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The Evening Blues - 2-26-26



eb1pt12


The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Walter Davis

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer Walter Davis. Enjoy!

Walter Davis (with Roosevelt Sykes, p) - Engineer's Blues

“If everybody always lies to you, the consequence is not that you believe the lies, but rather that nobody believes anything any longer.”

-- Hannah Arendt


News and Opinion

We Deserve Better War Propaganda

They’re not even trying anymore.

US middle east envoy Steve Witkoff told Fox News on Saturday that Iran is “probably a week away” from having the materials necessary to make a nuclear bomb — a line that Iran hawks have been falsely repeating for over three decades.

It’s such a transparently bogus claim that even The Jerusalem Post dunked on Witkoff for making it, quipping that “The US envoy left out that Iran currently has no access to its material, no machines to enrich it, and no weapons program to use it for any operational purpose.”

This is the guy supposedly assigned by the White House to the task of establishing peace in the middle east, churning out the most fuzzbrained justifications for war with Iran you could possibly imagine.


The New York Post has an article going viral right now with the flamboyantly propagandistic headline “Iranian forces hack out wombs of female protesters to hide horrific sexual abuse,” which would sound absurd at a glance even you didn’t know anything about atrocity propaganda. Like they said “Let’s mutilate these women’s reproductive organs so that nobody thinks we horrifically abused them!” How does that even make sense?

The article is of course based on no evidence whatsoever, citing nothing but a NewsNation report full of anonymously sourced assertions. The central claim of the New York Post headline is attributed solely to “An Iranian refugee who spoke to NewsNation under a condition of anonymity.”

In a post-Iraq invasion world, these sorts of reports deserve nothing but a scoff and a dismissal. After all the lies we’ve been told about every US war of aggression over the years, any claims made about a government that Washington wants to topple need to be flatly rejected unless they are backed by rock-solid, independently verifiable proof. That proof never arrives. US wars are always justified by lies, psyops, and misinformation.


But these aren’t the usual caliber of lies. We normally get better-quality war propaganda than this. This slop is designed to appeal to the dumbest people in the dumbest parts of the United States, and to people who already want to go to war with Iran.

Consent for the Iraq invasion was manufactured by many months of high-energy media saturation designed to harness the power of post-9/11 hysteria about the possibility of foreign attacks on American soil. This is just a few propaganda rags and government officials farting into a microphone and calling us idiots.

And yet the war machinery is rolling out anyway. They’re preparing to unleash a horrific war of immense consequence which Americans overwhelmingly oppose, and they don’t even have the decency to tell believable lies about it.

It can’t say good things about the future that they’re not even pretending to care what the American people want anymore. The US empire is getting more and more bold about exposing its true tyrannical nature, feeling less and less need to manufacture consent before engaging in mass military slaughter.

I guess we can still have hope that this will help open some eyes to the dire need for revolution in the heart of the empire.

Max Blumenthal : Lies the Israelis Told Trump

Iran enters critical nuclear talks with US insisting deal is within reach

Iran enters critical talks on its nuclear programme with the US on Thursday, insisting a deal is in reach as long as Washington sticks by its willingness to concede Iran’s symbolic right to enrich uranium, allow Tehran to dilute its stockpile of highly enriched uranium, and not to impose controls on Iran’s ballistic missile programme.

The three preconditions for success are seen as critical by Iranian diplomats, but it remains unclear whether Trump accepts these parameters. The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, said on Wednesday that it would be a “big problem” if Iran did not negotiate over missiles.

The US special envoy Steve Witkoff, who is heading to Geneva for the talks along with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, had already accepted these principles in the two previous rounds of indirect talks, Iranian officials claim. But it remains possible that Trump could overturn these terms, a step that will inevitably lead to a conflict between the two nations that could rapidly consume the whole of the Middle East.

It is understood that Witkoff has asked only that Iran agree to enrichment at below 5% purity, roughly the level it accepted in the 2015 nuclear deal and well below weapons grade. ... But, in turn, the source said there were no offers of immediate sanctions relief or diplomatic ties: Iran would be left in economic handcuffs. Still, the next step, the source said, would be negotiations to gradually relieve sanctions and opening dialogue.

In his State of the Union speech, delivered early in the morning Tehran time, Trump veered sharply away from the negotiating path adopted by Witkoff when he warned about Iran’s ballistic missiles reaching Europe, accused Iran of being the number one sponsor of terrorism and again claimed Iran had not promised to forgo nuclear weapons. ... Only two hours before the speech, Araghchi had written on social media that Iran would under no circumstances ever develop a nuclear weapon.


Trump Wants ISRAEL To Start Iran War First

Vance Says Iran Should Take Trump’s Threats ‘Seriously’

Vice President JD Vance said on Wednesday that Iran should take President Trump’s threats “seriously” as the US continues a major military buildup in the Middle East to prepare for what appears to be a coming attack on the Islamic Republic.

Later in the day, Vance made the claim that there’s evidence Iran is trying to “rebuild a nuclear weapon,” though Iran has never possessed nuclear weapons. The vice president likely meant to say “nuclear weapons program,” but there was no evidence Iran was pursuing a bomb before Israel launched the 12-Day War, and that was the opinion of US intelligence agencies at the time.

“The principle is very simple: Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon,” Vance told reporters. “If they try to rebuild a nuclear weapon, that causes problems for us. In fact, we’ve seen evidence that they have tried to do exactly that.”

While the administration insists the potential war is about Iran’s nuclear program, the likely US goal of any attack would be regime change or destroying Iran’s conventional missile program so it can’t threaten Israel. Either goal would require a massive attack and likely cannot be achieved by airpower alone.

COL. Douglas Macgregor : A Long War Will Come Soon

Calls for justice grow after Israeli settlers kill another US citizen

After Israeli settlers killed 19-year-old United States citizen Nasrallah Abu Siyam in the occupied West Bank last week, the US Department of State said it “has no higher priority than the safety and security of Americans”. But, as the number of US citizens killed by Israel continues to mount, rights advocates say Washington’s failure to ensure accountability is driving a deadly cycle of impunity.

Abu Siyam, who was shot dead in the village of Mikhmas near Jerusalem, is among at least 11 US citizens killed by Israeli settlers or soldiers since 2022. “It’s a joke. I don’t take these people seriously,” William Asfour, Chicago chapter coordinator for American Muslims for Palestine, said of the US government’s response to the latest killing. “If this is true, we would stop supplying Israel with weapons. We would hold these settlers, these terrorists, accountable. We would sanction them. We would have a weapons embargo.” ...

Advocates say Washington could compel accountability simply by leveraging the large sums of aid it sends to Israel. The US has provided Israel with more than $21bn over the past two years alone. But US President Donald Trump has shown little indication that he plans to sanction Israel or suspend assistance. Rather, he said last May that it would not be his job to “use US policy to dispense justice” abroad, and he has moved to lift existing penalties against Israeli citizens.

Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, has also been a staunch defender of Israeli policies, while exerting little pressure – at least publicly – to ensure the protection of American citizens.

COL. Lawrence Wilkerson :Why the Pentagon Has Doubts

Disputes over Hamas disarmament stall Gaza peace plan progress

Progress in the Gaza peace plan has stalled over disagreements on how Hamas should be disarmed, with Israel threatening to go back to full-scale war if the condition is not carried out quickly. The second phase of the US-brokered ceasefire, which Washington declared had begun in January, was meant to involve Hamas disarming, Israeli forces withdrawing, and a Palestinian interim administration moving into Gaza backed by a Palestinian police force and an international stabilisation force (ISF). The 20-point plan, which is supposed to be overseen by Donald Trump’s newly assembled Board of Peace, is vague on sequencing, however.

The Israeli government is pushing for the complete disarmament of Hamas to come first and Israeli officials have been briefing journalists that the US will soon lay down a 60-day deadline for that to be completed. “It is estimated that, in the coming days, Hamas will be given an ultimatum to disarm and fully demilitarise Gaza,” the far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, told public radio on Monday, adding that the ultimatum would come from Washington. If Hamas did not comply, the minister said, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) would “receive international legitimacy and American backing to do it itself”.

The Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Saar, reportedly told Israel’s security cabinet on Sunday that Trump would deliver his ultimatum to Hamas within days. However, the US president did not address the issue in his State of the Union speech on Tuesday night. He claimed credit for the return of the bodies of Israeli hostages and did not even mention the Board of Peace, which he had hailed four days earlier as a historic turning point.

Even if a disarmament campaign was announced, it is unclear who would be in a position to receive Hamas weapons within a 60-day period. The National Committee for the Administration of Gaza (NCAG), a collection of 15 Palestinian non-affiliated technocrats, has gathered in Cairo, preparing to manage the devastated territory, but is still a long way from stepping into Gaza.

According to a report in the rightwing Israel Hayom newspaper on Tuesday, the NCAG will present Hamas in March with a six-month plan to disarm, beginning with heavy weapons and ending with light firearms. At the outset Hamas would have to hand over an inventory of its heavy weapons, as well as a map of the network of tunnels it has dug under Gaza. The Israel Hayom account cites unnamed sources and incorporates Israeli talking points. Rival militias, armed clans and gangs would only be disarmed after Hamas, and every other step in phase two would be contingent on its prior disarmament. The report quoted sources saying that Israel would have full international backing to go back to its assault on Gaza if disarmament is not carried out.

IDF Drone Supplier OUSTED From Brooklyn Navy Yard

Cuba says border guards killed four people on US-registered speedboat

Cuba’s government claims it thwarted an attempt by gunmen to infiltrate from the US, after its coastguard fired on a Florida-registered speedboat in an exchange of fire near its shores, killing four people and wounding six. The interior ministry claimed people arrested after the firefight on Wednesday said they “intended to carry out an infiltration for the purposes of terrorism”.

The ministry’s statement said assault rifles, handguns, molotov cocktails and other military-style gear were found on the vessel and the 10 attackers were all Cubans living in the US. ... One border guard was injured in an exchange of gunfire, according to the ministry.

The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, told reporters it was not a US operation and that no US government personnel were involved. Cuban authorities made the US aware of the incident, but the US embassy in Havana would attempt to independently verify what happened, he said.

Cuba Kills 4 Exiles Trying to "Infiltrate" Island by Boat as U.S. “Medieval Siege” of Cuba Continues

Hegseth Demands Anthropic Let Military Use AI However It Wants—Even for Autonomous Killer Drones and Spying On Americans

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth has threatened to punish the artificial intelligence company Anthropic if it doesn’t let the Pentagon use its technology however it wants—apparently even to create autonomous killer drones or conduct surveillance of Americans.

Anthropic’s powerful AI model, Claude, is currently the only one permitted to handle classified military data, and the company was awarded a $200 million contract last year to develop AI capabilities for the Department of Defense to use alongside other AI firms.

However, the company’s usage policy prohibits its use for mass surveillance and for the development of autonomous weapons—such as drones that attack targets without a human operator.

These limitations have infuriated the Defense Department leadership. On Tuesday, Hegseth called Anthropic’s CEO, Dario Amodei, to a meeting at the Pentagon, where he demanded “unfettered” access to Claude without any guardrails.

This goal was outlined last month in the department’s “AI Strategy” memo, which called for the US to adopt an “AI-first warfighting force” and for companies to allow their technology to be deployed for “any lawful use,” free from ethical safeguards.


According to a senior defense official who spoke to Axios, Hegseth issued an ultimatum to Amodei on Tuesday: If he does not grant the Pentagon unrestricted use of Anthropic’s technology by 5:01 pm on Friday, the department would take measures to coerce the company.

It would either declare Anthropic a “supply chain risk,” effectively blacklisting it for military use and ending its contract, or it would invoke the Defense Production Act, which would force the company to tailor the product to the military’s needs.

Larry Summers to resign from Harvard after Epstein files revelations

Larry Summers, former president of Harvard University, will resign from teaching at the end of the academic year, a spokesperson confirmed to the Guardian. The news of his formal resignation comes “in connection with the ongoing review by the University of documents related to Jeffrey Epstein that were recently released by the government”, a Harvard spokesperson, Jason Newton, said in a statement.

Summers also resigned from his role as co-director of the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School, a position he has held since 2011, according to the spokesperson. He will remain on leave until the end of the academic year. The news was first reported by the Harvard Crimson, the student newspaper. ...

Emails that were released by the US House oversight committee in 2025 reignited questions about Summers’s relationship with Epstein, who died in jail in 2019 while awaiting trial on federal charges of sex-trafficking minors. Many of the messages indicated a friendship that lasted well into 2019. Contact only ended shortly before Epstein was arrested in July of that same year. ...

Harvard stopped accepting Epstein’s donations after he pleaded guilty to child sex offenses in 2008.

Grand jury rejects indictment over federal officer’s shooting of US citizen

A grand jury on Wednesday rejected indictments over the fatal shooting last year of a US citizen by a federal immigration agent during a traffic encounter in Texas, prosecutors said. ... The Cameron county district attorney’s office said in a statement that a grand jury declined to hand up indictments after being presented the case. The office did not provide additional details.

DHS has alleged that Martinez “intentionally ran over a Homeland Security Investigation special agent”, causing another agent to fire “defensive shots to protect himself, his fellow agents, and the general public”. The shooting would mark the earliest of at least six deadly shootings by federal officers since a nationwide immigration crackdown was launched in Donald Trump’s second term.

A passenger who was in the car with Martinez, Joshua Orta, had disputed DHS’ account in a draft affidavit prepared last year, according to attorneys for Martinez’s family. Orta, a key witness to the encounter, died in a car crash last weekend.

Judge rules Trump deportation flights to ‘third countries’ unlawful

The Trump administration’s latest policy of deporting immigrants to “third countries” to which they have no ties is unlawful and must be set aside, a federal judge ruled on Wednesday in a case that already reached the nation’s highest court.

US district judge Brian E Murphy in Massachusetts agreed to suspend his decision for 15 days, giving the government time to appeal his latest ruling in the case. Murphy noted that the US supreme court ruled in the administration’s favor last year, pausing his previous decision and clearing the way for a flight carrying several migrants to complete its trip to war-torn South Sudan, where they had no ties.

Murphy said migrants challenging the Department of Homeland Security’s policy have the right to “meaningful notice” and an opportunity to object before they are removed to a third country. The policy “extinguishes valid challenges to third-country removal by effecting removal before those challenges can be raised”, the judge concluded.

“These are our laws, and it is with profound gratitude for the unbelievable luck of being born in the United States of America that this court affirms these and our nation’s bedrock principle: that no ‘person’ in this country may be ‘deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law’,” Murphy wrote.

In June, the supreme court’s conservative majority found that immigration officials can quickly deport people to third countries. Liberal justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented, saying the ruling gives the government special treatment.

Nearly blind refugee abandoned by US border patrol found dead in Buffalo

A nearly blind Burmese refugee who was abandoned by border patrol agents has been found dead in Buffalo, New York, city officials confirmed. Nurul Amin Shah Alam, 56, had been missing since 19 February, when he was dropped off by border patrol following his release from Erie county holding center, according to the Investigative Post.

A city hall spokesperson, Ian Ott, told the Investigative Post that homicide detectives are “investigating the circumstances and timeframe of events leading up to his death, following his release from custody”.

Shah Alam had been in the Erie county holding center for the past year, after being arrested by Buffalo police in 2025 on charges of assault, trespassing and possession of a weapon. The arrest stemmed from an incident in which Shah Alam got lost while on a walk and ended up on the porch of a woman’s home. He had been using a curtain rod as a walking stick, according to his attorney. The woman called the police, and when Shah Alam did not follow police commands to drop his curtain rod, they tasered and beat him, his attorney said. He was released on bail, and then transferred to border patrol custody.

Border patrol agents then dropped him off at a Tim Hortons about five miles from his home. Neither his attorney nor his family were notified of his release.

Vance says Minnesota’s Medicaid funds halted as part of Trump’s ‘war on fraud’

JD Vance announced on Wednesday that the Trump administration would “temporarily halt” more than a quarter-billion dollars in Medicaid reimbursements to the state of Minnesota, escalating Donald Trump’s newly announced “war on fraud”.

Vance said the action was to ensure Minnesota was “a good steward of the American people’s tax money”, part of its crackdown on the state following a fraud scandal linked to residents of the Somali community in Minneapolis, which prompted the administration to send thousands of federal immigration agents into Minneapolis and that resulted in the deaths of two US citizens and widespread protests.

“What we’re doing is we are stopping the federal payments that will go to the state government until the state government takes its obligations seriously to stop the fraud that’s being perpetrated against the American taxpayer,” the vice-president said at a press conference in Washington, where he was joined by Mehmet Oz, administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid.

Oz also announced that the administration was imposing a six-month national moratorium on federal funding for people who need durable medical equipment, including prostheses and orthotics. New enrollments for federal funds for such devices would be halted due to concerns about benefit fraud, he said.

“This has nothing to do with fraud,” Minnesota governor Tim Walz, a Democrat, responded on X. “The agents Trump allegedly sent to investigate fraud are shooting protesters and arresting children. His DOJ is gutting the US Attorney’s Office and crippling their ability to prosecute fraud. And every week Trump pardons another fraudster.”



the horse race



Hakeem Jeffries CAUGHT Funneling AIPAC Cash Into Dem Primaries



the evening greens


Judge orders Greenpeace to pay $345m over Dakota Access pipeline protest

A North Dakota judge has said he will order Greenpeace to pay damages expected to total $345m in connection with protests against the Dakota Access oil pipeline from nearly a decade ago, a figure the environmental group contends it cannot pay. In court papers filed Tuesday, Judge James Gion said he would sign an order requiring several Greenpeace entities to pay the judgment to pipeline company Energy Transfer. He set that amount at $345m last year in a decision that reduced a jury’s damages by about half, but his latest filing did not specify a final amount.

The long-awaited order is expected to launch an appeal process in the North Dakota supreme court from both sides. Last year, a nine-person jury found Netherlands-based Greenpeace International, Greenpeace USA and funding arm Greenpeace Fund Inc liable for defamation and other claims brought by Dallas-based Energy Transfer and subsidiary Dakota Access. The jury found Greenpeace USA liable on all counts, including conspiracy, trespass, nuisance and tortious interference. The other two entities were found liable for some of the claims.

The lawsuit stems from the pipeline protests in 2016 and 2017, when thousands of people demonstrated and camped near the project’s Missouri River crossing upstream of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s reservation. The tribe has long opposed the pipeline as a threat to its water supply.

Damages totaled $666.9m, divided in different amounts among the three Greenpeace organizations before the judge reduced the judgment. Greenpeace USA’s share of that judgment was $404m. Energy Transfer previously said it intends to appeal the reduced damages, calling the original jury findings and damages “lawful and just”. The Associated Press contacted the company for comment on the judge’s Tuesday action.

“These claims never should have reached a jury, and there are many possible legal grounds for appeal – including a lack of evidence to support key findings and valid concerns about the possibility of ensuring fairness,” Greenpeace USA interim general counsel Marco Simons said.

Lawyers for US cancer sufferers challenge Bayer’s $7.25bn Roundup settlement deal

A group of 14 law firms representing nearly 20,000 plaintiffs is seeking to intervene in Bayer’s proposed class action settlement of Roundup litigation, citing concerns that the deal will not be fair to cancer sufferers. The group filed both a motion to intervene and a motion for an extension of time for court preliminary approval of the deal in St Louis city circuit court in Missouri late on February 24. The law firms say the deal appears “unprecedented” and raises multiple “red flags”.

“It is hard to escape the impression that the proposed settlement would give Monsanto everything it desires – a near-complete release of liability for Monsanto and its parent company, Bayer AG – while giving inadequate consideration to many putative class members, who would surrender their substantive rights in exchange for settlement offers that may never result in payment,” the law firms state in their motion. Bayer and a different group of plaintiffs’ lawyers filed the settlement proposal with the court on 17 February, with a provision to seek preliminary court approval within a 15-day period.

But the opposing firms are seeking a 60-day extension of that “fast track” time frame, saying the “sheer scale and impact of the proposed settlement, together with concerns raised by its terms and how it was negotiated, warrant broader public participation and scrutiny”.

Bayer announced the $7.25bn proposed class action settlement on February, proposing to pay amounts ranging from $10,000 to $165,000 to users of its glyphosate-based weed-killing products who have non-Hodgkin lymphoma (NHL), a type of blood cancer, or who develop it in the next several years. The law firms seeking to intervene in the proposed settlement alleged that it “heavily favors” occupational Roundup users such as farmers or commercial landscapers over residential users. Under the proposed payment schedule, an occupational claimant diagnosed before age 60 with aggressive NHL could receive, on average, $165,000, while a residential user with the same traits would average $40,000, the motion to intervene points out.Additionally, they object to Bayer’s request that the court stay the thousands of lawsuits pending against the company in Missouri.

Tropical plants flowering months earlier or later because of climate crisis

Tropical flowers are blooming months earlier or later than they used to because of climate breakdown, with potentially “cascading impacts across ecosystems”, according to a study of 8,000 plants dating back 200 years. Researchers looked at flowers from a range of countries, including Brazil, Ecuador, Ghana and Thailand, home to the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth, but also the most understudied. The Brazilian amaranth tree flowers 80 days later than it did in the 1950s, while the Ghanaian rattlepod shrub’s flowering period shifted 17 days earlier between the 50s and 90s, according to a study of museum specimens.

It was previously thought that tropical regions – where temperatures fluctuate less over the course of the year – would not be so affected by the climate crisis in terms of the timing of flowering. This hypothesis has been proved wrong, said the lead researcher Skylar Graves from the University of Colorado Boulder, who added that “nowhere on Earth is unaffected by climate change”.

“This is a major problem, because not only do the tropics make up a third of the globe, but they are the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth,” said Graves. Nearly 180 species of plants new to science are found in the tropics each year, according to the paper. Researchers compiled museum data of 33 tropical species from between 1794 and 2024. The timings of flowering had shifted by an average of two days a decade, according to Graves, who spent years going through dried flower collections.

The entire tropical ecosystem is likely to be negatively affected. “These changes, and more in turn, fracture communities and food chains,” the researchers wrote in the paper published in the journal Plos One, describing the changes as potentially causing “cascading impacts across entire ecosystems”. The tropics is a “large blind spot regarding understanding the global impacts of climate change”, they wrote.

It is likely that these changes have wider impacts on the ecosystem as flowering falls out of sync with the cycles of fruit-eating, seed-dispersing animals (meaning there is not fruit available for them to eat when they are expecting it) as well as other plants and pollinators. If, for example, a flower needs to be pollinated by a migratory bird but that bird is only around for a few days a year and the timing no longer lines up, the flower won’t get pollinated and the bird won’t get the nectar to drink.


Also of Interest

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

Patrick Lawrence: To Whom Are Our Liars Lying & What Is the Point of Their Lies?

The Price of Perfect Nihilism

Donald Trump’s Death Cards

Maine university pulls support from conference on Palestine, citing Trump sanctions

Western Elites Are Making A Play For Eternal Oligarchy

Former Brazilian Political Officials Found Guilty of Plotting Murder of Marielle Franco

Investigation urged into immigration practices of company owned by Maga donors

‘Arsonist as Fire Chief’: Fed Appoints Wall Street Lobbyist to Key Bank Oversight Role

US tariffs could rise to 15% or more after supreme court blow, trade representative says

Jobs, gas prices and ending wars: factchecking Trump’s State of the Union claims

Bill Gates apologizes to foundation staff for Jeffrey Epstein ties

Toxic waste from television, computer and smartphone screens ends up in endangered dolphins


A Little Night Music

Walter Davis - M & O Blues

Walter Davis (with Roosevelt Sykes, p) - Sunny Land Blues

Walter Davis - I Can Tell By The Way You Smell

Walter Davis (with Roosevelt Sykes, p) - Strange Land Blues

Walter Davis - Come Back Baby

Walter Davis - Oh! Me! Oh! My! Blues

Walter Davis (with Roosevelt Sykes, p) - Mr. Davis' Blues

Walter Davis - Why Should I Be Blue?

Walter Davis - Sweet Sixteen

Walter Davis - L & N Blues


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Comments

QMS's picture

.

interesting there was so little noise about the SOTU exclamations
by the MSM. Perhaps the speech was too complicated for them to
parse into useful sound bites?

Doesn't matter. Us normies could not care less if we tried.
Captain Blowhard underperformed. No surprise. Perhaps
people are losing interest by now. I'm sure a couple of tweets
from truth social will right the ship /s.

Thanks for the EB's!

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6 users have voted.

Zionism is a social disease

joe shikspack's picture

@QMS

i don't really follow the msm much, but my guess is, if they aren't covering the sotu that much it may just reflect that most people have tuned trump out.

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4 users have voted.
The Liberal Moonbat's picture

War crimes have no statute of limitations or venue requirements for prosecution.

To paraphrase the good Judge: While he breathes, I hope....

Light_at_the_end_by_voyez_3.jpg

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5 users have voted.

In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!

joe shikspack's picture

@The Liberal Moonbat

that will be good news if we ever have an evolution.

have a great evening!

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4 users have voted.
enhydra lutris's picture

there is a strong consensus that Trump may or may not attack Iran. Everybody sane, of course, hopes he doesn't and almost all can formulate a scenario in which he doesn't, BUT, all the same, they're pretty damn sure he will. Meanwhile, it seems that we couldn't even construct a flow chart form which a markov chain type predictive formula could be derived so we might as well use a ouija board or magic 8 ball. I think Scott Ritter may have hit it on the head when he said it all depends on what the last person to brief him said because he is incapable of anything actually resembling a thought process. So, right now it is 7:11 am in Tehran, 11 1/2 hours from now, so I guess it won't happen "tonight", because it didn't, but come high noon ...
Magic 8 ball says:
ag@newspot ~$ echo $((RANDOM % 20 + 1))
9

which appears to be affirmative, but only it you count from top to bottom and not from bottom to top. Wink

be well and have a good one

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4 users have voted.

That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

joe shikspack's picture

@enhydra lutris

heh, i don't have any fancy gadgets, but, my gut feeling is that bibi will not waste this opportunity when he has a third to a half of available u.s. military resources parked in the neighborhood to get his war on. this is not the sort of opportunity that will come his way again if the u.s. goes home with some sort of agreement with iran.

if i were a betting man, i would say that israel will start the war and the u.s. will be sucke(re)d into it.

have a good one!

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4 users have voted.
Cassiodorus's picture

@enhydra lutris Iran Calls Trump's Bluff as Deep State Rebels Over War

Key paragraph:

Trump is not left with a lot of good options: we can only assume he will have to take a major compromise on Iran while gussying it up in his now-infamous style into some kind of “victory”. More than likely, he’ll lie by twisting the result of the “deal” into something it actually isn’t by announcing major restrictions on Iran’s uranium enrichment which will be gross exaggerations of the contractual reality; this has been the precedent that has defined Trump’s elliptical style during his second term.

jeez what a mess

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5 users have voted.

"Iran is more than prepared to coninue this war for a very, very long time." -- Seyed Marandi

"There is no off ramp now for Trump." -- Chris Bambery