The Evening Blues - 7-23-26
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features r&b saxophone player Big Jay McNeely. Enjoy!
Big Jay McNeely - Blow Your Brains Out
"We are not an endangered species ourselves yet, but this is not for lack of trying."
-- Douglas Adams
News and Opinion
What they did and what they are
The New Yorker has an article out titled “How Biden Enabled Israel’s Aggression Toward Gaza — and Iran,” with the subtitle “Top officials from the previous Administration now express regret over their failure to rein in Netanyahu.” It quotes Jake Sullivan saying “I will say straightforwardly — we should have put more pressure on Israel to take a different approach” on Gaza.
And to that I can only say, fuck you. Seriously, FUCK you.
You don’t get to do this now. You don’t get to turn around and go “Oopsie poopsie, we made a mistake!” This was YOUR genocide, motherfuckers. YOURS. You chose it. You own it. Forever. The stench of the rotting corpses in Gaza will sully your names for all time.
They always planned to do this. They backed a genocide knowing they could always try to spin it as a regrettable error in hindsight, and let their sad feelings of contrition wash their hands of their sins.
Fuck that bullshit. That’s not happening. We’ll never let them forget what they did and what they are.
That same New Yorker article says Benjamin Netanyahu asked the Biden administration to keep secret any small concessions he made in allowing aid into Gaza, saying the Israeli prime minister “feared a domestic backlash for not starving Gaza’s women, children, and other civilians.”
Think about how fucked up a society has to be for its politicians to fear domestic backlash for not starving civilians.
Lawrence Wilkerson: Iran War Escalates Toward Global Crisis
The US has signed a landmark nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia that could allow the kingdom to enrich uranium in the future. In a statement on Wednesday, the US Department of Energy said its secretary, Chris Wright, and his Saudi counterpart, Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, signed a “peaceful nuclear cooperation agreement”, along with a “bilateral safeguards agreement”.
The full details of the deal have yet to be released, but the timing of the announcement is controversial, as the US’s war with Iran is being fought in part to prevent Tehran enriching uranium domestically and make it near-impossible for Iran to build a nuclear weapon. A civil nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia has been in the works for years during both Donald Trump’s first administration and that of former president Joe Biden. No deal has come together before now, in part because of warnings from nonproliferation groups who say that it could offer Saudi Arabia a path to develop a nuclear weapon.
The deal will be submitted to Congress for review, where it could face opposition among lawmakers who fear a lack of monitoring safeguards to restrict Saudi Arabia’s uranium enrichment.
Saudi Arabia has in the past said it would need a nuclear weapon if Iran acquired one, an intention Iran has repeatedly denied. But in lengthy talks stretching over more than one administration, the US also feared that Riyadh would look elsewhere for nuclear technology if the US did not provide what it wanted. Saudi Arabia has long said if it does not partner with the US, it could partner with China or Russia which have different proliferation standards.
In a report to Congress earlier this year, the US administration urged support for the US-Saudi nuclear deal, in part to “prevent strategic competition from seizing an opportunity to undermine United States national security interests for decades to come”. The report also argued that the US must seize the opportunity to expand nuclear cooperation to “re-establish our leadership in the global civilian nuclear energy market and reap the benefits of expanded influence in foreign countries hosting our reactors”.
Prof John Mearsheimer: NOTHING LEFT TO HIT IN IRAN THAT MATTERS, More Damage is Meaningless
As Trump Renews Assault on Iran, Dems Prepare Another War Powers Resolution
Democrats introduced another war powers resolution in the US House of Representatives on Wednesday that they hope will strengthen their efforts to stop President Donald Trump from continuing to escalate his war with Iran.
Both houses of Congress already passed a war powers resolution in June, but it was not signed by Trump and lacked the force of law.
Trump has refused to comply with its order to withdraw troops from hostilities in the region, claiming that his renewed attacks on Iran this month constitute a new conflict that resets the 60-day countdown before Congress can intervene.
According to Politico, Rep. Gregory Meeks (NY), the ranking Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, expects the resolution to come to the floor for a vote on Thursday, just before Congress adjourns for a five-week summer recess.
The resolution, introduced by Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) on Wednesday, is expected to have the support of every Democrat, as well as Reps. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.), Brian Fitzpatrick (R-Pa.), Warren Davidson (R-Ohio), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who voted for the last resolution.
A co-sponsor of the bill, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Col.), said on Wednesday that Democrats, as well as these “Republicans of courage and conscience,” were united in their goal of sending “a message that this war has got to stop.”
Jayapal said recent developments, including the deaths of four US soldiers over the past week, had raised the urgency of ending the war now.
“This war has killed 18 US service members, cost billions of taxpayer dollars, and displaced millions of civilians,” she noted.
A new resolution may also strengthen a separate effort by Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), who is planning to introduce legislation that would block any additional federal funding for attacks against Iran not authorized by Congress. He also said he was preparing a lawsuit challenging Trump’s continuation of the war without congressional approval, which he has called “legally baseless.”
As the administration requests tens of billions more in military spending in order to fund the war, Democrats in the Senate last week blocked debate on the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
The House passed the NDAA on Wednesday with limited Democratic support, though it did not contain the separate Iran War funding package.
'NO NEGOTIATIONS': Professor Marandi Says Iran Is Done Talking
US launches more strikes on Iran as Yemen’s Houthis claim Red Sea attacks
Yemen’s Houthis said they carried out missile and drone strikes on Wednesday on two Saudi oil tankers in the Red Sea after declaring a maritime embargo on the kingdom amid the US war with Iran.
The Houthis said in a statement posted on Telegram that they “carried out a qualitative military operation targeting two Saudi oil tankers that violated the blockade”, naming the vessels as the Encelia and the Layla.
The US military announced on Thursday evening it had began a 12th consecutive night of strikes against Iranian military targets at the direction of Donald Trump.
COL. Douglas Macgregor : US Abandons Its Gulf Allies
House Republicans to write $95bn bill to fund Iran war and aid farmers
House Republicans on Wednesday agreed to begin the process of writing a $95bn bill to fund the war with Iran as well as provide new aid to farmers, while making a long-shot attempt to impose new restrictions on voting nationwide.
In a virtually party-line 216-214, the Republican-controlled chamber passed a budget resolution that paves the way for the creation of a reconciliation bill, which can advance through the Senate under special rules that circumvent the Democratic filibuster and requires only a simple majority to pass. Two Republicans – Warren Davidson of Ohio and Thomas Massie of Kentucky, as well as Kevin Kiley, an independent of California who aligns with the GOP – joined all Democrats in opposing the measure.
The resolution’s passage comes amid an intensification of the conflict with Iran, which Pete Hegseth, the defense secretary, told the Senate on Tuesday had thus far cost $37.5bn. The Trump administration last month asked Congress to authorize approximately $88bn in supplemental funding, the majority of which – up to $67.1bn – will go to pay for the war.
The budget resolution passed by the House largely answers that call by authorizing the armed services committee to propose $60bn in spending for the fiscal years through 2036, and the intelligence committee an additional $13bn. The $73bn sum is expected to go towards military operations against Iran.
The agriculture committee has been allocated $12bn in spending changes, which it is expected to propose using on measures to help farmers rocked by the global effects of the conflict with Iran, as well as Trump’s tariff regimen against major trading partners.
Hegseth LOSES IT: Demands TRILLIONS After Failed Iran War
House passes $1.15tn defense bill despite standoff over Israel and Trump’s voter agenda
The US House of Representatives passed a $1.15tn defense policy bill in a near-party-line vote on Wednesday, after Democrats refused to back the measure amid the war with Iran and Donald Trump’s push to impose new restrictions on voting nationwide.
A key plank of the president’s plan to spend $1.5tn on the military in the 2027 fiscal year, the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), passed the Republican-controlled chamber by a 216-212 vote, with all but six Democrats opposing its passage. Seven House Republicans broke ranks to oppose the measure, which now goes to the Senate.
The NDAA is a mammoth bill with effects across the armed services, and Congress passes it each year with bipartisan margins. This year’s version includes pay raises of 5-7% for the military, as well as the codification of the name “Department of War” for the Pentagon. The bill’s large overall cost is itself a key feature, which top House Republicans say is necessary to make generational investments in the armed forces.
The NDAA’s path to enactment has been complicated by the president’s decision to join Israel in attacking Iran without first seeking authorization from Congress. Last week, Senate Democrats blocked the advancement of that chamber’s version of the NDAA in protest of the war, which has flared anew after a memorandum of understanding meant to spur peace talks between the US and Iran collapsed.
The party also objected to the overall prospect of allocating $1.15tn to the military while slashing funding elsewhere in the federal government, just a year after Congress’s Republican majorities approved extending an array of lower tax rates indefinitely.
Gulf Analyst: How Iran Won the War
Oil price rises above $95 mark as Middle East conflict escalates
The price of oil has breached the $95 a barrel mark for the first time in six weeks as the escalating Middle East conflict threatens further disruption to global supplies. The benchmark oil price rose sharply on Wednesday as renewed US-Iran aggression over the strait of Hormuz was compounded by Houthi threats to target vessels carrying Saudi oil through the Bab el-Mandeb strait.
Brent crude peaked at $126 a barrel in April during the conflict but had eased to as low as $71 at the start of July. The price has shot up again as the war has reignited in recent days, reaching $95.24 on Wednesday before easing to $94.40 by lunchtime, up more than 3% on the previous day.
The price increase followed an 11th night of strikes on Iran, including on aircraft hangars and drone storage sites, despite diplomatic efforts to salvage an interim ceasefire deal. Donald Trump said strikes would intensify in a war that has so far cost the US $37.5bn (£28bn).
The jump in crude prices this month has marked the fastest increase since the US-Israeli attacks on Tehran first disrupted flows of Gulf exports via Hormuz in March. It also threatens to put the market on track for oil prices of $120 a barrel by the end of the year unless exports via Hormuz restart, according to analysts at Goldman Sachs.
Michael Hudson: The Media Missed Trump's REAL Plan – Here's What He's Actually Doing
Trump scoffs at ‘affordability’ as he touts economic policies at Georgia rally
Donald Trump scoffed at the word “affordability” as a political message, describing it at a campaign rally on Wednesday as a term concocted by Democratic political consultants to criticize his presidency. Yet even as the president dismissed the notion of affordability, he devoted much of his speech at Wheeler high school to touting the bread-and-butter benefits of his economic policies.
“So I just want you to remember that if you’re paying a little bit more – a lot of it’s come down now, we got it coming down very rapidly actually,” Trump said in Marietta, an Atlanta suburb, casting higher prices today as a lingering effect of the Biden administration.
Americans are broadly disappointed with Trump’s handling of the economy, with just 33% of voters approving in a recent Washington Post-Ipsos poll, an assessment that could hurt his party’s hopes of bucking historical precedent and retaining control of Congress in November’s midterm elections.
The president was in Georgia, a politically divided state where high-profile contests for governor and Senate are playing out, to promote his newly funded “Trump accounts”, which establish tax-free investment funds for every child born through 2028, seeded with $1,000 from the federal government.
Speaking before the president, treasury secretary Scott Bessent described the accounts as the “triumph of capitalism over socialism”, taking a swipe at New York mayor Zohran Mamdani.
Man killed in ICE ‘encounter’ was on vacation in US with tourist visa
The Mexican man who was hit and killed by a semi-truck in Florida when running away from federal immigration officials was vacationing in the US with a tourist visa, according to news reports this week.
The 28-year-old, Juan Jairo Coronilla Durán, was killed on 14 July after an “encounter” with federal officials, including those with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), a state highway patrol spokesperson said last week.
After federal officials approached him and a group of four men at a gas station that Tuesday morning, they all took off running. The Florida highway patrol spokesperson said Coronilla ran into traffic and was hit by a semi-truck.
According to the Miami Herald, Coronilla, from the Mexican state of Guanajuato, had only been in Florida for two days when he died, having arrived in the US only three weeks prior. Coronilla had traveled to Atlanta at first to see family and friends and went to Florida to enjoy the beaches.
Coronilla’s wife, who flew to the US last week to make arrangements, had not heard from her husband and found out about his death while watching the news, a local immigrant rights group told the Miami Herald. She then contacted the group, Colectivo Arbol, to ask for help. The group said Coronilla left behind a seven-year-old son and seven-month-old daughter.
ICE keeps accusing immigrants of ‘weaponizing’ vehicles. Most claims fall apart
The Trump administration has repeatedly accused immigrants and protesters of “weaponizing” their vehicles to “assault” federal immigration agents, a claim used to justify arrests and deadly shootings by officers. But a Guardian review of 26 cases that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has promoted as evidence of a surge in “vehicular attacks” reveals most of those claims have fallen apart under scrutiny, with the accusations consistently disproven by evidence or rejected in court. Only one of the 26 cases has resulted in an assault conviction, according to court records and information shared by prosecutors.
The findings come as DHS and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) are facing intense scrutiny over the back-to-back fatal shootings of Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Texas and Joan Sebastián Durán Guerrero in Maine. In both cases, ICE officers killed the men during attempted traffic stops, with DHS arguing the men had endangered officers and the public with their vehicles – claims that witnesses have rejected.
DHS has repeatedly claimed its officers have faced a “3,300% increase in vehicle attacks” under Donald Trump’s second term, but has not provided evidence to support that figure and has not responded to requests for a list of cases. To better understand how the government’s vehicle assault allegations have been adjudicated over time, the Guardian reviewed the most detailed list DHS has put out: a February press release asserting agents have experienced “more than 180 vehicle attacks” since Trump took office. The 2,100-word release provided summaries of 23 incidents from across the country from June 2025 to January 2026, saying it was a “non-exhaustive list”.
The Guardian looked at records for each case and contacted local and federal authorities and immigration and defense attorneys for more details. We identified 26 people accused in the cases of using their vehicles to threaten, assault or injure immigration officers. Five of them were shot by officers during the encounters, one fatally.
The review reveals a stunning failure by DHS and prosecutors to prove the government’s initial allegations of violence in those cases. [More detail at the link. - js]
US trade chief defends tariffs as Democrats say Trump ‘in denial’ over price hikes
Donald Trump’s chief trade official denied the president’s sweeping tariffs have increased prices for US families, as lawmakers challenged him over cost-of-living concerns across much of the country. US inflation surged to a three-year high earlier this year. During a heated exchange before US senators on Wednesday, however, US trade representative Jamieson Greer appeared to claim Trump’s controversial economic agenda had not driven prices higher. Asked by the Democratic senator Elizabeth Warren if the tariffs had increased prices for American families, Greer said: “No.”
“Core inflation fell to 2.6% year on year, much better than in January 2025,” Greer said. Core inflation excludes food and energy. Overall inflation is slightly higher than it was when Joe Biden left office. Warren said an estimate produced by Democrats and based on the nonpartisan congressional budget office and the treasury department’s own numbers, showed families were paying an average of $1,700 more in tariff costs since Trump’s return to office.
It comes at a critical time for Trump’s tariffs policy, which suffered a damaging blow in February when the US supreme court ruled that many of those tariffs were illegal. The US replaced those tariffs with a 10% tariff regime on much of the world, but this is due to expire on Friday – and Trump officials, including Greer, have indicated they will replace it with a new wave of duties on imports from overseas.
I know what happens when working people decide that they've had enough. Together, we'll make sure Susan Collins and the Republicans find out soon. pic.twitter.com/6p5S5EHtdm
— Troy Jackson (@TroyJackson207) July 22, 2026
France records more than 5,700 excess deaths during June heatwave
France recorded more than 5,700 excess deaths during its June heatwave, authorities have said, as swathes of southern Europe continue to endure another record-breaking period of extreme temperatures.
The French national health agency said on Wednesday that it had recorded 5,764 excess deaths between 17 June and 2 July, an excess mortality rate of 36%.
More than half of the “unprecedented” total were recorded between 25 and 27 June, with deaths of people aged 75 and older accounting for about two-thirds of the excess mortality, the agency said.
Those who lost their lives between 17 June and 2 July died of “all causes”, none yet clearly linked to the heat, it said. France reported slightly fewer excess deaths – 5,722 – over the whole summer last year.
The announcement came as firefighters in Spain battled one of the country’s largest ever wildfires, which has burned about 32,000 hectares (79,000 acres) in the Guadalajara region north of Madrid, forcing the evacuation of 1,200 people from 34 villages in the sparsely populated area and confinement orders in 14 others.
Food price fears after Europe’s heatwave destroys estimated €2bn of crops
The heatwave that swept across Europe in June is estimated to have cost the continent’s grain farmers €2bn (£1.7bn) in lost revenue and destroyed 9m tonnes of crops, sparking concern about the impact on the price of food. Coceral, the European cereals and oilseeds trade association, made the estimate for the harvest of crops such as wheat, barley, maize and oats following the heatwave.
The reduction of 9m tonnes would mean the 27 EU member states and the UK will record their smallest harvest since 2018, and represents lost crop production larger than the combined total forecast grain production of Austria, Ireland and the Netherlands. Coceral has linked the crop losses to the hottest June on record in western Europe. Maize was affected during the crucial pollination period, while wheat was affected during the time known as “grain fill”, when cereals need moisture to fill out, a key stage of development for crop yield.
France is expected to suffer reductions in grain production, where an estimated 3.4m tonnes of maize has been lost, with the cost of lost grains expected to reach €891m. The next biggest grain losses are expected in Hungary (2.4m tonnes) and Spain (1.4m tonnes).
Benoît Merlo, a farmer in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region of France, said a decade of adapting his farm to hotter and drier conditions had not helped this year: “With temperatures exceeding 38C for weeks on end, everything is breaking down. I’m expecting yield losses of at least 50%, or even 70%, for certain crops, such as soya.”
The shortfall in European grain production comes as global crop supplies are also tightening, as southern and western parts of the US are suffering from severe drought, affecting grain and meat production.
More than a decade after the human microbiome was comprehensively mapped, scientists have now identified the vast communities of microbes that make up the Great Barrier Reef.
Analysing DNA from seawater samples of 48 reefs, researchers have mapped the microbiome of the Great Barrier Reef, documenting more than 360,000 distinct viruses as well as more than 500 new bacterial species not previously known to science.
The research, published in the journal Nature, was led by scientists at the University of Queensland and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS).
Dr Yun Kit Yeoh, a senior research scientist at AIMS and a senior author of the paper, described microorganisms as a “very important part of the reef ecosystem” that underpinned marine food chains. “Many of the microbes on the reef can photosynthesise … like plants, they can take light energy [and] can convert carbon dioxide into oxygen. They are eaten by krill and other zooplankton which are then consumed by other animals."
The researchers believe the mapped microbiome could be used as a reef monitoring tool. “We can now use it to start exploring what makes a healthy reef system,” Yeoh said. “Then we can examine how these microbes respond to, say, changes … associated with climate change, with heat stress, bleaching, human activity, or other environmental perturbations.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.
Israel targets X users, right-wing media with $2 million ad push
New poll shows Trump voters losing patience with Iran war
Yemeni Forces Attack Two Saudi Oil Tankers in Red Sea
Ukraine: – Syrsky Fired – Zelenski’s Throne Is Shaking
Michael Brenner: Reifying Stupidity
Venezuela’s Maduro gets June 2027 trial date in US drug-trafficking case
13 Dems Help House GOP Pass Stock Trading Ban That Includes Trump Attack on Voters
Three speeches on a single day signaled a dying American democracy
A Little Night Music
Big Jay McNeely – Flying Home
Big Jay McNeely – Nervous Man Nervous
Big Jay McNeely - Psycho Serenade
Big Jay McNeely - I Got the Message
Big Jay Mcneely - Just Crazy
Big Jay McNeely - Back Shack Track
Big Jay McNeeley - The Deacon’s Hop
Big Jay McNeely - Deacon In Minor
Big Jay McNeely & Ray Collins´ Hot-Club - Funky Bug
Big Jay McNeely – There Is Something On Your Mind
Comments
Good evening Joe, thanks for the EBs. So we're attacking
fishing boats in the Persian Gulf as well as the Caribbean. So is the South Pacific next?
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...
apparently the trump/hegseth military has little concern for international law and/or basic human decency. i hope that there is an accountability moment for them. the sooner the better.
have a great evening!
As the US continues bombing their way to suicide
All of those precious data centers go offline.
The Saudis are going to find they hitched their
wagon to a sick horse in the process. And Kuwait,
Jordon? Hell to pay.
Thanks for the EB's.
Zionism is a social disease
evening qms...
hard to see how the trumpsters manage to maintain the global hegomony demanded by neocons and zionists when they can't even defeat a middling, non-nuclear power with an obliterated navy, air force, etc.
i suspect allies will be shopping for a new global power to sidle up to.
Well, Q,
that makes perfect sense, given that one of my favorite malapropisms with which to describe der Orangefurzenwolkeführer is actually
"Hell Toupée"... (;-)
Twice bitten, permanently shy.