Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features boogie woogie piano player Charles "Cow Cow" Davenport. Enjoy!

Miracle Max: He probably owes you money huh? I'll ask him.

Inigo Montoya: He's dead. He can't talk.

Miracle Max: Whoo-hoo-hoo, look who knows so much. It just so happens that your friend here is only MOSTLY dead. There's a big difference between mostly dead and all dead. Mostly dead is slightly alive. With all dead, well, with all dead there's usually only one thing you can do.

Inigo Montoya: What's that?

Miracle Max: Go through his clothes and look for loose change.

News and Opinion

Well, At Least Lindsey Graham Is Dead

The only positive thing about the Iran war heating up again is that Lindsey Graham won’t be around to enjoy it.

The bloodthirsty South Carolina senator breathed his last on Saturday, succumbing to what his office describes as “a brief and sudden illness” after a political career dedicated to promoting wars, airstrikes and proxy conflicts at every possible opportunity.

People have long poked fun at the hypocrisy of Lindsey Graham living as an obvious closeted gay man in a political party with a virulently anti-LGBTQ platform. I personally have always found Graham’s sexual attraction to men a lot less interesting than his sexual attraction to acts of mass military slaughter.

JUST IN - Lindsey Graham and Trump pose together with a "Make Iran Great Again" hat, signed by Trump. pic.twitter.com/656ctZp52M

— Disclose.tv (@disclosetv) January 5, 2026

Ever since the death of Graham’s dear friend John McCain, nobody on Capitol Hill has been able to match his gleeful enthusiasm for the shredding of human bodies using high-priced war machinery. Wherever there was any debate about dropping bombs, launching missiles, toppling foreign governments, arming proxy forces, or imposing starvation sanctions, you could always count on Lindsey Graham to be the first and loudest voice arguing in favor of more death and destruction.

Graham has personally taken credit for persuading President Trump to begin the war with Iran. In the months leading up to his unexpected demise, the senator had advocated for direct US military interventionism in Iran, Cuba, Venezuela, Yemen, Nigeria, Lebanon, and Palestine, and had just returned from a trip to Kyiv promoting the US proxy war against Russia. He was literally pushing for more war and military expansionism until the very end of his life.

All the world’s worst people are publicly expressing their grief about the loss of their beloved war slut, from Trump to Benjamin Netanyahu to Itamar Ben-Gvir to Tom Cotton to Mike Huckabee. Meanwhile, everyone who’s not a warmongering psychopath is having a splendid day.

Of course we’re seeing imperial narrative managers like Piers Morgan wagging their fingers
and chiding their audiences not to speak ill of the dead, but the hell with them. We’re not doing that. Politeness is not more important than Lindsey Graham’s victims. The liberal desire for propriety and nice feelings does not outweigh the importance of naming and shaming Graham’s frenetic scramble to murder as many human beings as he possibly could throughout his evil, miserable life.

Lindsey Graham is dead, and it is good that he is dead. May his omnicidal ideology soon join him in the arms of the cold, cold ground. May the insane, insatiable god he worshipped cease to gain recognition on this planet.

Lindsey Graham is dead. At least that’s one good thing. No matter what else happens today, they can’t take that away from us.

Scott Ritter: Iran's Missiles SMASH US Base in Jordan, Saudi Airport STRUCK as Trump Orders War

Marco Rubio in MARCH: "Goal of the war is to change the regime."

Marco Rubio in APRIL: "Goal of the war is to stop Iran from making nukes."

Marco Rubio in JULY: "Goal of the war is to return everything 'back to the way it was,' including the Strait of Hormuz." … pic.twitter.com/hka8HM1Vph

— InfoGram (@_InfoGram_) July 12, 2026

US launches third night of strikes on Iran as Trump announces Hormuz blockade

The US has launched its third consecutive night of strikes on Iran hours after Donald Trump said Washington would reinstate a maritime blockade on the country and, in an apparently policy reversal, charge ships for safe passage. “These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the strait of Hormuz,” the US military’s Central Command said.

Trump had earlier told the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt: “We’re going to hit them very hard tonight and we’re going to hit them hard tomorrow – and there’s not a damn thing they can do about it.” He added: “They have nothing. They have nothing going, other than they have big mouths.” Late on Monday the UAE said two ⁠national tankers ⁠were ​targeted by two Iranian cruise missiles in ⁠the southern lane of the strait ⁠of Hormuz in Omani territorial ​waters, ‌killing one ‌Indian crew member and wounding ‌eight others, including four seriously.

Earlier on Monday, Trump had said the US would demand a 20% tariff on all cargoes shipped through the strait of Hormuz. He suggested in a post on his Truth Social platform that the US should be known henceforth as the “guardian of the strait of Hormuz”, as Iran and the US engaged in some of the heaviest drone and missile exchanges since an interim deal was negotiated to bring an end to the conflict.

Until now, the US had said the strait should remain open to all without tolls – as it was before Washington and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February. Any attempt by the US or Iran to charge fees would violate global norms on freedom of navigation and would be likely to cause further economic disruption far beyond the region.

Trump has made numerous claims and threats during the war on Iran, including frequent claims of victory, many of which have had little grounding in reality. On Monday it was revealed that Trump sent Congress formal notification that hostilities against Iran had resumed on 7 July, ⁠a letter his administration sees as opening a new 60-day window to use the military in the region without congressional approval. The US Constitution says that only Congress, not the president, has the power to declare war.

OIL CATASTROPHE Looms As Trump Restarts War

Israel courted Iran’s former hardline president for post-regime role

Israel tried to recruit Iran’s intensely anti-Zionist former president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to lead a new post-Islamic regime in Tehran, and even sent its top spy to Budapest to meet him, according to media reports.

The remarkable quest to turn a leader who had denied the Holocaust and called for Israel’s erasure began in 2022, according to reporting by the New York Times and the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, and continued even after Israel became engaged in a brutal campaign in Gaza against Hamas, a key Iranian ally.

Ahmadinejad – who is now believed to be in the custody of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), according to a New York Times report citing Iranian officials – had begun in previous years to distance himself from the regime, improve his English and redefine his image. The effort to install him as a new Iranian leader gathered steam after Ahmadinejad was invited to speak at the same university in the Hungarian capital that had been addressed just two months earlier by Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, in 2025.

Israeli officials are even said to have paid Ahmadinejad for housing and travel, with Mossad operatives meeting him several times, including on trips to Hungary at a time when the country was led by the far-right prime minister Viktor Orbán, a close ally of Israel and Donald Trump.Details of the effort have emerged amid speculation about Ahmadinejad’s fate after the US and Israel began military strikes against Iran on 28 February, which killed several Iranian senior figures, including the supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Ahmadinejad appeared last week among mourners at Khamenei’s funeral, his first public appearance in several months. The NYT – which has previously reported that Israeli and US officials had identified him as a potential leader of a new post-theocratic regime – reported he had been driven from his home after the strike by four Mossad agents, who then kept him at a safe house in Tehran. However, Ahmadinejad is said to have become upset about the “frantic” rescue mission and disillusioned about the plan to install him in power. He left the safe house under “mysterious circumstances” and is since believed to have been taken into the custody of the IRGC intelligence wing, the NYT reported, citing Iranian officials.

The Unseen Damage Trump's Iran Policy is Doing to America /Lt Col Daniel Davis & Mike Adams

Critics Slam Trump Bid to Restart Legal Clock on Illegal Iran War

Critics from both sides of the political aisle on Monday denounced President Donald Trump’s effort to construct a facade of legality for the illegal US-Israeli war of choice on Iran by notifying Congress of renewed military strikes on the Mideast nation.

Trump claimed in a letter to members of Congress that, on July 7, he ordered “defensive strikes against targets within Iran, including missile launch sites, air defenses, military maritime assets, military support infrastructure, and command and control capabilities.”

“These strikes are limited, measured, planned, and executed in a manner designed to minimize civilian casualties,” wrote Trump, whose war has killed more than 3,400 people—hundreds of them children—and wounded over 26,500 others since February 28, according to Iran’s Ministry of Health.

“I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution,” the president added.

News w/ @AndrewDesiderio: Trump formally notified Congress of the resumption of military activities against Iran on July 10 under the war powers resolution.

Dems say the war is illegal and the president cannot restart the 60-day clock for military action. pic.twitter.com/SpFjBiYMx0

— Anthony Adragna (@AnthonyAdragna) July 13, 2026

The War Powers Resolution of 1973—also known as the War Powers Act—requires the president to notify Congress within 48 hours of committing troops to military action and limit such action to 60 days, with a 30-day withdrawal period, unless lawmakers declare war or issue an authorization for the use of military force.

Elected Democrats and legal experts have rejected Trump’s argument that the negotiated ceasefire he’s now abandoned resets the War Powers Resolution’s 60-day limit; absent congressional authorization, the statutory clock generally starts from the first US strike and continues uninterrupted until military action ends.

Asked Monday by CNN’s Kaitlan Collins if this is “just the new normal for the American people,” Trump—who has called himself the “peace president”—replied, “No, well, you know, we were in Vietnam for 19 years; we’re [in Iran] for four months.”

Trump said during the same press conference that “we’re doing another very major attack tonight” in Iran.

US Central Command (CENTCOM) said Monday that US forces “began launching the third consecutive night of strikes against Iran, at the Commander in Chief’s direction.”

“These strikes will continue imposing a heavy cost on Iranian forces and degrade their ability to attack innocent civilians and commercial shipping in the Strait of Hormuz,” CENTCOM added.

Responding to the president’s letter, former libertarian Congressman Justin Amash (R-Mich.) said on social media: “This is not how it works. The War Powers Resolution doesn’t give the president a ‘free’ 60 days—and the Constitution certainly doesn’t either. Regardless, we’re talking about a single war. You don’t get to pause it and then pretend it’s a different war.”

Congresswoman Teresa Leger Fernández (D-NM) also took to social media, writing: “Trump said the war with Iran was over. He lied.”

“Now he is telling Congress the United States is at war again—and claiming another 60 days to wage it without congressional approval,” she added. “He cannot end a war on paper to dodge the law, then restart the clock when it suits him. No more lies. No more endless wars.”

As the founders said: “the president is the emperor of war with unchecked powers to wage war wherever he wants as long as he does a pretend ceasefire every 60 days or so” https://t.co/EWlMJ0EB6t

— Jamal Abdi (@jabdi) July 13, 2026

Aaron Fritschner, Rep. Don Beyer’s (D-Va.) deputy chief of staff, said that Trump administration officials “may think the Congress and citizenry are extremely stupid, and they are mistaken,” adding that the Iran War “is obviously illegal.”

Foreign policy journalist Laura Rozen dragged what she described as “a forever war in 60-day increments.”

Politico House leadership reporter Riley Rogerson asked House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) whether Democrats are planning on pursuing another war powers resolution like the one passed last month by both chambers of Congress aimed at blocking Trump’s ability to keep attacking Iran.

“We have advanced multiple war powers resolutions up until this point, and we will continue to use every legislative tool available to end Donald Trump and the Republican reckless and costly war of choice in Iran,” Jeffries replied.

Under Israeli pressure, US seizes Max Blumenthal’s devices on return from Tehran reporting trip

On July 10, 2026, American journalist Max Blumenthal was traveling back to the United States from Iran, which he had visited to report on the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the largest gathering in human history. While in Iran, Blumenthal interviewed members of Iran’s negotiation team, top political officials, academics and average citizens for a series of video and print reports for this news outlet, which he founded.

He also documented several US and Israeli war crimes from the ground, including the destruction of an entire neighborhood in Eastern Tehran which left at least 40 civilians dead.

Upon reentering the country at Dulles International Airport, Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) interrogated Blumenthal about his trip, searched his belongings, and demanded that he provide access to his smart phones. When he refused to open his phones, CBP officers forced him to turn them over for detention. Other journalists and travelers have been threatened with the loss of their passports for a month for failing to hand over their devices.

Blumenthal entered Iran exactly as reporters working for establishment media outlets like CNN and NBC did – on a press visa granted by the Iranian Foreign Ministry. While in Tehran, he participated in official press events alongside those mainstream reporters, who were also in the country to cover the Ayatollah’s funeral. When journalists from CNN, NBC, and other American outlets returned to the US, however, they were not subjected to the same harassment Blumenthal experienced, nor were they required to give the US government their electronic devices.

“It was precisely because of my journalism that I was targeted by the Trump administration,” Blumenthal commented. “The US government is clearly threatened by my reporting from Tehran, where I showed the massive crowds of mourners and ferocious public backlash to the assassination of [Ayatollah Ali] Khamenei, exposed US and Israeli war crimes against civilians from the ground, and conducted candid interviews with officials and negotiators. The seizure of my devices was a clear act of intimidation aimed at deterring me and others from doing further critical reporting from Iran about the illegal war ravaging the country, which is likely why my interrogators from CPB demanded to know if I would be returning to Tehran any time soon.”

Jenin Younes, a civil liberties lawyer who serves as President of the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC), also protested the US government’s seizure of Blumenthal’s devices. “The practice of seizing and searching a journalist’s phone or other electronic devices at the border raises grave First and Fourth amendment concerns,” Younes told The Grayzone. “Absent a legitimate and particularized national security justification, search of phones should not be a condition of entering the country. The Supreme Court has recognized the important privacy interests in modern smart phones, an interest that is not diminished simply because an American is crossing the border. The search and seizure of Blumenthal’s phones is yet more concerning because it appears to be viewpoint based discrimination, given that prominent associates of the current administration have singled him out for condemnation because of his views.”

Pepe Escobar: Yemen Joins the War, and the Entire Middle East Could Go Up in Flames

Saudi-Led Forces Bomb Yemen’s Sanaa Airport, Reigniting War With the Houthis

Saudi-led forces bombed the international airport in Sanaa, Yemen, on Monday, reigniting the war with Yemen’s Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, which has been in a state of ceasefire that has held relatively well since 2022.

The attack was claimed by Yemen’s so-called “internationally recognized government,” which is based in Saudi Arabia and doesn’t have an air force of its own, meaning the strikes were almost certainly launched by Saudi warplanes.

In response, Ansar Allah’s military spokesman, Yahya Saree, vowed Yemen would hit back and said the era of “de-escalation” between the two sides was over. A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition later claimed that Saudi “air defenses intercepted a ballistic missile threat launched by the terrorist Houthi militia towards the southern region.”

Saree then announced that Yemeni forces targeted Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport with a “a number of ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.”

The purpose of the strikes on the Sanaa airport was to prevent the landing of a plane from Iran carrying a Yemeni delegation that attended the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Despite the strikes, the plane was rerouted and landed at the airport in the Yemeni Red Sea port city of Hodeidah.

Excellent, my respect for Jeremy Scahill just went way up. Worth watching:

Jeremy Scahill and Ro Khanna CLASH Over Palestinian Armed Resistance and Iron Dome

Marco Rubio launches campaign to dismantle international criminal court

Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state, launched a campaign to dismantle the international criminal court (ICC) on Monday, claiming the global tribunal was interfering with US military and law enforcement operations at the risk of American sovereignty. Rubio invoked images of US border patrol agents and elected leaders being “dragged before an international court” and tried by judges from around the world in a lengthy op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Monday.

“If we stand idle, all of them will be at the mercy of foreign judges, thousands of miles away – facing the constant risk of prosecution and even imprisonment for the so-called ‘crime’ of defending their own country,” Rubio warned in a companion video posted to X.

The state department plan to “dismantle” the ICC will involve pressuring other nations to abandon the court, according to CNN. “Nations that refuse to reject the ICC’s false authority while relying on US assistance are likely to come under increased scrutiny,” an official told the outlet, adding that possible punishments could involve sanctions, travel bans and visa revocations.

But three international legal experts described Rubio’s remarks as a mischaracterization of the tribunal’s powers. “The ICC is not claiming jurisdiction over conduct in the United States,” said Kenneth Roth, former executive director of Human Rights Watch. “Rubio is dressing up his quest for impunity for American war crimes under the label of national sovereignty, which ignores the sovereign right of other nations to invoke the ICC for crimes committed on their territory.”

The international court, headquartered in The Hague, can only investigate crimes committed in states that are party to the Rome statute, the 2002 treaty that established the ICC. The United States has not ratified the treaty, nor has the court opened investigations into crimes committed on American soil. “Trump wants to be able to commit war crimes on the territory of countries that have accepted the court’s jurisdiction – that’s what this is about,” Roth said.

Russia DECIMATES Ukraine's Drone, Missile Production – Kiev CAN'T Shoot ANYTHING Down | Mark Sleboda

Oil prices leap and stocks fall as Trump reinstates Hormuz blockade on Iranian shipping

Oil prices rose 5% on Monday as Donald Trump reinstated the US blockade of Iranian shipping in the Gulf and will charge other countries to pass through the strait of Hormuz. As the US and Iran exchanged strikes amid an escalating standoff over the vital trade route, the price of Brent crude climbed to $79.37 a barrel. The international crude benchmark began rising after a weekend of escalating tensions in the Middle East, and climbed higher as the US president said Iranian ships would no longer be able to travel through the strait of Hormuz.

Trump added that the US would charge a 20% toll on other countries’ eligible cargo to cover the cost of “providing safety and security to this very volatile section of the world”. In a social media post, Trump said: “The USA will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT’,” adding that the arrangement would “begin immediately”.

The US move to assume control of the strait has cast fresh doubt over hopes that normal flows of Gulf oil and gas into the global market will resume after months of disruption because of the war. Oil was trading at $72.48 a barrel before the US-Israeli strikes on Tehran in late February and reached highs of $120 in April.

The latest developments hit airline shares on both sides of the Atlantic. In the US, tech stocks were down in early afternoon trading on Wall Street, after the escalation of hostilities. The tech-heavy Nasdaq was down 1% and the S&P 500 fell 0.4%.

Mexico to file criminal complaints over migrants killed by ICE in US

Claudia Sheinbaum announced on Monday that Mexico would be filing criminal complaints in the US for the deaths of more than a dozen Mexican migrants in immigration detention and those killed in anti-migrant operations.

The deaths include last week’s killing of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston, whom Sheinbaum said was “practically murdered”.

“It’s a case that sparks outrage among all Mexicans,” the Mexican president said during her morning news conference. “We cannot simply continue with diplomatic letters that have yielded no results.”

A total of 17 Mexican citizens have died since Donald Trump began his migrant crackdown: 14 people in detention and another three who, like Salgado Araujo, were killed during immigration operations.

Sheinbaum has frequently called for the human rights of Mexican citizens in the US to be respected and has sent several diplomatic letters to Washington complaining of migrant deaths. But in the wake of Salgado Araujo’s killing, Sheinbaum said her government would file complaints with US federal and local courts on Monday.

Prosecutors get long-withheld evidence on fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti

Previously withheld evidence regarding the fatal shootings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti is now in the hands of Minnesota prosecutors, helping the state gain clarity on the deaths that occurred earlier this year during protests against a federal immigration crackdown.

“Through the cooperation of our federal partners, we have obtained hard drives of previously withheld evidence in the killings of Renée Good and Alex Pretti, and the shooting of Julio Sosa-Celis,” the Hennepin county attorney, Mary Moriarty, said in a video statement posted on social media.

The newly obtained evidence includes Good’s car, statements, police body-camera video and other evidence that federal officials had previously withheld in the killings. “Our democracy requires it,” said Moriarty. “After receiving this evidence, we immediately began to analyze it in the context of the evidence we already had in hand. This analysis is ongoing.”

In a statement, Steve Schleicher, the Pretti family attorney, said he and his clients were “initially encouraged” by the announcement, but in a subsequent meeting Daniel Rosen, the US attorney for the district of Minnesota, “refused to confirm any cooperation agreement between state and federal agencies – continuing to deny the Pretti family basic information that they have been requesting for months”.

“No family should be required to beg federal authorities to do their job. Without a public commitment by federal authorities to cooperate with the state, it is difficult – if not, impossible – to pursue justice that holds the individuals accountable for Alex’s death,” Schleicher continued.

ICE ADMITS Major Faults in New Shooting

ICE agents kill man in Maine as senator says victim not target of arrest

A federal immigration officer shot and killed a man in Biddeford, Maine on Monday, the Department of Homeland Security confirmed, just days ⁠after a man ⁠was ​killed by an immigration officer during a traffic stop in Texas. In the statement, DHS claimed Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were “conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal”.

DHS claimed “an illegal alien” left the residence agents were surveilling in a vehicle, which law enforcement “attempted” to stop. It said: “The vehicle attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon.”

The person killed by the agent was not the target of an immigration enforcement operation, Maine senator Angus King said on Monday afternoon on CNN, reversing an earlier statement at a press conference. Local immigrants’ rights groups said the victim was a 26-year-old Colombian man.

DHS has repeatedly claimed victims of ICE shootings “weaponized” their vehicles, with video evidence later casting doubt on the department’s claims. King said in a press conference the ICE officials were not wearing body cameras. The FBI would lead an investigation into the shooting, he added.

AIPAC Deploys Obama Ads to Save Flailing Establishment

Keystone pipeline operator agrees to pay $26.9m penalty over Kansas oil spill

A proposed legal settlement with the US government would require the Keystone pipeline system’s operator to pay a $26.9m civil penalty over a large oil spill in Kansas in December 2022 and spend about $40m more to prevent future accidents.

The agreement would resolve allegations from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Kansas that South Bow, based in Canada, violated US and state clean water laws. The rupture dumped nearly 13,000 barrels of heavy crude oil into a creek running through a rural pasture in Washington county, Kansas, about 150 miles (241km) north-west of Kansas City.

The accident was the largest onshore crude pipeline spill in the US in nine years and surpassed all 22 previous ones on the same pipeline system combined, according to a 2021 report from the US Government Accountability Office. The total amount of oil spilled would have nearly filled an Olympic-sized swimming pool.

South Bow also would pay Kansas more than $3m for environmental restoration projects under a proposed decree filed on Friday in US district court in Kansas. A judge would have to approve the proposed decree after a 30-day public comment period. “The oil spill blanketed land and water, rendering the waterway lifeless and useless and requiring extensive cleanup and remediation,” said a statement from Jeffrey Hall, the EPA’s assistant administrator for its enforcement office. “The substantial penalty reflects the seriousness of the environmental harm.”

The company that built the pipeline, TC Energy, spun off South Bow as a separate firm in 2024, after the Kansas cleanup was done. In April, Donald Trump gave the go-ahead for South Bow and another company to build a second pipeline from Canada to Wyoming. That second pipeline aimed to be a smaller version of a large $8bn pipeline project known as Keystone XL that had previously been blocked by former president Joe Biden’s administration in 2021 over environmental concerns.

Trump officials accused of stacking top chemical safety board with industry ‘mouthpieces’

The Trump administration has stacked a top chemical safety board with industry-aligned scientists who have a range of financial conflicts of interest and stand to profit from deregulation, public health advocates say. The Environmental Protection Agency’s science advisory committee on chemicals (SACC) is slated to review research for dozens of toxic chemicals during the new members’ terms. At least 13 proposed Trump appointees are probably conflicted on the chemicals that will be reviewed, comments filed with the EPA by a coalition of public health advocacy groups alleges.

Their appointment, critics warn, is designed to provide scientific justification for the EPA’s broader campaign to dismantle the nation’s protections against toxic chemicals.

Among the appointees are Wade Barranco, employed by Lyondell Chemical Company, which in 2024 released nearly 1m pounds of chemicals likely to be reviewed by the SACC during his term, including acetaldehyde, benzene, ethylbenzene, naphthalene and styrene. The public health groups say the appointees’ participation on reviews in which there is a conflict could be illegal. They pointed to federal law and the EPA’s internal guidelines that state that the SACC must be “both balanced and free of members who have actual or perceived conflicts of interest or an appearance of a loss of impartiality”.

Erik D Olson, senior strategic director for health for the Natural Resources Defense Council non-profit, which is among those leading the investigation into the appointees, said it was “clear why they were put on the committee”.

“They are mouthpieces for the chemical industry, or consulting firms bought and paid for by the chemical companies,” Olson said. The SACC comprises 20-23 experts appointed every three years by the EPA administrator. It peer-reviews EPA science and scrutinizes the chemical risk analyses that underpin the agency’s decisions to regulate substances, with the aim of ensuring that the best available science is used. The SACC typically includes experts from across the scientific community, including those affiliated with chemical makers, but the new board will be heavily tilted toward industry.

Hello from the outside: heat domes impeding radio and other signals in US midwest

It was 3am in north-east Indiana’s Huntington county when the outdoor emergency alarm went off on 1 July. The emergency alarm in Huntington county received radio signals from 300 miles west that accidentally matched the activation code for the siren, said Thomas Fuller, Huntington county’s deputy director for emergency management.

In Ohio, residents driving in their cars, their radios tuned to the local news and music, were warned that they could find themselves abruptly listening to radio stations hundreds of miles away, or their coverage simply blanked out.

These events are down to the high temperature’s effects on tropospheric ducting, the atmospheric weather phenomenon that can facilitate radio, television and microwave signals traveling for hundreds of miles. The ducting, also known as tropospheric propagation, typically lasts anywhere between minutes to several hours, but sometimes longer, depending on the weather and atmospheric conditions in a particular location.

Radio is an essential mode of communication during emergency situations, when internet and cell coverage regularly falters, but is also an everyday tool for thousands of forest firefighters, railroad workers and the maritime industry around the Great Lakes region at this time of year.

With researchers predicting more frequent and more extreme heat domes – a weather pattern in which a high-pressure system in the upper atmosphere stalls over a large area, trapping hot, humid air close to the ground – for high population regions such as North America, Europe and beyond – the consequences for communications systems may be significant. The climate crisis could also play a role in a potential growth in communications interference resulting from tropospheric ducting.

Also of Interest

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

Alastair Crooke: Iran War 3.0

Iran War: What Happens When the US Hits the Limits of Escalation Options?

War On Iran: Escalation – Saudi’s Block Oil – Alleged Recruiting Of Ahmadinejad

Rahm Emanuel Turning On Israel Is Good

US justice department investigating UAW president over corruption allegations

US judge nullifies Trump deal to resolve IRS lawsuit in scathing ruling

A Little Night Music

Cow Cow Davenport - Alabama Mis-Treater

Cow Cow Davenport - Mama Don't Allow No Easy Riders Here

Cow Cow Davenport - Don't You Loud Mouth Me

Cow Cow Davenport - The Mess Is Here

Cow Cow Davenport - That'll Get It

Cow Cow Davenport - Back In The Alley

Cow Cow Davenport - State Street Jive

Cow Cow Davenport - Jim Crow Blues

Cow Cow Davenport - Cow Cow Blues