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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Willie Dixon

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues songwriter and bassist Willie Dixon. Enjoy!

^{Willie Dixon - Back Door Man}

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas."

-- Joseph Stalin

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News and Opinion

They Want To Use AI To Re-Centralize Control Of Information

I keep thinking about a talk I listened to by Julian Assange back in 2017 where he warned that one day AI could be used to facilitate the propaganda interests of the powerful by manipulating news media and information in ways that are too subtle for the human mind to notice.

Assange described a future where AI-powered algorithms serve us a customized feed of information based on data collected about our search queries and interests, calculated to appeal to our biases and construct a worldview for us which advances the agendas of those who control the machines.

He explained that sufficiently advanced artificial intelligence systems could arrange this information with more subtlety and complexity than human perception can pick up on, in much the same way a computer can outperform any human brain at a game of chess.

Here’s an excerpt from Assange’s remarks, delivered via video chat at the Meltdown Festival in June 2017:

“What I think is probably the most important development that is happening as far as the fate of human beings is concerned is that we are getting close to the threshold where the traditional propaganda function that is employed by, you know, the BBC, the Daily Mail, etc… can be encapsulated by AI processes.

“Now, if you think about when you’re playing chess, already we’re in a situation where AI can do better than any human chess player. So you can see a certain number of moves ahead. And someone moves a piece onto the board and you go ‘Why did they put that knight there?’ And you start to think what is the intentionality behind it, and you try and look several steps ahead to work out what the intentionality was and then counter it: Okay, they want to manipulate me into moving here so this will happen and so I will lose.

“We take these considerations already when we’re — well, some of us — when we’re reading stories in the press. What is the intentionality of this story? Why is this particular information being pushed to the public and not some other form of information? Who’s the name of the author? What publication is it appearing in? What language? Etc. Well, possibly the reason is because someone wanted to promote a particular agenda, therefore we should read it in a different light.

“But when you have artificial intelligence programs harvesting all the search queries that people have on their phones, all the YouTube videos that human beings have uploaded etc, and it starts to lay out perceptual influence campaigns 20 to 30 moves ahead, this starts to become totally beneath the levels of human perception. And once a computer-augmented organization such as Google is able to engage in influencing human beings 20 to 30 moves ahead, keeping each move beneath the level of human perception, there’s nothing we can do about it, because we can’t see it.”

I keep thinking about these remarks nearly a decade later because this does seem to be the goal. It’s becoming clearer and clearer to everyone that these new technologies are not intended to improve the lives of ordinary people, but to serve the interests of the oligarchs and empire managers who rule our world. That’s why they’re being rammed into existence at breakneck pace despite the obvious fact that they’re making life worse for most people without advancing human quality of life in any meaningful way.

A big part of the agenda seems to be to re-centralize the control of information that was temporarily lost with the advent of the internet. Revolutionary sentiments are rumbling around the world as our species becomes increasingly discontented with the abuses of capitalism and the US-led world order, assisted by humanity’s unprecedented ability to network and share information around the world in real time.

AI presents an incredible opportunity for Jews because "instead of trying to control the whole world" and "manage" social media, "we can go directly to the companies" with "advocacy solutions," Dr. Maya Ackerman tells the American Jewish Committee.

"For the first time, there is a path to correcting the digital world!" Ackerman says.

— Chris Menahan (@infolibnews) June 4, 2026

Artificial intelligence’s usefulness in re-centralizing information in ways that can be easily manipulated has already been noted by the Israel lobby.

At an American Jewish Committee event this past June, Santa Clara University’s Maya Ackerman argued that generative AI presents an exciting new opportunity for imposing pro-Israel narratives on public consciousness, because AI companies can be lobbied directly to push pro-Israel narratives since their leaders can control what information people see.

Here’s a transcript of what she said:

“The really cool thing about AI is that while it can become a great ally for our enemies, if we act early it could be exactly the opportunity that we need after missing the boat with social media. AI is now becoming the dominant source of information — the main source of information. People trust AI more than anything else. They trust AI more than social media. They turn to chatbots like ChatGPT and Gemini instead of using Google. And young people use these bots instead of Google in very, very very large numbers. So this is becoming the main source of information.

“And so when I say this, I still find Jewish people being discouraged, they say ‘Oh, but Wikipedia is already so antisemitic and social media is so antisemitic — why bother? The AI just learns from all of this data.’ So, you know, whatever, not much we can do.

“But that’s not true, because over the past two years the AI companies have been moving towards alignment. So instead of algorithms sort of honestly representing what’s in the data, we’re finding that these chatbots and the text to image models are increasingly showing us exactly what the companies want us to see.

“Okay, so it’s becoming intentional. Which means that instead of trying to control the whole world and trying to somehow manage what’s happening in this big blob called Wikipedia and social media, we can go directly to the companies with clear technical and advocacy solutions. For the first time, there is a path to correcting the digital world.”

ADL CEO Jonathan Greenblatt reveals in Israel that he's been working with all the top AI Frontier Labs to push them to suppress "anti-Semitism."

"We've been working with the Frontier Labs—OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet, the company that runs Gemini, Google, Meta, who runs Muse, and others, X, who run Grok—testing their models and using the results to push them to do better."

"We've had excellent collaboration with Silicon Valley."

"We've run the tests and seen where anti-Semitism shows up and helped them develop strategies to tackle it right in the source code."

— Chris Menahan (@infolibnews) October 13, 2026

Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt recently confirmed that this was the Israel lobby’s new MO, saying the ADL has been “working with” all the top AI companies and pushing them to into alignment with the pro-Israel agenda.

Speaking at a Jerusalem Post conference last month, Greenblatt said the following:

“So we’ve been working with the Frontier Labs — OpenAI, Anthropic, Alphabet the company that runs Gemini, Google, Meta who runs Muse, and others, X, who run Grok — testing their models and using the results to push them to do better.”

“Look, we’ve had excellent collaboration with Silicon Valley. These companies want to improve ChatGPT and Claude. We’ve got to help them. So we’ve run the tests and seen where antisemitism shows up and helped them develop strategies to tackle it right in the source code.”

If the Israel lobby manipulators are doing this, then we can assume that all the high-level imperial narrative managers are doing it as well.

https://t.co/nqm7QIMHGA

— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) January 17, 2018

In January 2018, Assange tweeted the following:

“The future of humanity is the struggle between humans that control machines and machines that control humans.

“While the internet has brought about a revolution in our ability to educate each other, the consequent democratic explosion has shaken existing establishments to their core. Burgeoning digital super states such as Google, Facebook and their Chinese equivalents, who are integrated with the existing order, have moved to re-establish discourse control. This is not simply a corrective action. Undetectable mass social influence powered by artificial intelligence is an existential threat to humanity.

“While still in its infancy, the geometric nature of this trend is clear. The phenomenon differs from traditional attempts to shape culture and politics by operating at a scale, speed, and increasingly at a subtlety, that appears highly likely to eclipse human counter-measures.

“Nuclear war, climate change or global pandemics are existential threats that we can work through with discussion and thought. Discourse is humanity’s immune system for existential threats. Diseases that infect the immune system are usually fatal. In this case, at a planetary scale.”

Anyway, just some things we should keep in mind as we make our way into this strange new future.

Prof. John Mearsheimer : Can War Be Won Without Popular Support?

Trump says US war in Iran ‘effectively over’ as he plays down escalation concerns

Donald Trump has said that the war in Iran is “effectively over” as he played down concerns that the US would escalate its military campaign against Tehran after the midterm elections. During a White House press conference, Trump said that Israel and Gulf allies in the region were well protected from Iran and that an escalation was not needed. “At this point, taking the military action doesn’t seem to be a very necessary thing – but we’re locked and loaded, ready to go for any reason,” he told reporters during a briefing at the White House.

The remarks followed talks in the Oval Office with the Qatari prime minister, Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, who has lobbied Trump alongside other Gulf countries not to resume the fighting against Iran. “We’re seeing momentum toward the end of this conflict. I think it’s going to be ending fairly soon,” he added.

The US had continued to move troops to the Middle East in the run-up to the midterm elections. There was speculation that the Trump administration was waiting for the elections to take place before resuming a military campaign, in order to prevent a backlash at the polls.

Trump earlier on Monday said on Truth Social that the leaders of Qatar, Saudi Arabia, UAE, Bahrain, and Kuwait would prefer the “status quo, in other words, a continuation of the Greatest Naval Blockade in History”.

Scott Ritter: "This Is Dead in the Water" — It Could Kill Everything

Trump Claims There’s ‘Momentum’ Toward Ending War as Iran Says US ‘Manufacturing Fake News’ About Talks

President Trump claimed on Monday that there was “positive momentum” toward ending the Iran war as Tehran’s security chief accused the US of “manufacturing fake news” about diplomatic talks.

Trump made the comments in a post on Truth Social after speaking with Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim al-Thani, and said that the US’ Gulf Arab allies prefer the status quo in the region, meaning the continued US blockade and Iranian attacks on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, over a major escalation of the war.

“At this point, however, that seems to be quite unlikely. Israel, and the entire Middle East, are protected from Iranian danger and threats. We are seeing positive momentum toward an end to this Conflict, and will ensure that America’s interests are at all times protected,” Trump added.

Seyed M. Marandi: BREAKING: Iran Hits U.S.-Linked Radar Site Near Strait of Hormuz

The war on Iran has already wrecked the US government. But Washington flails like a desperate gambler. FOLD YOUR HAND. STOP manufacturing FAKE NEWS about imaginary talks. Stop denying the West Asian NEW ORDER. Time to SURRENDER to the seven conditions Iran has repeatedly set out.

— (@ir_rezaee) November 9, 2026

150,000 Tents Wait Just Outside Gaza as Israel Blocks Shelter Aid For Flood-Ravaged Exclave

As severe floods ravage Gaza, Israel is continuing to block the entry of tents, repair materials, and mobile homes despite the aid provisions of the October 2025 “ceasefire” agreement.

The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported Monday that more than 150,000 tents are ready to be sent to Gaza, where it said more vacuum trucks and mobile dewatering pumps were urgently needed.

At least 70,000 tents were flooded in a single day this weekend. At least one infant reportedly drowned. A mother and her two children, along with three other children from the same family, were killed when a sandbank collapsed onto their tents.

“Over the weekend, while families slept, water flooded their tents and engulfed entire camps,” said Ahmad Alhendawi, Save the Children’s regional director for the Middle East and North Africa. “Children shivered in the bitter cold without winter clothing, and families lost the few belongings they had left. It is heartbreaking, and it was entirely foreseeable.”

“Israel is restricting access to shelter materials and has rendered 65% of Gaza off-limits. People have no safe place to go,” said Wassem Mushtaha, who leads Oxfam’s response in Gaza. The group has performed emergency maintenance on rainwater drainage networks and supplied tools for repairs.

He said that “urgent access is needed for spare parts, engine oil, pipes, and heavy machinery, in addition to shelter materials, to avoid more people being killed this winter.”

Most buildings in the territory were destroyed in Israel’s genocidal war over the past three years. Of the Gaza residents who are living in makeshift shelters, according to Save the Children, about 1.2 million people, including over 560,000 children, are living in “critical or catastrophic” conditions, including flimsy tents and improvised structures that are often ill-equipped to handle the elements.

“Tents and tarpaulins are not the answer to Gaza’s winter,” said Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council. “They cannot withstand heavy rain and strong winds, and many are already worn out after months of use far beyond their intended lifespan.”

OCHA reported Friday that no emergency shelter kits were available in Gaza because Israeli authorities had rejected timber shipments.

“Palestinians have the right to receive the assistance they need,” Egeland said. “States must press Israeli authorities to uphold their obligations and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and essential materials. Palestinians must not face another winter without adequate shelter. They cannot wait.”

This weekend, a massive winter storm battered Gaza. Our teams report that thousands of tents were damaged or destroyed.

Strong winds tore away makeshift shelters, while families waded through centimetres-deep floodwaters as rain soaked their few remaining belongings. People were left cold and wet, with nowhere else to go.

This is the fourth winter that displaced Palestinians have been forced to endure these conditions.

Nearly 13 months after the ceasefire agreement, 2.1 million Palestinians are confined to just 30% of Gaza. Nearly one million people are living in areas at medium to high risk of flooding.

Yesterday’s storm exposed the consequences of years of restrictions and shortages. There is not enough heavy machinery in Gaza to prepare sites and mitigate flooding. Even the machinery that is available cannot operate properly because of shortages of engine oil.

Those organisations who support with shelter are mobilising to deliver tents and essential household items to families who have lost what little they had. But there are not enough tents and supplies to meet the scale of the need, let alone replace those damaged by the storm.

And tents and tarpaulins are not the answer to Gaza’s winter. They cannot withstand heavy rain and strong winds, and many are already worn out after months of use far beyond their intended lifespan.

In August, the NRC-led Palestine Shelter Cluster reported that 1.98 million people – 94% of Gaza’s population – needed shelter assistance. Since then, only a fraction of the required supplies have entered, while severe funding gaps are forcing humanitarian agencies to do more with less.

We must move beyond repeatedly replacing inadequate tents and scale up transitional shelters that offer families more durable protection.

We urgently need heavy machinery, equipment and supplies to enter Gaza to support flood mitigation, clear rubble and prepare safer sites.

Palestinians have the right to receive the assistance they need. States must press Israeli authorities to uphold their obligations and facilitate the entry of humanitarian aid and essential materials.

Palestinians must not face another winter without adequate shelter. They cannot wait.

— Jan Egeland (@NRC_Egeland) November 8, 2026

The ceasefire agreement called for 60,000 mobile homes and prefabricated shelters to be allowed into Gaza to house displaced families, but Israel has allowed almost none to enter.

“All the tents are now damaged, torn, and covered in mud,” said Jaber al-Kaseeh, a man in his 70s whose family was forced to flee their tent in central Gaza’s az-Zawayda area this weekend after floodwaters began rushing in.

“We urgently need tents, tarpaulins, plastic sheets, mattresses, blankets, and carpets to protect us from the difficult days ahead,” he told Al Jazeera.

“We keep hearing about tents and tarpaulins being distributed, but we have received nothing,” he added. “We had hoped the mobile homes and temporary housing units promised under the ceasefire deal would allow us to rest and return to a life of safety and peace. But it was all just words in the air. We have seen nothing.”

'This is not life': Rain heaps more woe on displaced Gazans

Heavy rain has flooded tens of thousands of displaced Gazans' tents in the war-devastated territory, according to Palestinian authorities, leaving them without shelter. Displaced families have been fleeing their camps in parts of Gaza City and in central and northern areas of the territory

— AFP News Agency (@AFP) November 9, 2026

Over the past two winters in Gaza, dozens of people—among them at least 26 children, including newborns—have died from hypothermia due to a lack of adequate shelter.

“This is not simply the result of bad weather,” Alhendawi said. “Tents, shelter kits, and fuel are waiting at Gaza’s borders while children sleep in floodwater because the Israeli authorities are blocking their entry. This is a choice, and children are paying the price.”

“As the occupying power, Israel has a legal obligation to ensure civilians receive the supplies they need to survive,” he added. “Instead, it is depriving families of the most basic means to protect their children, and it must be held accountable for any child deaths that result.”

“Israel’s ongoing genocide has resulted in the near collapse of all functioning systems in Gaza,” Mushtaha said. “Governments must insist that Israel allows for unimpeded access to recovery and repair materials to restore essential infrastructure and ensure Palestinian-led reconstruction efforts across Gaza.”

Report: US, Israel in Talks To Extend Military Aid Through 2033 Despite Trump Saying It Would End

The US and Israel are negotiating a new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) that would extend US military aid to Israel through 2033 and increase US funding for Israeli missile development, despite President Trump claiming he would end the aid by 2027, according to a report from the Israeli news site Ynet.

The US currently provides Israel with a minimum of $3.8 billion in military aid each year under an MoU negotiated under the Obama administration that expires in 2028. It includes $3.3 billion in Foreign Military Financing, a State Department program that provides foreign governments with funds to purchase US arms, and $500 million through the Pentagon for missile defense funding.

The Ynet report said that the plan would be to halve the 10-year MoU term to five years and keep the FMF funding at $3.3 billion per year while increasing the $500 million missile fund to an unspecified amount. The idea would be to phase out the aid after the five years, which aligns with a plan backed by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to shift the US-Israel relationship “from aid to partnership.”

The purpose of the Netanyahu plan is to further intergrate the US and Israeli military industries, and it is being advanced through Section 219, an amendment tucked into the House’s version of the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act. The Senate’s version of the NDAA includes a similar amendment, though so far the two chambers haven’t negotiated the final bill.

Trump gets hammered as Europe turns up the Russophobia

Iran was behind cyber-attack on French supermarket freezers, Paris says

France has said Iran was responsible for a massive cyber-attack on supermarket freezers and chiller cabinets that was described by its foreign minister as being an act of “unprecedented scale and unprecedented aggression”. Jean-Noël Barrot said “Europe-wide sanctions” would be imposed against those responsible, adding that the attacks – which took control of digital thermostats to push temperatures up to above 50C – constituted “a major violation of the nation’s interests”.

At a press briefing during the G7 summit in Paris, he said: “Thanks to the remarkable efforts of government agencies, I am able to confirm that the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards are responsible for this attack.” He said the Iranian ambassador had been summoned “to protest in the strongest possible terms against this extremely serious act.”

Swathes of French supermarkets were hit in the cyber-attacks on 11 and 12 October. Some were forced to throw away entire inventories of perishable food. Similar incidents have been reported since, including on supermarket fridges in other European countries last week and on a French blood bank.

The Paris public prosecutor, Laure Beccuau, said on Monday that specialist investigators and government agencies had identified “a modus operandi” characteristic of the Iranian group Shahid Kaveh, a cyber warfare unit linked to the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC). This included “the use of Farsi and IP addresses traced back to devices located in Iran”, she said.

Gérôme Billois, a partner at the cybersecurity and technology company Wavestone, said Shahid Kaveh had been active since 2020 and was known to have carried out cyber-attacks mostly on water distribution systems in the US. “Two countries are known for this kind of attack: Iran and Russia. Given that recent cyber-attacks on supermarkets and the blood bank in France concerned freezers it is reasonable to think Iran is directly linked to both,” he said,

Russian Hardliners Will Shock Kushner and Witkoff

Aaron Maté : When Will Zelenskyy Go?

Economic relief is on the way, Democrats say. But what, how and when?

Don’t worry, cash-strapped Americans, “relief is on the way”, the senator Chuck Schumer promised last week in a press conference celebrating Democrats’ massive midterms win. Winning candidates promised to cut food and healthcare costs, rein in corporations ripping off consumers and workers, curb billionaire power and make the world’s biggest economy better serve the working class.

Already, JB Pritzker, the Illinois governor, has issued a 75-page list of 200 policy proposals for Congress’s “day one agenda”; Columbia professor Tim Wu is pushing an “affordability bill”; Texas’s new senator James Talarico is promising universal healthcare for all; there’s an 181-page investigation memo circulating; and moderate Democrats are arguing for more incremental steps.

Meanwhile, Trump’s power to veto bills means anything the president doesn’t like will need a clutch of Republicans to pass, making things more complicated. Expect a mix of affordability bills the president will back, like curbs on private equity and credit card interest rates, and ones he will veto, which Democrats will use for anti-Republican political messaging.

Schumer and other Democrats have pledged to end the Iran war, which has pushed up heating oil and other costs, and to end Trump’s tariffs, which cost the average household $1,110 this year. Democrats have promised to immediately roll back the cuts to subsidies in the Affordable Care Act and the work requirements to Medicaid that were part of the $1tn in Medicaid cuts in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. Passing those changes will have to be negotiated with Trump or Republicans, and could come as part of a bigger spending package.

Already, sitting Congress Democrats sent out “target” letters to oil companies, airlines, tech companies, banks, grocery stores and others asking about their practices that have made life more difficult or expensive for the American consumer. They’re making plans to grill CEOs in public hearings about algorithmic pricing, executive compensation and skyrocketing corporate profits, before introducing bills to change corporate behavior.

The real AI jobs crisis isn't what you think

EVERYTHING The Tech Oligarchs Tell You Is A Lie

US citizen shot by ICE officer near children’s bus stop sues government for $25m

A US citizen who was shot by an immigration officer in southern California has filed a $25m lawsuit against the federal government, alleging he was wrongfully shot and arrested, then subjected to a “malicious prosecution”. Carlos Jimenez, a father of three from Ontario, a city east of Los Angeles, was on his way to work at a food pantry on 30 October 2025 when he drove by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents carrying out an operation. It was around 7am, and Jimenez approached officers “calmly and slowly” to inform them that children in the neighborhood would soon be arriving at an adjacent bus stop, according to his complaint filed in federal court on Friday.

An ICE officer, later identified as Eusebio Ortiz, then pointed his firearm at Jimenez’s face, cursed at him and threatened to shoot if he did not leave, the complaint says, citing audio recorded by the officer’s radio. Jimenez complied and attempted a three-point turn because he was blocked by officers’ vehicles, but in the process, Ortiz, without warning, fired multiple gunshots into the car, hitting Jimenez in the back and right shoulder, according to the lawsuit. There was no officer in Jimenez’s path when he was shot, and there was no reasonable suspicion or probable cause to stop, threaten or shoot him, the complaint says.

Afterward, FBI agents followed Jimenez to a hospital and “interfered with his medical care”, including by pulling a nurse away and preventing him from talking to medical staff, the suit alleges. FBI agents removed Jimenez from his hospital bed, locked him in a waist restraint and drove him back to the scene of the shooting for an “interrogation” while a bullet remained lodged in him, the complaint continues. While Jimenez was bleeding and vomiting in the agent’s van, officers told him not to “ruin their vehicle”, according to the complaint.

A Department of Homeland Security spokesperson said at the time Jimenez had “attempted to run officers over by reversing directly at them without stopping” and that the officer had fired “defensive” shots. DHS has repeatedly accused people of “weaponizing” their vehicles against officers, but a Guardian review in July found that most of the vehicle “assault” cases touted by DHS have fallen apart under scrutiny in court.

The lawsuit says the criminal charges were “fabricated”. Even though DHS publicly called the shots “defensive”, the criminal complaint did not include any statement from the officer claiming he felt in danger, the lawsuit notes. The suit further alleges that the FBI falsely claimed that two neighbors witnessed the incident and told an agent that Jimenez’s vehicle had enough room to pull forward without reversing. When Jimenez’s legal team interviewed those witnesses, both denied making those statements and said they were unaware there had been a shooting until they saw news reports, the suit says.

Former RFK Jr adviser accuses Trump officials of prioritizing special interest groups over voters

A former top Trump administration health adviser accused Susie Wiles, whom Donald Trump removed as the White House chief of staff last week, of stalling the so-called “Make America Healthy Again” (Maha) agenda by prioritizing special interest groups and fundraising before the midterm elections.

Calley Means, who resigned two weeks ago from his job advising Robert F Kennedy Jr, blamed Wiles and other Trump staffers for dropping the ball on the Maha agenda to take money from the sugar industry to fuel the midterms – which Republicans ultimately lost.

“I mean, it’s why we lost the midterms. We have been discordant from what was run on, two years ago,” Means told Joe Rogan in a podcast interview on Friday.

Means told CBS News that Wiles and her “very close-knit crew”, including James Blair and Richard Walters, two White House deputy chiefs of staff; Walker Barrett, a policy adviser; and Tony Fabrizio, a pollster for Trump, “explicitly catered to special interests against the will of the voters”.

Republican Thomas Massie moves to force vote to impeach Pete Hegseth

A Republican lawmaker has moved to force a vote to impeach Pete Hegseth, the US defense secretary, setting the stage for a showdown over one of the most divisive figures inside Donald Trump’s administration.

Thomas Massie, of Kentucky, introduced eight articles of impeachment against Hegseth, accusing him of illegally waging war without congressional authorization and abusing his powers.

Massie, an outgoing Republican congressman from Kentucky and vocal critic of the president, argued from the well of the House of Representatives that Hegseth had committed “high crimes and misdemeanors” and “has executed unlawful orders” in office.

Massie is expected to have some Republican support for a vote on articles of impeachment. Under House rules, the vote would have to occur no later than Wednesday.

Massie first introduced articles of impeachment against Hegseth on 15 September, but House speaker Mike Johnson called US Congress into recess before it could be heard.

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Dems FLOODED With Opposition to Schumer and Jeffries

Schumer Support CRUMBLES As Van Hollen Emerges

John Fetterman to be challenged for Senate seat by democratic socialist born in Gaza

John Fetterman, the maverick Democratic senator who has provoked widespread anger by increasingly siding with Republicans, is to be challenged for his Pennsylvania seat by a democratic socialist candidate who is originally from Gaza. Ahmed Moor, a Palestinian American, said he would run in a primary to be the Democratic nominee in 2028, when Fetterman’s seat is up for re-election.

The move is the first sign of Fetterman’s weakened position in the party since the Democrats won back control of the Senate in last week’s US midterm elections, when the party won at least 54 of the upper chamber’s 100 seats. The prospect of a comfortable Senate majority in effect eliminates the possibility of Fetterman’s vote being decisive, a relief to Democratic strategists who feared he could no longer be relied on for support on contentious issues.

Moor, 42, a writer and journalist who was born in the southern Gaza city of Rafah and has previously written for the Guardian, told the Philadelphia Inquirer that he was “not really running against Fetterman”.

“I’m running for good government. I’m running for the rule of law. I’m running because I believe in America,” he said. But his Palestinian background throws down the gauntlet to Fetterman’s vocally pro-Israel stance, which has become increasingly strident since the 7 October 2023 attack by Hamas that left about 1,200 people on the Israeli side dead. More than 74,000 Palestinians in Gaza – most women and children – have been killed in Israel’s retaliatory military response.

Fetterman has met more often with Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, than with Philadelphia’s mayor, Cherelle Parker, according to the Philadelphia Inquirer. Moor, by contrast, said he supports withdrawing US aid from Israel and imposing sanctions aimed at securing equal rights for Palestinians. Democrats say Moor is unlikely to be the only challenger to Fetterman, who provoked outrage in his own party in September by sending a video message to the Republicans’ midterm convention in Texas in which he praised Pennsylvania’s Republican senator, Dave McCormick.

Blue Kansas! Is The Culture War DEAD? w Thomas Frank

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Senate advances bill to speed up projects from gas pipelines to clean energy

The Senate on Monday advanced bipartisan legislation aimed at speeding up permitting reviews for datacenters and other infrastructure projects, in the first major action since last week’s election that soundly repudiated Donald Trump and congressional Republicans.

It’s a bill that would make it easier to build big infrastructure projects in America – everything from fossil fuel pipelines to transmission lines that would add more clean energy to the grid. And it would roll back environmental and social protections to achieve this goal. That is why climate advocates are torn over the Bipartisan American Affordability and Jobs act (Baaja).

The Senate voted on Monday to open debate on Baaja in the first of several procedural votes. Senators voted 73-25 on the cloture motion, which did not result in the bill being passed, but pushed it another step forward.

Trump urged all senators to vote for the 417-page bill, which is sponsored by two Republicans and two Democrats in the Senate, but after last week’s historic “blue wave” elections, some environmental and tribal advocates called on Democratic leadership to pump the brakes.

Earthjustice, the Sierra Club and the ACLU have come out against the bill because it would significantly weaken environmental laws including the National Environmental Policy Act (Nepa) and accelerate the construction of gas pipelines and ICE detention centers. Indigenous groups held a press conference on Friday calling on senators to vote against Baaja because it would weaken the federal government’s legal obligation to consult tribes on projects that affect them.

Slight fall in carbon emissions from fossil fuels as Iran war drives renewables push

Soaring oil and gas prices following the war in Iran have encouraged people to look beyond fossil fuels, leading to an easing of climate-damaging carbon emissions this year. Carbon dioxide from oil, gas and coal is forecast to flatline for 2026, based on data from the year so far, according to a comprehensive assessment by scientists. Emissions from burning oil alone will drop by 2% as drivers economise on fuel use and flock to electric vehicles instead.

The findings, presented on Tuesday morning at the Cop31 climate talks hosted by Turkey in Antalya, show both the impact of the Iran war and the global expansion of cheap renewable energy, chiefly solar and wind power.

Talk of a global turnaround would be premature, however, the report’s authors and other analysts said. The reduction in emissions from fossil fuels for 2026 will be about 0.4% compared with last year. Yet this year’s slight fall could be temporary, and was more than offset by increased emissions from deforestation and land use change, following major fires in south-east Asia and further conversions of wild land to agriculture.

Many factors could disrupt the fragile trend of slowing emissions from fossil fuels, including an intensified expansion of coal in India, an easing of oil prices and US president Donald Trump’s enthusiasm for fossil fuels. Much greater investment in renewable energy, and low-carbon technology such as electric vehicles, would still be required to make permanent reductions in annual emissions, the report’s authors said.

US supreme court clears way for Trump’s border wall in Texas’s Big Bend

The US supreme court has allowed Donald Trump to continue his administration’s construction of a border wall in Texas’s Big Bend region, including parts of Big Bend national park. In an unsigned, five-page ruling, the nation’s highest court granted the Trump administration’s emergency request to suspend a lower court order that had temporarily stopped the project last month.

Liberal justice Ketanji Brown Jackson was the only member of the nine-member court to dissent from the ruling. The justices wrote that the case’s plaintiffs, which include the Center for Biological Diversity, a Big Bend river guide and a church preservation group, “claim that construction in the Big Bend sector will diminish their ability to use and enjoy the area”. However, they noted: “But Congress’s enactment of [immigration law] – which permits the secretary [of homeland security] to waive the requirements of environmental-protection and other conservation laws – reflects a clear preference for expeditious border construction over the very harms respondents assert.

“The government’s interest therefore outweighs any aesthetic, recreational, and environmental harm alleged by respondents,” the justices said.

The Center for Biological Diversity condemned the supreme court’s decision, saying: “This horrific decision clears the way for contractors to bulldoze pristine desert and dynamite canyon walls before the courts have even decided whether this destruction is legal. They’re signing off on the permanent destruction of the wildest place in Texas, and the theft of a great American river from all of us.

“The destruction we’ve already seen in Big Bend unleashed a firestorm of outrage so severe that the administration was forced to pause its plans. If the bulldozers return now, public opposition will only grow … The damage done to Big Bend will be felt for future generations of Texans and Americans, and this administration will bear responsibility for the natural heritage we lose,” the center added..

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Also of Interest

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

Iran War: Trump Signals No Big Attack in CBS Interview; Barmy CENTCOM “Iron Gate” Plan Proof of Weakness or Perhaps Cover for Iraq Ground Operation?

War On Iran: – Khamenei Order To End Ambiguous Situation

Witnesses recount struggle to save people buried in ‘horrifying’ Gaza landslide

China Isn’t Just Going To Win AI, It Will Win Semiconductors As Well

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A Little Night Music

Willie Dixon - Study War No More

Willie Dixon - Seventh Son

Willie Dixon - Pie In The Sky

Willie Dixon - Spoonful

Willie Dixon - I Ain't Superstitious

Willie Dixon - Jungle Swing

Willie Dixon & Lafayette Leake - Ain't Nobody's Business

Willie Dixon - I Love The Life I Live

Willie Dixon - Walking The Blues

Willie Dixon (feat. George "Wild Child" Butler) - Axe and the Wind

Willie Dixon - It Don't Make Sense (You Can't Make Peace)

Willie Dixon - 1st RECORDING OF: Whole Lotta Love (as ‘You Need Love’)

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