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The day's news roundup + tonight's musical feature: Mary Wells

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Hey! Good Evening!

This evening's music features early Motown singer Mary Wells. Enjoy!

^{Mary Wells - You Beat Me To The Punch}

"You don't have to burn books to destroy a culture. Just get people to stop reading them."

-- Ray Bradbury

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News and Opinion

Today In Dystopia: Burning Books For AI

Amazon is buying and destroying rare books in a secret facility to train AI.

404 Media has been doing some great reporting on how companies like Google and Anthropic have been buying up rare and out-of-print books to train their LLM models before destroying them, and now 404 has a new article out describing how its reporters placed a tracking device on a shipment of books and followed it to an Amazon warehouse where the books are being scanned and shredded.

Here’s an excerpt:

“That final destination was an Amazon warehouse in Las Vegas, Nevada. Amazon employees who work at this location say all they do is receive massive shipments of printed books which they then cut the bindings off in order to scan the books more quickly. The printed book is destroyed in the process. The logo of the Amazon team that works at this warehouse, called VGT3, is a dinosaur, brandishing its teeth and with a book in its hands.”

That’s right: the logo for Amazon’s book-destroying location is an angry tyrannosaurus preparing to rip apart a book.

These people are just cartoonishly creepy.

Mearsheimer: IRAN WINNING THE BATTLE FOR WORLD OPINION

US Offers Sanctions Relief to Iran If Tehran Opens Strait of Hormuz

According to a source speaking with Saudi state media, Washington sent Tehran a message offering to lift the blockade and sanctions against Iran if the Islamic Republic reopens the Strait of Hormuz. According to a senior source who spoke with Al Hadath, Pakistan relayed the American offer to Iran.

On Tuesday, Pakistani Army Chief General Asim Munir met with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in Tehran. Pakistani Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi says the talks were focused on returning to the MOU and were “very productive.” Tehran described the meeting as “very fruitful” and included “highly valuable diplomatic achievements.”

Iranian Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf said the MOU is “clear” and the US must honor its commitments.

Lt. Col. Anthony Aguilar: BILLIONS in Damage: Iran's 'Unprecedented' Strike on U.S. Spy Agencies

Report: U.S. to Hold Off Iran Strikes Until After U.S. Midterms

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio told foreign ministers from several countries in recent days that Washington won't launch strikes against Iran, Israel's Channel 12 reported on Tuesday, citing two sources familiar with the matter.

According to senior U.S. officials, the policy is expected to remain in place until after the U.S. midterm elections. However, Rubio reportedly didn't rule out military action if Iran strikes first.

According to the report, Rubio outlined two objectives that the United States will focus on in the coming period: increasing economic pressure on Iran and normalizing the situation in the Strait of Hormuz, aiming to restore oil trade through the passageway.

Senior U.S. officials said the possibility of military action against Iran could return to the agenda after the midterm elections in November.

Professor Pape RIDICULES Scott Bessents 'Economic D-Day'

Whaddya know? It's those jewish space lasers!

Israel Developing Offensive Space Capabilities

Israel is currently prepared to begin development of offensive space capabilities, including systems designed to defend Israeli satellites from hostile spacecraft, and weapons (including lasers) capable of striking targets from space.

It is part of the Defense Ministry’s multiyear budget plan for the space sector, which will include upgrading and expanding IDF (Israel Defense Forces) intelligence and communications capabilities. The plan will also dedicate a budget to support offensive space operations, which will focus on weapons designed to protect Israeli satellites as well as weapons designed to strike targets on Earth.

Defense Minister Israel Katz spoke earlier this summer about Israel’s commitment to becoming the world leader in space-attack capabilities, a realm of warfare that has experienced a surge in Israeli military interest given its extensive use for intelligence gathering in Iran.

“One of the central goals that the prime minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and I set is that we are recruiting the best minds,” he said. “As of today, no country has the ability to mount attacks in space. We must be the leading country in the world with this capability.”

“If we achieve this, it will ensure the advantage of deterrence, of the ability to attack, destroy, and all of the other matters versus our enemies with large resources.”

In First 6 Democratic Primary States for 2028, Overwhelming Majorities Demand Weapons Embargo on Israel

When the Democratic National Committee selected South Carolina this month as the “first in the nation” state for the 2028 presidential primaries, political journalists and commentators suggested the calendar could give the southern state’s moderate voter base a new level of influence in selecting the party’s candidate.

But new polling from the Institute for Middle East Understanding (IMEU) Policy Project and YouGov on Tuesday showed that on an issue the party and media establishment continue to dismiss as “extreme,” overwhelming majorities of voters in the first states that will hold primaries in 2028 agree: The party must elect a presidential candidate who supports ending military aid to Israel.

The IMEU Policy Project and YouGov surveyed 4,000 likely Democratic primary voters across the six states that will vote first in 2028—South Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Michigan, and Virginia—and found an undeniable trend.

“Democrats in the first six states to vote in the 2028 presidential primary overwhelmingly demand sanctions and a total weapons embargo against Israel,” said the IMEU Policy Project.

South Carolina and Virginia, which have typically favored more moderate candidates, showed somewhat less support for a weapons embargo on Israel, which, with US backing, has killed more than 73,000 Palestinians in Gaza over the past three years and continues to attack the largely decimated exclave despite a ceasefire deal.

But even the two southern states showed strong support for a dramatic shift in the United States’ relationship with Israel, which it provides with nearly $4 billion in military aid annually, in addition to at least $16.3 billion in direct military assistance since it began attacking Gaza in 2023.

Nearly two-thirds of Democratic voters in both South Carolina and Virginia said they would prefer a 2028 presidential candidate who supports cutting off weapons to Israel. Fifty-seven percent of respondents in the former state said they believed Israel is committing a genocide in Gaza, as well as 72% of Virginians.

Drop Site News noted that across the six states, regarding the genocide question, “the ‘no’ response never rises about 5%.”

NEW: Across the first six states set to vote in the 2028 Democratic presidential primaries, virtually no likely Democratic voters say Israel is not committing genocide in Gaza. The “no” response never rises above 5%, according to YouGov polling reported by IMEU.

Even in South… https://t.co/R2Ja5PRPAF

— Drop Site (@DropSiteNews) August 25, 2026

Prem Thakker of Zeteo News emphasized that the polling was released as “the party was hoping South Carolina would be the moderate saving grace” in the 2028 presidential election, in which a large field of candidates is expected to run.

Potential contenders include Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), a progressive who’s committed to opposing all military aid for Israel; former Vice President Kamala Harris, who refused to commit to an arms embargo during her unsuccessful 2024 campaign; California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who said in May that the US should reconsider weapons aid to Israel; and former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, who said he would support a weapons embargo last year only after facing backlash over comments in which he called the issue “complicated.”

Buttigieg visited South Carolina over the weekend, as have several other possible candidates, including Newsom and Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ), a top recipient of donations from the pro-Israel lobby.

The other states polled by IMEU and YouGov also showed high levels of support for cutting off weapons to Israel and sanctioning its right-wing government, which faces elections in October.

Seventy-eight percent of Nevada voters said they view Israel’s US-backed bombardment of Gaza as a genocide, and 74% said the US should end weapons aid.

Three-quarters of voters in New Hampshire, Michigan, and New Mexico said the US should stop providing Israel with weapons. Michigan was home to the largest share of voters who viewed the attacks on Gaza as a genocide—80%—and in both New Hampshire and New Mexico, 70% of voters said the US should sanction Israel.

Left-wing commentator Hasan Piker, whom centrist Democrats, think tanks, and commentators have attacked in recent months for his past comments on September 11 and Hamas, and whom critics have said should be shunned by progressive political campaigns, said the new polling illustrated an inescapable reality for the Democratic Party.

“This is why I said the ‘28 Democratic nominee will not be pro-Israel,” said Piker of the new survey. “Even if I go away, this problem doesn’t."

Why the U.S. Can’t Say No to Israel — AIPAC Explained

Israel Hawk Moskowitz Picked for Key House Mideast Post

Progressive and pro-Palestine critics on Tuesday accused House Democratic leaders of ignoring the majority of party voters who oppose US military aid to Israel by appointing one of the most pro-Israel members of Congress as the top Democrat on a key Mideast subcommittee.

Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the leading Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, announced the appointment of Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-Fla.) as ranking member of the Middle East and North Africa Subcommittee. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) was assigned to the Oversight and Intelligence Subcommittee, Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) joined the Africa Subcommittee, and Wesley Bell (D-Mo.) was named to the Western Hemisphere Subcommittee.

Moskowitz thanked Meeks and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) on social media “for this important responsibility” and, in a separate post, vowed to “work to strengthen America’s relationships with Israel and our Gulf allies, expand regional peace, advance American diplomacy, and ensure our foreign policy is grounded in strength, security, and reality.”

During his two terms in Congress, Moskowitz—who last week survived a primary challenge by pro-Palestine progressive Oliver Larkin—has repeatedly argued against conditioning armed aid to apartheid Israel on compliance with international law or protection of Palestinian civilians amid the ongoing genocide in Gaza and Israel’s illegal occupation, colonization, and ethnic cleansing in the West Bank.

Moskowitz was one of only 12 Democrats who voted for a 2023 Republican aid package to Israel—which receives billions of dollars in annual US funding—as the Israeli military killed thousands of Palestinian civilians in Gaza following the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led attack.

Critics argued that placing one of Congress’ most outspoken supporters of Israel in a key Middle East policy position shows that Democratic leadership remains badly out of step with its own voters, a majority of whom concur with a United Nations commission of inquiry, human rights groups, scholars, and around 20 national governments who say Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

Moskowitz denies the Gaza genocide, has conflated criticism of Israeli crimes with hatred of Jews, and was denounced by House progressives including Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), the only Palestinian American in Congress, for authoring an amendment to ban US officials from using State Department funds to cite official Gaza casualty figures—which now include more than 250,000 Palestinians killed, wounded, or missing during Israel’s onslaught.

Meeks’ appointments come at a time when 3 in 4 Democratic voters oppose US aid to Israel—up from just 45% three years ago—and after the issue was a factor in former Vice President Kamala Harris’ defeat by President Donald Trump in the 2024 presidential election.

In response to Moskowitz’s appointment, the progressive organizing group Demand Progress issued a statement noting that the congressman “has consistently opposed placing conditions on military aid to Israel,

repeatedly voted against the majority of House Democrats to sanction International Criminal Court officials, and earlier this year said he would oppose an Iran war powers resolution.”

Demand Progress senior policy adviser Cavan Kharrazian said:

By making a hard-line Israel supporter their point person on Middle East policy, House Democratic leaders are doubling down on a failed approach to Israel that shows contempt for the clear and growing majority of Democratic voters who want to stop cutting blank checks for the Israeli government. Donald Trump’s ongoing wars in the Middle East and his commitment to keeping the US joined at the hip to Israel are wildly unpopular and have been a disaster for the nation. Elevating someone who consistently sides with Trump in support of Israel, and who has a long record as an Iran hawk, represents clear political malpractice on behalf of House Democratic leaders.

Palestine defenders and Democrats concerned about the possible fallout of elevating an Israel hawk to a top subcommittee post as the party seeks to win back control of Congress in November’s midterm elections bdenounced the appointment of Moskowitz.

ReThinking Foreign Policy president Mitchell Plitnick called Meeks’ move “very bad news.”

“Moskowitz is a completely inappropriate choice, given how wildly out of step he is with Democratic voters on Mideast issues,” he said on X. “It’s yet another indication of why it is so desperately important that Democratic ‘leaders’ like Hakeem Jeffries and Gregory Meeks be replaced as soon as possible.”

Erik Sperling, executive director at Just Foreign Policy, called the decision to appoint Moskowitz “shocking.”

“Meeks and Jeffries are apparently intending to signal that the anti-war and pro-Palestinian movements are unwelcome in the [Democratic] Party?”

WTF: Jared Moskowitz, one of the most pro-Israel Democrats, just received a top spot on the HFAC subcommittee for Middle East & North Africa.

The Dems are actively stacking foreign affairs committees with raging Zionists who will continue rubber stamping endless… pic.twitter.com/doouX7qqMN

— JoshTheProgressive (@joshforprogress) August 25, 2026

As for Jeffries and Meeks, Track AIPAC reports the former has taken $1,495,709 and the latter $986,946 in campaign contributions from the Israel lobby.

America is spiralling towards a debt crisis - Varoufakis & Munchau | The Econoclasts

China denounces US threat of sanctions over trade with Iran

China has denounced the threat of US sanctions for its trade with Iran, saying any such measures would be illegal, and warned it would take “all necessary measures” to protect its national interests. Beijing’s rejection of the US threat of secondary sanctions for any country or entity continuing to trade with Tehran had been predicted. China buys an estimated 80% of Iran’s oil exports and has defied previous US efforts to limit the flow of revenue to the Tehran regime.

Its statement of opposition raises the question of how far the Trump administration would be prepared to go in confronting China and its financial system in the drive to isolate Iran. In making the sanctions threat on Monday, the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, announced an initial set of sanctions on 60 individuals, entities and vessels for alleged involvement in trade with Iran, but there were no Chinese financial institutions on the list, despite their involvement in financing the Iranian oil trade. The omission reflected US caution.

Asked why the Trump administration had not declared immediate sanctions and had stopped short of naming potential sanctions targets, Bessent replied: “Why would I want to blow up the global financial system?” Financial and trade experts say the administration is well aware of the risk of Chinese retaliation before a scheduled summit next month between Donald Trump and Xi Jinping. China could strike back through financial markets or with limits on its export of critical minerals.

Laith Marouf: Hezbollah to Obliterate Israeli Plan and Smash Northern Buffer Zone

Canada announces retaliatory tariffs on wide range of US goods

Canada has announced it will impose tariffs on a wide range of key American industries including cosmetics, dairy, wood products and outdoor equipment in the coming weeks, as it retaliates roughly “dollar for dollar” against levies imposed by the US. In a strong Canadian countermove to tariffs levied by Donald Trump, which took effect on Saturday after trade talks collapsed the day before, Canada’s finance and industry ministers on Tuesday called the measure a “focused response” to what they see as unfair trade practices.

The White House claimed it was using section 338 of the Tariff Act of 1930 to protest against “discriminatory” trade policies by Canada, including provincial bans on US alcohol – a ban that was only implemented in protest against tariffs imposed on Canadian goods last year. The prime minister, Mark Carney, had previously pledged a “dollar-for-dollar” response from his government after roughly 5% of exports to the US were singled out by the White House.

The retaliatory Canadian measures will cover C$27.6bn ($19.9m) in imports and are meant to target key industries including steel, dairy, appliances, agricultural equipment, pulp and paper. The list from Ottawa has more than 700 items, ranging from from hockey sticks to ornamental fish and toilet paper to smoked lobster, with most of the tariffs set at 25% or 50%. A small group of items, including air conditioning units and tool parts, will face a lower 15% tariff. The levies will be effective starting 8 September and only apply to goods originating from the US.

In announcing the retaliatory measures, the finance minister, François-Philippe Champagne, said the country was united in its fight against the US, telling attenders that Canada remained “masters of our own home”. The industry minister, Mélanie Joly, called on businesses and consumers to buy Canadian goods as part of a broader “resistance” movement in the trade war. “You have power,” she said.

Prof. Glenn Diesen : Are NATO and Russia Near War?

US Treasury’s Scott Bessent ‘will lose’ battle with bond markets, former mentor warns

Scott Bessent’s attempt to calm the bond markets and push down America’s cost of borrowing have attracted a rebuke from the US Treasury secretary’s former mentor. The billionaire investor Stanley Druckenmiller, who worked with Bessent at George Soros’s fund management firm in the 1990s, has warned that his former pupil is courting danger by trying to suppress US bond yields.

Druckenmiller, writing in the Wall Street Journal, argued that the US should “let the bond market speak”, rather than expand its bond purchases in an effort to push up prices, and lower borrowing costs. “Governments defending prices against fundamentals always lose. The only variable is how much they spend before conceding,” he wrote.

Druckenmiller argued that Washington should heed the rise in borrowing costs – measured by bond yields – and take steps to cut the budget deficit, rather than interfering in the market to push yields down again. “The long-term Treasury yield is the most important price in the world. It is also the only fiscal disciplinarian the US has left. Neither party will run on entitlement reform. Both have spent the past decade expanding commitments while ignoring arithmetic,” he wrote. [Druckenmiller fails to mention the alternative to cutting spending is raising taxes, particularly on the rich. - js]

Druckenmiller’s intervention comes after Bessent decided to at least double the maximum size of the Treasury’s buyback operations, from $2bn (£1.5bn) to $4bn. That move briefly led to a drop in US long-term bond yields, but this quickly reversed. “The market’s verdict was swift and correct: This wasn’t liquidity management, it was price management – and a mistake far larger than $4bn suggests,” Druckenmiller said.

MAGA Ranchers SHAKEN By Trump Beef Betrayal

Trump faces backlash from Republicans over plan to lift tariffs on beef imports

Donald Trump is facing growing criticism from within his own party over his decision to temporarily pause US tariffs on foreign beef in a bid to bring down grocery prices. The president’s announcement that the US will import up to 300,000 metric tons of foreign beef without charging higher tariffs has alarmed some senior Republicans, who warn that “flooding” stores with imports will hit US ranchers. This comes as the US faces a 75-year low in cattle inventory.

Trump claimed his administration had secured a commitment that the imported would be sold at 25% below “current market prices” on Friday, adding: “This deal will reduce prices for Americans while giving space for our Great American Beef Herd to grow again.” But many GOP members are apprehensive and issued rare rebukes of the new policy.

“Americans want US beef on the table – not foreign imports,” John Barrasso, a Republican senator from Wyoming and the majority whip, wrote in a post on X. “Wyoming ranchers produce the highest quality beef in the world. Our ranchers don’t ask for special treatment. They simply want a fair marketplace. It needs to be easier – not harder – for Wyoming ranchers to feed America.”

Another Trump loyalist, Senator Tim Sheehy of Montana, said that he had advised the president “against this course of action for a year”. Sheehy added that while Trump’s “heart is in the right place on wanting lower prices for the American people”, the action would actually make it more difficult for American ranchers to rebuild their herd. Most of whom, he said, are “Maga Republicans”.

ICE arrests mother and daughter at Florida hospital after car crash

An Ecuadorian mother and daughter were arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at a hospital after a car crash in central Florida. On 20 August, Grace Stephanie Calero Cabanilla, 39, and her daughter, Giulianna Mía Carriel Calero, 19, were involved in a car crash in Poinciana, Florida, according to arrest reports reviewed by multiple news outlets.

According to Jonathan Bravo, Calero Cabanilla’s cousin, who spoke to Newsweek, she was driving to work with her daughter when another vehicle struck the passenger side of their car, in which the pair “almost died” after the car flipped over four times. After Calero Cabanilla and her daughter were transported by ambulance to HCA Florida Poinciana hospital, they were placed in separate rooms, Bravo told Newsweek. He said a Polk county sheriff’s deputy then began asking Calero Cabanilla about her immigration status.

In a statement to Newsweek, a Polk county sheriff’s office spokesperson said: “As part of a crash investigation on Thursday, deputies went to the local hospital to speak with the occupants of one of the vehicles … As the deputies were obtaining information from those involved, it was discovered that the driver is in the United States illegally from Ecuador after overstaying an expired visa by several years.” The sheriff’s office added that it determined Calero had also overstayed her visa, saying: “ICE issued detainers for both women, and after the women were discharged from the hospital, they were taken into custody and transported to the Polk County Jail.” An arrest warrant reviewed by Newsweek showed that neither woman had a criminal history.

Meanwhile, in the fundraiser set up for the pair, Bravo said that Calero Cabanilla has a pending asylum case and a work permit, while her daughter has a visa that is valid until 2030.

How undercover agents spied on anti-ICE protesters in Minnesota

Newly disclosed records reveal how undercover federal agents posed as concerned community members to spy on residents and activists who opposed Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) crackdown in Minnesota. Internal Department of Homeland Security (DHS) files, disclosed in federal court and reviewed by the Guardian, document the actions of several undercover agents, including one who went by the username “peanutbutterjelly” in Signal chats with activists. The documents show that the officer kept records of Signal conversations, screenshotting chats about protest plans and volunteer recruitment, and offering to help with fundraising efforts.

Another undercover agent took photos at demonstrations and protest planning meetings, including of demonstrators in frog costumes, a poster that mocked JD Vance with heavy eye makeup, and a protester writing an anti-ICE message in chalk. Other DHS agents trailed a protester as he left his home, got coffee and went to a church.

The records were released as part of the Department of Justice’s ongoing prosecution of 15 Minneapolis protesters, accused of being part of a “conspiracy” to “impede” ICE. A tranche of internal DHS files disclosed in the case earlier this month revealed DHS extensively spied on prominent leftwing groups and protesters as part of its investigation into anti-ICE activity. DHS called the investigation “Operation Puppet Master”, the files showed, sending undercover agents to community meetings, infiltrating Signal chats and obtaining financial records of left-leaning non-profit organizations and unions.

The surveillance escalated during widespread anti-ICE protests in Minneapolis after the killings of Renee Good and Alex Pretti in January. Civil rights groups and the protesters’ attorneys have argued the government was surveilling people without justification and is criminalizing lawful protest activity.

Undercover agent 9843, who went by the name “peanutbutterjelly” in the Signal chats of organizers, worked for HSI, the investigative arm of ICE, records show. In December 2025, the agent was deployed to “participate” in virtual and in-person meetings, records show. The agent’s objective was to “gather intelligence regarding any organized networks of conspirators – operating online and in person – who may be providing material support to violent opportunists and individuals engaged in impeding federal law enforcement”, DHS summarized in a February report.

The undercover agent attended a virtual “ICE watch” training on 3 December during which community members discussed how to monitor ICE officers’ activities. Organizers at the meeting “urged participants to observe nonviolently and obey law enforcement commands”, DHS said. The agent attended another “legal observer” training in person four days later, reporting there were no signs of “threats to public safety”.

Trump threatens to demolish Kennedy Center

The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts could be demolished if repairs are not carried out, the Trump administration warned in a court filing on Monday. Lawyers for the US president said the national arts complex in Washington DC must undergo a $250m renovation or risk facing the wrecking ball. “Without those efforts, the ⁠Center will deteriorate further into an unsafe, decrepit structure that will be required to be taken down, with a determination to follow on what to ​build on the site, such as a large outdoor amphitheater overlooking the Potomac River that has been proposed, by some, for many years,” they argued.

The warning came as Donald Trump leaves a trail of destruction in Washington, demolishing the East Wing of the White House to make way for a $600m ballroom and ordering a renovation of the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool that resulted in algae blooms and a peeling liner. The court filing represented the first time that Trump’s allies have raised the prospect of knocking down the Kennedy Center – a 100ft-high complex with a concert hall, opera house and theatre – as the dire alternative to closing it for two years of improvements. Such an aggressive move would be sure to face legal challenges, protests and an outcry from historic preservation groups.

The threat emerged on Monday as the administration urged a federal judge to reject a fresh legal challenge to Trump’s efforts to put his name on the Kennedy Center. The dispute has become part of a months-long battle over the president’s attempt to alter the memorial created by Congress in honour of John F Kennedy, the 35th US president, who was assassinated in 1963.

A federal judge ruled in May that only Congress has the power to change the Kennedy Center’s name. But the centre’s board, now largely made up of Trump appointees, voted 20-3 on 13 August to change the building’s signage to read “The John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts Restored and Renovated by President Donald J Trump”. It also voted to name the grounds the “President Donald J Trump Plaza”.

The administration argued the latest proposal did not breach the court’s injunction because the building would still formally be called the John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. The words “Restored and Renovated by” merely acknowledge Trump’s role, lawyers said, comparing the inscription to acknowledgments of major donors at other cultural institutions.

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Hakeem Jeffries defends his meeting with Trump envoy Jared Kushner

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic minority leader in the US House of Representatives, has defended his meeting with Jared Kushner and claimed it was arranged at the request of Donald Trump’s son-in-law. Jeffries, who has come under attack from Democrats since the New York Times reported on Sunday that the two met privately to discuss common ground on issues like housing, immigration and the high cost of living, said he agreed to the meeting “to discuss the affordability crisis” in the US.

In an X post on Monday, Jeffries insisted: “No one from the Trump cartel is getting a pass.”

“I shouldn’t have to say it, but I am. No one is going to get a pass,” he said. “We’re going to follow the facts, apply the law and be guided by the constitution beginning on day one. And hold the crooks accountable.” Jeffries appeared to be referring to actions planned by Democrats should they retake control of US Congress in November’s midterm elections.

But in meeting with Kushner – who serves as an envoy for the Trump administration, working on conflicts in Ukraine, Gaza and Iran – Jeffries provoked a response from Democrats and Republicans alike.Tommy Vietor, a former Obama aide and co-host of Pod Save America, criticized Kushner, noting that he had “no actual government job” and claiming he “just uses his family connections to get money from Gulf autocrats and fund corrupt deals”.

Former Clinton strategist James Carville said in an “urgent message to Hakeem Jeffries” that the House minority leader had no business meeting with Kushner. A more appropriate response than meeting to discuss affordability, Carville suggested, would be to “drag his ass” before a congressional committee and grill him on his “backdoor-dealing” with other figures in Trump’s orbit. New York City’s mayor, Zohran Mamdani, who opposed a primary challenge to Jeffries’ Brooklyn seat by the city councilman Chi Ossé, was asked if he would still support the representative as House majority leader if Democrats take back the House in November. “I continue to support Congressman Jeffries and his bid to become the leader,” Mamdani said.

‘Vance Is a Dirtbag’: Troy Jackson Responds to VP Downplaying ICE Killing in Maine

Troy Jackson, the Democratic US Senate nominee for a critical seat in Maine, denounced Vice President JD Vance on Monday for downplaying the killing of Johan Sebastián Durán Guerrero, a 25-year-old Colombian national who was killed by a federal immigration agent last month in Biddeford.

During a visit to Maine on Monday, Vance told residents who are “so worried about that situation” to “have a little bit of perspective.” Vance added that “we can absolutely investigate every shooting and we will, but we can also secure our border and ensure that that poison stops coming into our country.” (The legal representative for Durán Guerrero’s family said no federal agencies have reached out as part of any investigation into the killing.)

Jackson, the former president of Maine’s Senate who is running to unseat Republican US Sen. Susan Collins, responded to the vice president in a video message posted to social media.

“JD Vance is a dirtbag,” said Jackson. “There was a young man who had a Social Security number, he had a job, I mean, he had a life. He had a family. To come here and say, ‘Have some perspective’? You ought to have some damn perspective. I mean, you don’t even know what the hell’s goin’ on. You got a rogue agency that’s going around, pulling people out of homes.”

Jackson then turned his attention to Collins, who recently voted for legislation that included around $70 billion in funding for US immigration agencies, including nearly $40 billion for Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). After an ICE agent killed Durán Guerrero last month, Collins refused to say she regretted her vote to boost the agency’s funding.

“I want to know: What are you doing about it, Susan?” Jackson asked. “She gave them an additional $70 billion to pull this shit off. We lost a person that JD Vance seems to not give a shit about. And that should piss us all off. So I want to know: Do you agree with JD Vance dismissing the killing of this young man? Because I tell you what, ‘concerns’ and all that does nothing for all of us, does nothing for that family, and I’m sick of your ‘concerns.’”

My response to @JDVance saying we should "have a little bit of perspective" on ICE murdering a young father pic.twitter.com/fNRxN9oBiF

— Troy Jackson (@TroyJackson207) August 24, 2026

During his remarks in Brewer, Maine on Monday, Vance said Collins is “doing an amazing job” and characterized her as “the most independent member of the United States Senate,” even though she votes with President Donald Trump around 96% of the time.

Misha Linnehan, a spokesperson for the Maine Democratic Party, said in response to the vice president’s remarks that “Susan Collins voted to give Donald Trump and JD Vance $70 billion to send armed ICE agents into Maine with no guardrails.”

“Now that a man has been killed,” said Linnehan, “JD Vance thinks Mainers need to ‘have a little bit of perspective’ about children losing their father and a wife losing her husband—does Susan Collins agree?”

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A rare win in Indian country: how tribes drove out a mining company in one week

When two Oglala Lakota scouts heard drilling was expected to begin on Pe’ Sla, the sacred prairie in the Black Hills of South Dakota, they set out on back trails. They needed to find out where. That’s when they saw a deer break ahead and a red-tailed hawk soar above them – less like a coincidence than being led, the scouts said. Over a rise, they came upon a road freshly cut to the dirt. They followed it, past a parked truck. “Oh my god,” one of them said, seeing a drill turning. “They’re drilling now!” What happened next was something that almost never happens in Indian country: a coalition of tribes and organizers banded together and drove out a mining company in a matter of days. “We’re just not used to winning,” said Dr Valeriah Big Eagle, who directs the Black Hills work of NDN Collective, an Indigenous-led advocacy nonprofit based in Rapid City. “We’re people used to being screwed over by the government at every level.”

The fight to protect ancestral land from mining is a common one, and the struggles are often long, hard and lost. In March, the government handed Oak Flat, an Apache holy site in Arizona, to a copper company to gouge out one of the largest mines in North America – a transfer the tribe is still in court trying to reverse. In April, the Senate voted to strip protections from Minnesota’s Boundary Waters, a watershed in Ojibwe treaty territory where the bands still hunt, fish and gather; the battle has since moved to the statehouse. The consequences of losing aren’t abstract: poisoned water, sacred ground turned to open pit, and the lasting health toll extraction leaves on Native land while the profits flow elsewhere.

But at Pe’ Sla, what the Great Sioux Nation calls the “heart of everything that is”, the coalition broke the pattern, moving on every front at once. It was a lesson, they said, in what organized power can still win. The threat arrived the way these things usually do: as paperwork. On 27 February, the US Forest Service quietly approved exploratory drilling by Pete Lien & Sons, a local mining and construction-materials company. They could drill 18 boreholes on national forest land, at least 10 of them inside a two-mile buffer around the central meadow that the tribes and the agency had agreed to protect. Even though the permit drew broad opposition – from tribes, local officials and the public – the Forest Service granted it anyway.

The legal front moved first: in early April, NDN Collective, the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance and Earthworks sued the Forest Service, and nearly every tribe in the Dakotas filed a second suit of their own. But the courts were slow and the company was quick. When Pete Lien & Sons learned a restraining order had been filed, it went to round-the-clock drilling, boring as many holes as it could before a judge ruled. The organizers couldn’t wait for the courts. Before dawn on 30 April, organizers sent up a drone and found the company had moved overnight, its crews now on two lit pads across the highway. The convoy had already set out – a caravan of about a dozen vehicles strung along the highway under a high, bright moon. With the ground still frozen, they climbed the Forest Service roads. At the only road in, 40 of them blocked the way behind them and put their bodies on the drill pads so no rig could run.

For seven days, they lived on those pads – intergenerational by design: a youth council out front and elders anchoring the camp. They held it through helicopters overhead, three lines of police and private security, and a night that fell to 10 degrees with no fires because the hills were experiencing a drought. They stayed warm with hand warmers and each other. Ceremony wasn’t a pause from the strategy. It was the strategy. There were altars on both drill pads. And when the local news called them “armed and dangerous”, they livestreamed their own version of events. They knew it was bad optics to drag an Indigenous prayer camp off a mountain on camera. On 4 May, a federal judge halted the drilling, finding the plaintiffs were likely to prove that the Forest Service had unlawfully waved through a supposedly under-a-year project whose permit required three years of work. Still, the organizers didn’t leave – they didn’t trust a company that could pay a fine to stop. Days later, Pete Lien & Sons wrote to the Forest Service withdrawing its plan, and said it would not file another.

US fossil fuel lobbyists also represent hundreds of cities fighting for climate damages

Congressional lobbyists working for fossil fuel firms that are exacerbating the climate crisis are simultaneously representing more than 300 local governments raising funding to recover from climate damage, according to a new analysis. The research by F Minus and Make Polluters Pay reviewed congressional lobbying disclosures for the first quarter of 2026, finding that another 568 local governments hired fossil fuel lobbyists to work on non-climate related issues during that time, some of which included climate adjacent issues, like healthcare and home insurance.

Dozens of lobbying firms were identified by researchers as working on both sides of climate action. James Browning, the founder and executive director of F Minus, said local governments who hire these firms to lobby for climate mitigation, disaster relief, and wildlife conservation likely don’t know that the same firms are working for clients like ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute (API), which critics say are pushing to further dependence on fossil fuels. “They are locked into these relationships with big firms and may also not know they are the ones blocking climate efforts,” Browning said.

For example, the analysis shows US multinational law firm Greenberg Traurig has lobbied for three fossil fuel entities (API, ConocoPhillips and the Western States Petroleum Association in California) that have opposed state-level legislation aimed at holding fossil fuel companies financially accountable for their historic climate-warming emissions and using that revenue, in the form of climate superfunds, to support climate mitigation costs. Miami-Dade county, in Florida, hired the firm to lobby for shoreline protection and Everglades restoration. “That’s a glaring conflict,” Browning said.

Westchester county and the city of Rochester, both in New York, also hired Greenberg Traurig, despite the fact that these local governments could lose mitigation monies if fossil fuel clients of the firm are successful in invalidating New York’s climate superfund legislation, Browning said. “Greenberg Traurig really represents the cynical extreme on this issue,” he said. “Between their congressional and state lobbying operations they work for all the opponents of these superfund bills and biggest funders of climate denialism.”

A different new report by Brown University shows that the majority of people and groups who testified on state-level climate superfund bills were in favor of the legislation. But across all four times climate superfund bills were introduced in New Jersey, more registered lobbyists opposed the legislation than supported it. In every state legislature where the bills were introduced, fossil fuel companies opposed them. “When we talk about getting dark dirty money out of politics that means fossil fuel industry dollars that are walking into the capitol in a suit, as a lobbyist,” Cassidy DiPaola, with the pro-climate superfund campaign Make Polluters Pay, said.

Record-breaking heat dome expected to bring dangerous temperatures to US south-west

Surging temperatures are expected to broil more than 45 million people as a heat dome settles in across the south-western US through the end of August and into early September, according to the National Weather Service (NWS).

As wildfires rage in some parts and intense heat builds across the region, daytime highs of 110-115F (43-46C) are forecast, with limited cooling relief in the evenings and overnight. Experts predict that some record highs could be tied or broken this month and the weather agency warned of the scorching late summer heat as a potential health hazard.

“A strong upper-level ridge will remain anchored across the south-west into south-central US into late week,” the NWS shared in its short-range forecast discussion.

The agency continued: “This will maintain an abnormal hazardous heat across the region, with daytime highs of 100-110 F across the Southern Plains, while portions of the southwest will reach up to 115F. With overnight temperatures providing limited relief, heat-related illness may increase, especially for those without proper hydration and adequate cooling.”

In addition to surging temperatures in the coming days, especially in a stretch from Texas to California, the NWS is forecasting that the south-west and portions of the US Rocky Mountains and the plains will see “monsoonal moisture”, resulting in heavy scattered showers and thunderstorms. Continued humidity and moisture in the air contribute to extreme heat risks, which can be taxing on the body.

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Also of Interest

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

Iran War: Bessent’s “Sheriff Bart Gets It” Iran Sanctions Strategy as His Ex-Boss Druckenmiller Trashes His New Treasury Scheme; Iran Hits US Escorted Tanker as Strait of Hormuz Transits Fall Further

War On Iran: – New U.S. Sanctions Are Unlikely To Work

Israeli lawmaker smashes Palestinian memorial in occupied West Bank

If You Want Companies To Behave Well You Have To Punish Decision Makers

Billionaire-Backed Groups Launch Ad Blitz Against California Wealth Tax

New York business group sues Mamdani over city-owned grocery stores plan

Trump’s justice department has found a new way for presidents to avoid accountability

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A Little Night Music

Mary Wells - The One Who Really Loves You

Mary Wells - Your Old Standby

Mary Wells - My Guy

Mary Wells - Bye Bye Baby

Mary Wells - Laughing Boy

Mary Wells - What Love Has Joined Together

Mary Wells - Two Lovers

Mary Wells - What's easy for two is so hard for one

Mary Wells - She Don't Love You

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