---

---

The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Maurice John Vaughn

---

Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features Chicago blues musician Maurice John Vaughn. Enjoy!

^{Maurice John Vaughn – Nothing Left To Believe In}

"If an American is concerned only about his nation, he will not be concerned about the peoples of Asia, Africa, or South America. Is this not why nations engage in the madness of war without the slightest sense of penitence? Is this not why the murder of a citizen of your own nation is a crime, but the murder of citizens of another nation in war is an act of heroic virtue?"

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

---

News and Opinion

The Fictional Mental Illness That Only Affects Enemies Of The Western Empire

Within the storytelling of western politics and punditry there exists a fictional type of mental illness which only affects people the US empire doesn’t like.

If Iran gets a nuclear weapon, its crazy lunatic government will flip out and nuke us all.

Watch out for Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis, those guys are a bunch of maniacal antisemites who want to attack Israelis just because they’re Jewish.

Oh no, Putin is invading Ukraine completely unprovoked because he’s a madman who hates freedom and won’t stop until he’s conquered all of Europe.

China is building up its military because the megalomaniacal Xi Jinping wants to take over the world; all those US military bases surrounding China are just a defensive measure to contain Beijing’s insanity.

Assad just went nuts one day and started slaughtering his own people out of nowhere.

Gaddafi is a sexual sadist who’s giving Viagra to his troops to help them commit mass rapes in Libya.

Saddam Hussein is so crazy and evil he’s trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction to give Americans another 9/11.

The North Koreans used to be far too insane to be allowed to have nuclear weapons because they’d nuke San Francisco immediately, but after they obtained nuclear weapons they were miraculously cured of this rare psychological disorder.

The stories of the western empire ask us to believe that everyone who finds themselves in the imperial crosshairs is an irrational actor whose loony behavior can only be attributed to some uncontrollable defect within their own minds, or who will soon snap and do something nutty if they are not contained by force.

One antagonist who never appears in these fairy tales of the western empire is the western empire itself. In the storytelling of the empire, there is no globe-spanning power structure which is constantly inflicting violence and destruction upon populations around the world while seeking to crush any nation who disobeys its dictates. It’s just a bunch of irrational psychos, seeking nuclear weapons and becoming aggressively militaristic for no other reason than because they are crazy, while the totally normal alliance led by a totally normal country in North America innocently responds to their crazy behavior.

That’s the story. In real life, the most aggressive and unreasonable actor on the world stage by far is the empire-like power structure that is loosely centralized around Washington DC. Nobody else is constantly waging wars of aggression around the world. Nobody else is circling the planet with hundreds of military bases for the purpose of global domination. Nobody else has spent the 21st century killing millions of people and deliberately targeting civilians with starvation sanctions in countries on the other side of the planet. Only the US-centralized empire has been doing these things.

But we are asked to believe that this vicious imperial power structure is the only rational actor on earth, and that those who resist its aggressions are the crazy ones.

And you are told that if you can’t see this, then you’re crazy too. You’re a crackpot. A conspiracy theorist. A paranoid nutball whose voice should be marginalized and whose ideas should be dismissed with a scoff.

You are crazy if you don’t believe what the world’s craziest power structure says about its enemies being crazy.

It is gaslighting on a global scale. It is madness, and that is why this civilization has gone mad.

Let’s hope someone finds a way to protect the world from the insanity of the western empire.

Larry C. Johnson: Israel Retreats After Iran’s Bold Offensive

Israel closes the most direct route for aid to Palestinians in Gaza

Israel has closed crossings into northern Gaza, cutting the most direct route for aid to reach hundreds of thousands of people at risk of famine, as airstrikes and shelling killed dozens more people in the devastated Palestinian territory. The move to close the crossings on Thursday will increase diplomatic pressure on Israel as attention shifts from its brief conflict with Iran, back to the violence and grave humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

During the 12 days Israel was fighting Iran, more than 800 Palestinians were killed in Gaza – either shot as they desperately sought food in increasingly chaotic circumstances or in successive waves of Israeli strikes and shelling.

Pedro Sánchez, Spain’s prime minister and an outspoken critic of Israel’s offensive, on Thursday became the most prominent European leader to describe the situation in Gaza as a “genocide”. Speaking before an EU summit in Brussels, Sánchez mentioned an EU report that found “indications” Israel was breaching its human rights obligations under the cooperation deal, which forms the basis for trade ties.

The text cited Israel’s blockade of humanitarian aid for the Palestinian territory, the high number of civilian casualties, attacks on journalists and the massive displacement and destruction caused by the war.

‘They attack us without provocation’: West Bank town mourns its dead after settler raid

The men from Fatah arrived on Thursday morning, hours after the attack on Kafr Malik, to put out more flags along the main streets, adding bright primary colours to a mournful scene, but they did nothing to relieve the all-encompassing sense of helplessness.

Three men from this central West Bank town, one a teenager, lay dead and several others were still in hospital after an attack by about 100 Israeli settlers on Wednesday evening. The men of Kafr Malik had run to its south-western edge to form a screen against the settlers and rescue women and children trapped in a house set alight by the masked attackers.

But as they threw stones at the settlers in an attempt to drive them back, the Israel army, who had taken up position behind the marauders, opened fire at the Palestinians.

“Their own kids are really valuable to them but other people’s kids are worthless,” said Mohammed Sabry, his eyes swollen from a night of weeping. His 18-year-old son, Lutfi, was one of the dead. There is no justification whatsoever to shed the blood of the Palestinian people like this,” Sabry said. “They attack us without provocation, and when the young people go to defend women and children, they are shot by the army. The bitter truth is that the world is watching the bloodshed of the Palestinian people without doing anything about it.”

Lavrov demolishes UN nuclear watchdog IAEA

Trump Says He’ll Bomb Iran Again If It Restarts Enrichment Program But Doesn’t Think It Will Happen

President Trump said on Wednesday that he would bomb Iran again if the country restarted its nuclear enrichment program, but he insisted that he doesn’t think that will happen.

The president made the comments on Sunday at the NATO summit in The Hague. When asked if Tehran rebuilding its enrichment facilities would prompt more US strikes, Trump replied, “Sure. But I’m not going to have to worry about that. It’s gone for years.”

When asked how long he thinks the US bombing set back Iran’s nuclear program, Trump said, “I think it’s basically decades, because I don’t think they’ll ever do it again. I think they’ve had it. I mean, they just went through hell. They’ve had it. The last thing they want to do is enrich anything right now. They want to recover.”

US/EU Turns On Zelensky Gives Up On Kiev, Aid Dwindles, Russians Encircle Pokrovsk; Israel Badly Hit

NATO Summit Declaration Makes No Mention of Ukrainian Membership

NATO’s declaration that was released during its summit in The Hague on Wednesday made no mention of Ukraine’s potential future membership in the alliance, a departure from the declarations issued over the previous two years.

In its mention of Ukraine, the brief declaration said allies would “reaffirm their enduring sovereign commitments to provide support to Ukraine, whose security contributes to ours, and, to this end, will include direct contributions towards Ukraine’s defense and its defense industry when calculating Allies’ defense spending.”

NATO’s 2024 declaration, issued during its summit in Washington, stated that Ukraine was on an “irreversible” path toward NATO membership, but it offered no concrete timeline. In Vilnius in 2023, NATO said it would support Ukraine’s “reforms on its path towards future membership,” but also provided no timeline.

Mexican president demands proof after US accuses banks of laundering drug money

Mexico’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, expressed frustration at US sanctions against three Mexican financial institutions accused of laundering drug money, and said the US has not yet provided any evidence of criminal activity.

“Until now, the treasury department has not sent any proof that indicates there is money laundering,” Sheinbaum said. “We will act if there is proof.”

She then publicly requested the treasury department “send proof, if they have it, so we can accompany them in the process”.

The US treasury department announced on Wednesday it was placing sanctions on three separate Mexican financial institutions, accusing them of being used to launder money for organized crime.

Dollar falls to three-year low after report Trump may name next Fed chair early

The dollar has fallen to a three-year low following a report that Donald Trump is considering bringing forward the announcement of his choice to succeed the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell. The US president has repeatedly clashed with Powell, accusing the central bank chief of being too slow to cut interest rates, calling him “very dumb” in his latest broadside on Tuesday.

Powell’s term as chair is due to run for another 11 months, until next May, and the announcement of a successor traditionally comes three or four months in advance. However, the Wall Street Journal reported that Trump was considering selecting and announcing Powell’s replacement in September or October, sending the dollar down 0.5% against a basket of other currencies to its weakest level since the start of March 2022.

An announcement of a successor could even come as early as this summer, the WSJ reported, given Trump’s frustration with Powell and the Fed, which has resisted his calls for lower interest rates. An early announcement of the next Fed chair could allow whoever Trump picks to influence expectations about the path for interest rates, which could undermine Powell during the final months of his term.

Supreme court paves way for South Carolina and other states to defund Planned Parenthood

The US supreme court has paved the way for South Carolina to kick Planned Parenthood out of its Medicaid program over its status as an abortion provider, a decision that could embolden red states across the country to effectively “defund” the reproductive healthcare organization.

The case, Medina v Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, centers around a 2018 executive order from South Carolina’s governor, Henry McMaster, that blocked clinics that provide abortions from receiving Medicaid reimbursements. Medicaid is the US government’s main health insurance program for low-income people. About 80 million people rely on it.

“Payment of taxpayer funds to abortion clinics, for any purpose, results in the subsidy of abortion and the denial of the right to life,” McMaster said at the time, even though the reimbursements could not be used for abortions. Abortions are also now banned in South Carolina after six weeks of pregnancy.

Planned Parenthood South Atlantic, a Planned Parenthood affiliate that operates two clinics in South Carolina, and Julie Edwards, a patient who sought birth control, sued over McMaster’s order, arguing that it flew in the face of a federal provision known as the “free choice of provider” clause. That provision guarantees that people insured by Medicaid can freely choose their own providers as long as they accept the program and are qualified to provide care. Lower courts have repeatedly sided with Planned Parenthood South Atlantic and Edwards, keeping McMaster’s order from taking effect.

The case in front of the supreme court did not directly deal with the question of whether South Carolina could legally remove Planned Parenthood from Medicaid. Instead, the justices were asked to weigh in on a highly technical question: do Medicaid beneficiaries have the right to sue if they believe their right to a free choice of provider has been violated? In a 6-3 decision joined by every member of the court’s conservative supermajority, the justices ruled that, essentially, individuals do not possess that “enforceable right”.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal: Trump Is Attacking "Every Part of the Legal Immigration System"

Trump’s justice department sues entire bench of Maryland judges over order restricting deportations

Donald Trump’s justice department has sued the federal judiciary in Maryland over an order that bars the government from deporting undocumented immigrants for at least one day after they file a legal challenge to their detention. Chad Gilmartin, a spokesperson for Pam Bondi, the US attorney general, said in a post on X on Wednesday: “This is just the latest action by @AGPamBondi’s DOJ to rein in unlawful judicial overreach.”

The state’s federal court issued an order last month aimed at managing a wave of lawsuits challenging the Trump administration’s moves to swiftly deport undocumented migrants. Maryland’s federal court was the site of one of the most contentious cases under Trump’s deportation policy when Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadoran national, was deported and later sent back to the US after the supreme court ordered the administration to “facilitate” his return. ...

The Department of Justice lawsuit against Maryland’s federal judges includes Paula Xinis, the judge overseeing Ábrego García’s case. Xinis is considering whether to sanction government officials for their initial refusal to facilitate Ábrego García’s release from custody.

US citizen arrested during Ice raid in what family describes as ‘kidnapping’

A US citizen was arrested during an immigration raid in downtown Los Angeles this week in what her family described as a “kidnapping” by federal immigration agents. Andrea Velez, 32, had just been dropped off at work by her mother and sister, the pair said, when they saw agents grab her. “My mom looked at the rear mirror and she saw how my sister was attacked from the back,” Estrella Rosas told ABC7. “She was like: ‘They’re kidnapping your sister.’”

Velez, a graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, was taken into custody during an immigration raid on Tuesday. In video captured from the scene, agents can be seen surrounding her as a crowd gathers in the street and police officers stand by. Meanwhile, Rosas and her mother, who has residency but is not a citizen, screamed from a nearby vehicle for help. “She’s a US citizen,” Rosas said through tears. “They’re taking her. Help her, someone.”

In other video, an agent can be seen lifting Velez off the ground and carrying her away. Witnesses told media, including CBS Los Angeles, that the agents never asked Velez for identification, and that she did nothing wrong. “The only thing wrong with her … was the color of her skin,” Velez’s mother, Margarita Flores, told CBS Los Angeles. ...

While it’s not yet clear how many citizens have been affected by the administration’s attack on immigrant communities, a government report found that between 2015 and 2020, Ice erroneously deported at least 70 US citizens, arrested 674 and detained 121.

---

---

Worth a full read:

A Democratic Socialist Smashes Wall Street in New York

Yesterday, Zohran Mamdani, a 33 year-old Democratic socialist, shocked the political establishment by winning the Democratic primary in the contest to become the next mayor of New York City, riding a wave of young voters angry about the cost of living to defeat the entrenched party machine that has controlled New York politics for decades. I’m going to write about his win, because one of the people at his victory party was former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. And there’s a reason for that. The election was historic. Mamdani’s opponent was old guard stalwart Andrew Cuomo, who had endorsements from across the Democratic Party, including Bill Clinton, Michael Bloomberg, Queens machine boss Greg Meeks, and a host of unions. His voting base was ethnic and wealthier whites, as well as older black and hispanic voters. Cuomo’s financial support came from Wall Street, billionaires like Bill Ackman, as well as the real estate industry. The Democratic establishment went all-in.

Mamdani had his own endorsements, including Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, as well as New York Attorney General Leticia James and Rep. Nydia Velasquez. His financial support came from small donors and public campaign funds provided by New York City’s unusual election system, and his base was younger voters upset at the high cost of living. Cuomo ran as a basic corporate labor Democrat, supporting a higher minimum wage and offering access to unions and big business, while also arguing that he was competent and the left was crazy. At an IBEW event three days ago, for instance, he said that his attempt as Governor in 2019 to lure Amazon’s second headquarters with corporate subsidies was a model for the city, and that the refusal of local leaders to accept his deal was disastrous. “We lost Amazon,” he lamented.

To give you a sense of the level of rage and fear among the superwealthy, billionaire John Catsimatidis, the CEO of grocery chain Gristedes, said that if Mamdani won, he would close down his chain of New York supermarkets. By contrast, despite the Democratic socialist label, Mamdani linked his campaign with anti-monopoly arguments, focusing on the cost of living and blaming well-known villains like the utility giant Con Edison, suggesting that the city fund challenges to the utility’s rate increases in dockets. He proposed a ban on non-compete agreements in New York City, which was one of the core goals of former Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan. And he discussed ending junk fees and predatory contracts.

Mamdani also proposed opening up five city-operated grocery stores to address food deserts, which is a way of taking on a problem caused by price discrimination. City-owned stores, which is not particularly different than commissaries the military used to run on bases, are generally hated by independent grocers for ideological reasons. But they could provide a platform for the city itself to file Robinson-Patman cases against price discrimination by the large packaged goods companies, which would fix the problem that independent grocers have. New York City can afford a lawsuit like that, and isn’t intimidated by a Walmart-style giant the way a small store might be. Or city stores could just be an operational disaster. Mamdani is untested as a leader of large-scale organizations, and New York City is just massive. We don’t know how he’d do as mayor, or even if he’ll win the general election.

Regardless, the ideological distinctions in the race are a bit confused because of Mamdani’s “Democratic socialist” label, which doesn’t really mean socializing the means of production, it just refers to a Bernie Sanders-style New Deal Democrat. Why is this race so important? First of all, New York City is a big place, so if the mayor of that city chooses to pursue policies to crack down on corporate power, it will matter. The more important reason, however, is that regardless of where you come down politically, what happened last night matters for the anti-monopoly movement and populism in general. As with Trump’s ascendance on the right and the turn that fostered within conservative politics around corporate power, something is now brewing on the left. Certainly the establishment sees that, and is terrified.

---

---

The world wants China’s rare earth elements – what is life like in the city that produces them?

Central Baotou, an industrial hub of 2.7 million people that abuts the Gobi desert in north China, feels just like any other second-tier Chinese city. Large shopping malls featuring western chains including Starbucks and KFC stand alongside street after street of busy local restaurants, where people sit outside and children play late into the evening, enjoying the relative relief of the cooler temperatures that arrive after dark in Inner Mongolia’s baking summer.

But a short drive into the city’s suburbs reveal another typical, less hospitable, Chinese scene. Factories crowd the city’s edges, with chimneys belching white plumes of smoke. As well as steel and silicon plants, Baotou is home to China’s monopoly on rare earths, the metallic elements that are used in oil refining equipment and car batteries and that have become a major sticking point in the US-China trade war.

More than 80% of China’s rare earth reserves are in Baotou. Metals such as cerium and lanthanum are crucial for modern technologies ranging from smartphone screens to vehicle braking systems. Certain rare earths, such as samarium, are used in military-grade magnets, including by the US. That has made them a useful bargaining chip for Beijing in the trade war. China has long objected to Washington’s embargo on the export of advanced semiconductors to China, and now appears to be returning in kind by cutting off western manufacturers from critical elements in their supply chain. ...

Toxic, often radioactive byproducts of rare earths processing are dumped into man-made ditches known as “tailings ponds”. One of the most notorious tailings ponds in the area is the Weikuang tailings dam, owned by the state-owned Baogang Group. For many years it was the world’s biggest dumping ground for rare earths waste products. It was not properly lined and there were fears about its toxic contents seeping into the groundwater and towards the nearby Yellow River, a major source of drinking water for northern China. According to the Ministry for Ecology and Environment, a clean-up project of one of the Yellow River’s tributaries in Baotou resulted in levels of ammonia nitrogen, a rare earths processing byproduct, decreasing by 87% between 2020 and 2024.

In the 2000s and 2010s, investigations into the villages around Baotou revealed orthopaedic problems, birth defects and an “epidemic” of cancer. Because microscopic rare earth elements can cross the blood-brain barrier and deposit in the brain, exposure has been linked to a number of neurological problems such as motor and sensory disabilities, and they can also affect the neurological development of foetuses in pregnant women. A study published in 2020 found that children in Baotou were particularly likely to be exposed to rare earth elements through road dust, something that the researchers described as a “serious risk”. Another study found that the daily intake of airborne rare earths elements in mining areas was up to 6.7mg, well above the 4.2 mg level that is considered to be relatively safe.

---

Also of Interest

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

Three Blows Against Zionism in a Single Day

The Israel–Iran Conflict Tests “America First” and Redefines ‘Auctoritas’

War Propaganda, State Controlled Media, and the End of African Stream

Does Zohran Mamdani Matter?

Cuckoo for Cuomo: Ex-Governor’s Name Dominated Coverage of NYC Mayoral Race

Bill Moyers, Lyndon Johnson press chief and celebrated broadcaster, dies at 91

Will Dems RatF*ck Zohran? Hegseth RAGES at Fox News

The chosen ones are fleeing the “promised land” and go home all over the world! #iran

---

A Little Night Music

Maurice John Vaughn – Without That Bread

Maurice John Vaughn - Evil

Maurice John Vaughn - Travellin' Man

A.C. Reed & Maurice John Vaughn - I Got Money

Maurice John Vaughn - [Everything I Do] Got To Be Funky

Maurice John Vaughn - I Don't Care

Maurice John Vaughn - The Hoochie Coochie Man

Maurice John Vaughn - Mojo Hand

Maurice John Vaughn – Generic Blues

---