The Evening Blues - 7-17-26
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist Albert King. Enjoy!
Albert King - Blues Power
“Whatever the cost of our libraries, the price is cheap compared to that of an ignorant nation.”
-- Walter Cronkite
News and Opinion
It’s funny how they call it “generative artificial intelligence”
It’s funny how they call it “generative artificial intelligence” when it neither generates anything nor exhibits intelligence. It just copies the stuff humans said and did.
It doesn’t come up with its own ideas. It shows no signs of insight, understanding or creativity. They keep needing to feed it human-generated material in order to improve it because it’s incapable of generating its own material.
We haven’t created artificial intelligence, we’ve created a toy that regurgitates our own intelligence back at us.
Trita Parsi: War on Infrastructure Escalates: Kuwait Forced to Ration Power
US intensifies attacks on Iran as Tehran hits back at Gulf states
The US has intensified its attacks on Iran, hitting targets near Tehran and striking a ship it accused of trying to break its blockade, while Iran retaliated by firing missiles and drones at US allies in the region. Six consecutive days of back-and-forth attacks threaten to pull the region back into a total war and cast serious doubt about an interim deal reached last month meant to achieve a permanent peace.
The attacks have been accompanied by escalating rhetoric from both sides, as the US enforced its naval blockade and Iran said it had shut the strait of Hormuz, which before the conflict handled about a fifth of global oil and gas exports. Iran asked its allies in Yemen, the Houthis, to be prepared to close the oil route through the Red Sea if the US targeted Iranian energy infrastructure, Reuters reported – a threat that, if followed through, could paralyse the global energy market. The Houthi leader, Abdul Malik al-Houthi, also threatened that all Saudi oil and other critical facilities could be targeted by the group if Riyadh intervened in Yemen. The threat came after Saudi struck Sanaa airport, leading to retaliatory missile strikes from the Houthis on Saudi Arabia.
The US launched its latest wave of strikes on Iran early on Thursday, hitting areas around Tehran for the first time in the current round of fighting, as well as striking other provinces, Iranian state media reported. Iranian media reported US missiles also hit locations near the port city of Bandar Abbas, as well as Qeshm island where drones and missiles are stored, late on Thursday afternoon.
US attacks had killed more than 35 people and wounded more than 300 others in recent days, Iranian authorities said. Tehran accused the US of carrying out a “barbaric attack” after a cancer hospital in south-west Iran was evacuated because of strikes nearby. “This barbaric attack, reminiscent of Israel’s atrocities against healthcare facilities, caused severe suffering and anxiety upon the hospitalised children,” Iran’s foreign ministry spokesperson said on X. Esmaeil Baghaei added that “211 patients undergoing chemotherapy” were evacuated.
Iran responded on Thursday with missiles and drones targeting Bahrain, Jordan and Kuwait, which host US bases. Iraq’s prime minister, Ali al-Zaidi, also said there was an overnight drone attack on the city of Erbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. The attack, which was intercepted, came as al-Zaidi pledged during a trip to the US to disarm non-state armed groups. Iran warned that it could expand its attacks in the region in response to comments from Donald Trump, the US president, that he could strike power plants, bridges and a nuclear facility. “All the infrastructure in the region will be crushed under the steel blows of the powerful armed forces of the Islamic Republic of Iran,” said Col Ebrahim Zolfaghari, an Iranian military spokesperson.
Why We're Facing Forever War w/Iran Lt Col Daniel Davis
US Launches Attacks on Iran for Sixth Consecutive Night
US Central Command on Thursday announced it was bombing Iran for the sixth consecutive night as the US continues to escalate its attacks on the country.
Iranian media reported several attacks on bridges and other infrastructure in Iran, suggesting President Trump was beginning to make good on his threat to destroy the country’s bridges and power plants.
According to Drop Site News, at least three bridges were targeted by the US strikes, and Iran’s Mehr News Agency reported that at least three people were killed and nine were wounded by a strike on one of the bridges in Bandar Khamir, a port city in the Hormozgan province.
Iranian media also reported a strike on a railway station in the port city of Bandar Abbas, and an attack on an airport in Iranshahr, a city in Iran’s southeast. CENTCOM also announced that US Marines conducted what it called a “verification boarding” of a tanker in the Gulf of Oman as it is once again enforcing a blockade of Iranian ports.
Larry Johnson: Saudi Arabia Opens New Front in Iran War
Katz Tells Hegseth That Israel Won’t Withdraw From Gaza, Syria, or Lebanon
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz told US Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in a call on Thursday that Israel won’t withdraw from Gaza, Syria, or Lebanon, according to a statement from the Israeli minister’s office.
According to The Jerusalem Post, Katz “emphasized Israel’s determination to remain in security zones in Syria, Gaza, and Lebanon to protect Israel’s borders and nearby communities from ‘threats posed by jihadist forces.'”
The conversation came a few days after Katz said that Israel won’t leave Gaza even if Hamas disarms and that it would establish three “Nahala outposts,” a type of Jewish settlement that starts as a community for IDF soldiers with the goal of turning it into a permanent civilian community.
Dr. Marandi On Iran War, Mohammad Hesham on Attacks On West Bank
Trump’s Board of Peace drops full Gaza recovery plan in favour of tiny pilot scheme
The Gaza recovery plan being pursued by Donald Trump’s Board of Peace (BoP) has shrunk dramatically from an ambitious blueprint for the reconstruction of the whole territory to a small pilot project in the south of the strip. Even the envisaged pilot scheme – involving a temporary camp for a tiny fraction of Gaza’s 2 million displaced people, with a Palestinian administration, police and a small international security force – is not expected to take shape before the end of the year.
Incremental steps have been announced in recent weeks. A few Moroccan and Kosovan officers have arrived in Israel where they are intended to be the kernel of an International Stabilization Force (ISF), tasked with protecting the pilot camp. A logistical base for this future force to store vehicles, equipment and other material is nearing completion at the Kerem Shalom crossing between Israel and Gaza.
However, preparatory work on the pilot camp near the southern Gaza of city of Rafah has not begun, nor has construction of the camp’s ISF support base. Satellite images of the area show disturbed earth but no new structures. Substantial progress is not expected before Israel holds elections on 27 October, which could bring down Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right coalition government.
Israel has routinely violated the Trump-brokered ceasefire since it was declared last October, blocked any reconstruction work and severely limited flows of humanitarian aid into Gaza. Western diplomats in Jerusalem believe the best hope of progress in Gaza is a new Israeli government, but it is far from clear whether any successor coalition would be substantially more flexible.
One diplomat in Jerusalem argued that the BoP had no choice but to make the most of very limited progress, as an admission of failure would open the way for extreme factions in the Israeli government with radically different plans for Gaza. “The aim is just to keep something going, keep the ball in play, because if you stop there are others with a more extreme agenda just waiting to jump in and take over, and they are talking about wholesale population transfer and colonisation,” the diplomat said.
IRGC CLAIMS AMERICANS KILLED AT AL-TANF SYRIA - w/ Col. Larry Wilkerson
US gas prices edge up again as US-Iran tensions heighten over strait of Hormuz
The average price of diesel fuel in the US has increased again to more than $5 a gallon, according to the AAA, and the average price of gas is almost $4, returning to their highs before the June memorandum of understanding between the US and Iran.
It is a reminder to consumers and truckers of the costs of the Iran war and the unpredictable rhetoric from both Washington and Tehran. A year ago today, the AAA says, the average price for a gallon of diesel was $3.72, almost a dollar and a quarter less than it is now.
Diesel price hikes, the AAA says, lead to rising costs across the board. “The impact is universal,” said an AAA spokesman, Robert Sinclair Jr. “Everything gets to the retail consumer by diesel-burning truck.”
The price of a barrel of oil stands at about $81. That is still down from the highs during the most intense part of Trump’s war in Iran but wholesale prices recently have been driven by erratic news from the White House.
Russia Obliterates Odessa Ports Ursula Hides Russian Kiev Strikes; Zelensky Crisis Worsens; US China
Trump fires new US attorney in Seattle an hour after federal judges appoint him
Donald Trump fired the new top federal prosecutor in Seattle on Wednesday less than an hour after the attorney was unanimously appointed by the federal judges in the district, highlighting tensions between the courts and the president over the powerful positions.
Roger Rogoff, a former judge and veteran state and federal prosecutor, was sworn in as US attorney before 8am at the US courthouse in downtown Seattle. In a phone interview, he said he then went to the US attorney’s office and asked to meet with Charles Neil Floyd, whose 120-day interim term in the position ended in February. As he waited in a lobby, Rogoff said, he received an email from the Trump administration informing him he had been removed from the position. He is consulting with other lawyers about suing over his firing, he said.
Presidents normally appoint US attorneys, the top federal prosecutors in each judicial district. The positions require Senate confirmation, except in temporary appointments. When temporary appointments expire before a nominee is confirmed, the judges in a judicial district can name a US attorney. But under Trump, the justice department has sought to leave unconfirmed prosecutors in their positions indefinitely, often through novel personnel maneuvers.
Trump named Floyd, who previously served as an immigration judge, interim US attorney last October but never forwarded his nomination to the Senate. When Floyd’s time as interim US attorney expired, Trump simply shifted his title, a tactic the administration has also tried in other federal judicial districts: he named him first assistant US attorney, while the top post was left empty. In May, a US appeals court panel expressed skepticism that the maneuver was legal. On Wednesday morning the court – comprising 17 active and senior judges appointed by five presidents – issued its unanimous order naming Rogoff the US attorney for western Washington.
"Disrupt, Identify, Defund, Debank, Arrest & Prosecute": Trump Admin Threatens Leftist Groups
"It's just a damned piece of paper."
‘Enemies of civilization’: top Trump officials launch sweeping attack on left
Top Trump officials on Thursday hosted a gathering of 66 nations to discuss the supposed threat of leftwing violence, and launched a series of diatribes, harsh even by the standards of the Trump administration, against leftism.
The conference, convened by Marco Rubio, the secretary of state, and attended by Stephen Miller, a top Trump adviser, and Scott Bessent, the treasury secretary, was billed as a “ministerial on the resurgence of political violence”, but the focus was solely on crushing leftist violence. It came as Donald Trump ramps up his efforts to label his political opponents, and a rising number of politicians identified with the Democratic Socialists of America as “communists”.
Rubio embraced unusually dehumanizing language towards leftwing activists. “They can call themselves anti-capitalist or anti-imperialist, communist, anarchist or Marxist,” he said. “It’s always the same. It is a poisonous resentment cloaked in the language of equality and justice liberation – an overwhelming need to tear down, to wreck, what is beautiful and what is right on behalf of people who are only filled with ugliness and have nothing else to offer the world through violence and through terror. They despise the west because the west is great,” he said. He called leftists “an encroaching darkness” and “the enemies of civilization”.
Later on Thursday, the state department announced a “new visa restriction policy that targets members of Far-Left Terrorist and other aligned groups”. It was not immediately clear who would be subject to the new visa restrictions. Rubio implied the US had largely won the effort against terrorism launched after the 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. That threat was “severely diminished”, he said, and the administration was now moving on to this next problem – leftist violence – that he maintained had been overlooked.
Miller railed: “The leftist is fundamentally motivated by envy, by hatred, by jealousy. The leftist looks at what is beautiful and what is good and what is natural and is filled with envy and hatred. The leftist looks at a perfect family with a perfect life and a perfect job and a perfect kid and goes to church every Sunday.” Miller also dismissed concerns about civil rights abuses by the administration. “One of the hallmarks of leftwing violence and terrorism is its completely pretextual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence,” he said. “This is the tactic that the left always uses to try to protect itself from facing criminal punishment. It is essential that we are wise enough and strong enough to understand that these appeals must fall on deaf ears.
After Killings, Homan Says There Will Be ‘More Bloodshed’ Unless Dems ‘Shut Their Mouth’ About ICE
As Democrats demand investigations and accountability after a pair of fatal shootings by immigration agents, the White House border czar, Tom Homan, issued an ominous warning on Wednesday: Shut your mouth or the “bloodshed” will continue.
Since July 7, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents have shot and killed two men—Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Johan Sebastián Guerrero in Maine.
The killings, which are part of a broader rash of violent behavior by immigration agencies, briefly led DHS to suspend the use of traffic stops by agents, before President Donald Trump ordered them to continue.
Meanwhile, Democratic lawmakers have promised to launch investigations and congressional hearings. Some have threatened to withhold funding for the agency unless reforms, like body camera requirements, are enacted, while others have called for the agency to be defunded or abolished.
Homan, a senior adviser to Trump tasked with coordinating immigration enforcement across agencies, took to Fox News on Wednesday night to address this heightened scrutiny.
Tom Homan: "It all go backs to the Dems ... there's still gonna be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted." pic.twitter.com/tCYGKFglvc
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 16, 2026
Just one day before, Homan had defended the decision to temporarily halt vehicle stops, saying there should be a “short-term review to make sure ICE agents are safe and doing the right thing.”
But following Trump’s orders, he reversed course entirely the next day and rejected the idea that anything about the agency’s tactics needed reevaluation.
He told host Laura Ingraham, “President Trump was clear, this policy is not going away.”
Instead of trigger-happy agents, he said that anti-ICE “rhetoric” from Democrats was to blame for the recent killings.
“It all goes back to the Dems who want to continually attack ICE and tell people to evade them and tell people don’t comply, tell people to resist, and tell people ICE isn’t a real law enforcement agency,” Homan said.
“You and I talked about this a year-and-a-half ago, Laura,” he continued. “I said, if the hateful rhetoric didn’t stop, there would be bloodshed.”
“I’m saying it right now,” Homan said. “There’s still going to be more bloodshed unless they shut their mouth and let ICE enforce the laws that they enacted.”
DHS has acknowledged that neither of the men who have been shot in recent weeks was the target of the ICE operations that led to their deaths.
A witness reported that Guerrero shouted, “I tried to stop” after being shot by an agent while his vehicle moved forward slowly.
ICE’s use-of-force rules state that agents should only use deadly force if they believe an individual poses an imminent threat to an agent or someone else, not simply because they are fleeing arrest.
DHS claimed that Salgado attempted to “weaponize” his vehicle, but that claim has been undercut by video evidence and eyewitness accounts.
The agency said in a statement that Guerrero “attempted to flee the scene and, fearing for public safety, an officer discharged his weapon,” a justification that has not been used for previous shootings.
Many Democratic lawmakers, including Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), have provided information about individuals’ rights when dealing with immigration agents—including the right not to answer the door without a judicial warrant, the right to decline a search or to sign documents, or the right to record law enforcement.
But Homan did not reference any particular case in which they encouraged those facing detention to “resist” by fleeing or attacking agents.
Several Democratic members of Congress, including Reps. Jimmy Gomez (Calif.), Jason Crow (Colo.), and Ilhan Omar (Minn.), among others, have published “Know Your Rights” documents explicitly warning people not to run away or resist arrest.
Agents have frequently faced criticism that they are not, in fact, “enforcing the law” as Homan claimed, but defying it by conducting indiscriminate arrests without warrants, using excessive violence, detaining legal residents and US citizens, and engaging in racial profiling.
Homan’s remarks were widely seen as a deflection of blame from immigration agents and as a way to intimidate critics into silence.
“They are blaming the opposition for people being killed by their police,” said Alex Nowrasteh, the senior vice president of policy at the libertarian Cato Institute.
USA Today columnist Chris Brennan said Homan was “threaten[ing] more governmental violence… unless Americans stop engaging in speech protected by the First Amendment.”
Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.) called it “extremely irresponsible and dangerous language from the Trump administration’s top immigration official.”
SpaceX Fatal $1.2 Trillion Loss Leads US Stock Market Crash
‘Brazen corruption’: critics denounce Trump Media plan to sell priority access to Truth Social posts
Donald Trump’s media company is planning to charge for special high-speed access to Truth Social posts, including possibly his own, affecting national security and financial markets.
The move announced Thursday would allow Wall Street trading firms and other institutions to get news from top Truth Social contributors in milliseconds so they could profit off subsequent moves in stocks, bonds and interest rates.
Called Truth PSI, the new service comes amid a flurry of other deals by Trump and his family company that critics say are exploiting the presidency for profit. It follows similar offers of paid access on rival platforms, though with one key difference: the most popular Truth Social poster is the president himself, and, as the biggest shareholder of the publicly traded parent company, he would directly benefit.
“He’s selling expedited, privileged access to information about what he is doing as president,” said Kathleen Clark of Washington University School of Law and an expert in government conflict-of-interest rules. “It’s yet more brazen corruption, an improper exploitation of government power to enrich himself.”
The Trump family company declined to comment about whether the new feature was profiting off the presidency. Truth Social’s public parent, Trump Media + Technology, did not respond to emailed questions, including whether the president’s posts will be excluded from the offering.
Another one bites the dust...
White House teleprompter operator put on leave over alleged bets on Trump speeches
Donald Trump’s longtime teleprompter operator has been placed on administrative leave, the White House said on Thursday, after reports that he used his position to win $100,000 by placing bets on the president’s speeches using the online prediction market Kalshi. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, said the president had been informed about the situation, which she described as “deeply unfortunate and frankly a disgrace”.
Leavitt said the employee had been placed on unpaid administrative leave and that another person would be operating Trump’s teleprompter during Thursday night’s address to the nation on election integrity. “The White House has extremely strict ethical guidelines with respect to issues like this,” she added.
Sources familiar with the investigation told ABC News that the employee, Gabriel Perez, was negotiating with federal regulators to resolve allegations that he used advance knowledge of the president’s speeches to generate more than $100,000 in winnings. One source told CNN that Perez earned more than $90,000 from the trades under investigation, though those profits have since been frozen. Perez has worked Trump’s teleprompter since 2016 as a technical assistant to the president.
The activity reportedly centered on Kalshi’s “mentions” market, where participants can place bets on whether certain words, topics or phrases will be said during a public speech. According to the sources, Kalshi detected unusual betting patterns and alerted the federal agency responsible for overseeing prediction markets, the CFTC. “Our surveillance team promptly flagged and referred these trades to the CFTC, and we are cooperating and assisting regulators,” Kalshi’s head of enforcement, Robert DeNault, said in a statement to ABC News.
Government records show Perez earned an annual salary of $175,000 as a deputy assistant to the president and a technical adviser.
AIPAC, ‘Murky’ Donors Spend $50 Million to Help Stevens Beat El-Sayed in Michigan
In what one congressional reporter described as a “full-court press” to stop progressive US Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and other outside groups have spent nearly $50 million in support of fourth-term Congresswoman Haley Stevens ahead of Michigan’s August 4 Democratic primary.
According to Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign finance filings, El-Sayed—the former director of Wayne County’s Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services—raised more than double Stevens’ fundraising haul over the last three months. El-Sayed’s campaign reported $4.6 million for the second quarter, while Stevens’ team said it brought in $2.2 million.
However, outside spending for Stevens from what the Detroit Free Press described as “murky” groups has dwarfed the amount spent for El-Sayed. The political advertisement tracker AdImpact said that of the $46 million spent or reserved by the two campaigns for television ads, nearly three-quarters has been spent on behalf of Stevens or against El-Sayed.
Since the end date on the FEC disclosures, additional outside spending in support of Stevens is estimated to have soared to roughly $50 million, according to an analysis by Punchbowl News congressional reporter Ally Mutnick.
Many Dems in DC + MI fear Stevens' opponent, Abdul El-Sayed (D), cannot win a general election
There's a full-court press to stop him before 8/4 Dem primary
— Ally Mutnick (@allymutnick) July 14, 2026
Last Friday, United Democracy Project (UDP), which is affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), disclosed that it has spent nearly $15 million on the Michigan US Senate race so far, including $9.3 million in support of Stevens and $5.7 million against El-Sayed.
El-Sayed has called Israel a “rogue state” that is committing “genocide and apartheid,” while urging an end to “unilateral blank checks” from the US. His claims are supported by findings from United Nations experts, an International Court of Justice advisory opinion, and governments and human rights groups around the world.
A separate political action committee, A Stronger Michigan, reported spending more than $12 million so far in support of Stevens’ campaign, according to the nonprofit media outlet Bridge Michigan. Sludge’s Minnah Arshad reported last month that the dark money group appears to be connected to Jeffries Murray, a longtime lobbyist whose clients have included the American Gas Association, Facebook parent company Meta, and military-industrial complex titan Northrop Grumman.
FEC filings show former Congressman Mike Rogers, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Senate, received $10.7 million in combined outside expenditures.
El-Sayed appeared undaunted by the outside spending disparity. “They might have the money,” he said on social media Thursday. “But we have the many.”
Citing Stevens’ Wednesday vote against a failed amendment to cut off US military aid to Israel and new polling from Data for Progress, El-Sayed’s campaign said that “86% of Michigan primary voters are less inclined to vote for a candidate who supports continued funding to Israel.”
“Congresswoman Stevens had a choice: stand with the majority of Democrats who oppose unconditional military aid to Israel, or stand with the special interests funding her campaign,” El-Sayed said after the vote. “She chose to side with AIPAC and Republicans to continue to fund a war machine that has taken the loved ones of many Michigan families.”
“She made her choice. I’ll make mine,” he added. “As Michigan’s next senator, I want to keep our hard-earned tax dollars here in Michigan to invest in Michigan healthcare and Michigan infrastructure rather than continuing to send bombs to a foreign government.”
What region of Pennsylvania is Israel located in? If he’s willing to throw the entire control of the Senate to the other party over Israel, then he’s dismissing the interests of his own state and constituents. https://t.co/9kotzjfqJt
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) July 16, 2026
The El Niño climate phenomenon linked to record global temperatures and now locked in place in the Pacific Ocean could develop into the strongest on record, according to Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology. Climatologists are watching the strengthening El Niño with increasing alarm, saying the forecasts from climate models in the coming months are “mind blowing” and “astounding”.
Globally, experts have said a strong El Niño could work in tandem with global heating to deliver the hottest year on record either this year or, more likely, in 2027. The bureau has stressed that the strength of an El Niño does not necessarily correlate with the strength of impacts in Australia, but the system generally brings hotter and drier conditions in winter and spring for southern and eastern parts.
Dr Zhi-Weng Chua, a senior climatologist at the bureau, said the highest reliable temperature value for previous El Niños was a monthly average of +2.6C seen in that Pacific region in January 1983. But he said climate models were suggesting this El Niño could peak between +2.2C and above +3C. “There is a realistic chance that the peak anomaly of this event will rank in the top events, with a chance it could rank as the highest. It is remarkable, and it shows just how much heat there is in the ocean. It’s perhaps not a surprise, given climate change and how oceans have been gathering heat in the last few decades.”
The bureau’s own model has the El Niño peaking at about +3.3C with the phenomenon staying in place until at least the coming summer.
Current sea surface temperature maps in the Pacific show a huge tongue of unusually warm water extending east from the northern South American coast.
Air quality plummets in 20 US states as smoke from Canadian wildfires spreads
Smoke from wildfires burning in south-central Canada and parts of Minnesota is spreading across the US, prompting air quality alerts in more than 20 states with millions of Americans expected to face unhealthy air conditions this week. The smoke from the more than 180 active wildfires in northern Ontario made Chicago’s air quality the worst in the world on Thursday evening, followed by Detroit and Minneapolis, according to IQAir’s global rankings.
The smoke has spread across several US states, from Minnesota, where multiple wildfires are also burning, to New York state, blanketing the skies in haze and worsening air quality. In New York City, where the sky was tinged with an orange haze and the air smelled acrid, local officials urged residents to limit their outdoor time and cautioned elderly people, pregnant women and people with other risk factors, such as heart and lung disease, to remain inside.
In New York City, where the sky was tinged with an orange haze and the air smelled acrid, local officials urged residents to limit their outdoor time and cautioned elderly people, pregnant women and people with other risk factors, such as heart and lung disease, to remain inside. “Today is expected to be the worst day of this event,” said Zohran Mamdani, New York City’s mayor, at a gathering on Thursday. “At ‘unhealthy’ levels, everyone – not just people with asthma or heart conditions, not just older adults – everyone may feel health effects. So today, every New Yorker should take precautions.”
According to a map of air quality conditions provided by the US Environmental Protection Agency, air quality was at “unhealthy” levels on Thursday in parts of Pennsylvania, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Michigan, with officials urging residents to “take precautions by reducing outdoor activity”. On Thursday afternoon, the air quality was rated as “very unhealthy” in parts of Pennsylvania, New York, Ohio, Michigan, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota and Indiana, while in certain parts of Pennsylvania, Michigan, including near Detroit, as well as areas of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota, the air quality was listed as “hazardous”, with officials urging residents there to stay indoors.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.
U.S. CentCom Attacks Commercial Shipping After Bombing Iran For Doing The Same
Manipulating Numbers Rather Than Logistics (Oil Version)
US Rifles Pointed at a US Lawmaker in the West Bank
How Trump’s ‘original oil guy’ boosted US-Israel ties and played down risks of Iran war
Another Anti-Western Coup In Kiev
Ex-Wife IDs ICE Agent Who Killed Man in Maine
Largest landlord in the US accused of civil rights violations
John Fetterman says he would leave Democrats if they became ‘anti-Israel’
Earth-like exoplanet found to have an atmosphere
A Little Night Music
Albert King – Going Back To Iuka
Albert King – You Threw Your Love On Me Too Strong
Albert King – I Love Lucy
Albert King – Phone Booth
Albert King – Down The Road I Go
Albert King – All Shook Up
Albert King – Oh, Pretty Woman
Albert King – Watermelon Man
Albert King – Walking The Back Streets And Crying
Albert King – Personal Manager
Albert King – Lovejoy, Ill.
Albert King – Live in Japan, 1989
Comments
Hawaii bearing huge brunt of US military buildup aimed at China
https://covertactionmagazine.com/2026/07/07/hawaii-bearing-huge-brunt-of...
Thnks, lotl. it's easy to lose track of Hawaii with all the
other shit going on.
be well and have a good one
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 --
evening lotlizard...
it's awful that a place like hawaii has found itself in the line of fire of greedy americans military ambitions.
thanks for the article, have a great weekend!
Great article Lotl!
I posted this comment in the wrong place earlier.
No doubt the pivot made this worse but the the IndoPacCom also bears responsibility for moving assets to Centcom, so the Iran War puts an additional burden on the commands in Hawaii. I think the additional burden is shared elsewhere as well, because its a case of the remoteness of the Centcom theater. I consider it reverse leverage, in terms of logistics and a misapplication of the principle of near and far in warfare. A lot of people in the old order of things who invented the catch phrase, project for the new American century, carry the hubristic view "who else can project power abroad like this?" If one meets sustained resistance in this theater, can the US military effort be sustained? How long? This is what we are finding out the hard way.
I particularly liked the observation that the military buildout generally "inhibits the creation of jobs in other social sectors." I think virtually all US military bases and facilities have some associated environmental costs. Those with airfields, fuel depots, firing ranges and the like are the worst. I question the ability or prospects for any local or state government to get US armed forces to withdraw from an area, or effectively clean it up. In terms of opportunity costs the references to more productive uses of resources for example in education, healthcare and infrastructure, there is the macro uneconomic impact of opportunity costs imposed system wide, by the buildout of military forces and the infrastructure to support them with facilities and bases worldwide.
Thanks for posting this lotl!
己所不欲，勿施于人。
You've made
such an important statement here, and it applies to Italy and everywhere else we occupy countries:
As you point out, the bases are sort of an addictive product. They create need for themselves. And they are about weaponry, the power of brute force, which undermines our ability to even think of removing them.
Thanks Linda
I remember when the Corazon Aquino administration in the Philippines ordered the US out of bases there in 1992. I hadn't seen anything like that before. With another Marcos back in office, there has been a lot of backsliding there, recently. I know there were special circumstances surrounding the events in 1992, but it was a welcome surprise to some at the time. A new democratic government wanted them out, and they had to go.
Something of a pattern I observed in the East was if you want the US military out of a base or bases, you have to provide a substitute like the huge overseas base at Pyeongtaek, South Korea, Camp Humphreys, or the interminable project at Henoko, in Iwo Jima. I had seen smaller examples of this horse trading in Seoul when I was there. This article about the ongoing Henoko fiasco in Okinawa is interesting although somewhat biased in my opinion because it describes the opposition to the Henoko base project, as "minor opposition." It's a recent update on the situation, dated July 16, from military sources.
Okinawa Marine Corps Air Station Relocation Challenge Moves Forward After Japan Court Ruling
己所不欲，勿施于人。
I doubt that they will be dropping after this weekends events
when the markets reopen.
evening humphrey...
i wonder if trump will try making some lame-assed announcement sunday night/monday morning before the markets open to try to jawbone prices down. he forgot to do it this week.
Speaking of the weekend it has only just begun!
The rest of the tweet:
heh...
if these guys are correct, this being a busy weekend is an understatement:
I think Pepe's opening statement is quite sober
....I didn't expect that, since Pepe is often hyperbolic.
[Edited]
Interesting that the host opened with a dose of Kevin Walmsley, whom a few folks here post on occasion. Walmsley offers a rare Western view of the impact that China's advanced technologies are already having on the world. These new technologies (made available at affordable prices) are transforming both humanity and global economies. In many ways, Walmsley's reports speak louder than the conflicting geopolitical narratives. Add to these views the biased political projections that compete to control public opinions. It's an information Jungle.
Larry Johnson's narrative on Iran almost always degrade to nuclear war. He frequently projects that Iran either has, or wants, to possess nuclear weapons. I assume his view was forged during his years in the CIA. I believe this is a false narrative that is also embedded deeply in the minds of the most uninformed Americans — people who have no idea where Iran is located, what language they speak; or what religion they practice. It's a distracting belief that has no supporting evidence whatsoever. (H/T to the brainwashing skills of the Neocons.)
As we move closer to the finish line in the pointless Iran war, I find myself increasingly critical of reporting that covers the blow-by-blow systematic destruction of cities and towns in Iran and the random slaughter of Iranian civilians from above — but no ongoing investigation or explanation of this totally unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation and its civilians.
This is the real story. An attack by people in the throes of a paranoid delusion. Shouldn't that be the story? Why no discussion of the dollars being invested by the Elite global capitalists help fund the extensive destruction of Iran's national infrastructure? Are these not the same Elite Capitalist bloodlines who "privately invested" in the launch of World War II?
What we have in Iran, is the final prelude to a strategic confrontation with China by Western Powers in the China Sea by the Western powers. Key US think tanks believe that the US can wage a military and economic war against with the help of US allies in the region. It is believed that China would back down and compromise rather than risk a steep economic setback of a local war. China era War against regional rivals in order to secure US Economic Supremacy over all nations, and to secure control over the Distribution of the World's remaining Resources. There's not much discussion on this, which is happening right in front of our faces.
This final War for Supremacy was always the end game for the Capitalist Elite and their Neocon psychopaths. It it is actively underway. They have the momentum, they are looking at the big picture. Capitalist Elite will be loathe to pause until they achieve total planetary survellience and full control over the planet's human livestock. If we don't stop the US atrocity in Iran, we may be fighting the 'Empire' in our own back yards before you know it.
Jut stumbled across a video form something that
turns out to be "Hello News YTI - it is a fake and so is a lot of other shit on it's homepage - just sayin'
be well and have a good one
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 --
evening el...
yeah, the quality of most material on youtube is low and appears to be declining. i don't know whether that is by plan or just what you get when you have a million monkeys with keyboards and access to ai tools.
i've been seeing a lot of ai slop created by fsm-knows-who featuring the likenesses and voice patterns of respected commentators saying unlikely things.
oh well, that's the medium we swim in. have a great weekend!
Good evening Joe, thnks for the EBs and reliably
providing info and opinions from reliable sources. Have a great weekend yourself.
be well and have a good one
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 --
Caitlin Johnstone, poor thing, has a sad.
.
.
If, only.... Take a deep breath, dear.
Pardon my focus on trivia. But there is sure a lot of human filth splattered in the news tonight. The noxious things that Western Officials say and think, these days. Yikes. I guess we are now entering the "Exorcism" stage of Empire failure. Next, their heads will start to spin on their necks.
evening pluto...
heh, if only abbie hoffman was still with us to reenact the exorcism of the pentagon. another such exorcism is sorely needed.
Well, PR,
the State Bar of Texas, while promoting AI as a time saver, agrees with Caitlin.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
I agree
I think you and Caitlin are right about AI.
己所不欲，勿施于人。
Hey, joe!
If Fetterman leaves the Democratic Party, I will die! (From laughing.)
Thanks for the Albert King songs. Very cool.
Let's see if the US gummint can distinguish soldiers and airmen being injured and being killed. Let's see.
Take good care, my friend!
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Hey, Professor Joe. I love Albert King!!
Here's one of my faves.
I ran right out and copped this piece of vinyl ASAP. I don't have even close to the knowledge of Blues like you do. Hence, I call you "Professor." I've learned quite a bit from your diaries.
Regarding crapo (current) events: I live in first-strike range nuke-wise so whatever. I just skim. Anywho, I Wanna Get Funky....Rec'd!!
Inner and Outer Space: the Final Frontiers.