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"Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters. Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard."

-- Robert H. Jackson

News and Opinion

Today In Dystopia: ICE Robots

Today in dystopia, ICE is planning to add police robots to the arsenal with which it will be patrolling US streets.

Fortune reports:

“The Trump administration is exploring adding robot dogs to the expanding arsenal being used by federal immigration authorities as they seek to boost arrests and deportations across the country.

“US Immigration and Customs Enforcement posted a market-research notice Friday saying the agency was looking into the purchase of ‘quadruped unmanned ground vehicles,’ known as robotic dogs, along with a draft of the robot specifications.”

I guess it makes sense that the empire’s mad rush to normalize police robots would be spearheaded by the department responsible for persecuting immigrants; there’d be more domestic pushback if these dystopian machines were patrolling the streets targeting less marginalized populations.

ICE plans to spend as much as $2 million to purchase robot “dogs” that the agency would use in immigration enforcement operations, according to a government funding document. https://t.co/2PskIPepdo

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 28, 2026

I still can’t stand how the western political/media class keeps calling these things “dogs” to make them seem cute and familiar so that people won’t recognize them for the autonomous dissent suppression weapons they are intended to become.

What an ignorant piece of crap J.D. Vance opens his yawning maw and shows himself to be ...

JD Vance reacts to airstrike that killed four at Iran wedding: ‘Things happen’

The US vice-president, JD Vance, said “sometimes things happen” when asked on Thursday whether an American strike was responsible for killing four people, including a child, at a wedding celebration in southern Iran this week.

The strike hit Kuhestak, a town in Sirik county on the strait of Hormuz. The toll was reported not by the Iranian government but by the Iranian Red Crescent, a member of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement that operates independently of Tehran and is generally treated by international monitors as a credible source on casualty figures.

Asked at a White House press briefing whether the US was responsible, Vance dismissed the reporting. “I will say that the Iranian state media has not been a very good scribe about what’s happened in the conflict thus far, so I’m extremely skeptical of this,” he said, offering no acknowledgment that the killings had been confirmed by an internationally recognized humanitarian body.

“What I can say with 100% confidence is that, unlike the [Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps] IRGC, the United States never targets civilians in combat,” Vance continued. “We never will do that. We never have done that, and unfortunately, obviously, sometimes things happen.” Vance told reporters that he had no new information on the specific strike, but that the US was investigating and, unlike Iran, learns from its mistakes.

He also said that the conflict between the US and Iran, which has now stretched into a seventh month and led to the deaths of 18 US service members, was not presently “a war”.

Iran targets US bases as Israel warns sanctions could drive Tehran to ‘desperate steps’

Iran has continued to demonstrate an ability to target bases in the Gulf used by the US despite six months of war and a new sanctions regime described by the Trump administration as an “economic D-day”. As Iran’s military targeted US bases in the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait, despite threats of further strikes by the US president, Israel’s defence chief warned that economic pressures from the sanctions could lead Tehran to escalate to more “extreme measures”.

“This morning, the army hit the satellite communication systems, equipment depots and fighter aircraft hangars of the terrorist US army at the Ahmad al-Jaber air base in Kuwait with missiles and drones,” the Iranian military said on Thursday in a statement carried by state television. The “location of forces and radar systems of the child-killing US army at the Al Minhad air base in the UAE were also attacked by missiles and drones of the army”, it added.

In a post on X, Kuwait’s ministry of defence said its air defences had intercepted missile and drone attacks during a “blatant Iranian aggression”. The Kuwaiti statement came after the US allies Bahrain and Jordan said their air defence systems intercepted several Iranian air attacks on Wednesday. Fighting between the US and Iran has increased this week after the US hit Iranian rocket launchers on an island in the strait of Hormuz on Sunday, claiming that Iran was planning to use them to shoot mines into the waterway.

The latest flare-up in the conflict comes amid little evidence that the Trump administration is succeeding in advancing its nebulous war aims either on the battlefield or via mediation, despite the US president’s repeated claims to have opened the strait of Hormuz to oil traffic. Instead, traffic through the key maritime passageway remains far below prewar levels, with oil prices remaining stubbornly elevated ahead of US midterm elections. Oil prices jumped again on Thursday after the Iranian strikes.

Hegseth Quietly Extends Middle East Troop Deployments Into 2027 as Iran War Drags On

The Pentagon has reportedly extended Middle East deployments of American troops, fighter squadrons, and warships into next year as the deadly, expensive, and deeply unpopular Iran war drags on with no end in sight.

The Wall Street Journal reported late Wednesday that Pentagon Secretary Pete Hegseth—who, like President Donald Trump, insisted the Iran assault would be over swiftly—has decided that the US military will maintain a “presence of 50,000 troops in the region in part to give the president flexibility on next steps.” The Pentagon “could also keep elements of the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division in the Middle East well into 2027,” the Journal added, citing a letter that military leaders sent to families.

The Journal also reported that Trump, who has falsely called Iran a “dead” country, is “having discussions with senior aides about whether to declare the Iran war over,” even as the bombings continue, American troops remain in the region, and the administration ratchets up economic sanctions.

“ Trump administration seems to excel at bombing schools and weddings,” Brian Finucane, senior adviser to the US Program at the International Crisis Group, wrote on Wednesday. “Winning the illegal and unnecessary war with Iran—not so much.”

Hegseth has reportedly backed a plan that would involve “periodic” bombings of Iran in an attempt to keep ship traffic flowing through the Strait of Hormuz, a strategy that analysts say would lead to a “permanent state of war.”

Trita Parsi, executive vice president of the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, argued earlier this week that Trump appeared to be leaning toward “maintaining a low-level conflict until the midterms—neither securing a diplomatic deal nor allowing the situation to deteriorate into full-scale war.”

“Iranian officials say, both publicly and privately, that they expect the U.S. and Israel to resume the war after the midterms regardless of the impact of the D-Day sanctions,” Parsi wrote. “Regional diplomats have largely reached the same conclusion. If sanctions weaken Iran over time while the global economy recovers and adjusts to the new reality in the Strait, a prolonged pause will work against Tehran. Iran may therefore decide to escalate dramatically, taking full advantage of Trump’s perceived vulnerability in the run-up to the elections.”

Thousands of Iranians—including hundreds of children—and at least 18 US servicemembers have been killed during the war so far, and the conflict has cost the average American household $1,200 in extra costs as gas prices remain at record levels. Trump has said he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation” when he makes decisions pertaining to the Iran war.

The war is fueling the Trump administration’s push for a record $1.5 trillion in military spending for the coming fiscal year—a budget demand that has intensified concerns of a “forever war” against Iran.

“ Washington is betting that sustained military and economic pressure will eventually force Tehran to retreat,” the National Iranian American Council wrote in a blog post on Wednesday. “Iran appears to be betting that it can survive long enough to force Washington to do the same. For ordinary Iranians, American servicemembers, and civilians across the region, the danger is that testing those two assumptions will require a much longer and more destructive war.”

Amnesty Warns Israel Is ‘Brazenly Expanding Its Annexation Agenda’ in Occupied West Bank

Amnesty International said Thursday that the far-right Israeli government’s recent flurry of land confiscation orders in the illegally occupied West Bank “deepens Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise and further undermines the rights of Palestinians,” who are facing an increasingly destructive and deadly wave of settler violence.

The new Amnesty report noted that in July alone, the Israeli military signed “at least 15 land confiscation orders covering approximately 200 dunams (20 hectares) of land in Areas A and C in the Jenin governorate in the north of the occupied West Bank, with the apparent goal of connecting two planned Israeli settlements in the area: Emek Dotan and Noa.” Those two settlements are among the more than 30 approved this year by the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“These latest confiscation orders from Area A show how Israel is now brazenly expanding its annexation agenda to areas that have been under the control of the Palestinian authorities since the Oslo Accords,” said Heba Morayef, Amnesty’s region director for the Middle East and North Africa. “States with close trade and political relationships with the Israeli government must urgently take action to pressure Israel to rescind these land confiscation orders. Any states providing assistance to Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements or other war crimes risk complicity in international crimes against Palestinians.”

“Alongside Israel’s forcible transfer and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Area C,” Morayef added, “these measures illustrate in action the Israeli authorities’ determination to intensify its formal annexation of Palestinian land across the occupied West Bank.”

Amnesty’s analysis came amid another wave of settler violence in the West Bank over the past 24 hours. The BBC reported early Thursday that “funerals have taken place for two Palestinian teenagers who local officials say were killed by Israeli settlers and soldiers in an attack on their village in the occupied West Bank on Wednesday.”

“The village council in al-Mughayyir told the BBC that Omar al-Nassan, 19, and Khalil Abu Alia, 16, were killed as they tried to stop Israeli settlers stealing sheep and that confrontations broke out,” the outlet noted. “The Israeli military stated that its forces had entered the village to provide security for an Israeli civilian and police trying to retrieve livestock. It said they fired on and struck what it called ‘key instigators’ of a ‘violent disturbance,’ in which Palestinians threw stones at its troops.”

The United Nations has tallied an average of nearly seven settler attacks per day in the West Bank this year, the highest number on record.

Amid the settler rampages as well as the ongoing genocidal assault on the Gaza Strip, the Israeli government has advanced “its controversial E1 settlement plan in violation of international law with an announcement that it has opened tenders for the construction of 1,234 Israeli homes in the occupied West Bank,” Amnesty noted on Thursday.

“If implemented, the plan would isolate East Jerusalem from the rest of Palestinian territory and will effectively divide the West Bank in two, making Palestinian movement across these areas of the occupied Palestinian territory more difficult and further fragmenting Palestinian communities,” the group said.

Last last month, the European Union’s diplomatic service called on the Israeli government to “withdraw the tender, halt its E1 plans as well as all other settlement expansion projects, and ensure accountability for settler violence.”

But Morayef said Thursday that the international community must do much more than issue statements condemning the Israeli government’s actions.

“States with close trade and political relationships with the Israeli government must urgently take action to pressure Israel to rescind these land confiscation orders,” said Morayef. “Any states providing assistance to Israel’s expansion of illegal settlements or other war crimes risk complicity in international crimes against Palestinians.”

Far-right Israeli minister outlines plan for removal of all Palestinians from Gaza

Israel’s far-right national security minister has set out a plan for the illegal forced expulsion of all Palestinians from the Gaza Strip, with the intention of sending them abroad. Speaking in the run-up to close-fought Israeli elections, Itamar Ben-Gvir said the plan aimed to remove 250,000 Palestinians from Gaza in the first year, followed by the rest of its population of roughly 2 million over the next six years.

“It’s realistic,” Ben-Gvir said, claiming there were countries that were “ready” to take in Palestinians from Gaza, without naming which ones.

While the forced displacement of civilians in occupied territory is considered a war crime under the Geneva conventions, Israeli political figures have competed over the harshness of their visions for Gaza, rebuffing efforts by the US president, Donald Trump, to advance a half-baked and largely moribund ceasefire deal that has been marked by continuing Israeli attacks.

Ben-Gvir said the far-right Jewish Power party would demand “a ministry in charge of emigration” during the formation of the next government, adding that his plan was “the result of a year and a half of work and … is concrete”. The proposal is contained in a 20-page document with the euphemistic title of “National Work Plan for Voluntary Emigration from the Gaza Strip”.

Polling suggests that Jewish Power, the party led by Ben-Gvir – who has convictions for incitement to racism and support for a terrorist organisation, and who has been put under sanctions by various countries – would gain about seven seats.

US House passes bill penalizing universities that participate in boycott of Israel

The US House of Representatives on Thursday passed a Republican-backed bill that would penalize universities that participate in boycotts of Israel, or attempt to prevent students from taking part in exchange programs with the country.

The Protect Economic and Academic Freedom Act passed by a 237-169 vote, with 33 Democrats breaking with the rest of their party to vote in favor, and only two Republicans opposed. It now goes to the Senate for consideration.

The measure would require that colleges and universities who participate in federal student aid programs not participate in boycotts of Israel and also mandates that institutions receiving federal funding for international study and foreign language programs certify annually that they do not impose restrictions on their students participating in programs in Israel, or on students from Israel participating in programs on their campuses.

House Republican leaders had brought the measure to the floor as they attempt to exploit divisions among Democrats over hot-button issues ahead of the midterm elections, in which voters will decide control of Congress for the final two years of Donald Trump’s term.

Democrats voting for the bill to defund American universities that boycott Israeli companies or institutions, including those in settlements: https://t.co/6KA6PekAZ1 pic.twitter.com/djY726ZT5J

— Dylan Williams (@dylanotes) September 3, 2026

Trump ranks himself the greatest US president ever

Donald Trump has declared himself to be the “greatest” US president ever, sharing a post on social media last week which graded him above the likes of Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D Roosevelt and George Washington. Experts take a different view.

Few presidential historians have previously suggested Trump holds such a place in the history books. After all, neither Lincoln, nor Roosevelt, nor Washington – the three leaders typically seen as America’s best – orchestrated an insurrection. None were impeached. And none of them were convicted of felonies over hush-money payments to a pornstar-turned-ghost hunter.

Trump posted his presidential rankings last Thursday. It separated US presidents into six categories, from “greatest” to “failures”: he stands alone in the “greatest” grouping. The image in his post appears to have been adapted from a 1948 article in Life magazine, in which the historian Arthur M Schlesinger Jr muses about “what makes a president great or a failure” – that publication date would explain why certain presidents, including Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon and both Bushes, are missing.

The original image didn’t have a “greatest” category – someone has retrospectively created that – while Joe Biden, Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama have all been inserted in the “failures” category. Bill Clinton, perhaps surprisingly given the years Trump has spent attacking him, was deemed to be “average”.

Federal judge blocks Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship

A federal judge has temporarily blocked Donald Trump’s latest attempt to restrict birthright citizenship – the longstanding principle that all babies born in the US are guaranteed American citizenship. The decision came nearly a month after the president tried for a second time to limit via executive order which people born in the US can become American citizens. The supreme court ruled in late June that Trump’s previous sweeping order denying birthright citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants or temporary visitors was unconstitutional.

Trump’s latest order, issued on 6 August, denied automatic citizenship not only to the children of ambassadors or “foreign ministers” but to the children of other foreign citizens. Including employees at a foreign embassy and employees of international organizations including the United Nations and the World Bank. The new order also denied birthright citizenship to children of parents the government deemed “alien enemies” parents who “engage[d] in a commercial transaction to ensure that the person’s mother is present in the United States, or a territory of the United States, to give birth”.

The federal government has yet to issue guidelines on how these restrictions would work in practice. For instance, how the government would discern between a parent that buys plane tickets to visit on vacation and one who is engaging in what the administration called “birth tourism” – visiting the country for the sole purpose of giving birth in the US.

Judge Deborah Boardman ruled on Wednesday that the supreme court had already settled some of the questions raised by Trump’s new order, writing: “No presidential executive order can undo what the Supreme Court has done.” In a 35-page opinion, she also wrote that the new executive order could have the effect of rescinding citizenship from children who were already protected by the supreme court decision, if – for instance – the administration arbitrarily moved to designate parents as “alien enemies”. The government has already used the sweeping label of “alien enemy” to designate dozens of Venezuelan nationals with no criminal records as terrorists, justifying their deportation to a Salvadorian mega-prison last year.

Federal judge considers whether to extend ban on USPS mail ballot changes

A federal judge in Boston said on Thursday the US Postal Service had told her nothing about how it would implement a plan to regulate mail ballots for the midterms as she considers whether to let the plan proceed in the weeks before election day. US district court judge Indira Talwani is deciding whether to extend her prohibition on the proposed regulation of mail ballots, an effort undertaken as part of an executive order by Donald Trump. The hearing in the closely watched case came a day before the first state begins sending mail ballots to voters.

“We are 70 days from the election and I have nothing from the USPS about how this will happen,” Talwani told Michael Velchik, the justice department lawyer representing the Postal Service. Last week, Talwani imposed a 14-day temporary restraining order to keep it from being used. That order expires next week as more states begin sending out mail ballots. Velchik said the administration will most likely go to the supreme court by the end of the week to seek permission to resume implementing the plan.

Talwani has been here before. In June, she prohibited the administration from implementing Trump’s order for the November election, ruling the changes came too close to voting for the federal government to embark on such a project. But the supreme court late last month ruled Talwani’s order was premature because the Postal Service had not yet published regulations governing how it would apply Trump’s order. The agency did so just before the high court ruling came down, prompting Democrats and voting rights groups to swiftly refile their lawsuits.

They counter that the president has no authority to set election rules, which is a power designated in the constitution to the states and in some cases Congress.

ICE officer who shot Venezuelan man in Minneapolis charged with lying to investigators

A US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer has been indicted on charges of lying to investigators about the events leading up to the shooting of a Venezuelan man during the Minneapolis immigration crackdown earlier this year, according to multiple reports. A source told the Associated Press that Christian Castro, the officer accused of shooting Julio Sosa-Celis in the leg in January, has been charged by US federal prosecutors with making false statements to federal investigators. He had been previously charged in state court.

The ICE officer was released from jail last week after Texas’s Republican governor, Greg Abbott, refused to immediately sign an extradition warrant that would surrender him to the Minnesota authorities that had charged Castro separately with assault and false reporting of a crime related to the same shooting.

Robin Wolpert, the attorney representing Sosa-Celis, said in a statement: “Mr Castro has been indicted for making false statements. But he made them to cover up the fact that he shot my client through the door of an occupied house without a self-defense justification. Although the evidence strongly supports civil rights charges, the federal government has grossly undercharged this case. Mr Sosa Celis wants Mr Castro to be held fully accountable for his crimes.”

Missouri supreme court throws out new congressional maps backed by Trump

The Missouri supreme court has unanimously blocked new congressional districts backed by Donald Trump from being used in the November election and ordered a statewide vote on whether to uphold or reject the new map.

The decision Thursday marks a rare setback for Republicans in a national redistricting battle. Republicans had hoped Missouri’s new congressional boundaries could help them win an additional seat and hold on to their slim House majority in the midterms. The ruling still could be appealed to the US supreme court.

Missouri’s new districts were used in the August primaries. But the state supreme court said they cannot be used in the November general election – or ever again, unless voters first uphold the new districts passed by the Republican-led legislature.

The court placed the new districts on hold because citizens submitted petition signatures seeking a referendum.

“The referendum petition was legal, sufficient, and timely, and the secretary incorrectly concluded otherwise,” the court said in its ruling. The legislation containing the new districts “did not go into effect and will not go into effect unless and until approved by the voters”. As a result, the congressional map adopted after the 2020 census “remains in full force and effect for the November 2026 general election”.

‘Supersizing before our eyes’: UN warns of record El Niño approaching

The El Niño climate phenomenon is “supersizing before our eyes”, the UN has said. The event is near certain to shatter temperature records, according to the latest forecasts. The El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere where temperatures are already rising rapidly due to global heating. The combination means 2027 is set to “blow apart” the record and be the hottest year ever recorded.

The rising heat from the El Niño is already having impacts, from worsening wildfires in Indonesia to the weakening of vital monsoon rains in India. The impacts will spread globally, from greater fire risk in Australia to more intense floods in South America. The World Food Programme said in August that the El Niño was likely to push about 50 million people into acute hunger.

The climate crisis, caused by pollution from fossil fuels, is already supercharging extreme weather and killing people, with the most extreme heatwave ever recorded hitting Europe this summer and leading to at least 35,000 deaths. The El Niño will ratchet up the impacts even further, with the scale of the event having been described as “truly mind-blowing” and a “Godzilla-level” event.

The most recent data, from Monday, shows the temperature of the ocean at the heart of El Niño at 2.6C above the 30-year average. That is already close to the highest anomaly ever recorded in the satellite data era, 3.1C in 2015, with months to go before the peak is expected. That peak is forecast to reach about 4C in November, according to the average of 14 different models. Data from analysis of corals, tree rings and historical documents suggest no El Niño has reached this level in the last millennium, said Zeke Hausfather, a climate analyst. Any temperature anomaly above 0.5C is classed as an El Niño.

A further concern is that recent research shows global heating is now intensifying El Niño cycles, which then in turn intensify the impacts of the climate crisis.

Invasive tropical mosquito found breeding in east London

An mosquito capable of transmitting tropical diseases has been found breeding in homes in east London, with experts warning that the rapidly warming climate will lead to greater “incursions of invasive mosquitoes”. This is the first time the species has been identified breeding in the UK and the fourth time it has been detected.

Aedes aegypti, which are normally found in tropical and subtropical regions, can transmit dengue, chikungunya and Zika virus in countries where these infections are circulating. While these diseases are rarely deadly, they can cause complications, with Zika linked to serious problems during and after pregnancy. The UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said the risk to the public was low, with no evidence that the mosquitoes in east London have have caused human infections.

The initial finding was reported through UKHSA’s mosquito watch surveillance scheme. The agency said the species could have come into the UK in vehicles, baggage and imported plants and, if the insects found a suitable climate, they could survive. It said that despite evidence of breeding, the species was not established in the UK and could not survive for long in the typical UK climate, which was too cold.

However, the agency warned that in a warming climate, “we will continue to see incursions of invasive mosquitoes, and increased reports of them being able to survive in the UK”.

Also of Interest

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

25 Years Ago, 9/11 Triggered a US Crusade of Torture

Iran Says It Launched Attacks on US Bases in Kuwait, UAE

Ansar Allah Launches Major Attacks Targeting Saudi-Backed Forces in Yemen

Israel’s Blueprint for the West Bank

Israelis shoot dead two Palestinian teenagers after settlers encircle village

Ben-Gvir posts Palestinians on conveyor belts to detention camps. The world is silent

Cause And Effect Of High Diesel Prices

Excavation work on Trump’s towering, gilded arch to begin over next two weeks

Leon Black fails to appear for US House deposition about Epstein ties

Rich people more likely to steal children’s sweets, finds Ig Nobel prize-winning study

A Little Night Music

Jimmy Thackery & John Mooney – Jitterbug Swing

John Mooney – Oh Louise

John Mooney – Dirty Rat

John Mooney – I Wish I Was in Heaven Sittin' Down

Jimmy Thackery & John Mooney – Jamaican Mess Around

John Mooney – Wibble Whim She When She Walk

John Mooney - Country Boy Down In New Orleans

John Mooney - Traveling Riverside Blues

John Mooney - Death Letter

John Mooney - Brand New Woman

John Mooney - Full Set - Crescent City Blues & BBQ Festival (2017)