---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues harmonica player, singer and songwriter John Lee "Sonny Boy" Williamson. Enjoy!

^{John Lee Sonny Boy Williamson I - Mean Old Highway}

“People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.”

-- Søren Kierkegaard

---

News and Opinion

We Are Being Driven To Our Doom By Mindless Machines Of Our Own Making

It’s not impossible to solve our world’s problems, it only looks that way because we’ve created systems which cause human behavior to be driven by mindless mechanisms of our own making rather than by human interest.

We allow the blind pursuit of profit to govern the way the human species behaves on our planet. Corporations which are legally compelled to do whatever maximizes shareholder value are exerting more and more control over the state and its people. And now we’ve got AI being prepped to do whatever it’s going to do.

These are unthinking beasts of our own creation. And we let them rule our world.

Our lives are dominated by gods without brains. And we made the gods.

We are being driven to extinction by the headless horsemen of the apocalypse. And we built those headless horsemen, bolt by bolt, with our own hands.

War. Militarism. Ecocide. Exploitation. Imperialist extraction. These things happen because they are profitable, and we are led by systems and institutions which consistently cause the most profitable thing to happen. They continually slant all movement toward the most profitable outcome, regardless of the negative impact it can have on human beings and the other organisms with whom we share this planet.

That’s why the military-industrial complex exists. That’s why the rainforests and ice caps are vanishing while sprawling data centers spring up all over the place. That’s why ordinary people are getting poorer and more miserable while those who own and operate giant corporations get richer and more powerful.

These things aren’t happening because it’s the way things need to be. They’re not happening because of human nature or because of some immutable characteristic of the way human civilization has to unfold. They’re happening because the mindless forces we put in charge of our society made things that way.

We can dismantle capitalism and set up systems which center human interests instead of profit. We do have the power to unseat the plutocratic institutions which rule our nations and put the people in the throne of power. All we need is the will to do so — which is why so much propaganda indoctrination has gone into undermining our will to do so.

You can tell how unthinking and indoctrinated someone is by how willing they are to go along with the rule of the headless gods. People who reflexively defend the status quo, who defend police brutality and government warmongering, who make excuses for capitalist abuses and inequality. They’re just small reflections of the mindless gods they serve. They are as unthinking and unconscious as the corporations that are devouring our world. Mindless NPCs marching to the drumbeat of mindless corporate power.

Humans do this because it’s easier to give over our power than to accept responsibility for the outcome. We’re scared of getting the blame, so we hand power upwards. We keep handing it up and handing it up until there’s no one to hand it to, so we make empty automatons to hold our power for us.

It is a grave sin for us to abdicate our authority in this way. Humanity does need to take responsibility for the self-destructive trajectory it has set itself on, and reverse course.

It is absolutely within our ability to transcend our propaganda indoctrination and force a dramatic change in the way human civilization occurs. It is absolutely within our ability to make peace, feed and clothe everyone, and move into a collaborative relationship with each other and with our biosphere.

We only think it’s not possible because we’ve never done it before. But we’ve done lots of things we’d never done before until we did them.

We’ve just got to stop letting ourselves be whipped around by unthinking, unfeeling, amoral mechanisms of our own creation. We made them, so we can unmake them.

Israel's Plan to Occupy South Lebanon: Courtney Bonneau Reports From Nabatiyeh

Worth a full read:

Chris Hedges: America’s Suicide Pact

Civilizations, as the historian Arnold J. Toynbee famously argued, “die from suicide, not by murder.” They collapse from within. They fall prey to moral, social and spiritual decay. They are seized by a parasitic ruling class. Democratic institutions seize up. The citizenry is immiserated, wealth is funneled upwards to the ruling class and coercion is the principle form of control. Our suicidal march began long before Donald Trump and his bizarre court of buffoons, sycophants, grifters and Christian fascists took power. It began when the ruling class, especially under the Reagan and Clinton administrations, set out to harvest the country and empire for personal profit.

There is a word for these people. Traitors. These traitors, ensconced in the leadership of the two ruling parties, stripped us of assets and power slowly. They used subterfuge, lies and legalized bribery. They pretended to honor electoral politics, checks and balances, a free press and the rule of law while subverting all of these democratic pillars. That old system, however flawed, was hollowed out. It was turned over to the amoral and the idiotic — look at the Supreme Court or Congress — those willing to do the bidding of the billionaire class.

Armed with billions by the mortal enemy of the demos — the oligarchs and corporations — the political elites, Republicans and Democrats, destroyed the careers of those politicians who resisted. They crushed labor unions. They blacklisted honest journalists and consolidated the press into the hands of a handful of corporations and oligarchs. They slashed regulations that constrained unfettered greed and protected the population from predatory corporations and environmental toxins. They passed legislation that created a de facto tax boycott for the rich — Trump famously paid no federal income taxes in 10 of the 15 years prior to his presidency — while stripping the country of its industry and throwing some 30 million people out of work.

Wealth is no longer created by producing or manufacturing. It is created by manipulating the prices of stocks and commodities and imposing a crippling debt peonage on the public. These parasites cut or abolished social programs, militarized the police, built the largest prison system in the world and pumped funds into a bloated and out-of-control war industry. U.S. rulers, America’s enemies at home, mounted a series of futile wars that degraded the empire’s global hegemony and poured trillions of dollars of taxpayer money into their bank accounts. Iran is the most recent example.

Trump is not an outlier. He is the naked, stripped-down expression of this suicidal pact. He does not pretend the system he inherited works. He lies with less finesse. He crassly enriches himself and his family. He speaks in crude vulgarities. He dismantles any government agency dedicated to the common good, including the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education and the U.S. Postal Service. But he embodies what came before him, albeit without the liberal façade.

Prof John Mearsheimer TRUMP WILL BE FORCED TO CUT A DEAL w/IRAN

Iran DESTROYS US Middle East Hegemony | Prof. S.M. Marandi

UAE’s secret attack on Iran risks drawing Gulf states into the war

The risk of some Gulf states becoming embroiled in a direct war with Iran has risen after it was reported the United Arab Emirates had secretly launched a major attack on Iran during the conflict. In addition, Kuwait has said that at least four members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had been captured trying to carry out “terrorist attacks” on the Kuwaiti-owned Bubiyan Island, the largest island in the Kuwaiti coastal chain.

The UAE assault on Iran, which was undertaken as retaliation for Iranian attacks on its facilities, included a strike on Iran’s Lazan Island just before the 7 April ceasefire was announced, the Wall Street Journal reported. The news is likely to make the UAE an even clearer target for Iran if the ceasefire is abandoned and the US and Iran restart the conflict. Donald Trump said on Monday the ceasefire was hanging by a thread due to Iran’s failure to make the concessions he is seeking over its nuclear programme.

In the earlier fighting that began on 28 February the UAE had been selected as a target for missile and drone strikes by Iran. It was disproportionately attacked partly due to the severe diplomatic hostility to Iran expressed by its rulers. The Wall Street Journal report gave details of how that diplomatic hostility extended to military hostility, pointing to images that allegedly showed French Mirage fighter jets and Chinese Wing Long drones (both used by the UAE) operating in Iran. The UAE had hinted around that time that it wanted to mount reprisal operations, and not just defend its oil and port installations. Iran at the time also accused the UAE and Kuwait of being involved in the attacks.

The UAE has still so far failed to persuade Qatar or Saudi Arabia to do more to counter Iranian attacks or the blockade in the strait of Hormuz that Tehran views as a necessary retaliation to the US attacks. Iran’s intelligence assessment has always been that some Gulf states had allowed their airspace or US bases to be used by American forces to attack Iran. The divisions within Gulf states – notably between Saudi Arabia and the UAE – have in private been focused on whether Arab anger at Iran’s attacks should extend to military reprisals, or whether that will produce a level of Iranian hostility that might threaten the delicate diplomatic relationships between the Gulf states.

Explaining the Saudi position Turki al-Faisal, a former Saudi Arabian ambassador to the US, insisted in an Arab News article this week that Saudi restraint had been wise. He wrote “if the Israeli plan succeeded in igniting war between us and Iran, the region would be transformed into a state of devastation and destruction, and Israel would succeed in imposing its will on the region, remaining the sole actor in our surroundings”.

Matthew Hoh: US Missiles Are GONE – What Pete Hegseth Is Desperately Hiding From You

Pentagon Planning To Rename Iran War ‘Operation Sledgehammer’ If US Restarts Bombing Campaign

The Pentagon is considering renaming the war with Iran from “Operation Epic Fury” to “Operation Sledgehammer” if President Trump decides to restart the full-scale bombing campaign against Iran, NBC News reported on Tuesday.

Sources also told NBC that the US currently has more firepower in the region before the US and Israel launched the war on February 28. “We are in a better spot now than on February 27,” a US official said. “We have more firepower and capability.”

The potential name change is part of the Trump administration’s effort to maneuver around the 1973 War Powers Resolution, which was an attempt to rein in the Executive Branch’s disregard of the Constitution’s requirement that Congress has the sole power to declare war.

A White House official told NBC that the administration believes giving the war a new name would effectively restart the War Powers clock, and that “Operation Sledge Hammer” is not the only name under consideration.

Laith Marouf: Israel’s Buffer Zone COLLAPSES as Hezbollah Launches Fierce Iron Dome & Ground Assault

How Hezbollah’s $300 drones are challenging Israeli military

The three Israeli soldiers clustered by a tank heard the noise before they saw its source. By the time they spotted the drone, it was too late. The video feed goes black as the small fibre-optic first-person-view (FPV) drone explodes next to them, killing one soldier and injuring six more. Footage of the drones hitting Israeli tanks, soldiers and bulldozers in south Lebanon has become increasingly common as Hezbollah puts the weapon at the centre of its guerrilla war against Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon.

They are cheap, disposable and hard to evade. Unlike radio-controlled drones, they are connected to their operators by a kilometres-long fibre optic cable that cannot be jammed by electronic warfare defences. And they are a serious challenge for the Israeli military. Hezbollah has killed a bulldozer driver, evaded the trophy defence system on the Israeli Merkava tank and continually targeted soldiers with the drones. Their FPV capabilities, in common with FPV radio-controlled craft, allow an operator to pilot the small, explosive-equipped drones directly from their video feeds and detonate them on impact.

An Israeli military official said Israel “recognised the UAV [unmanned aerial vehicle] threat” and that it was working to develop “capabilities for the detection and interception of weapons”. A senior officer was last week tapped to find a solution for Israel, which has also used FPV drones in Lebanon.

For Hezbollah, the drones have proved to be an effective way for the non-state group to inflict harm on a better equipped, better funded army and to raise the cost of Israel’s continued military presence in south Lebanon. The increasing reliance on the drones since the 17 April Lebanon-Israel ceasefire reflects not only new battlefield tactics, but the new shape of Hezbollah. The group can no longer rely on weapons being transferred from Iran via a land corridor in Syria, and instead must manufacture its own weapons and munitions on a much smaller budget, a source in Hezbollah explained.

Each drone costs about $300-$400 (£220-£295) to manufacture, and is produced using 3D-printing and “commercially available electronic components that can be adapted for dual civilian and military use”, the source said. The use of the FPV drone also befits Hezbollah’s return to its guerrilla roots, raising the cost of occupation after it failed to stop the Israeli military entering its southern Lebanese heartland in the last war. Israel’s multi-billion dollar Iron Dome defence system has so far proved ineffective at stopping the small drones, and in recent videos, Israeli soldiers have resorted to trying to shoot the aircraft down with their service weapons.

Poll: Israel Most Hated Country In The World

Head of Microsoft’s Israel branch to step down after inquiry into dealings with Israeli military

The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military. Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used the company’s technology to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected Palestinian civilian phone calls on a mass scale.

The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found the military’s elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank.

The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded. Its findings are unclear; however, sources familiar with the situation said they prompted an announcement last week that Microsoft Israel’s general manager, Alon Haimovich, would leave the company. The Israeli business newspaper Globes reported on Monday that Haimovich’s departure followed a major controversy at the subsidiary relating to violations of Microsoft’s code of ethics. It reported that several other managers had also left their positions.

Within weeks of launching the inquiry, Microsoft concluded that its initial findings showed Unit 8200 had violated its terms of service, which prohibit the use of its technology to facilitate mass surveillance. As a result, the company terminated the unit’s access to cloud services and AI products used to support the surveillance project. Equipped with Azure’s near-limitless storage capacity and computing power, Unit 8200 built an indiscriminate system allowing its intelligence officers to collect, play back and analyse the content of millions of Palestinian cellular phone calls every day.

According to Globes, Haimovich was summoned by the inquiry team after they visited Microsoft Israel’s offices near Tel Aviv. Documents seen by the Guardian suggest Haimovich played a role in developing the relationship between Microsoft Israel and Unit 8200 following a 2021 meeting between Microsoft’s chief executive, Satya Nadella, and the unit’s then commander. This included overseeing a partnership with the spy agency to build a segregated area within Azure to store sensitive intelligence material.

Epstein survivors give tearful testimony in House field hearing in Palm Beach

Democrats tore into government’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein abuse scandal on Tuesday – revealing new details of the scale of his international sex trafficking ring, and warning Donald Trump not to grant a presidential pardon to the late sex offender’s sidekick Ghislaine Maxwell. Several survivors of Epstein’s abuse also gave tearful testimony at a congressional field hearing in Florida of their experiences as teenagers in s orbit. Some spoke of being retraumatized after they were “outed” by the justice department’s failure to redact their names from the so-called Epstein files.

Democratic members of the US House oversight committee said they held Tuesday’s event in Palm Beach, where the president lives, and where Epstein had a residence, because it was “the scene of the crime”.

Garcia began the hearing by unveiling a new report called “The Price of Non-Prosecution” that he said revealed how Epstein was able to build a substantial and lucrative international sex trafficking ring following his infamous “sweetheart deal” with Florida prosecutors in 2008.

After dodging serious charges and serving only 13 months in prison for a solicitation of prostitution conviction, he said, Epstein and his associates gamed the US immigration system to obtain visas to traffic women into the country from overseas. “[Our] report uses evidence obtained by our investigation, including and most importantly bank records, that show how [prosecutor] Alex Acosta’s sweetheart deal let Epstein build a global network using enablers to bring in women who he could then exploit and abuse,” Garcia said. “This report is just the beginning of numerous reports and information that we intend to put out over the course of the months ahead.”

Trump posts late-night social media spree as Iran war drags on

Donald Trump unleashed a late-night social media tirade against his political enemies, attacking predecessors including Barack Obama with false accusations and amplifying calls for his Democratic rivals to be prosecuted. Just hours before a high-stakes trip to China for talks with Xi Jinping, the US president posted more than 50 times in a three-hour spree from Monday evening into the early hours of Tuesday. Posts included doctored images of himself on the $100 bill and demands that political opponents be arrested.

It comes as millions of Americans face mounting economic pressure tied to the US and Israel’s war with Iran, with living costs rising across much of the country. Trump appeared to acknowledge this pressure earlier on Monday, when he signaled his support for a plan to curb a sharp rise in fuel costs.

After campaigning for years against the US engaging in “endless wars”, Trump has repeatedly drawn out the timeline of the war on Iran, which began with US and Israeli attacks in late February. Earlier this week he described a ceasefire deal with Tehran as “on life support”.

Starting late on Monday evening Trump promoted posts on his Truth Social platform that falsely accused Obama of plotting a coup against Trump, as well as claims calling Obama a “traitor” and “the most demonic force in American politics”. Trump also shared images of Obama, former president Joe Biden and former House speaker Nancy Pelosi in the Lincoln Memorial’s reflecting pool. In the altered images, the pool – which Trump has proposed renovating to an “American flag blue” color – appeared filled with sewage beneath the caption: “Dumacrats love sewage”.

Other targets of Trump’s late-night screed included Illinois’s governor, JB Pritzker; the House minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries; and Hillary Clinton, against whom he contested the 2016 presidential election. He also repeated false claims about the 2020 presidential election, which he lost to Biden but continues to insist was stolen from him.

#Cuba estilo LEGO

Frente a la amenaza del Imperio: ¡Venceremos! pic.twitter.com/7qW2rBWYMX

— Tere Felipe (@_TereFelipe_) May 11, 2026

They seek to stifle the lifeblood of this land with the talons of empire and the drums of war, from the north they unleash their poisonous breath seeking to seize what belongs to others. But this soil has roots of steel and a people who cannot be bought with money.

They raise walls of hatred and lies while the island, relying on its own strength, breathes amid 60 years of constant hostile siege—yet we continue to march forward with a firm step. There is no threat that can break our faith; the Cuban knows well how to stand tall.

Here dignity has neither price nor master; we are the guardians of our own dream. My people, stand tall, with fists held high against the invader and their dark assault.

There’s no surrender beneath this burning sun, for it’s known that the homeland must be defended. Resist my brother with your head held high for every victory in the battle-hardened struggle, your love is the compass of our people, for you know that the homeland must be defended.

US inflation jumped to 3.8% in April as war with Iran continues to drive up prices

US inflation jumped to 3.8% in April as the war in the Middle East continued to drive energy prices and everyday costs for Americans. Prices rose 3.8% over the last year, according to the data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the highest jump since 2023.

This is the second official measure of the consumer price index, which measures the price of a basket of goods and services, since the start of the war with Iran. In March, prices rose 3.3%, up from 2.4% in February.

Energy prices rose 3.8% in April, accounting for over 40% of the overall monthly increase. Gas prices were up 28.4%, an increase many Americans have already noticed at the pump. The national average price for a gallon of gas has been steadily increasing in the months since the US-Israel war with Iran began, and stands at more than a dollar higher than a year ago, according to data from AAA.

Higher energy prices directly stems from the ongoing closure of the strait of Hormuz, where a fifth of the world’s oil and gas would typically pass through. Oil prices continued to climb on Monday after Donald Trump called Iran’s response to US peace proposals “totally unacceptable”. Core CPI – which excludes volatile food and energy prices – increased more modestly, at 2.8%.

A recent survey from the University of Michigan on US consumer sentiment reflected these worsening price conditions. Consumer sentiment in May dropped notably compared with the same periods the year before, it found, as did confidence in financial institutions such as the Federal Reserve. Those readings were similar to how Americans were feeling in 2022, when inflation reached peak highs.

Trump: I DON'T CARE About Americans Finances

Trump Confesses He Doesn’t ‘Think About Americans’ Financial Situation’ When It Comes to Iran War

US President Donald Trump on Tuesday confessed he is not concerned about the increasing level of economic hardship tens of millions of Americans are facing due to rising costs related to the war of choice he launched against Iran over two months ago.

Despite inflation hitting a three-year high and the average price of gasoline in the US now averaging over $4.50 per gallon, Trump was asked by a reporter outside the White House about how much “Americans’ financial situations” were on his mind as he tries to negotiate an end to the war he initiated with a preemptive attack by US and Israeli forces on February 28.

“Not even a little bit,” Trump said in response. “The only thing that matters when I’m talking about Iran—they can’t have a nuclear weapon. I don’t think about Americans’ financial situation. I don’t think about anybody. I think about one thing—we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon. That’s all.”

Trump on Iran War:

Reporter: What extent are Americans’ financial situation motivating you to make a deal?

Trump: Not even a little bit. I don't think about Americans’ financial situation pic.twitter.com/TJ94pGpqD8

— Acyn (@Acyn) May 12, 2026

“And they still want you to believe he’s fighting for you,” said Rep. Summer Lee (D-Pa.) in reaction to the president’s comments.

While both the US and Israel do have nuclear weapons, the Iranians contend their nuclear program is not designed for military purposes. In 2017, during his first term, Trump ripped up the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), brokered by the Obama administration, which experts agree put in strong safeguards to prevent Iran from furthering any unchecked ambitions toward nuclear weapons.

With peace talks largely stalled due to Trump’s maximalist demands and refusal to admit he started the war without a plan on how to end it, frustration is growing in the United States, where a large majority of the population say they oppose the conflict, disapprove of the president’s handling of it, and want it brought to a conclusion as soon as possible.

While Trump’s comments were predictable to an extent, they still stirred outrage among those concerned about the economic headwinds Americans are facing due to the war in Iran.

“The sky is blue, and water is wet,” said the Groundwork Collaborative of the confession. “Nice of him to say it out loud, though.”

“Trump says he doesn’t think about Americans’ financial situation at all,” asserted Rep. Brendan Boyle (D-Pa.). “We can tell.”

---

---

South Carolina Republicans defy Trump’s demands for redistricting

South Carolina state senators on Tuesday defied pressure from Donald Trump to approve plans to redraw the state’s congressional map after the US supreme court effectively gutted the Voting Rights Act. As Republicans scramble to redraw key districts after the US supreme court rendered ineffective a major section of the civil rights law that prevented racial discrimination, Shane Massey, the Republican majority leader in South Carolina’s senate, argued in an extraordinary address that doing so would be against the interest of his state.

Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature moved last week to eliminate the state’s one Democratic, Black-majority congressional district. Louisiana has postponed its state primaries, with its Republican governor and attorney general arguing it could no longer use its current districts.

But on Tuesday afternoon, legislators in South Carolina rejected plans to follow suit, with the state’s senate voting 29-17 – two votes short of the two-thirds needed – on the proposal. Five Republicans joined all Democrats in the chamber to reject the proposal. Trump had urged them to back the redistricting proposal on Monday evening. The US president would be “watching closely”, he wrote on social media, adding: “GET IT DONE!”

All except one of South Carolina’s seven US congressional districts are held by Republicans. The one currently held by a Democrat – the state’s sixth congressional district – would have some of its Democratic voters moved into adjoining districts, held by Republicans Nancy Mace and Joe Wilson.

The district in question is held by long-serving representative and Democratic heavyweight James Clyburn, who has long been a rainmaker for the state, directing federal funding toward highway construction and rural broadband that has had a disproportionate impact on South Carolina, and not necessarily just for Black voters.

Southern States RUSH TO GERRYMANDER as GOP DOMINATES Redistricting War

Backed by 80% of Voters Under Age 45, El-Sayed Up by Double Digits in Michigan Poll

In the Democratic US Senate primary race in Michigan, a big swing—particularly among voters aged 18-44—toward former public health official and Medicare for All advocate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed was found Tuesday in the latest poll by a research firm that six months ago had seen the progressive candidate in distant third place.

Twenty-eight percent of primary voters said they were supporting El-Sayed in a poll released by Mitchell Research and Communications, while 18% said they were backing US Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.), who has the support of Democratic leaders and the powerful pro-Israel lobby group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Seventeen percent of voters said they were supporting state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8).

The poll showed an inversion of the result found by Mitchell in November, when El-Sayed was trailing his two opponents by eight points and Stevens and McMorrow were separated by just three points.

Mitchell polled 405 likely primary voters between May 1-7, around the time that El-Sayed appeared with US Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) at a rally as part of the senator’s Fighting Oligarchy Tour. He drew loud applause for condemning AIPAC for its persistent conflation of antisemitism with criticism of Israel, and spoke about his strong support for expanding the Medicare system to everyone in the US.

The poll also came after a weekslong controversy that was promoted by centrist think tank Third Way, with the support of both Stevens and McMorrow, targeting El-Sayed for campaigning with Hasan Piker, a Twitch streamer and commentator who’s been outspoken in his condemnation of Israel.

With the controversy largely in the rearview mirror despite some lawmakers’ continued fixation on Piker, the new poll suggests the criticism of El-Sayed didn’t land in Michigan—particularly among voters in younger demographics arguably more likely to have heard of Piker, who gained notoriety by sharing political commentary while playing video games online.

Among voters under the age of 45, El-Sayed had 80% of the support in the poll released Tuesday.

Among voters aged 18-44:
Abdul El-Sayed 80%
Haley Stevens 4%
Mallory McMorrow 3% https://t.co/E5w3QXPog7 pic.twitter.com/mpYGCod9Mt

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) May 12, 2026

The other two candidates in the race barely registered among voters in the demographic, with 4% supporting Stevens and 3% backing McMorrow. The primary race has been called a “millennial showdown” by local media, with the three candidates ranging in age from 39-42.

The poll comes after numerous surveys have found that Israel—the issue that Third Way attempted to center in the election—has plummeting support among voters, following its yearslong assault on Gaza. Last October, nearly half of Democratic voters in swing districts, including in Michigan, said in a poll that they would vote against a candidate funded by AIPAC.

Meanwhile, Medicare for All—the proposal that’s a key focus of El-Sayed’s platform—was supported by 78% of Democratic voters, along with 71% of Independents and 49% of Republicans in a survey by Data for Progress late last year.

Rotimi Adeoye, a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times, said the poll suggested that Third Way had “jumped into this race and leaned into identity politics in a way that just polarized the electorate further in El-Sayed’s favor, given he’s solely focused on healthcare.”

“If you are spending any time as a candidate not talking about housing, healthcare, the economy, groceries, and dedicating a second or a millisecond talking about Hasan Piker or the identity politics topic of the day on Twitter, you’re losing,” said Adeoye.

Jon Favreau, co-host of Pod Save America and a former speechwriter under the Obama administration, summed up the poll results succinctly.

The survey, he said, showed a “Third Way bump” for El-Sayed.

---

---

Not that the EPA would actually do anything to promote public health since it costs corporations opportunities for cash ...

Trump’s rollback of toxic gas rules limits EPA’s authority to protect public health

A new Trump administration plan to rescind 2024 regulations for toxic ethylene oxide (EtO) pollution more broadly aims to limit the Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to strengthen public health protections around hazardous emissions and could result in more of the toxin being released into the air. Recent research has found EtO is about 60 times more carcinogenic than thought when the last regulations were developed in 2006. In 2024, the Biden EPA passed a rule that strengthened the regulations to reflect the updated science, and required the nation’s EtO emitters to collectively cut their emissions by about 90%.

A new Harvard analysis details the administration’s case, which would limit the EPA’s ability to strengthen regulations when it determines hazardous air pollutants are more dangerous than previously thought.

If the Trump EPA is successful in the legal fight, the 2024 regulations would be rescinded, resulting in nearly 8 tons of the carcinogenic gas continuing to be released in largely low-income neighborhoods. It would also permanently make it more difficult for the EPA to later protect people from toxic air pollutants. The move is part of the industry’s and the administration’s “broader strategy to rollback a wide array of controls on toxic chemicals and, particularly, carcinogens”, said Erik Olson, senior adviser with the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC).

“This sends up a signal flare to everyone that we’ve got a real threat, and that the administration plans to gut cancer protections,” Olson said. The NRDC is among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit on a separate issue around the chemical. The outcome of its plan is especially important, public health advocates say, because of how regulations around chemicals are structured. Chemicals are generally approved with little review of industry claims that their substances are safe, and it can take independent science decades to learn the true risk, as has happened with EtO.

The global sand crisis: it’s being used up faster than it can be replaced

Malé is one of the world’s most overcrowded cities, but it faces double pressure. As well as a growing population, the capital of the Maldives is also threatened by rising sea levels. Owing to climate breakdown, its living space is shrinking. So the justification for a land reclamation project seemed clear. Take sand from elsewhere in the archipelago and use it to build up the land available for Malé’s people. What could go wrong? After all, it’s only sand, right?

Around the world, urban development and industry is using sand at a rate of 50bn tonnes a year, a figure that is expected to grow. But a new UN report warns that sand is being extracted faster than it can be replenished, and that this is threatening livelihoods, ecosystems and the very structure of the natural world.

Pascal Peduzzi, the director of the Unep global resource information database Geneva, which prepared the report, said: “Sand is sometimes referred to as the unrecognised hero of development, but its essential role in sustaining the natural services on which we depend is even more overlooked. Sand is our first line of defence against sea level rise, storm surges, and salination of coastal aquifers – all hazards exacerbated by climate change.” The most extracted solid material on Earth, sand is mined to build homes, roads and sea walls in concrete production, building foundations and masonry work. It is used to manufacture windows, silicon chips and solar panels. But it is just as crucial left in place: it regulates rivers, protects coastal aquifers, filters water and sustains biodiversity. The report argues demand exists for sand in both its “dead” and “alive” states, and each is in competition.

In 2019, the Maldives government commissioned a Dutch company to fill in the lagoon in the island of Gulhifalhu, close to Malé. The 192-hectare (475-acre) land reclamation demanded 24.5m cubic metres of sand dredged from 13.75 sq km of northern Malé atoll. Six months later, an environmental assessment concluded that the environmental damage would be irreversible. But the ink on the contracts had already dried. The Gulhifalhu project destroyed 200 hectares of coral reef and lagoon habitat, including marine protected areas (MPAs), Unep’s report said. The UN found that about half of dredging companies were operating in MPAs, accounting for 15% of the volume of dredged sand.

The result will be the loss of critical habitats for fish, turtles, birds, crabs, and other species supporting ecosystems, fisheries and tourism, the report said. “Land reclamation inevitably leads to the permanent modification of the substrate, the destruction of flora and fauna, and coastal erosion.”

---

Also of Interest

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

Patrick Lawrence: Epic Desperation

Iran War: More Trump Sound and Fury as Financial Times and Old Line Neocon Robert Kagan Declare War on Iran Conflict; Plastics and Other Shortages Becoming Visible

Saudi Arabia Launched Attacks Against Iran During US-Israeli Bombing Campaign

Israeli Forces Use Robots to Expand Offensive North of Lebanon’s Litani River

Palestine Action Barrister Wins Appeal in UK Contempt Case

Trump’s ‘Golden Dome’ Shield Exposed as ‘Trillion-Dollar Boondoggle’ by CBO

Trump Goes To China

‘Number of People Who Don’t Have Enough to Eat’ Surging Due to Trump-GOP Aid Cuts

Pity the poor billionaires – demands for higher taxes must feel hurtful

Milky Way photographer of the year 2026 – in pictures

Professor Pape: China ‘EATING OUR LUNCH’ Amid US EMPIRE DECLINE

---

A Little Night Music

John Lee Williamson - Wonderful Time

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - Jackson Blues

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - Hoodoo Man

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - Black Gal Blues

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - Shake the boogie

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - I Been Dealing With the Devil

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - Sonny Boy's Jump

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - I Have Got to Go

John Lee (Sonny Boy) Williamson - Sloppy Drunk

---