized world. Most notably, Americans die of treatable conditions at nearly twice the rate as Spaniards, French, Japanese and Australians.

They would most likely live longer if they enjoyed better access to healthcare. Americans are the most likely to skip a doctor’s appointment due to its cost, the most likely to skip a medical test and to skimp on prescription drugs. This is unsurprising, given the extraordinary lack of public health insurance in the United States. Americans face the highest out-of-pocket expenses for medical services in their peer group.

Donald Trump evidently does not believe this is an issue for the world’s richest nation. If the budget for 2027 the White House proposed last week is anything to go by, healthcare is not the government’s problem: the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) could see its budget cut by over $15bn, 12% less compared with this year. The cut comes on top of the evisceration of the healthcare budget last year, when the president’s “big, beautiful bill” (BBB) cut more than $1tn over 10 years from Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act marketplaces, largely by imposing onerous work requirements on Medicaid that will push 15 million Americans to lose health insurance, according to some analysts.

What does Trump care about? The BBB communicated his overarching interest in cutting the tax bill of the well-to-do, offering up a $4.5tn tax cut over 10 years that will boost the after-tax income of the richest 10% of the population by 2.7%, a cool $13,622 per household, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Trump’s other interest is hard power, to better crush his foes. The BBB last year included $165bn for the Department of Homeland Security to “deliver on the President’s mandate to arrest and deport criminal illegal aliens and make America safe again”. Last week, he bet the house to pay for a bigger military. As he put it at an Easter lunch reception last week: “We have to take care of one thing: military protection. We have to guard the country.”

That is proving expensive. By some estimates, the Pentagon spent $12.7bn in the first six days and $28bn in a little over five weeks on the war against Iran, which appears to have next to nothing to do with guarding the country. His budget proposal, released last week, the one that cut the budget for HHS by 12% and the entire non-defense budget by 10%, was transparent about the Brobdingnagian sums Trump wants to spend on this kind of stuff: $1.5tn in 2027 alone. About three times Iran’s entire GDP and 42% more than the budget for 2026. The message to everyday Americans is: beware. The cuts to the non-defense budget in the 2027 proposal are nowhere near enough to cover this increase in defense spending. Given Trump’s and the Republican party’s aversion to taxes, they are all but certain to come after the rest of the safety net to cover the bill.


the evening greens

‘Illegal’ forest service overhaul risks causing ‘chaos’ across US public lands, union claims

US public lands will “pay the price” of a drive by Donald Trump’s officials to restructure the agency that oversees them, union leaders have warned, accusing the administration of forcing workers to decide whether to relocate or resign. All regional offices of the US Forest Service, which manages 78m hectares (193m acres) of land – roughly the size of Texas – are set to close as part of an overhaul launched by the Trump administration. The service has already shed hundreds of staff members since Trump returned to power last year.

The latest restructuring, announced on 30 March, includes a move to relocate the agency’s headquarters from Washington DC to Salt Lake City, Utah; the consolidation of 57 research facilities into a single site in Colorado; and the closure of regional offices across the country in favor of 15 politically appointed “state directors”.

“Trump’s moves are illegal, because this kind of activity was explicitly prohibited in fiscal year 2026 appropriations,” said Steve Lenkart, executive director of the National Federation of Federal Employees (NFFE), which represents 20,000 workers at the service. “The Republican Congress is allowing the White House to break the law and violate the constitution, without so much as a peep from our big, brave, so-called freedom-seeking Republicans. They won’t even uphold their own oaths to support and defend the constitution from tyranny.”

Lenkart and his allies point to a section of the fiscal year 2026 budget that stipulates funding for the agency cannot be put towards a reprogramming that “relocates an office or employees” or “reorganizes or renames offices, programs, or activities”. The US Forest Service and the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), which oversees the service, did not comment on the allegation of illegality.

The NFFE has condemned the restructuring plan. “The Trump administration cannot dress up a mass workforce disruption as commonsense management,” said Randy Erwin, its national president. “Uprooting their careers and blowing up the structure they work within is not a reform. It is chaos, and the American public and our public lands will pay the price.” Steven Gutierrez, a former US Forest Service firefighter and business representative at the federation, said the plan didn’t feel like a reorganization. “This is more than a reorganization,” he said. “For many employees, it feels like relocate or resign.” The union was informed of the changes less than 30 minutes before the news was made public, according to Gutierrez.

Mauritius vows to ‘decolonise’ Chagos Islands after Starmer shelves handover

A senior official in Mauritius’ government has vowed that the Chagos Islands will be “decolonised” after Keir Starmer was forced to shelve legislation to hand the islands back to Mauritius. On Friday, UK government officials acknowledged that they had run out of time to pass legislation within the current parliamentary session, which ends in the coming weeks, after a lack of support from Donald Trump.

After the collapse of the plan to hand the islands over voluntarily, Dhananjay Ramful, the Mauritian foreign minister, told an Indian Ocean conference in Mauritius that his government would regain control over the territory. “We will spare no effort to seize any diplomatic or legal avenue to complete the decolonisation process,” he said, in comments that were first reported in the Sunday Telegraph. “This is a matter of justice.”

The latest setback in the UK’s bid to hand the Chagos Islands to Mauritius, which hosts the joint US-UK Diego Garcia military base, is a sign of faltering US-UK relations after Trump’s criticism of Starmer over the war in Iran. The US president had criticised the Chagos plan, which is backed by the US state department, telling Starmer he was “making a big mistake” by handing sovereignty of the islands to Mauritius in exchange for the UK and US being allowed to continue using their airbase.

Trump later gave qualified support, but the UK was forced to drop the bill after the US failed to give its approval by formally exchanging letters to amend a 1966 British-American treaty on the islands. A new Chagos bill is not now expected to feature in the king’s speech in May, where the government’s agenda for the coming parliament is revealed.

The Chagos Islands are officially known as British Indian Ocean Territory and have been controlled by the UK since the 19th century. In 2019, the international court of justice found that the UK unlawfully separated the islands from Mauritius before it granted independence to the country in 1968. Thousands of islanders were then forcibly deported to make way for the US-UK military base. A government spokesperson said: “Diego Garcia is a key strategic military asset for both the UK and the US. Ensuring its long-term operational security is, and will continue to be, our priority – it is the entire reason for the deal.

Also of Interest

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

Ceasefire Talks In Pakistan Fail

Reports Say the US and Israel May Restart Bombing Campaign in Iran

DAYS 41-44: Trump Overruled on Hormuz Blockade

Iran War: Negotiations Fail; US Provokes with Destroyer Entry into Strait, Perhaps Pointing to Next Kinetic Moves

Iran says it will view military vessels approaching Hormuz Strait as ceasefire breach

War On Iran: – Loser Tries Setting “Terms” – The Strange Idea Of Blockading Blockaders

The Iranian Billionaire Negotiating With Trump

Nicola Jennings on Trump and the strait of Hormuz – cartoon

Israel’s Ben Gvir says he feels like the 'owner' of Al-Aqsa Mosque compound

Trump admin threatened to overthrow the papacy

‘People Can’t Afford Rent,’ Critics Say as White House Boasts of Trump’s Plan for Gold-Covered Arch

‘All You Had to Do Was Pay Us Enough to Live,’ Said Alleged California Warehouse Arsonist

A Little Night Music

Bo Carter - Cigarette Blues

Bo Carter - Let's Get Drunk Again

Bo Carter - Old Devil

Bo Carter - Same Thing That Cats Fight About

Bo Carter - Who's Been Here?

Bo Carter - She's Your Cook But She Burns My Bread Sometimes

Bo Carter - Let Me Roll Your Lemon

Bo Carter - Warm My Weiner

Bo Carter - Your Biscuits Are Big Enough For Me

Charlie McCoy & Bo Carter - The Northern Starvers Are Returning Home

Bo Carter - Pig Meat Is What I Crave

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The Evening Blues
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Bo Carter
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Submitted by QMS on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 6:39pm
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This from Robert Reich. Watched a documentary of his
yesterday The Last Class which was quite good.

He argues here that Trump's cabinet is not willing to initiate the 25th
for fear of reprisals, which is probably true. So our next best chance
of removing the madman comes with the Democrats re-gaining
majorities in the house and senate, setting-up impeachment procedures.
I think it will get much uglier before then, if the Zionists don't rein him in.

https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/how-can-we-impeach-donald-trump

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Zionism is a social disease

Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 7:34pm
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@QMS

heh, it's like the problem of the old lady who swallowed the fly. you get the democrats to do what the cabinet won't, but then what do you do to get rid of the democrats?

have a great evening!

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Submitted by QMS on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 8:27pm
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@joe shikspack
Since the population is basically ungovernable
the rulers do not worry about who shoots who.
Feel we are being set-up for a fall. An ineffective
congress is only one part of it. A whacky executive
is another aspect. Go long on fertilizer as the BS is
bound to get thicker. It stinks.

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Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 8:31pm
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@QMS

Feel we are being set-up for a fall.

i think a lot of people feel that way, which explains behaviors like luigi mangione and the people who are burning down amazon warehouses. they seem to correctly understand that rather than going after presidents or congressmen, in order to make real change they need to end the billionaire class.

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Submitted by The Liberal Moonbat on Tue, 04/14/2026 - 2:52am
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@QMS Even if one totally discounts what looks to me like the baffling continued compliance of the public, it sounds like you're forgetting something major:

WE'RE supposed to be the ones governing!!!

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

Submitted by QMS on Tue, 04/14/2026 - 6:03am
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@The Liberal Moonbat
In practical terms we are not.

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Submitted by Pluto's Republic on Tue, 04/14/2026 - 1:39am
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@QMS

Our next best chance .... comes with the Democrats re-gaining
majorities in the house and senate .... setting-up impeachment procedures ...

.
Because that worked so well the last time.
Switching parties always results in — ethical, sane, and compassionate governance. NOT.

In recent times we've gone from Peak Mediocrity (Bush, Clinton, Bush, Clinton) — to Presidential Packaging with cash-backed Insta-candidates (idle billionaires, intelligence assets,True Believers, and mental defectives). I'm guessing we will remain in the era of Political Psychopaths until the curtain comes down on Western Civilization.

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Submitted by soryang on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 10:26pm
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Sagar's perspective on South Korea and President Lee Jae-myung omits a few things. I watched this a second time to take notes on his statements, because my observations differ to a degree.

Context on Lee's initial comparison to South Korea's comfort women issue with Japan:

End of the road for Korean and other "comfort women" aka sex slaves for Japanese troops during WWII. As Japanese forces fled before allied forces closing in, this is what they did to the abducted and unfortunate young female victims:

'Was it for the purpose of destroying evidence?'
Those who never returned..

"Japanese troops executed 30 Korean women (Night of the 13th the Japs shot 30 Korean girls in the city)"
- Allied Forces Report -

The footage shows the horrific scene of Korean comfort women abandoned after being murdered by Japanese troops.

Testimonies of Japanese troops massacring comfort women have been made public before, but this is the first time footage capturing the site of such a massacre has been released.

Japan, which denies the truth despite abundant evidence.

Sagar: "Seemingly out of nowhere..." Sagar must be unfamiliar with the Democratic Party of South Korea, and Lee's history as a human rights activist. Then, "...literally out of nowhere." This is completely within what might be expected of Lee Jae-myung, given his history and political views.

The "raw wound" isn't just from WWII. Also from massacres of Korean civilians during the colonial period from the beginning in both Korea and Japan (Kanto earthquake; March 1 movement). Another "hot" wartime issue is treatment of forcibly "conscripted" Korean slave labor to work in Japanese mines under conditions which literally killed them. They were starved to death literally, while they worked in deplorable conditions. President Park, and later Yoon Seok-yeol, tried to sweep these issues with Japan under the rug. I remember a trip I took to the South Korean National Monument in 1988. There was a series of recreated prison cell scenes inside in which Japanese officials tortured Korean civilians in various horrible ways. I heard some Japanese tourists asking their guide skeptically "this isn't true, I never heard of this."

(Source- JTBC News 8.5.2019)

Did Lee "dig up a story from 2024?" Ancient history?

Krystal then goes on to say at the height of the Israeli strikes on Gaza "they had nothing to say." In July 2025 South Korea at the UN officially condemned Israeli airstrikes in Gaza, blocking humanitarian aid, pushing Palestinian people deeper into starvation and death. Lee was just sworn into office June 4, 2025. Keep in mind that Lee had virtually no time to prepare for his administration which took place after US puppet Yoon Seok-yeol was impeached. Before this the right wing tool Yoon Seok-yeol of the conservative so called "People's Party," complied with anything their US and Japanese masters required.

tweet posted at 4:16 by Lee should read in English, "If I am in pain..." Also, "It is only natural to feel sorry if someone else is suffering because of my deficiency."

The South Korean FTA with Israel was signed during the Yoon Seok-yeol administration.

Sagar on demos in Japan against the Iran war, he says it's not just about the war, it's about "domestic issues" like the Constitution. The Constitutional issue in Japan is Article 9 which says Japan cannot have armed forces and cannot deploy military forces except in a defensive role. Another "domestic issue" is the LDPs intent to keep increasing the "self defense budget" while the economy continues to stall. The conservative LDP, Takaichi's ruling party, has for years, in accordance with US wishes and against the will of the Japanese people, been seeking to eliminate Article 9 restrictions on offensive military weapons and operations. Takaichi brought this issue into the limelight when she indicated she would intervene on behalf of Taiwan, a Chinese territory, if Chinese forces threatened to strike Taiwan. The Japanese PM put herself in "a tough spot," as Sagar characterizes it, by indicating a willingness to go to war with China, on behalf of its former colony Taiwan.

Contrary to Sagar's contention, South Korea didn't agree to keep THAAD in country. The democratic administration had no say in the matter. The prior Park Geun-hye administration, the conservative tools of the US, agreed to it, in a sneaky last minute maneuver, before Moon Jae-in's democratic administration took office. Facing a fait accompli that threatened South Koreas positive relations with China, Moon Jae-in tried to thread a middle path between China and the US by instituting his three no's policy. No additional THAAD batteries; no participation in an anti-China air defense network, and no participation in an anti-Chinese alliance. THAAD actually is directed against China. Everyone knows it had virtually no defensive capability against North Korean shorter ranged missiles, which fly below the THAAD envelope. Puppet Yoon Seok-yeol acceded to Biden's pressure for a tri-lateral alliance directed against China, basically casting the prior Korean 3 no's policy aside.

According to Sagar, China trying to make a "more appealing pitch" to South Korea and Japan than in the past. South Korea and China were doing just fine before the US introduced THAAD. It's actually the US moves to embroil South Korea in its anti-China Indo Pacific strategy with respect to Taiwan and the South China Sea and interference with South Korea's domestic politics, pushing a "Yoon again- Lee is a China agent, Lee was elected due to Chinese election interference," disinformation campaigns. These continue to this day, despite Trump's public ridicule of Gordon Chang, which falls into another two faced strategy by the US. By way of contrast, Indo Pacific anti China strategy was adopted with Japanese LDP party support, namely, Shinzo Abe's LDP years ago, and Takaichi a far right Abe protege, supports the US anti China policy. I doubt if China has any delusions about putting a wedge between Japan and the US.

Nevertheless, Sagar comes to the right conclusion, "I'll take Korea any day of the week."

Four other recent incidents affected US-South Korean relations-

1. The tariff's imposed by the US on South Korea, and the Trump demand for 400 billion dollars in "investments," to be controlled by the US.

2. The unjust arrest, detention, and deportation of hundreds of Korean nationals with visas lawfully working at the Hyundai factory construction site in GA without hearing.

3. USFK filed a formal complaint after the Lee administration in Oct. 1985 2025 conducted a search on Osan AFB, in South Korean military areas, concerning records and communications related to Yoon's attempted coup d'etat and imposition of martial law.

4. In February, the US provoked a confrontation with China with US air forces from South Korean bases flying a large number of sorties over the West Sea near the Chinese ADIZ. South Korean news sources reported that the exercises were conducted by aircraft loaded with live missile ordnance, without notice to the South Korean government. The Lee administration formally complained to the US, and the exercises were discontinued.

Thanks for all the news you post JS!

edited typos and errors (again)

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己所不欲，勿施于人。

Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:42pm
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@soryang

thanks for the background information!

one question, is the oct 1985 date of the osan search actually oct 2025?

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Submitted by soryang on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 10:23pm
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@joe shikspack

My editing is terrible. 정신 없었어요.

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己所不欲，勿施于人。

Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:12pm

Today's publicity stunt.

Oops!

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Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:46pm
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@humphrey

i guess trump's image needed a pick-me-up after his jesus imagery didn't play well with the maga base (or anyone else) who loudly panned it.

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Submitted by lotlizard on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:20pm
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https://asiatimes.com/2018/03/koreas-patriotic-prostitutes-us-soldiers-g...

Things were different in the 1950s, ’60s, ’70s and ’80s, when this camp town, and others like it, were buzzing with soldiers, prostitutes and “juicy bars” — entertainment establishments that satisfied their young male customers’ every need. A lingering legacy of the Korean War, camp towns sprang up across South Korea as US bases firmed up their presence after the fighting ended in 1953.

“Mrs Kim” — she requested to be identified only by her surname, and refused to be photographed for this article — said of those days: “There were a lot of women.” She was forced to prostitute herself to American troops from 1972, when she was only 14 years old.

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Submitted by QMS on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:37pm
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@lotlizard
.
is on full display. The moral character of the deranged
'rulers' is no longer being covered-up. It is almost like -
so what? We are strong and the enemy is weak. Therefore
we can claim the higher ground. Don't buy it. Karma, as it is
said, is unforgiving. The shiny castle on the hill is staffed with
certified lunatics. Expect us to be thrown 'under the bus' when
their scheme goes south. Not if but when. Time to make noise.

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Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:50pm
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@lotlizard

sadly, it seems that the culture around the warrior class remains the same wherever you go. i suppose that the only differences are the viciousness of the forms of coercion used on its victims.

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Submitted by soryang on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 10:44pm
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@lotlizard @lotlizard @lotlizard @lotlizard

...in central Seoul, the base the Japanese established when they colonized Korea. But haven't seen any allegations of mass graves, or seventy to a hundred rapes a day on single victims regularly, or being kidnapped to places thousands of miles from home by Americans. Yes there was and probably still is sex trafficking in South Korea, and other Asian countries. Murders and rapes by US troops are a problem in Japan and Okinawa too. Lee has expressed remorse and a conciliatory attitude toward South Korean war crimes in Vietnam. Abe never personally apologized. The views commonly expressed in Japanese media and academia are that the stories of Japanese war crimes are bs which of course is untrue.

The views of surviving Korean comfort women were never solicited by the Park Geun-hye government before entering the settlement with Japan. Japan's treatment of the subrogation issue also has been unjust (concerning the slave labor issue). Park's father the dictator Park Chung-hee, who served in the Japanese Kwantung Army, "settled" the private forced labor claims with Japan allegedly. So the Japanese courts ruled. Park Geun-hye arbitrarily set aside a South Korean Supreme Court decision which said otherwise.

To this day, women who allege sexual assault or rape by prominent South Korean figures are ridiculed, discriminated against, or worse. The Office of Women and Families was to be dismantled by the Yoon administration but I don't think it was ever carried out. I've read stories of women who reported sexual crimes by prominent public figures being abused, discriminated against, and manipulated for political purposes by an official from that office, a woman attorney.

Does that justify any Japanese crimes against humanity? American armed forces were implicated in various massacres in South Korea after "liberation" through the Korean Conflict and even in 1980.

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己所不欲，勿施于人。

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:35pm
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It has occurred to me that the only vowel in iDJiT is the egomaniac's favorite, i. Quite interesting, imho.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:51pm
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@enhydra lutris

have a great evening!

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Submitted by QMS on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 10:56pm
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@enhydra lutris
sums up the trumpet in a nutshell

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Submitted by humphrey on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:40pm

displaying his true demented nature.

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Submitted by QMS on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:43pm
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@humphrey
.

twisted logic only makes sense in a warped reality
thanks for the clarification JDV. Care to walk that one back too?

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Submitted by joe shikspack on Mon, 04/13/2026 - 9:57pm
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@humphrey

if nothing else, it certainly illustrates the fact that trump really doesn't understand this president gig.

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