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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Jimmy "T99" Nelson

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features jump blues shouter Jimmy "T99" Nelson. Enjoy!

^{Jimmy "T99" Nelson - T-99 Blues}

“The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who must want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.”

-- Douglas Adams

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News and Opinion

An interesting article worth a click and a full read. Here are some snippets to get you started:

Craig Murray: Iran MOU vs Greater Israel

The provisional surrender document signed by Donald Trump appeared to represent a triumph for Iran and indeed for the world; but neither the U.S.A. nor Israel has the slightest sense of honour and they cannot be trusted to negotiate in good faith. Iran knows this – after all, the U.S.A. twice attacked Iran actually during peace negotiations, on each occasion killing key Iranian negotiators. To understand the American position, it is important to realise two key points:

Greater Israel is an absolute priority

Opening the Strait of Hormuz is not a U.S. priority

While the U.S./Israeli alliance were defeated in their attempt to impose regime change on Iran, and indeed have consolidated the popular support of the Iranian government, they have succeeded in expanding Greater Israel. Israel has ethnically cleared and devastated a vast swathe of Southern Lebanon, expanding its military footprint, and notably attempting to repeat its ploy from November 2024 of pushing forward its armour under cover of ceasefire.

Israeli withdrawal from Southern Lebanon has been a major negotiating point for the Iranian government and is a key – indeed the very first – point of the Iran/U.S.A. Memorandum of Understanding (M.O.U.). But in an extraordinary coup aimed at negating that deal, the U.S.A. has signed a deal with Israel and its puppet Aoun regime in Lebanon which seeks to legitimise Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon through the agreement of the “Lebanese government.” This is an astonishing development. I did not think I could have a lower opinion of the appalling bloated traitor “General” “President” Aoun but not even I – nor I think any commentator – believed he would make such a deal with Israel. ...

Of course, everybody knows that Israel will never withdraw voluntarily, any more than they withdrew from the Golan Heights. Annexation is plainly the goal and expansion of Greater Israel at least to the Litani River and probably further. It is important to realise that this is not only Aoun seeking the annihilation of the Shia population of Southern Lebanon; he is also betraying his own community. Aoun is himself a Southern Lebanese Christian, and Israel has been destroying the homes, churches, hospitals and families of Southern Lebanese Christians with as much glee as they attack Muslims. ...

The simple truth is this: in openly abandoning the principle of free trade, the Trump regime has also abandoned the logically linked principle of freedom of navigation. This is evident not just in their indifference to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz. It is evident in the naval blockades of Cuba and Venezuela and above all in the worldwide blockade of Russian hydrocarbon deliveries, including the effective end of free passage through the Strait of Dover, and a de facto naval blockade of the Arctic passages. Following the shale boom, the United States is a net hydrocarbon exporter. The U.S.A. balance of trade benefits from high hydrocarbon prices. Trump is doing everything he can to increase U.S. hydrocarbon production by slashing environmental and other controls. This is a core Trump policy. ...

Trump believes, as he has repeatedly stated in public, that domestic fuel prices in the U.S.A. are a blip and will equalise as the U.S.A. increases its domestic fuel production and Venezuelan fuel production. However this was not happening in time for the mid-term elections which is why reopening the Strait of Hormuz became a temporary priority that occasioned the ceasefire and M.O.U. with Iran. None of this implies good faith negotiation or a real prospect for a lasting peace.

How Lebanon Sold Out Its Own People to the US & Israel

China is a clear winner from Trump’s war in Middle East

China has emerged as the sole winner in Asia from the strait of Hormuz crisis, according to a report published on Tuesday. The report by the geopolitical consulting firm Asia Group concluded that China had weathered the storm of the global commodities crisis resulting from the closure of the Middle Eastern waterway, and also stood to gain from the economic and geopolitical trends sparked by the wider conflict.

Iran virtually closed the strait, a vital waterway through which much of the world’s oil and gas flows, after the US and Israel launched joint strikes on 28 February, targeting government and military sites and killing Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei. The ensuing crisis has sent global energy prices soaring, with Asia particularly exposed. The report noted that before the strait’s closure, roughly 80% of the oil and nearly 90% of the liquefied natural gas transiting the waterway was destined for Asian markets, along with a significant share of other critical commodities.

The report looked at Asia’s largest economies – China, India, Japan and South Korea – as well as emerging markets across south-east Asia. The researchers mapped the economic and political repercussions of the crisis and its impacts across key sectors including manufacturing, energy and agriculture. They concluded that China was a clear winner from the crisis caused by Donald Trump’s foray into the Middle East. The country’s large stockpiles of oil and the hugely ambitious rollout of renewable energy mean it has been less exposed to the energy shock than other countries.

China has long maintained strategic reserves of energy, and last year took advantage of cheap prices to build up even bigger stockpiles. Its crude imports grew from 11.1m barrels a day to 11.6m in 2025, with over 80% of that increase being sent to stockpiles, according to analysis by Erica Downs, a senior research scholar at the Centre on Global Energy Policy. As of January, China had enough stockpiled to cover 104 days of imports at the 2025 level. The country has also been building massive amounts of renewable energy infrastructure in recent years. Last year it installed 315GW of new solar capacity, more than half of the world’s new solar. The year before, it added 277GW. Beijing is aiming for half of China’s energy to come from non-fossil sources by 2030, with the share from wind and solar reaching 30%, up from 22% in 2025.

Although China’s energy mix is still largely based on coal, which accounts for more than 50%, renewables’ share is increasing rapidly. The Asia Group’s report said: “With 1.4 terawatts of operating renewable capacity already online and a reported 90-110 days of crude import cover in reserve, China weathered the initial shock better than any regional peer.” China has also benefited from other countries reacting to the crisis by accelerating its clean energy buildout. Beijing dominates the global supply chain in solar and other clean technology industries and in recent years has been pushing much of this production overseas at low prices, to the chagrin of western leaders worried about their own industries. China’s electric vehicle exports soared by more than 110% in May compared with the previous year, while solar shipments in April increased by 60%.

Scott Ritter: Trump Briefed on All-Out War Scenario in Iran

US-Iran talks over $6bn Iranian assets to restart

Talks at an indirect level between US and Iranian officials over unfreezing at least $6bn Iranian assets will recommence on Wednesday in Doha, Iran has said. The two sides are yet to have their first face-to-face meeting since signing a deal to extend the ceasefire and reopen the strait of Hormuz. US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner were in Qatar on Tuesday for talks covering regional issues including the Iran ceasefire and Lebanon, but Qatar’s foreign ministry spokesperson, Majed Al-Ansari, stressed these were with Qatari mediators. “They are not here for their negotiations with the Iranians,” he said.

The US team is seeking details of a plan for Iran to charge tolls in the strait of Hormuz, and how the plan relates to proposals for consultation being tabled by Oman that would introduce fees for navigational services. The lack of renewed direct contact between the US and Iran on how to implement the memorandum of understanding signed on 17 June reflects tensions over Iran’s determination to maintain control over commercial oil tanker traffic through the strait of Hormuz, as well as Iran’s opposition to the proposed Lebanon ceasefire negotiated by Israel, the US and the Lebanese government last week.

Talks between Iran and the US have not even started on Iran’s nuclear programme even though only 60 days from 17 June had been set aside to complete the complex talks, and further negotiations appeared at risk after both sides traded fire in the strait of Hormuz over the weekend. In theory those talks can be extended beyond the 6o-day deadline, but the slow progress is starting to alarm some diplomats.

Western powers object to Iran’s plan to impose tolls for commercial shipping passing through the strait, but may be more open to discussing Oman’s plan for voluntary contributions or fees charged for specific services. Iran’s top negotiator, Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, said on state TV on Tuesday: “The sovereignty of the strait of Hormuz lies with Iran and Oman, and traffic in the strait is ​subject to arrangements determined by Iran”, ​adding that fee-free passage through the strait is only ​for ​60 days, as per the memorandum of understanding.

Matthew Hoh: Netanyahu: Israel Will Strike Iran Again If Necessary

Qatar Says US Officials in Doha Will Not Hold Direct Talks With Iranians

Qatar’s Foreign Ministry said on Tuesday that US envoy Steve Witkoff and President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who have arrived in Doha, will hold talks with mediators but will not meet directly with Iranian officials, contradicting Trump’s claim that Iran had “requested” a meeting in the Qatari capital.

“Mr. Steve Witfoff and Mr. Jared Kushner are here in Doha to meet with mediators, with Qatari officials, and the talks will be around all regional issues… including, of course, negotiations with Iran, but also including Lebanon,” said Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al Ansari.

“They are not here for their negotiations with the Iranians … To the best of my knowledge, there are no direct meetings scheduled between the two parties in the coming days,” he added.

The US and Iran are at odds over several core parts of the US-Iran MoU meant to end the war, including the Strait of Hormuz, the continued Israeli war in Lebanon, and the issue of Iran’s frozen funds. Iranian officials have said Tehran will not hold talks with the US on a long-term nuclear deal until these issues are worked out.

Reason2Resist Returns to Iran

22 Democrats Join GOP to Block Lebanon War Powers Resolution, Enabling Netanyahu’s Sabotage of US-Iran Ceasefire

Nearly two dozen Democrats joined almost every Republican on Tuesday to vote down a war powers resolution that would have halted US military participation in Israel’s assault on Lebanon, which is threatening to derail President Donald Trump’s peace negotiations with Iran.

“More than 1.3 million people have already been forced to leave their homes or be killed, with the Israeli military telling them they will not be allowed to return,” said the resolution’s sponsor, Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), on the House floor Tuesday. “Eighty-one Lebanese neighborhoods have been violently depopulated and demolished—erased from the map entirely.”

Along with Republican Reps. Thomas Massie (Ky.) and Lauren Boebert (Colo.), the resolution received support from 187 Democrats on Tuesday, more than double the number who supported a similar resolution introduced by Tlaib earlier this month.

The Trump administration is assisting the Israeli government as it bombs children in Lebanon. In just 25 days, nearly 1000 more people have died while Congress lacks the courage to end U.S. participation in this invasion. We must pass the Lebanon War Powers Resolution today. pic.twitter.com/eTYjUrtPld

— Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (@RepRashida) June 30, 2026

Despite top House Democrats, including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (NY) and Foreign Affairs Committee Ranking Member Gregory Meeks (NY), giving rhetorical backing to the resolution this time around,
The Intercept reported that they did not formally whip the vote.

Twenty-two Democratic hawks joined the GOP to vote against ending cooperation with Israel’s war, which has killed more than 4,000 people since March.

Among them were a clique of Democrats who have signed on to the centrist “Promise to America” aimed at countering the momentum of progressive and democratic socialist candidates within the party—including Reps. Donald Davis (NC), Laura Gillen (NY), Vicente Gonzalez (Texas), Josh Gottheimer (NJ), Adam Gray (Calif.), Susie Lee (Nev.), and Tom Suozzi (NY).

Others include favorites of the America Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), including Reps. George Latimer (NY), Henry Cuellar (Texas), Jared Golden (Maine), and Brad Schneider (Ill.), who have each received over a million dollars from it and other pro-Israel lobbying groups over their careers, according to FEC reports reviewed by Track AIPAC.

Other Democratic opponents include Reps. Steny Hoyer (Md.), Greg Landsman (Ohio), Jared Moskowitz (Fla.), Donald Norcross (NJ), Jimmy Panetta (Calif.), Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), Brad Sherman (Calif.), Darren Soto (Fla.), Norma Torres (Calif.), Juan Vargas (Calif.), and Marc Veasey (Texas), many of whom have also received extensive support from the lobby.

Here are the 22 Democrats who voted with Republicans to protect Trump's ability to get militarily involved in Lebanon: https://t.co/eG4rNzUP3z pic.twitter.com/wcmoWPxJqO

— Prem Thakker (@prem_thakker) June 30, 2026

As voting began on Tuesday afternoon, Lebanese-American journalist Rania Khalek said that “how people vote on this is a big indicator of who is bought and paid for by the war machine and Israel lobby.”

In a comment to Axios, the staunch pro-Israel centrist Golden justified his vote against the measure by claiming that “to the best of my knowledge, we’re not engaged in a conflict with Lebanon.”

Latimer made a similar statement on social media, claiming that the resolution was only good for “messaging” since the US did not have any active troops in Lebanon.

But Tlaib argued on the House floor that “the United States is not a bystander to these war crimes. It’s an active participant.”

“The United States is currently engaged in illegal and unauthorized hostilities supporting the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in violation of the War Powers Act,” she said. “The Trump administration is providing intelligence, coordinating strikes, demonstrating overt command over the Israeli military decisions, including greenlighting specific Israeli attacks and operations.”

Other supporters of the resolution emphasized that ending Israel’s occupation of Lebanon is a precondition for ending Trump’s war with Iran.

“Ending Israeli military action in Lebanon is a key part of ensuring that the negotiation process with Iran continues and peace prevails in the Middle East,” said Rep. Betty McCullom (D-Minn.).

The memorandum of understanding signed by the US and Iran earlier this month states that, for peace to be achieved, it must be implemented on “all fronts,” including in Lebanon.

Iranian negotiators have repeatedly emphasized that they will not allow Trump to pull back from the war he’s desperate to end unless Israel fully withdraws troops from Lebanon, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has emphatically refused to do.

Janet Abou-Elias, a researcher at the Democratizing Foreign Policy Project at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, told Common Dreams earlier this month that without US military participation, Israel could likely continue its occupation “only for a limited period of time.”

Just Foreign Policy, an anti-war group that has agitated for the passage of Tlaib’s war powers resolution, lambasted the 22 Democrats who voted against it.

“These 22 fringe House Democratic hawks revealed today that they don’t actually want the Iran War to end,” the group wrote in a post to social media. “By failing to end US participation in the Israeli war in Lebanon, they are undermining a peace deal.”

Noting that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has caused oil prices to spike and inflation to ripple across the economy, the group said these Democrats were “keeping prices high for Americans.”

Just Foreign Policy’s executive director Erik Sperling told The Intercept that although the resolution did not pass, the vote signaled that things were moving in the right direction.

“Democrats have been pretty unified about speaking out against the killing of innocents and all of the harm by the Iran War, but there has been less vocal outrage about the mass killing and occupation in Lebanon,” Sperling said. “This is just an important signal that Democrats are aware of the way the Lebanon war is a humanitarian crisis and is the key roadblock to ending this war and delivering the peace that Americans are demanding.”

LEAKED Oct 7 Tapes ORDERING HANNIBAL DIRECTIVE

Lebanon Villages Burned After Israeli DM says Shi’ite Villages Must ‘Disappear’

While Israeli officials continue to try to present their ongoing war in Lebanon as aimed exclusively at attacking Hezbollah, the focus is increasingly on religion-driven forced depopulation in southern Lebanon, and the destruction of Shi’ite villages.

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz was quite open about that being a long-standing military goal, saying “it was clear during Operation Silver Plow that the Shia villages along the contact line had to disappear.”

Operation Silver Plow was first publicized in April, when Israeli soldiers testified that despite public framing, the war’s goal was exclusively the destruction of Shi’ite homes and villages near the blue line, saying individual IDF commanders are required to provide daily reports as to how many homes they’ve destroyed.

Biden Advisor Jake Sullivan FORCED to Admit He Oversaw Mass Murder

‘Unconscionable,’ Says Khanna as House Panel Blocks Effort to Prevent Deeper US-Israeli Military Ties

A Republican-controlled House panel on Monday refused to allow a floor vote on a bipartisan amendment to prevent closer integration of the American and Israeli militaries, which human rights organizations say would deepen US complicity in Israeli war crimes.

“This is unconscionable,” Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who led the proposed amendment alongside Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), said in a video posted to social media on Tuesday. “They’re not even giving us a vote on the amendment.”

Khanna vowed that “Thomas and I will continue to fight to make sure we don’t compromise American sovereignty.”

Congress has blocked the amendment @RepThomasMassie and I introduced to stop the integration of our military with Israel’s. It is unconscionable to not even have a vote. We will be continuing on and will not be intimidated by the pro-Israel lobby. pic.twitter.com/6ai93L0rAY

— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) June 30, 2026

The Khanna-Massie amendment would have removed the US-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative from annual military policy legislation currently moving through Congress. The initiative, laid out in Section 219 of the House’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), instructs the Pentagon to “designate an executive agent... responsible for synchronizing cooperative efforts between the United States and Israel, to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, integration, and industrial cooperation.”

On Monday, the House Rules Committee unveiled a list of NDAA amendments that it decided would get a full House vote, and the Khanna-Massie proposal was absent. Ben Freeman noted at Responsible Statecraft that the rules panel made its decision “after no debate” on the amendment.

“By rejecting the Khanna and Massie amendment, the Rules Committee on Monday ensured the American public would not even get to see how their representatives would vote on this pivotal issue,” Freeman wrote. “This is despite unprecedented levels of public distrust in the Israeli government and widespread public outrage directed at these proposals.”

The fight to block the US-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative—which is enthusiastically backed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC—is not necessarily over.

Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) said earlier this month that lawmakers “must” strip the initiative from the NDAA, signaling a possible fight over the provision in the upper chamber. A summary of the Senate version of the NDAA states that the legislation would establish “the United States-Israel Defense Technology Cooperation Initiative to expand and accelerate bilateral defense technology research, development, testing, evaluation, coordination, and industrial cooperation between the US and
Israel.”

Leading human rights organizations, including Amnesty International USA and Human Rights Watch (HRW), have urged lawmakers to reject the cooperation initiative, with the latter group warning that the proposal would “deepen US military cooperation with Israel while walling that cooperation off from further congressional oversight.”

“Israeli forces’ widespread war crimes, crimes against humanity, and its ongoing acts of genocide in Gaza should give the United States pause about closer military association,” said Akshaya Kumar, HRW’s director of crisis advocacy. “Instead, Section 219 proposes to deepen entanglement, in a way that makes the risks of complicity ongoing. Legislators still have a chance to strip this damaging proposal out.”

US treasury secretary warns oil and gas companies to lower prices: ‘We’re watching’

Scott Bessent, the US treasury secretary, issued a veiled warning to oil and gas companies to lower their prices on Tuesday, a day after Donald Trump berated those retailers on social media for not dropping their prices fast enough and demanded they target $2.50 a gallon.

“I would encourage them to be good actors, especially in the 250th anniversary, because we’re watching,” Bessent said in an interview with Fox News on Tuesday morning, addressing big oil, independent and international retailers. Bessent also said that oil companies were probably making “record profits”, and said it was “time to do something for the American people”.

Trump shared these sentiments in a Truth Social post on Monday, writing that if retailers don’t drop their prices, “big problems lie ahead”.

“Gasoline Retailers must get their Prices down, IMMEDIATELY! They’re too high considering that Oil is now at $68 a Barrel, and heading south. The Retailers must quickly react to this statement, and do what they know is right — DROP YOUR PRICE FOR OUR GREAT AMERICAN PEOPLE!” he wrote.

Alleged Epstein victim and Trump accuser living in fear of retaliation, relative says

A woman known as Jane Doe 4 in the Jeffrey Epstein files is “staying off the grid” and lives in fear of retaliation from the Trump administration amid an escalating controversy over its handling of her case, according to a family member. “Trauma is brutal. Chronic trauma destroys,” said the relative, who described the woman’s life as layers of abuse dating back to early childhood. “She’s coping as best she can.”

The woman had four interviews with FBI agents in 2019 that keep resurfacing in the Epstein sex-trafficking scandal. She made unproven allegations she was abused by the New York financier in the 1980s, then sexually assaulted by Donald Trump, when she was between 13 and 15 years old. The White House has called her allegations “completely baseless” and “backed by zero credible evidence”, a claim it said was supported by the fact that the Biden administration’s justice department knew about the allegations but “did nothing with them”.

She is one of the only alleged Epstein victims to have directly accused Trump, and irregularities in the justice department’s handling of her case files have now become a rallying point for critics of the acting attorney general, Todd Blanche, who is the US president’s nominee for permanent appointment. A federal judge in Washington last week gave Blanche until 2 July to produce unredacted versions of files the justice department has already released, or provide an explanation for why it cannot produce the unredacted records. The Department of Justice was also ordered to release interview notes related to Jane Doe 4’s allegations. The decision was part of a civil case against Blanche brought by journalist Katie Phang.

Late Friday, the justice department’s number three official, Stanley Woodward, gave notice he will join the case. “They really, really don’t want these documents released,” tweeted Brendan Ballou, a lawyer for the Public Integrity Project, who is representing Phang. Alleged Epstein victims and supporters want Blanche, the president’s former personal attorney, to explain why about 2.5m other records of unknown importance were deemed “duplicative” or legally protected by Blanche and never released.

“It should not be Jane Doe 4’s responsibility to keep coming forward,” Sky Roberts, the brother of deceased Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre, who has become a leading victims advocate, told the Guardian. “She’s already given her testimony to the FBI. It should be Justice’s responsibility to take that evidence and press forward,” he said.

Obama VISIBLY REGRETS Gushing Over Slaveholder's "Greatness"

US supreme court upholds birthright citizenship in blow to Trump agenda

The US supreme court has upheld the constitutional guarantee of birthright citizenship, affirming that nearly all people born on US soil are American citizens and rejecting a central pillar of Donald Trump’s anti-immigrant agenda. The president had issued an executive order on the first day of his second term that sought to deny automatic citizenship to the children born to undocumented immigrants and temporary foreign residents. Writing for the majority, Chief Justice John Roberts said this order violated the 14th amendment of the US constitution.

“Citizenship, then and now, was the right to have rights – to freely participate in our political community,” wrote Roberts. “The Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment extended that promise to ‘every free-born person in this land.’ We keep that promise today.”

Roberts was joined by the liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and the conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett. The conservative justice Brett Kavanaugh concurred with the judgment but dissented in part, arguing that the executive order violated federal law but not the constitution. The conservative justices Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch filed dissenting opinions. The court’s writings in the ruling span 194 pages, nearly 90 of which were written by Thomas in dissent, his longest in his tenure on the court.

Trump called the ruling “too bad for our Country”, but said the US Congress should now take up the matter legislatively, suggesting another avenue to keep the issue alive. “No long and unwieldy Constitutional Amendment is necessary! Congress should start TODAY to work on ending expensive and unfair to our Country, Birthright Citizenship,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform. “They will have my Complete and Total Support!”

US supreme court strikes down limits on campaign spending

One of the last remaining barriers between wealthy donors sending unlimited funds to federal political candidates fell after the US supreme court struck down a lower court ruling that limited spending by political parties in support of their candidates. “A BIG WIN FOR REPUBLICANS and, more importantly, The First Amendment!” wrote Donald Trump in a post on Truth Social.

The first amendment of the US constitution includes protections for free speech, and the supreme court has repeatedly ruled that campaign spending is a form of speech.

The case, National Republican Senatorial Committee v Federal Election Commission, stems from a 2022 lawsuit by JD Vance, Republican former congressman Steve Chabot of Ohio, the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee, challenging the Federal Election Commission’s enforcement of limits on so-called “coordinated party expenditures”.

The US supreme court has chipped away at restrictions on political donations and spending over the last two decades. The Citizens United v FEC ruling of 2010 struck down federal restrictions on corporate spending by independent groups influencing elections, followed in 2014 in McCutcheon v FEC, which struck down the aggregate limits on how much an individual may contribute to all candidates and committees combined in an election cycle.

Together, this led to the rise of Super Pacs raising and spending unlimited amounts of money on campaigns, which is legal as long as there is no coordination between the organization and the candidate. Meanwhile, large contributions to joint fundraising committees allowed parties and candidates to raise funds together under their combined limits.

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Trump announces Republican midterm convention

Donald Trump has announced that Republicans will stage their first ever national convention ahead of the midterm elections, a move aimed at energizing voters as the party fights to hold its narrow congressional majorities in November.

The two-day gathering will take place in Dallas on 9 and 10 September, marking a break from the longstanding tradition of holding national conventions only during presidential election years. Trump confirmed the plans on Tuesday in a Truth Social post, describing Dallas as “One of my favorite places in the World”.

“It has never been done before, and will be a truly Historic Event,” he said, promising the convention would feature “Great Entertainment”. Trump first floated the idea for a convention last year, arguing that it would provide an opportunity to showcase his administration’s achievements since he returned to the White House in 2024.

The convention comes as Republicans seek to defy the historical pattern of the president’s party losing seats in the midterms. Should Democrats win control of either chamber – or both – they would gain the ability to block much of Trump’s legislative agenda and launch investigations into his administration during the final years of his second term.

The president remains an enormously influential force among the Republican base, which the party will need to turn out in strong numbers. But the midterms could pose problems for vulnerable Republicans running in places where Trump is deeply unpopular and where his policies – from the war in Iran to his administration’s immigration crackdown – have deeply divided residents.

Corporate Dems COOKED In MASSIVE DSA CO Win

Progressives Call On NYC Council to Expel Member Paladino for Saying CIA Should ‘Neutralize’ DSA Organizers

Darializa Avila Chevalier, the progressive organizer whose primary victory over five-term Democratic Congressman Adriano Espaillat last week stunned the party’s establishment, was among those calling for the expulsion of New York City Council member Vickie Paladino Tuesday night after the Republican issued “a thinly veiled call” for the government “to kill” democratic socialists.

On the social media platform X, Paladino posted an image of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) 2025-27 National Political Committee, including national co-chairs Ashik Siddique and Megan Romer, and mused that in the past, government agencies may have mobilized to kill the 27 people in the picture to stop their left-wing activities.

“There was a time in our history, not too long ago, when the CIA/FBI would’ve made sure unabashed revolutionaries like this were neutralized one way or another,” said Paladino (R-19). “In fact, that was basically the entire point of having them.”

Paladino appeared to be referring to the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program (COINTELPRO), which surveilled, infiltrated, and tried to disrupt groups and movements that fought for civil rights and against the US war in Vietnam. COINTELPRO was involved in the 1969 raid in Chicago in which police killed Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark.

“This is insane,” said US Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) after Paladino suggested the US government should use the FBI and CIA to “neutralize” DSA organizers, who are working to elect advocates for Medicare for All, universal childcare, and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, among other increasingly popular progressive proposals.

Chevalier, a member of the DSA’s New York City chapter, called for Paladino to be “expelled.”

“We need public leaders who will fight for a politics of life and the council member has shown time and time again that she does not,” said Chevalier.

Yet another example of Vickie Paladino calling for the federal government to retaliate against people she disagrees with. This time, it’s a thinly veiled call for the federal government to kill members of @DemSocialists.

We need public leaders who will fight for a politics of… https://t.co/S9yVw2WIG2

— Darializa for Congress (@DarializaforNY) June 30, 2026

Paladino’s call to “neutralize” left-wing organizers came a day after she urged New York City police to “run over” protesters who were blocking officers on bikes. Last December, Paladino said the US should “take very seriously the need to begin the expulsion of Muslims from Western nations,” and last June she suggested New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist who was then a primary candidate, should be deported.

The Brooklyn Young Democrats also accused Paladino of “encouraging political violence” and called on the City Council to condemn her comments “and consider appropriate action—including expulsion.”

Ryan Deitsch, co-founder of the gun control group A March for Our Lives, addressed the New York Police Department and Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, asking whether Paladino’s threat raised any “red flags.”

Hey @NYPDnews @NYPDPC y’all just letting this woman threaten people like this? Calling for NYers to be neutralized for their political beliefs? No red flags for you? Vickie “let’s expel Muslims” Paladino needs to be held accountable for her hateful & violence-supporting rhetoric! https://t.co/o8WvgfuvAz

— Ryan Deitsch (@Ryan_Deitsch) June 30, 2026

The council member’s comments came less than a week after a number of progressive primary victories in New York City, including Chevalier’s. The election results led centrist Democrats to quickly mobilize against democratic socialist candidates, warning that progressive contenders are “bomb-throwers, not problem solvers”—even as Mamdani secured a two-year rent freeze that will affect roughly 1 million rent-stabilized apartments, as New Yorkers and people across the country struggle with rising costs.

One DSA organizer said in response to Paladino, “Imagine if Zohran Mamdani said something about having the [Republican National Committee] chair and co-chair ‘neutralized one way or another’ with a secret police force.”

“Expel Vickie Paladino from the NYC Council,” they added, “and have her arrested and charged for making a terrorist threat.”

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Days After Monsanto Ruling, Trump EPA Approves More Forever Chemical Pesticides

The US Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday continued its betrayal of President Donald Trump’s campaign promise to “Make America Healthy Again,” approving the use of multiple “forever chemical” pesticides on crops despite public health concerns.

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are called forever chemicals because they don’t naturally break down—instead accumulating in human and animal bodies as well as the environment. They have been used in everything from fabrics for clothing and furniture to firefighting foam to nonstick cookware, and are tied to various health problems, including increased risk of some cancers.

The Trump EPA on Tuesday finalized its approval of using two PFAS pesticides, diflufenican and epyrifenacil, on corn and soybeans, the two most widely grown crops in the United States.

The agency also expanded its allowances for another previously approved forever chemical pesticide, bifenthrin, and greenlighted the first food use of chlormequat, a non-PFAS pesticide tied to reproductive issues.

“While the Biden administration had approved one PFAS pesticide in the prior four years, this is the third and fourth approval of a PFAS pesticide under Trump in just his second year in office,” the Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) noted in a Tuesday statement. “The previous two PFAS pesticide approvals were cyclobutrifluram and isocycloseram.”

As the center detailed:

The EPA has stated in press materials that these new fluorinated pesticides are not PFAS. That assertion is based on the fact that they do not meet the chemicals office’s unilateral regulatory PFAS definition. But the new pesticides do meet the much more widely accepted PFAS definition that was developed transparently by dozens of scientists around the world. That definition has subsequently been endorsed by more than 150 leading PFAS researchers, is used by nearly every US state for regulating PFAS, and specifically was written into past versions of the National Defense Authorization Act.

Using the scientific definition of a PFAS that is widely accepted in this country and around the world, these pesticides are PFAS.

The EPA had even initially acknowledged that these pesticides met the more broadly accepted PFAS definition on its fluorinated pesticides webpage. Yet three weeks after creating the webpage, it removed any mention of the conflicting definition, instead portraying the agency’s unilateral definition as the only PFAS definition.

Under the Freedom of Information Act, CBD obtained documents showing that those website revisions were overseen by EPA Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention’s assistant administrator, Douglas Troutman, and Kyle Kunkler—a former American Soybean Association (ASA) lobbyist controversially installed as the office’s deputy assistant administrator for pesticides—and reviewed by agency Administrator Lee Zeldin.

While ASA president and Ohio soybean farmer Scott Metzger welcomed the Tuesday approvals, saying that “we appreciate EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and the agency” for advancing the registrations, Nathan Donley, CBD’s environmental health science director, was deeply critical and tied the developments to the Trump administration’s other actions serving the pesticide industry.

“It’s a national outrage that Trump’s EPA is expanding use of dangerous, cancer-linked PFAS pesticides just days after the Supreme Court limited the American people’s right to sue pesticide companies,” said Donley, referring to last week’s ruling in favor of Monsanto and against thousands of people who argue that its glyphosate-based weedkiller Roundup caused their cancer.

In addition to the Trump administration backing Bayer—which bought Monsanto in 2018—in the case before the high court, the president in February issued an executive order mandating the production of glyphosate. Since returning to office last year, Trump has also faced criticism for EPA approvals of other pesticides, from atrazine to dicamba, and for his administration’s MAHA report that echoes industry talking points.

Donley declared Tuesday that “Trump’s reckless push to ignore science and embrace these extremely harmful, long-lasting pesticides ensures his legacy won’t be the many monuments he’s built to himself, but the many millions of people his shortsighted policies will sicken and prematurely kill.”

‘Literally growing the future’: volunteers help save Scottish rainforest by collecting 11m seeds

A small band of volunteers has helped to grow nearly 8m native trees in Scotland, crucial to efforts to restore lost parts of the Atlantic rainforest, after collecting 11m seeds by hand.

About 100 volunteers, including retired teachers and doctors, office workers and young families, have spent tens of thousands of hours venturing into often remote woods in the western Highlands and islands to search out seed-bearing trees. They have used detailed maps compiled by NatureScot and Scottish Forestry that identify pockets of ancient woodland, often in exposed, challenging locations, scrambling up hillsides to find the right specimens.

They search for a select range of trees, known to have colonised Scotland after the last ice age: hazel, sessile oak, dwarf birch, willow, juniper, birch, wild cherry, wych elm, yew and elder. The ecologists involved said these trees have inherited the genetic resilience to survive in specific microclimates and soil types along Scotland’s Atlantic coast – an advantage non-native trees would lack, particularly as the climate changes.

The latest surveys suggest only 30,000 hectares of original Atlantic rainforest, a rare temperate habitat adapted to the UK’s moist coastal environment, survives. Now the focus of multimillion-pound restoration projects, those pockets have been meticulously mapped within distinct seed zones devised by forestry experts.

The seeds have been collected, graded and checked by the rewilding organisation Trees for Life at its tree nursery at Dundreggan near Inverness, with the finished saplings sent back out to the correct zones.

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Also of Interest

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

Palestinians Report Intensified Israeli Military Operations in the Gaza Strip

Iran War: Israel Makes Massive Bomb Blast in Southern Lebanon, Threatens Imminent Attack on Iran; Iran Refuses Meeting with US on Strait of Hormuz as Assembly of Experts Statement Assures Already Likely Death of MOU; Strait of Hormuz Transits Increasing as Iran and Oman Not on Same Page

War On Iran: – Vance-Rubio Struggle – Oman Supports ‘Fees’

Iran war has cost Americans $1,000 per household, economist estimates

Gaza emerges as a defining issue for Gen Z voters in New York Democratic primaries

Inside ‘Labour Together’s’ Campaign Against Jeremy Corbyn

How Many Poor People Could Elon’s Trillion Lift Out Of Poverty?

Doubt that Elon Musk ‘earned’ his trillion? Rightwing media says you’re in an ‘impotent envy cult’

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A Little Night Music

Jimmy "T99" Nelson - I Sat And Cried

Jimmy "T99" Nelson - Free And Easy Mind

Jimmy "T99" Nelson - Unlock The Lock

Jimmy "T-99" Nelson - Sweetest Little Girl

Jimmy "T-99" Nelson - She's My Baby

Jimmy T99 Nelson – Hot Tamale Man

Jimmy "T99" Nelson - Last Time Around

Jimmy "T99" Nelson - Deep Sleeping

Jimmy "T99" Nelson - One Step At A Time

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