The Evening Blues - 9-11-26
Hey! Good Evening!
This evening's music features blues guitarist and piano player Henry "Taj Mahal" Fredericks. Enjoy!
Taj Mahal - Queen Bee
“Sometimes a deception is so audacious, so outrageous that you can’t see it even when it’s staring you in the face.”
-- S. Vertue
News and Opinion
Three Major Revelations About The Gaza Holocaust In The Israeli Press
The Israeli press has published three significant revelations about the Gaza holocaust, reporting (1) that Benjamin Netanyahu concealed advanced knowledge of the Hamas attack on October 7, (2) that Israel rejected a Hamas offer to release all civilian hostages immediately after October 7, and (3) that according to an IDF drone operator, the Israeli military was intentionally firing on civilians throughout Gaza during its operations in the Palestinian territory.
The first two come from a Haaretz article titled “Revealed: Netanyahu Received an Explicit Warning Days Before Oct. 7. He Didn’t Brief Israel’s Security Chiefs”, which was released ahead of an upcoming Haaretz book about the hostage standoff in Gaza.
Haaretz describes a call between Netanyahu and UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed, citing three foreign senior sources:
“A week and a half before October 7, 2023 the Emirati ruler called Netanyahu from the Presidential Palace in Abu Dhabi and spoke with him for 45 minutes. In that conversation, bin Zayed warned that Hamas’ leader in Gaza, Yahya Sinwar, was planning a major operation against Israel. Bin Zayed expressed concern that the event in question would not only lead to bloodshed but also destabilize the entire region and undermine the Abraham Accords.”
Nothing will make you a conspiracy theorist faster than learning basic facts about what happened on October 7 2023. https://t.co/Optx60745g
— Caitlin Johnstone (@caitoz) September 8, 2026
Haaretz reports that rather than pass these warnings on to Israeli national security officials, Netanyahu chose to sit on information which an unnamed Shin Bet official said could have “changed our entire assessment picture.”
Haaretz also notes that Israel had received similar warnings about a coming Hamas attack from Egyptian intelligence, which had been reported earlier. These are just two items in the mountains upon mountains upon mountains of evidence indicating that powerful people in Israel knowingly allowed Hamas to inflict as much damage as possible on October 7 2023 in order to advance the murderous ethnic cleansing objectives we’ve seen rolled out in the years since.
Nothing will turn you into a conspiracy theorist faster than learning basic facts about what happened on October 7. But even without knowing those facts it already strains credulity to believe Israel had no advance knowledge of a complex attack which would require extensive open-air training in one of the most heavily surveilled strips of land on our planet. Especially when you look at all the pre-existing military agendas Israel was able to push forward in the aftermath.
Ha'aretz reports that Hamas, through Qatar, conveyed immediately on Oct. 7 that they were willing to return all the civilian hostages for nothing -- their only ask was for a mediator to arrange the exchange and establish a connection to then negotiate the further release of the soldiers. Israel refused to talk or hear about it.
So Qatar reached out to Antony Blinken to let him know that Hamas was willing to release all the civilian hostages.
Blinken told Qatar he didn't want to hear it because "Israel is still under attack, and there's no one to talk to."
Blinken had the opportunity to free every single civilian hostage and de-escalate the situation. Instead he wanted war.
— Ryan Grim (@ryangrim) September 9, 2026
Later in that same article, Haaretz quotes a Palestinian politician named Samir Mashharawi describing what Hamas leadership told him during his mediation efforts between Israel and Hamas after October 7:
“He told me that in the first stage, they had no problem releasing all civilians without anything in return,” Mashharawi recounts. “I swear, those were his exact words: all civilians, without anything in return. They had only one condition: They wanted us to bring in an agreed-upon mediator as quickly as possible, so that negotiations could immediately begin over everything else.”
Mashharawi said Israel rejected the offer. A senior Israeli defense official corroborated this, telling Haaretz:
“The release of the hostages did not even enter the list of war objectives formulated by the government on the night of October 7. Could the proposal have been properly discussed and a decision reached? In substantive terms, the answer is yes. But the prevailing mood was like after Pearl Harbor: We had just suffered a brutal blow, we were in the midst of war, who had the bandwidth to talk about stopping the fighting and starting negotiations now, even if it was to save the lives of dozens of people, whose final number was still unknown?”
So all that hasbara about the hostages and the Bibas kids and how Hamas needed to be destroyed because they were refusing to release innocent civilian captives was complete bunk from the very beginning. Hamas offered to release them with no conditions but the opening of communication lines. Israel refused, because what they wanted was to steal more Palestinian land. It was never about the hostages, and anyone who said it was is a liar.
Haaretz published the testimony of a reserve major and UAV operator in the Israeli Air Force who commanded a strike cell attached to maneuvering brigades inside Gaza. This is what he had to say:
1) He was involved in the March 23, 2025 paramedic killings in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah and said, "You could clearly tell these were rescue vehicles even as fire was opened on them from the ground. For no apparent reason, the force on the ground charged the convoy. They shot the first vehicle, the medical personnel got out, hid behind the ambulances and begged for their lives, and the soldiers shot them one after another."
2) On how the yellow line was used as an excuse to kill innocent people: "The Palestinians didn't know it existed, and the Air Force wasn't always updated either. From the perspective of a farmer walking onto his own land — he has no idea he's stepping into an area the IDF suddenly decided is a fire zone. And then all kinds of retroactive justifications started coming up. 'He came for an arms deal.' 'He touched the ground, maybe he's planting an explosive.' To me it looked like they were trying to incriminate people with no intelligence and no proof."
3) On how all morals were lost in Gaza: ""The feeling was that something tore, everyone had already become cynical about death, you can't understand it from the outside. It's not just fatigue, it's an erosion of morality, of responsibility, of the sense that someone is still managing the event. Very quickly this whole business of 'collateral damage' disappeared from the considerations. They fire on anyone they see. The atmosphere started to be like the stands at a soccer match. The way you shout at a player, 'Yalla, score,' that's how they shout at a soldier, 'Kill him, strike him.'"
This is what genocide looks like from the perspective of the perpetrator.
— Shaiel Ben-Ephraim (@academic_la) September 9, 2026
Lastly, a separate report in Hebrew from Haaretz quotes an Israeli air force reserve major describing how IDF policies and culture ensured the deaths of large numbers of civilians. Here are a few quotes, translated by Israeli-American political analyst Shaiel Ben-Ephraim:
1) He was involved in the March 23, 2025 paramedic killings in Tel al-Sultan, Rafah and said, “You could clearly tell these were rescue vehicles even as fire was opened on them from the ground. For no apparent reason, the force on the ground charged the convoy. They shot the first vehicle, the medical personnel got out, hid behind the ambulances and begged for their lives, and the soldiers shot them one after another.”
2) On how the yellow line was used as an excuse to kill innocent people: “The Palestinians didn’t know it existed, and the Air Force wasn’t always updated either. From the perspective of a farmer walking onto his own land — he has no idea he’s stepping into an area the IDF suddenly decided is a fire zone. And then all kinds of retroactive justifications started coming up. ‘He came for an arms deal.’ ‘He touched the ground, maybe he’s planting an explosive.’ To me it looked like they were trying to incriminate people with no intelligence and no proof.”
3) On how all morals were lost in Gaza: “”The feeling was that something tore, everyone had already become cynical about death, you can’t understand it from the outside. It’s not just fatigue, it’s an erosion of morality, of responsibility, of the sense that someone is still managing the event. Very quickly this whole business of ‘collateral damage’ disappeared from the considerations. They fire on anyone they see. The atmosphere started to be like the stands at a soccer match. The way you shout at a player, ‘Yalla, score,’ that’s how they shout at a soldier, ‘Kill him, strike him.’”
Like the other revelations, this report further discredits the lies the public was sold about Israel’s reasons for its atrocities in Gaza. All those lies about how Israel is taking extraordinary measures to protect civilian life in Gaza and only kills civilians because Hamas “hides behind human shields” has been thoroughly discredited by copious amounts of evidence that Israel was going out of its way to kill noncombatants throughout the course of the onslaught.
The world was lied to about the Gaza holocaust, just like it was lied to about every other act of mass military slaughter that the US involves itself in. Please carry these lessons into the future.
Secret systems used by Israel in mass killings of Gaza civilians revealed in new film
Testimony from 24 Israeli military insiders on the secret systems used in the war on Gaza has been revealed in a new documentary film about the mass killing of Palestinian civilians. NAZA, a film from the Oscar-winning Israeli directors Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor, was shown at the Venice international film festival on Thursday as the only documentary competing for its prestigious Golden Lion award.
The film’s title comes from an Israeli military acronym used euphemistically to refer to civilians expected to be killed in a military attack. Produced by the Guardian, it features extensive testimony from Israeli intelligence officers and soldiers involved in the surveillance and remote killing of Palestinian civilians.
Interviews were filmed at night on rooftops in Tel Aviv, on the condition of anonymity because of the risks involved in speaking publicly about Israel’s war activities. The appearance and voices of participants in the film were digitally altered to disguise their identities. The interviewees detail the secret methods used by the Israeli military in Gaza, including AI-based systems built to identify large numbers of potential low-ranking Hamas targets, who were then bombed in their homes at night, in the knowledge attacks would also kill their families.
The Israeli military hacked into phones to identify the location of such targets, and covertly listened into conversations with their wives and children moments before they were all killed. The film also features first-person accounts about the destruction of neighbourhoods where the Israeli military estimated that up to 25% of residents were still sheltering in their homes, the systematic burning of civilian homes, and the killing of civilians at a food distribution site.
The directors stressed the film’s focus was not on “sporadic war crimes committed by rogue soldiers”. “It is on the orders themselves, the policies, the accepted practices, the language and logic that make those practices possible, and the people who operate within them,” they said. “The system and its cogs.”
Jeffrey Sachs: Trump's Iran War LIES Just POPPED the Financial Bubble
North Korea was right!
President Trump said at the Republican National Midterm Convention in Dallas, Texas, on Wednesday night that if Iran had a nuclear weapon, he would have politely called up the Supreme Leader instead of “bombing the crap” out of the country.
“If they had a nuclear weapon, I’d be calling the Supreme Leader, and I’d be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?’ as opposed to bombing the crap out of him.” Trump said, evoking cheers from the crowd.
“It’s very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon,” the president added.
TRUMP ON IRAN: “If they had a nuclear weapon, I'd be calling the Supreme Leader and I'd be saying, ‘Mr. Supreme Leader, how are you, sir? Is there anything we can do for you?' as opposed to bombing the crap out of him."
“It's very simple. We cannot let them have a nuclear weapon."
— Fox News (@FoxNews) September 10, 2026
Trita Parsi: Massive Houthi Victory Transforms U.S.-Iran War
Trump’s repeated threats to ‘wipe out’ Iran are normalizing mass violence
As the US and Iran fought around the strait of Hormuz last week, Donald Trump issued one of his typical threats. In an interview with a Fox News correspondent, Trump said Iran would be “totally wiped out as a country” if it retaliated for the latest wave of US airstrikes. That threat by the US president to wipe out another country generated few headlines, even during a relatively slow news week by Trump administration standards. Trump has delivered this kind of warning so frequently over the past six months of his war against Iran that it hardly registers any more. But it’s important not to normalize Trump’s threats, which are usually accompanied by promises to devastate Iran’s infrastructure – vowing to destroy bridges and power plants. Those kinds of attacks would constitute war crimes under international law.
The president’s repeated vows to obliterate Iran are usually written off by other western leaders and the news media as typical of Trump’s bravado and unpredictability, but they have real-world consequences. By treating Trump’s rhetoric as normal, US and western societies are becoming more desensitized to the idea of large-scale violence – including the targeting of civilians and civilian infrastructure – as a legitimate kind of warfare. And of course, Israel’s war on Gaza has inured many in the western world to wholesale atrocities, including intense aerial bombardment that leads to massive civilian casualties and displacement. Trump set the stage for apocalyptic threats against Iran weeks into the war, when it became clear that the US would not achieve the quick military victory he was hoping for. On 7 April, as he vacillated between agreeing to a ceasefire and ordering even more intense bombing, Trump ominously declared in a social media post: “A whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again.”
That threat to carry out large-scale war crimes against a country of 90 million people prompted outrage around the world, with condemnation from the UN secretary general and the pope. Some human rights experts argued that Trump’s statement may constitute a threat to commit genocide, which is defined by the UN’s Genocide Convention as acts committed “with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group”. Shortly before Trump’s deadline expired, Pakistan’s prime minister announced that the US and Iran had agreed to an immediate ceasefire. But Trump never apologized or retracted his statement. And why should he feel any pressure to do so, despite the momentary outrage his words caused? In today’s world, there are no consequences for threatening – or carrying out – a genocide.
Crucial Oil Pipeline HIT As Houthis SHOCK w Red Sea Control
US Ramps Up Intelligence, Targeting Support for Saudi Arabia’s War in Yemen
More than 100 US military advisers are in Saudi Arabia assisting Riyadh with intelligence and targeting support for its renewed war in Yemen, CNN reported on Thursday.
One of CNN’s sources, an unnamed US official, put the number of US troops assisting in the effort at 200 and said they were part of a new joint task force that was formed in recent weeks as the war in Yemen began to escalate.
The war was reignited by July 13 Saudi airstrikes on Sanaa International Airport, an attack that was approved by President Trump, according to a report from Axios. The strikes were launched to prevent a plane from landing in Sanaa that took off from Iran, which was carrying a Yemeni delegation that attended the funeral of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Houthis Seize More Territory as War Turns Against America /Patrick Henningsen
Report Details 500+ Yemeni Civilian Casualties From 2023-25 US Airstrikes
A report released Thursday examines the more than 500 Yemeni civilians its authors said were killed or wounded by US airstrikes in the Middle East nation during a recent 17-month period amid the open-ended so-called “War on Terror” that has left nearly one million people dead in around half a dozen nations over the past 25 years.
The report—authored by the Yemen-based group Mwatana for Human Rights and published by the Costs of War Project at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs—documents 46 US airstrikes that took place between December 2023 and May 2025 that caused at least 576 civilian casualties, including 213 deaths and 363 injuries. Among the casualties were at least 50 children and 25 women.
“The so-called ‘War on Terror’ never ended in Yemen,” Costs of War Project director Stephanie Savell contended.
“It’s important that we continue to account for the civilian lives lost, harmed, and disrupted in Yemen and other US war zones,” she added. “This report will allow people to hold the US government accountable for the deaths and destruction it has caused in Yemen in support of the Israeli government’s wars since 2023.”
The 46 documented U.S. airstrikes involved multiple types of munitions and/or bombs and targeted civilian objects protected under international humanitarian law. They resulted in the deaths of at least 213 civilians, including at least 28 children and 12 women, and injured 363 others, including at least 22 children and 13 women. The strikes also caused extensive damage to civilian objects and infrastructure facilities, leaving far-reaching psychological, economic, and humanitarian impacts.
Kindly find, at the following link, the complete statement: -
https://t.co/uhQM9diHR9— Mwatana for Human Rights (@MwatanaEn) September 10, 2026
The overwhelming majority of the casualties covered by the publication occurred during President Donald Trump’s 2025 “Operation Rough Rider” campaign. Mwatana estimates that the operation killed 208 civilians and wounded 341, while the Pentagon has acknowledged a smaller toll of 153 killed and 243 wounded.
Seven of the 46 strikes took place between December of 2023 and January of 2025 during former President Joe Biden’s “Operation Prosperity Guardian,” a military campaign that came amid Houthi rebel attacks on shipping lanes in the Red Sea and the Bab al-Mandab Strait during Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza.
Among the deadliest attacks covered by the report was the April 2025 bombardment of Ras Isa oil port ordered by Trump, in which US strikes killed scores of people and wounded more than 150 others. Human Rights Watch called the bombing an “apparent war crime,” saying the destruction of the civilian oil facility also threatened vital fuel supplies in a country already devastated by years of war and humanitarian crisis.
The campaign also included the April 28 bombing of a detention center in Saada while jailed African migrants were sleeping. Amnesty International has called for a war crimes investigation into that attack, in which scores of migrants were killed.
Mwatana researchers conducted site visits and 59 interviews with survivors, relatives, eyewitnesses, first responders, and other sources for the new report.
Houthis seize key Yemeni port of Mocha in drive to take control of Red Sea coast
Houthi forces in Yemen are making a concerted drive to take over the country’s Red Sea coast fully, claiming control of the key port of Mocha in the most serious wave of fighting with the Saudi-backed government in years, bringing the Iran-aligned group closer to full control of a key shipping route. Seizure of the coast and some of the islands in the sea would be a strategic disaster for Saudi Arabia and the US, taking Iran and its proxies closer to full control of two choke points for western shipping on opposite sides of the Arabian peninsula: the Bab al-Mandab at the southern end of the Red Sea and the strait of Hormuz in the Gulf.
Observers have said a reduction in hostilities – the most intense since the UN-sponsored ceasefire of April 2022 put an end to major military exchanges – now seems unlikely in what is seen as an attempt by the Houthis to open a second front in the Iran-US war, alongside the battle for control of Hormuz.
Baraa Shiban, the Royal United Services Institute’s (Rusi) Yemen specialist, a London-based security thinktank, said the situation in the country was spiralling out of control, adding that the UN-recognised Yemeni government was opening new fronts against the Houthis in the hope of putting more pressure on their forces than they could withstand. But in the past 48 hours the Houthis had major advances south, down Yemen’s west coast, taking them closer to the high ground overlooking the narrow Bab al-Mandab strait.
The fighting has also raised questions about whether Saudi Arabia, which on Thursday launched as many as 40 airstrikes on Houthi targets, will activate the Mecca defence agreement and ask its co-signatories, Pakistan and Turkey, to send forces. The pact is designed to be defensive in nature and believed unlikely to apply to Saudi military activities in Yemen.
By taking control of more of the Red Sea coast south of the port of Hodeidah, the Houthis’ aim is to use a new lever to put pressure on Saudi Arabia and the US to agree a deal that lifts the US blockade on Iranian oil tankers in the Gulf. Donald Trump on Wednesday acknowledged he did not expect the war with Iran to end before the US midterm elections at the start of November.
Putin Readies WAR with NATO as Europe IMPLODES | Larry Johnson, Pat Henningsen & Thomas Fazi
Global bond sell-off resumes as surging oil prices stoke fears about inflation
Nervous investors across big economies have been dumping government bonds, driving up the cost of borrowing, as surging oil prices amplified fears about rising inflation. The cost of a barrel of oil jumped 6% to above $107 on Thursday amid concerns that advances by Houthi rebels along the Red Sea coast in Yemen could choke off Saudi crude exports.
The global bond sell-off that has rocked markets in recent weeks resumed in response to the news from the Middle East – which came against a backdrop of escalating concern about out-of-control government borrowing. Higher oil prices, which had already climbed since hostilities resumed in the Iran war, are expected to drive up inflation, prompting central banks to raise interest rates and putting the brakes on economic growth.
In the US, where Trump has promised to write a $5,000 (£3,700) cheque for every adult citizen if the Republicans win the midterms, Thursday’s sell-off pushed up the yield on 10-year borrowing to 4.92% – the highest since 2023. The cost of longer-term borrowing also continued to surge, with 30-year yields hitting the highest level since 2007, despite the US treasury secretary, Scott Bessent, intervening directly in debt markets on Wednesday.
Policymakers at the Federal Reserve, the US central bank, will meet under its new chair, Kevin Warsh, to set interest rates next week. Markets are expecting a rise – potentially enraging Trump, who has repeatedly demanded rate cuts. In a TruthSocial post last week, the president said: “The Fed Board, with its great new leader, must get smart – BE PATRIOTS for a change.”
Bessent’s THREAT BACKFIRES as Global Investors DUMP US Bonds
The leader of one group of 9/11 victims’ families says it has “taken way too long” to hold Saudi Arabia accountable for its alleged support of the terrorists who carried out the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, whose 25th anniversary is being observed across the US on Friday. As that grim milestone approached, Terry Strada – the national chair of 9/11 Families United – said she felt as if it had “been several lifetimes” for there to be progress in the effort “to achieve a modicum of justice through our court system” in connection with the deadliest act of terror against the US.
One of the 9/11 families’ most visible attempts at accountability for the attacks has been a years-long civil lawsuit alleging that Saudi Arabia supported the al-Qaida terror group operatives who carried out September 11.
Attorneys for Saudi Arabia have denied the lawsuit’s merits, maintaining that the kingdom has helped the US combat al-Qaida, its late founder Osama bin Laden, and terrorism in general. But in an August 2025 decision that Strada at the time called “another powerful step toward justice”, a federal judge in New York rejected a Saudi effort to dismiss the plaintiffs’ claims against the kingdom.
The judge, George B Daniels, wrote in a legal opinion that an imam and an accountant’s employment by Saudi Arabia probably had links to their support of two al-Qaida members who came to the US in early 2000 to study English and take flight lessons. In his opinion, Daniels said that made the plaintiffs’ claims legally sufficient to proceed to trial, though it had not taken place as of Thursday.
ABC News days earlier had reported on recently revealed records purportedly bolstering claims of Saudi complicity in 9/11. The outlet reported that those records included an alleged video of a kingdom agent casing the US Capitol, which investigators believe was the target of the airliner that crashed in Pennsylvania – and a sketch with calculations for flying a plane toward a ground target.
Trump ally resigns from post leading inquiry into alleged conspiracy against president
An ally of Donald Trump said on Thursday that he had resigned from his post leading a Department of Justice investigation into whether former law enforcement and intelligence officials conspired against the Republican president.
The departure injects instant tumult into an investigation targeting former government officials who have investigated Trump over the last decade, including in connection with Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and his retention of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach, Florida. “I did in fact resign,” Joe diGenova told the Associated Press, calling it an “honor and a privilege” to serve Trump and the justice department.
Though diGenova declined to comment on the circumstances of his resignation, a person familiar with the matter who insisted on anonymity to discuss a personnel decision said the departure came amid mounting frustration from the justice department and White House over the pace and management of the probe. The Florida-based investigation has proceeded in fits and starts since its inception a year ago, with its contours loosely defined, though it had shown recent signs of activity with new subpoenas demanding testimony before a federal grand jury.
In an interview later with the New York Post, diGenova responded to criticism of his management of the investigation by saying: “If you want indictments where there’s no evidence, you have an ethical problem.”
The year-long investigation had proceeded in fits and starts well before diGenova’s appointment, which was announced soon after a career national security prosecutor who had been playing a key role in the investigation was replaced on the inquiry after raising doubts about its legal viability.
Trump promise of $5,000 for US citizens after midterms decried as ‘bribery’
Donald Trump’s promise of a $5,000 “Trump dividend” for every US citizen if Republicans retain control of the US Congress in November’s midterm elections has sparked incredulity and accusations of bribery. “If the Republicans win, you win with us and you get $5,000,” Trump said during the unprecedented Republican midterm convention in Dallas. “It will be called the Trump dividend.” It comes amid extreme concern over the US national debt, which exceeded $40tn for the first time in August.
Speaking to Politico, Chip Roy, the Republican US representative from Texas, sounded skeptical. “Well – I would like to know how they would plan to pay for … back of envelope … well over $1tn,” he said.
In the moments after Trump made the announcement, Marc Goldwein of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget wrote on X that “this would cost about $1.2 TRILLION in just one year. That’s more than ALL THREE ROUNDS of COVID relief checks, despite no recessions. The result would be a huge spike in the deficit, and almost certainly in the inflation rate.”
“The 10-year [treasury bond is] approaching 5%,” Goldwein said on Thursday morning. “Inflation is not under control. We spend more on interest than we spend on defense or on Medicare at this point. Social security is six years from insolvency. Just about the last thing we need is to borrow another trillion dollars to send checks to everybody.”
The Bipartisan Policy Center has been tracking tariff revenue since Trump began raising rates in 2025. As of 8 September, the US has collected about $210bn in tariff and excise tax revenue in 2026. At a rate of $21bn a month, the US federal government would have to collect tariffs for nearly five years to cover a $5,000 payment, assuming every dollar of tariff revenue went to the payment, and discounting tariff payments refunded to retailers in legal challenges.
US supreme court again rejects Missouri maps drawn to boost Republicans in midterms
The US supreme court again rejected a push backed by Donald Trump to overhaul Missouri’s congressional maps in an effort to hand Republicans an edge in November’s midterm elections. Its latest ruling, after days of confusion, comes less than two months before the pivotal midterm elections in which control of the narrowly divided US House of Representatives could be determined by a handful of seats.
Following conflicting decisions that spanned four courts, Wednesday’s ruling appeared to set the stage for the state to use its old electoral maps this year. The end result does not completely end confusion for Missouri’s voters, who cast ballots in primary elections using the new map, but will vote in November on the older map.
“The state, the election apparatus, had no business going forward with the primaries under that bill, under that circumstance,” said David F Walbert, a storied voting rights attorney in Georgia, who has argued voting rights cases before the US supreme court. “The problem that we’re dealing with today is 100% the result of the state machinery that created this.”
After Missouri’s governor, Mike Kehoe, signed new congressional district boundaries into law in September 2025, the legislation faced immediate challenges, including a push by People Not Politicians, a campaign group, which gathered more than 300,000 signatures to force a statewide referendum on whether to keep or repeal the new map. But Missouri’s secretary of state, Denny Hoskins, a Republican, sought to use the new map anyway.
On Thursday morning, Kavanaugh again ordered the state to comply with the Missouri supreme court ruling, blocking the new maps.
Trump Tells Voters CHEAT TO WIN Midterms
US appeals court rejects Trump’s bid to restrict mail-in voting before midterms
A US appeals court has rejected Donald Trump’s attempt to impose sweeping restrictions on mail-in voting before November’s high-stakes midterm elections, dealing a fresh blow to the president’s attempted crackdown. The Boston-based first US circuit court of appeals declined on Thursday to put on hold an injunction issued by a lower court judge last week, preventing the US Postal Service (USPS) from tightening rules around postal voting.
The panel of three judges, nominated by Joe Biden, agreed with the plaintiffs that the president does not have the power to regulate states’ election policy. “Appellants have not made a strong showing that the district court erred in determining that the Final Rule is likely unlawful,” they wrote, making reference to a rule published by the USPS to implement Trump’s order.
It comes as the US supreme court also considers Trump’s efforts to introduce new requirements curtailing the practice, which the US president has frequently criticized despite doing it himself.
Back in March, Trump signed an executive order seeking to prohibit the USPS from delivering ballots to any voters not on a nationwide list of eligible voters in each state created by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The result would mean a limited delivery of ballots to only the voters on those approved lists.
Steve Hilton vows to abolish California DMV if elected governor
The longshot California gubernatorial candidate Steve Hilton pledged this week to abolish the state’s department of motor vehicles if he is elected, promising to shutter the oft-criticized department for good and set a flat $73 annual registration fee per car.
Hilton, a Trump-backed former conservative pundit running in reliably blue California, called the state’s DMV a “bloated bureaucracy”, during a Tuesday campaign event, echoing the Trump administration’s efforts to slash the federal workforce.
“The plan for buildings like this is to turn them into something that’s actually useful for California,” he said, standing in front of the DMV in West Hollywood. “We’re going to turn DMV offices into after-school clubs.”
For many US motorists, updating their license at the DMV can be a herculean feat with lengthy wait times. And vehicle registration fees, which California motorists must pay annually, are steep: typically several hundred dollars a year.
However, it is unlikely the state’s DMV could be abolished. The California legislature, in which Democrats hold a supermajority in both the state assembly and senate, would need to pass Hilton’s proposed legislation.
Climate ‘feedback loops’ could worsen global warming by 30%
Rising global temperatures caused by the burning of fossil fuels are transforming the world’s forests, wetlands and tundra to the point they are releasing emissions that could further worsen global heating by as much as 30%, a new study has found. As the world heats up, permafrost in the high latitudes is thawing, fiercer wildfires are burning in drying forests and wetlands and lakes are warming. All of these changes are themselves causing the release of planet-heating methane and carbon dioxide locked in trees and soils, therefore worsening the climate crisis, the paper states.
While scientists have long known of these “feedback loops” that amplify the impact of direct pollution from burning coal, oil and gas, the emissions from natural sources are largely unaccounted for in climate projections.
This additional heating is however significant, researchers found, with emissions from natural sources set to amplify global heating by 20% to 30% by the end of this century. This would add an estimated 0.2C to 0.4C to the global average temperature by this time, depending on the overall action taken by countries to combat the climate crisis. Even small fractions of temperature change across the global climate can greatly change the risk of severe and deadly heatwaves, floods, drought and other impacts.
The United Nations last week conceded the international pact to constraint the global temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels will be breached in the next few years, causing climate impacts such as this summer’s record heatwaves and wildfires to “strike faster, hit harder and last longer.” Yet the increase in the world’s fever will likely be even larger than most projections currently account for, the new research warns, as they do not factor in the methane and CO2 that will spew from permafrost, wetlands, freshwaters and wildfires – the four areas the paper analyzed.
“This hidden multiplier is missing from the models guiding climate policy, so those models are likely underestimating how much warming is coming – and overestimating how much carbon we can still afford to emit,” said Sam Abernethy, a scientist at Spark Climate Solutions who led the research, published in Environmental Research Letters.
While Puerto Ricans protest for reliable access to water, the governor washes her hands
Dhara Rivera de Jesús keeps at least 30 large water containers in her home at all times. After more than a year without consistent service in San Juan, Puerto Rico, she fills them whenever water returns, which sometimes only happens for a handful of hours every few days. Going without reliable water to bathe, flush toilets or cook has affected her ability to work and stick to a usual routine – a catch-22, now that she has to spend more money and time buying water and prepared food.
This summer, water levels in the island’s key dams fell below the thresholds needed to supply about half a million residents, leading to a severe drought that prompted Puerto Rico’s governor, Jenniffer González-Colón, to declare a state of emergency. But residents of San Juan, including Rivera, had already spent months grappling with water insecurity as the archipelago’s ageing and deteriorating infrastructure continued to fail amid government mismanagement.
The water crisis has only amplified residents’ frustrations at the Puerto Rican government’s lack of solutions to protect the archipelago’s water. For example, the planned luxury development called Esencia is expected to consume more than a million gallons of water on the south-western tip of Puerto Rico, where residents have for years been grappling with intermittent service. Some local activists have also pointed out that the government could require residents to install rainwater catchment systems, which could provide millions of gallons of water a year. “We recognize the drought, but we also recognize that there is an intellectual drought,” Rivera said.
Rivera and Alfredo Cuyar, residents of the San Juan neighborhood of Santurce, formed the Coalición Exigimos Agua (We Demand Water Coalition) in October. Their demands to the government were clear: residents want reliable water service. The coalition has since organized protests that have gathered thousands of Puerto Ricans on the archipelago, while diaspora communities in the continental US have followed, protesting in New York and Philadelphia against Esencia and the water crisis. “The level of frustration among citizens regarding essential services and social issues is growing,” Cuyar said.
Other groups, including the feminist-focused Colectiva Feminista en Construcción, founded in 2014, have also joined the call for reliable water, alongside political groups such as the Movimiento Socialista de Trabajadores y Trabajadoras, La Jota and Se Acabaron Las Promesas. In August, several of these groups protested outside two hotel events hosted by González-Colón to celebrate her birthday and raise campaign funds. On Labor Day, dozens of people protested in San Juan to demand sweeping changes to the archipelago’s water infrastructure, as well as to the management of Puerto Rico’s Aqueduct and Sewer Authority (Prasa). Even Bad Bunny labeled the water crisis as a government attempt to sell “off the island piece by piece and fulfill their mission of a Puerto Rico without Puerto Ricans”.
Also of Interest
Here are some articles of interest, some of which defied fair-use abstraction.
What I miss most about pre-9/11 America
The Iran War Has Just Had A Major Phase Change
“Almost” – War Propaganda Including Vague Air Incidents
Pakistan Says There Are No Discussions Underway About Joining Saudi War in Yemen
The UK’s Limited Sanctions on Israel
Zionists Drop Case Against Kostakidis
A Little Night Music
Taj Mahal – I Ain't Gonna Let Nobody Steal My Jellyroll
Taj Mahal – Leaving Trunk
Taj Mahal – You're Gonna Need Somebody On Your Bond
Taj Mahal & Ry Cooder – My Baby Done Changed The Lock On The Door
Taj Mahal - Cakewalk Into Town
Taj Mahal – Linin' Track
Taj Mahal – Little Red Hen
Taj Mahal – Sophisticated Mama
Taj Mahal – Statesboro Blues
The Taj Mahal & Keb' Mo' Band – Live at the Philadelphia Folk Festival
Comments
Thanks for the Taj
always good to hear 'leaving trunk'
enjoy your weekend!
Zionism is a social disease
evening qms...
glad you're enjoying the taj, you have a great weekend, too!
Good evening Joe, thatnks for the EBs. I've got to add one
track, an old family favorite, even before Taj did it, and especially after, the version of Natch'l Blues is just really too much.
Be sure to have a wonderful weekend.
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...
yep, that natch'l blues album is one of his best - and it has jesse ed davis on it.
have a great weekend!
Okay party animals...
It's Friday night.
"Progress is not possible without deviation" -- Frank Zappa