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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Gatemouth Moore

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features blues singer Gatemouth Moore. Enjoy!

^{Gatemouth Moore - Did you ever love a woman}

"I don’t like the far right OR the far left. I like things to stay in the moderate center, where genocide is fine and people’s healthcare money is given to cruise missile manufacturers."

-- Caitlin Johnstone

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News and Opinion

Netanyahu Says It’s Antisemitic For Israeli Soldiers To Describe Their Own Atrocities

Sometimes I’ll write a headline that looks odd on its face, but then I’ll lay out facts and arguments which allow the reader to understand the validity of the claim by the end of the essay. This is not one of those times.

This headline is just me saying the thing that happened. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Israel Katz are publicly denouncing a report from an Israeli newspaper quoting Israeli soldiers who describe atrocities they were ordered to commit in the Israeli military, accusing the report of “blood libels”.

The Israeli newspaper Haaretz has published an article titled “‘It’s a Killing Field’: IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid”, subtitled “IDF officers and soldiers told Haaretz they were ordered to fire at unarmed crowds near food distribution sites in Gaza, even when no threat was present. Hundreds of Palestinians have been killed, prompting the military prosecution to call for a review into possible war crimes.”

This a headline from Haaretz today. Israeli soldiers are deliberately and systematically massacring Palestinian civilians at aid points. pic.twitter.com/XEeMwqkxR0

— Jason Hickel (@jasonhickel) June 27, 2025

One Israeli soldier attests that civilians seeking aid are “treated like a hostile force — no crowd-control measures, no tear gas — just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars.”

“We open fire early in the morning if someone tries to get in line from a few hundred meters away, and sometimes we just charge at them from close range. But there’s no danger to the forces,” the soldier says, adding, “I’m not aware of a single instance of return fire. There’s no enemy, no weapons.”

IDF sources tell Haaretz that Gaza has become “a place with its own set of rules” where they are interacting with civilians with whom “your only means of interaction is opening fire”. Deadly military weapons are used as crowd control to steer the starving populace wherever it’s determined they’re supposed to be, routinely killing desperate aid seekers.

Another soldier describes being instructed to fire artillery shells at a crowd to keep them at a distance, saying, “Every time we fire, there are casualties and deaths, and when someone asks why a shell is necessary, there’s never a good answer. Sometimes, merely asking the question annoys the commanders.”

In quote after quote after quote we read Israeli soldiers describing atrocities they were ordered to commit which they knew were wrong. I guess Israel’s PR machine never counted on some of the soldiers they sent in to perpetrate the Gaza holocaust having an actual conscience.

Blood libel is when an Israeli outlet quotes Israeli soldiers describing atrocities they were told to commit in the Israeli military. https://t.co/D2BH5SMj7J

— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) June 27, 2025

A joint statement from Netanyahu and Katz denounced the report, accusing Haaretz of publishing “blood libels”.

“The State of Israel absolutely rejects the contemptible blood libels that have been published in the Ha’aretz newspaper, according to which ‘IDF Soldiers Ordered to Shoot Deliberately at Unarmed Gazans Waiting for Humanitarian Aid.’ These are malicious falsehoods designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world,” the statement reads.

“Blood libel” refers to the way medieval Europeans used to falsely accuse Jews of murdering Christian children in blood sacrifices — an early form of atrocity propaganda used to justify the persecution of Jews.

So again, just to be absolutely clear, the leader of the Israeli government is claiming that an Israeli newspaper quoting Israeli soldiers describing their own atrocities is antisemitic. And that mountains of testimony from inside the IDF is “designed to defame the IDF, the most moral military in the world.”

What can I even say about that here? It speaks for itself. I have nothing to add.

The more exposed Israel’s criminality becomes, the more absurd the arguments made in its defense are getting.

Haaretz report exposes deliberate Israeli policy of massacring aid-seekers in Gaza

Over the past month, Israeli forces have opened fire almost every day at aid seekers collecting food from the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), the US/Israeli-backed food distribution organization. More than 549 people have been killed and over 4,000 wounded so far, during nineteen separate incidents. From the start, it was clear that the level of daily mass killing was the result of a deliberate policy of shooting live small arms ammunition, tank rounds and mortars into crowds of aid-seekers, with the aim of turning the food distribution points into killing fields as part of the ongoing genocide.

On Friday, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz published an in-depth report substantiating the existence of orders instructing Israeli soldiers to fire into the crowds. Internally, the massacres are officially justified as a form of crowd control, with soldiers moving groups of unarmed people from one place to another by shooting at them. One soldier interviewed by Haaretz said that the oversight of the food distribution by the Israeli forces was referred to as “Operation Salted Fish,” a reference to the Israeli version of the children’s game “Red light, green light.” By all appearances, this name is based on the Korean television series Squid Game. In the fictional series, contestants are forced to play the children’s game “red light, green light,” with those who move before the “green light” being shot with live bullets.

Each day, often late at night or early in the morning, tens of thousands of people have lined up at the GHF distribution sites to receive food, which is only available for one hour, causing a chaotic rush of starving people. According to the report, there is no method of crowd control except for live bullets. Those who attempt to collect food, which is simply left on the ground, too early or too late are shot. One soldier interviewed by Haaretz said, “It’s a killing field.” He added, “Where I was stationed, between one and five people were killed every day. They’re treated like a hostile force—no crowd-control measures, no tear gas—just live fire with everything imaginable: heavy machine guns, grenade launchers, mortars. Then, once the center opens, the shooting stops, and they know they can approach. Our form of communication is gunfire.” Another soldier said, “We fired machine guns from tanks and threw grenades.”

Nir Hasson, an author of the report, told Al Jazeera, “It’s actually a practice of … controlling the crowd by fire, like if you wanted the crowd to run off [from] a place, you shoot at them, even though you know they are unarmed … You use fire to move people from one point to another.” In other words, everything about the operation of the food distribution sites is calculated to kill unarmed civilians, under the pretense of providing them with aid. It is as if the plot of Squid Game, which is portrayed as a horrific bloodsport for the entertainment of wealthy people, were recast as a “humanitarian operation.”

The revelations published by Haaretz confirm the warnings made by all major humanitarian agencies, including the United Nations and Doctors Without Borders (MSF), that the “aid centers” are merely a part of Israel’s ethnic cleansing operation in Gaza. They are aimed at concentrating the population in the south of the enclave in order to facilitate its transfer into concentration camps patrolled by Israeli troops and preparing the expulsion of the Palestinian people from Gaza. That is in line with an ethnic-cleansing plan outlined by US President Donald Trump and embraced by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

'We were the N*zis, they were the Jews.' An Israeli soldier testifies

Tens of thousands flee Gaza City after Israel warns of major offensive

Tens of thousands of Palestinians were fleeing eastern parts of Gaza City in the north of the territory on Sunday after Israel warned of a major offensive.

The messages on social media from the Israel Defense Forces warned of “military operations [that] will escalate, intensify, and extend westward to the city centre to destroy the capabilities of terrorist organisations” and directed those living in several crowded neighbourhoods to al-Mawasi, a coastal area much further south that is already overcrowded and has very limited facilities.

Witnesses described scenes of chaos as entire families tried to pack their remaining belongings, tents and meagre stocks of foods on to donkey carts, bicycles, improvised pickup trucks and cars.

Huge numbers of Palestinians displaced from homes or camps to the north of Gaza City moved there after renewed Israeli operations and clashes with Hamas since a fragile ceasefire collapsed in March.

The warnings from Israel came after days of Israeli airstrikes and shelling across Gaza that have killed hundreds. Gaza’s civil defence agency said 23 Palestinians had been killed on Sunday by Israeli strikes, including at least three children.

Prof. Jeffrey Sachs : US/Israeli Plot vs Iran

‘Post-apocalyptic’: medical staff struggle as gangs fight over aid supplies in Gaza

For the beleaguered staff of Nasser hospital in Khan Younis, one new casualty brought into the emergency department last week posed a particular challenge. He had been wounded moments earlier in the southern Gaza city while fighting in a battle between rival armed gangs over hundreds of valuable sacks of flours stripped from aid convoys and, within an hour of his arrival, men with assault rifles had invaded the hospital. They roughed up medical staff, smashed equipment and set fire to vehicles. Other armed men soon arrived and automatic gunfire reverberated around the sprawling hospital compound, already battered by successive Israeli strikes close by or on its buildings.

There was worse to come. Soon, another force joined the shooting, dispatched by the interior ministry in Gaza, long a bastion of Hamas, to restore order. There was now a new gun battle, which ended only when the opposing gunmen from the two duelling gangs fled. Overhead, throughout the fighting, Israeli drones flew by.

The incident, described to the Guardian by medical staff and local residents, was a microcosm of the new violence and anarchy in Gaza after almost 21 months of war. “You have [these] gangs fighting and the Israeli airstrikes or troops shooting people, and Hamas still there, while there are miles and miles of ruins where desperate people are cooking on fires and living in tents and very hungry,” one humanitarian official said. “It’s like some kind of post-apocalyptic sci-fi film.”

In recent months, more armed actors have joined the fighting, and a fierce struggle for power and influence has intensified even as the Israeli offensive continues. These now include various other militant factions, a dozen armed militias representing major local families or clans, new coalitions organised by independent community leaders, and criminal gangs empowered by the deepening anarchy.

The result is that Gaza is fragmenting into individual fiefdoms. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) holds much of the territory, including a wide “buffer zone” cleared of buildings along the territory’s perimeter and a swath of the south along the border with Egypt, where it works closely with the Popular Forces, a new militia run by a former convict and smuggler called Yasser Abu Shabab. Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s prime minister, has confirmed that Israel provides weapons to clans that oppose Hamas.

Alastair Crooke : Who Won the 12-Day War?

Senate GOP and Fetterman Block Effort to Stop Trump's War on Iran

Nearly all U.S. Senate Republicans and Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania on Friday evening blocked a resolution that reiterated Congress' authority to declare war and would have ordered President Donald Trump to stop taking military action against Iran without congressional approval.

Every other member of the Democratic Caucus and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) supported holding a final vote on the resolution—which Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.), a member of the Senate Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, announced last week, before Trump's weekend bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities.

Citing the U.S. Constitution and the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Kaine's measure states that "the question of whether United States forces should be engaged in hostilities against Iran should be answered following a full briefing to Congress and the American public of the issues at stake, a public debate in Congress, and a congressional vote."

Pointing to various other federal laws, Kaine's resolution "directs the president to terminate the use of United States Armed Forces for hostilities against the Islamic Republic of Iran or any part of its government or military, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war or specific authorization for use of military force against Iran."

In a statement after Friday's 47-53 vote, Kaine said that "the Framers of our Constitution gave Congress the power to declare war because they believed that the decision to send our nation's men and women in uniform into harm's way was too big for any one person. The Trump administration's chaotic strategy on Iran confused the American people and created significant risks for service members and their families."

"I am disappointed that many of my colleagues are not willing to stand up and say Congress needs to be part of a decision as important as whether or not the U.S. should send our nation's sons and daughters to fight against Iran," Kaine added. "I will continue to do all I can to keep presidents of any party from starting wars without robust public debate by Congress."

Larry C. Johnson: Shockwave in Israel: Iran’s Missiles Break All Expectations!

Iran’s nuclear enrichment ‘will never stop’, nation’s UN ambassador says

Amir-Saeid Iravani, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, said on Sunday that the Islamic republic’s nuclear enrichment “will never stop” because it is permitted for “peaceful energy” purposes under the treaty on the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons.

“The enrichment is our right, an inalienable right, and we want to implement this right,” Iravani told CBS News, adding that Iran was ready for negotiations but “unconditional surrender is not negotiation. It is dictating the policy toward us.” But Iravani said Tehran is “ready for the negotiation, but after this aggression, it is not proper condition for a new round of the negotiation, and there is no request for negotiation and meeting with the president”.

The Iranian UN envoy also denied that there are any threats from his government to the safety of Rafael Grossi, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or against the agency’s inspectors, who are accused by some Iranian officials of helping Israel justify its attacks. IAEA inspectors are currently in Iran but do not have access to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Pressed by the CBS News anchor Margaret Brennan on whether he would condemn calls for the arrest and execution of the IAEA head, which Marco Rubio, the US secretary of state said a newspaper close to Iran’s leader had made, Iravani said that he would. “There is no any threat,” Irvani said, but acknowledged that Iran’s parliament had suspended cooperation with IAEA. The inspectors, he said, “are in Iran, they are in safe conditions, but the activity has been suspended. They cannot have access to our site … our assessment is that they have not done their jobs.”

Iravani also responded to questions on why Tehran has not accepted proposals for a diplomatic solution. Referring to Trump’s “unconditional surrender” demand, Irvani said that the US “is dictating the policy towards us. If they are ready for negotiation, they will find us ready for that. But if they want to dictate us, it is impossible for any negotiation with them.”

Larry Johnson : How Iran Is Responding

Trump considers forcing journalists to reveal sources who leaked Iran report

Donald Trump said he is weighing forcing journalists who published leaked details from a US intelligence report assessing the impact of the recent American military strikes on Iran to reveal their sources – and the president also claimed his administration may prosecute those reporters and sources if they don’t comply. ...

Trump dismissed the leaked intelligence assessment in question – which suggested the strikes only temporarily disrupted Iran’s nuclear development – as incomplete and biased. The report, circulated among US lawmakers and intelligence officials, concluded that the damage inflicted was significantly less than what Trump’s administration had publicly claimed.

The president has attacked both Democratic lawmakers and members of the media for sharing portions of the classified analysis. He then threatened legal consequences for those responsible. In recent days, Trump has targeted CNN and The New York Times for their reporting on the strikes. He has condemned the coverage as “unpatriotic” and even floated the possibility of legal action.

The two outlets, along with several others, reported that preliminary findings from the US’s Defense Intelligence Agency indicated the strikes had only limited success. The bombings delayed Iran’s nuclear ambitions by several months but stopped short of destroying the program outright, according to the assessment. ...

In a letter to the Times, a lawyer for Trump said the article had damaged the president’s reputation and demanded that the outlet “retract and apologize for” the piece, which the letter described as “false,” “defamatory” and “unpatriotic”.

Uh-Oh! Political Antisemitism Smears Have Stopped Working!

Israel supporters everywhere have been in full blown crisis mode for days because, apparently, antisemitism smears have stopped working.

Zohran Mamdani has won the Democratic Party primary in the New York City mayoral race after a frenetic smear campaign to portray him as an antisemite for his pro-Palestinian views, and now all the world’s worst people are freaking out about it.

I’m seeing some intensely rabid Islamophobia throughout public discourse in response to Mamdani’s win, the likes of which I haven’t seen since 9/11. All this hatred we’re now seeing directed toward Muslims is going to look pretty weird after the imperial crosshairs shift to Beijing and all these same people start acting super duper concerned about the plight of Muslims in Xinjiang.

I never get excited about anything that happens in the Democratic Party anymore, but the fact that these smears have lost a lot of their power has some encouraging and far-reaching implications for western politics in general. Things have come a long way since the psyop against Jeremy Corbyn.

Netanyahu Wants To Visit White House After Iran War

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wants to meet with President Trump at the White House in the coming weeks after the 12-day US-Israeli war on Iran, Axios reported on Thursday.

Israeli officials said that Netanyahu wants to “celebrate” the joint bombing campaign with Trump, as the Israeli leader is declaring the war a victory, although Israel got hit hard by Iranian missiles right up until the ceasefire took effect, something President Trump has acknowledged.

Netanyahu may be seeking additional military aid from the US to replenish Israel’s interceptors and bombs in the ongoing conflict. The Axios report said that Trump and Netanyahu are “closer than ever” and that US and Israeli officials have discussed the possibility of Netanyahu’s third White House visit this year, but so far, a date hasn’t been set.

To Fund Tax Cuts for the Rich, GOP Budget Bill Would Take "Sledgehammer" to Healthcare for Millions

US sees spate of arrests of civilians impersonating Ice officers

Police in southern California arrested a man suspected of posing as a federal immigration officer this week, the latest in a series of such arrests, as masked, plainclothes immigration agents are deployed nationwide to meet the Trump administration’s mass deportation targets.

The man, Fernando Diaz, was arrested by Huntington Park police after officers said they found a loaded gun and official-looking documents with Department of Homeland Security headings in his SUV, according to NBC Los Angeles. Officers were impounding his vehicle for parking in a handicapped zone when Diaz asked to retrieve items inside, the police said. Among the items seen by officers in the car were “multiple copies of passports not registered under the individual’s name”, NBC reports.

Diaz was arrested for possession of the allegedly unregistered firearm and released on bail. The Huntington Park police chief and mayor accused Diaz of impersonating an immigration agent at a news conference, a move Diaz later told the NBC News affiliate he was surprised by. Diaz also denied to the outlet that he had posed as an officer with border patrol or Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice). At the news conference, police showed reporters paper they found inside his car with an official-looking US Customs and Border Protection header.

The arrest is one of several cases involving people allegedly impersonating immigration officials, as the nationwide crackdown on undocumented immigrants intensifies. Experts have warned that federal agents’ increased practice of masking while carrying out immigration raids and arrests makes it easier for imposters to pose as federal officers. Around the country, the sight of Ice officers emerging from unmarked cars in plainclothes to make arrests has become increasingly common. ...

In February, two people impersonating Ice officers attempted to enter a Temple University residence hall. CNN reported that Philadelphia police later arrested one of them, a 22-year-old student, who was charged with impersonating an officer. In North Carolina the same week, another man, Carl Thomas Bennett, was arrested after allegedly impersonating an Ice officer and sexually assaulting a woman. Bennett reportedly threatened to deport the woman if she did not comply.

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Dems GO ALL OUT To Smear Zohran As ANTISEMITE

Trump threatens to cut off New York City funds if Mamdani ‘doesn’t behave’

Donald Trump on Sunday threatened to cut New York City off from federal funds if favored mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani, a democratic socialist, “doesn’t behave himself” should he be elected.

Mamdani, meanwhile, denied that he was – as the president said – a communist. But he reaffirmed his commitment to raise taxes on the wealthiest New Yorkers while saying: “I don’t think that we should have billionaires.”

In an interview with Fox News host Maria Bartiromo, Trump argued that a Mamdani victory was “inconceivable” because he perceived the candidate to be “a pure communist”.

He added: “Let’s say this – if he does get in, I’m going to be president, and he’s going to have to do the right thing, or they’re not getting any money. He’s got to do the right thing or they’re not getting any money.”

More than $100bn flows to the city from the federal government through different entities and programs, according to the city’s comptroller last year.

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Inside a plan to use AI to amplify doubts about the dangers of pollutants

An industry-backed researcher who has forged a career sowing doubt about the dangers of pollutants is attempting to use artificial intelligence (AI) to amplify his perspective. Louis Anthony “Tony” Cox Jr, a Denver-based risk analyst and former Trump adviser who once reportedly claimed there is no proof that cleaning air saves lives, is developing an AI application to scan academic research for what he sees as the false conflation of correlation with causation.

Cox has described the project as an attempt to weed “propaganda” out of epidemiological research and perform “critical thinking at scale” in emails to industry researchers, which were obtained via Freedom of Information Act requests by the Energy and Policy Institute, a non-profit advocacy group, and exclusively reviewed by the Guardian.

He has long leveled accusations of flimsiness at research linking exposure to chemical compounds with health dangers, including on behalf of polluting interests such as cigarette manufacturer Philip Morris USA and the American Petroleum Institute – a fossil fuel lobbying group he has even allowed to “copy edit” his findings. (Cox says the edit “amounted to suggesting a small change” and noted that he has also obtained public research funding.)

Both the tobacco and oil industries have a history of weaponizing scientific uncertainty, experts say, with some arguing that similar tactics drive the Trump administration’s current deregulatory efforts. The president’s May “gold standard” science order, for instance, empowered his appointees to “correct scientific information” and “discipline” those who breach the administration’s views, prompting outrage from some scientists.

Cox has obtained funding to develop the new AI reviewer from the American Chemistry Council (ACC), the nation’s largest chemical industry advocacy group, which counts oil and chemical giants such as Exxon and DuPont as members. Experts say the ACC’s sponsorship raises questions about whom the project will benefit.

Countries should keep their statehood if land disappears under sea, experts say

States should be able to continue politically even if their land disappears underwater, legal experts have said. The conclusions come from a long-awaited report by the International Law Commission that examined what existing law means for continued statehood and access to key resources if sea levels continue to rise due to climate breakdown.

Average sea levels could rise by as much as 90cm (3ft) by 2100 if climate scientists’ worst-case scenarios come true, and recent research suggests they could even exceed projections. This is particularly important for small island developing states because many face an existential threat. But as well as the direct loss of land, rising sea levels cause flooding, threaten drinking water supplies and make farmland too salty to grow on.

Having waded through international law and scholarship and analysed state views and practices, legal experts concluded that nothing prevents nations from maintaining their maritime boundaries even if the land on which they are drawn changes or disappears. These boundaries give countries navigation rights, access to resources such as fishing and minerals, and a degree of political control.

There is also general agreement that affected nations should retain their statehood to avoid loss of nationality. Legal experts say these conclusions are essential for maintaining international peace and stability.

‘Explosive increase’ of ticks that cause meat allergy in US due to climate crisis

Blood-sucking ticks that trigger a bizarre allergy to meat in the people they bite are exploding in number and spreading across the US, to the extent that they could cover the entire eastern half of the country and infect millions of people, experts have warned.

Lone star ticks have taken advantage of rising temperatures by the human-caused climate crisis to expand from their heartland in the south-east US to areas previously too cold for them, in recent years marching as far north as New York and even Maine, as well as pushing westwards.

The ticks are known to be unusually aggressive and can provoke an allergy in bitten people whereby they cannot eat red meat without enduring a severe reaction, such as breaking out in hives and even the risk of heart attacks. The condition, known as alpha-gal syndrome, has proliferated from just a few dozen known cases in 2009 to as many as 450,000 now.

“We thought this thing was relatively rare 10 years ago but it’s become more and more common and it’s something I expect to continue to grow very rapidly,” said Brandon Hollingsworth, an expert at the University of South Carolina who has researched the tick’s expansion.

“We’ve seen an explosive increase in these ticks, which is a concern. I imagine alpha-gal will soon include the entire range of the tick, which could become the entire eastern half of the US as there’s not much to stop them. It seems like an oddity now but we could end up with millions of people with an allergy to meat.”

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Also of Interest

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

The Strategic Fallout of the Israel-Iran War

Chris Hedges Report: Francesca Albanese on an Economy of Genocide

How Democratic Party Leaders Quietly Support Trump’s March to War With Iran

Tic-Toc 10 On The War On Iran - Summing Up The First Round

Priest warns: Christian town in Holy Land no longer safe amid settler attacks

As Washington Declares Mexico An “Adversary”, Russia Offers to Help Mexico Reduce Its Energy Dependence on US

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A Little Night Music

Gatemouth Moore - I Ain't Mad At You Pretty Baby

Gatemouth Moore - My Mother Thinks I'm Something

Gatemouth Moore - It Ain't None Of Me

Gatemouth Moore - Get Your House In Order

Gatemouth Moore - Beale Street Ain't Beale Street No More

Gatemouth Moore - Satisfying Papa

Gatemouth Moore - Nobody Knows The Way I Feel

Gatemouth Moore - Goin' Down Slow

Gatemouth Moore - Highway 61 Blues

Gatemouth Moore - Boogie Woogie Papa

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