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Thursday, August 27, 2026

Loose Tabs

The decision as to when to publish a Loose Tabs is pretty arbitrary. It's a neverending project, with no clear breakpoints. But after collecting a fair number of links over the first three weeks of August, I started to focus on wrapping this up after my August 22 Music Week (on Substack that's: (8:3)), and Wednesday night, I got to the end of my usual sources list. I did a bit of cleanup on Thursday: compiled the Table of Contents, made sure the internal anchors were set, added a couple pieces where categories seemed thin, but didn't make the rounds. So I don't have much that actually happened today. I'll move on to Music Week next. I may add a few things here (look for red change bars), or I may not. I expect it to be hot here for another 3-4 weeks, so I can't quite say that summer is done, but I'm running out of time to get many things done before the Jazz Critics Poll runs again — assuming it does.

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically (12 times from April-December 2025, not much more often in 2026). My previous one appeared 26 days ago, on August 1.

By the way, I've been trying to write some more in-depth pieces on major issues (and/or personal peccadillos), using Substack as an email agent. I call this series Notes on Everyday Life. I used to have a pinned list of pieces here, but as they've grown, I've moved them into separate index. While I think they are all likely to be useful, the peace plan pieces on Iran and Israel are especially relevant today.

Table of Contents:

New Stories

Most stories fit into well-established categories, organized below as Major Threads. Some sources I lean on so regularly they have their own Regular Columnists section. I also have an End Matter section for dealing with regular occurrences like books, obituaries, and tweets. Stories that don't fit into any regular category appear under Miscellaneous Stories. However, occasionally a short-term story blows up to where it needs extra attention, in which case I included it here.

Examples from last time: The World Cup; Lindsey Graham; Trump's Nuclear Proliferation Deal with Saudi Arabia.

Trump's War on Canada: Wasn't this a South Park story?

Data Centers: I knew something was brewing when my most fascist cousin posted an anti meme about data centers. Cindy Holscher won the KS Democratic primary for governor riding the issue, as it works well against her Democratic opponent (endorsed by the current KS governor) and her future Republican opponent (who never saw a corporate graft he didn't like). I filed the first article under Electoral Politics, as it's not exclusively a Democratic issue, but when I found more, I moved them here.

  • Perry Bacon [06-16]: How opposing data centers can save democracy: "Author and organizer Astra Taylor explains why Democrats should capitalize on the growing opposition to AI data centers." I wasn't inclined to see data centers as an important political issue, but I've learned better than to argue tactics with Taylor. They are visible targets for several much deeper problems.

  • Boston Review [08-20]: The AI data center backlash: "Robinson Meyer, Nicholas Rabb, and Astra Taylor on the groundwell of local organizing and the movement's political shockwaves." Moderated by Lily Hu.

  • Dylan Scott [08-21]: The week the data center backlash exploded: "Politicians on the left and right are suddenly jumping aboard the anti-data center bandwagon."

  • Gabby Miller/Owen Dahlkamp [08-24]: Data centers' 'oh s--t' moment: "Some industry leaders fear voter backlash is turning into a lasting political crisis."

  • Nia Prater [08-24]: Politicians are suddenly competing to hate data centers the most: This is becoming a bipartisan issue, which means it's gotten a lot of negative attention. Trump remains clueless, but you knew that.

  • Astead Herndon [08-25]: The real reason voters hate data centers so much: "How the tech buildout became a defining midterm issue."

  • John Herrman [08-26]: The data-center backlash looms large ahead of the midterm elections: "The playbook for Democrats was already easy. Trump is making it even easier."

    If Republicans think you can't sell data centers in Texas, a deregulatory paradise with, for example, more visible oil infrastructure than anywhere else in the country, it's reasonable to wonder how they might be sold elsewhere. And it's easy to imagine how Trump circa 2016 would have weaponized an issue like this: with low conviction about the underlying issue but a strong instinct for which way the wind was blowing. They are building data centers and taking jobs from you; "big tech" is steamrolling real America to build its censorship/disemployment/cultural-influence machine.

    Instead, today everyone but the president is finding their place in the backlash.

  • Andrew Howard [08-26]: Everyone is making a U-turn on data centers as public support craters: "Democrats and Republicans, including those in battlegrounds, have rushed to take a more skeptical tone on the issue."

  • Aaron Regunberg [04-29]: Stop the AI build-out, start the fight: "Across the country, working-class communities are rising up against Big Tech's data center boom. A moratorium isn't the end goal — it's the only leverage we have to force real democratic control over artificial intelligence."

Major Threads

War on Iran: The war seems to have entered its absurdist, "waiting for Godot" phase. Trump started the war, based on Netanyahu's assurances and his own legendary "gut" instinct, that Iran had a glass jaw, and one punch would knock them out. He was wrong, as anyone who knew anything about Iran since 1979 could have told him, but evidently one of the qualifications when you only hire "the best people" is that they never talk back. Since then, neither Trump nor Iran particularly want to slug it out, but neither side will surrender, or settle for less, so we're stuck in this endless cycle where Trump makes insane threats, Iran calls his bluff, and the Gulf States quietly, behind the scenes, ease Trump down. Meanwhile, Netanyahu is happy as a clam, having secured cover for his slow-moving but systematic genocide.

  • Nolan Denaro [08-03]: Fox News screaming desperately into wind as Trump loses grip: "The popular rightwing network spent months building a case for the Iran War. Now they are invested in keeping up support, even if hosts have to skirt the truth."

  • Trita Parsi:

  • Jonah Shepp [08-05]: Trump needs to choose how to lose the Iran War: "It's time to accept strategic defeat and find the least bad way out." By the way, the "least bad way out" is the one that turns Iran into our closest possible buddy. Otherwise, both sides will just stew in resentments, which will lead to further conflicts, which will be as self-defeating as this one. Trump is actually blessed in this regard, as he's so mercurial he can spin on a dime and claim he was dancing. The problem is that he's allowed himself to be surrounded by hawks, who know that the easiest way to scuttle any peace overture is to flatter his self-concept as being a tough guy.

  • Kori Schake [08-06]: Why we should fight: "And where Trump went wrong."

  • Nahal Toosi [08-12]: The Iran War is a whole new level of quagmire for the US. The first statement here is laughably wrong: "The situation is reminiscent of the darkest days of the Iraq war, in the mid-2000s, when the US seemed unable to pull that country back from insurgency and civil war." The biggest difference is that the US isn't fighting in Iran now, like it was in Iraq. But if it was, the situation wouldn't be "reminiscent": it would be a whole lot worse, because the numbers would be worse, and the logistics would be worse. But also the US had a solution in Iraq: that was to turn the insurgency into a civil war, playing both sides against one another. It was kind of like trying to put out a wildfire with dynamite. It was ugly, and did America no credit, but it worked well enough that US forces were able to make a slightly more graceful exit then they did in Vietnam or Afghanistan. That, by the way, is not an option with Iran, as they don't have the sort of social fissures that the US can exploit like in Iraq. (Afghanistan arguably did, but the US wasn't able to exploit them there.) Quagmire in those cases was caused by inserting US troops into the middle of a population that didn't want them in the first place, and really hated them once they were there. So if there are no US troops in Iran, what kind of quagmire can there be? Well, it's the one in Trump's mind. He's trapped, not just by Iran but by his own allies, by his own subordinates, and above all by his own ego, especially his self-conception as a tough-guy leader.

  • Ryan Cooper [08-12]: Donald Trump invented a new forever war: "In Iran, he can't win and he can't lose either."

  • David Klion [08-12]: Trump's Iran disaster is making all his cronies look like fools: "Two foreign-policy camps are claiming Trump for themselves, while the Middle East fiasco humiliates every single one of them." Most prominently, Vance ("restrainers") and Rubio ("neocons"). "The restrainers see the neocons as Israel firsters and warmongers, while the neocons see the restrainers as antisemites and isolationists." The problem with this distinction is that while the neocons have been true-to-form since the 1990s, with antecedents among Cold War hawks, the "restrainers" have little in common with others outside of the administration that use that label and actually, you know, try to restrain America's hawkish impulses. Whatever Vance's beliefs may be, and sure, it's never been clear that he actually has any, his effectiveness has been nil. He is, more than anything else, a guy who's willing to go along for the ride. As for Tucker Carlson, and others critical of the neocons, he's simply out in the cold, having no effect at all. I am tempted, however, to identify a third group within the administration, mostly Kushner and Witkoff. While they are deeply tied to Israel, they're less wedded to its cult of power, and more inclined to view foreign policy as an auction game, with the spoils going to the highest bidder. Thus they can broker a deal that Netanyahu doesn't like, but only if the grift is worth the effort. In this they're closer to Trump than either of the ideological camps. Unfortunately, the problem with all three is that they have no concern whatsoever for justice, decency, or even propriety. Which means that they have no real chance of making a deal that any other side will be willing to live up to.

  • Cameron Peters [08-13]: The Iran war's mental toll on US sailors: "Sailors are sounding the alarm about conditions on the USS Lincoln."

  • Noah Berlatsky:

    • [08-17]: "Suckers and losers" as policy: "The plight of the USS Lincoln lays bare Trump's disdain for the troops." I think it also shows that for much of the post-Vietnam era, soldiers could sign up for the perks, knowing they'd be exposed to little danger or hardship, safe in the belief that their mere existence would deter war, and that their officers wouldn't risk starting one. That started to change with the neocons insisting on making shows of "shock and awe." What's new with Trump are three things: his war gamesmanship is completely unhinged; he's purged and reoriented the officer core so they support him over their troops; and the corruptness of the supply chain has reached the point where everything is breaking down, not that much of it ever worked in the first place.

    • [05-28]: Trump as no way out on Iran: "He can't win; he won't say he's lost. So he dithers." I was surprised by the date after I started adding this, as it could just as well have been written this week.

  • Djavad Salehi-Isfahani [08-18]: How Iran has staved off economic collapse despite the US-Israeli war: "Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has promised 'unprecedented' squeeze on Tehran. Why hasn't this worked already?"

  • Andrew M Leonard [08-24]: US can huff & puff, but without a political fix Iran won't come down: "Military force — and even economic pressure — without clearly defined outcomes has been the downfall of US war policy for decades."

  • Sam Fraser [08-25]: After 6 months of war, why aren't oil prices even higher? Interview with markets analyst Rory Johnston. It's mostly been China stabilizing the system: having bought up substantial reserves before the war, they've been able to cut back demand since the war ended. How long this will last isn't clear.

Israel: The focus here is on Israel's wars, especially against their own people, and on internal Israeli politics. A second section will address Israel's relations with the world, especially the US.

  • Qassam Muaddi:

  • Saleh Abbas [08-08]: How Palestinians have resisted weaponized 'development' from the British Mandate to the Gaza Board of Peace: "The Gaza Board of Peace is the latest attempt by colonial powers to use 'development' plans to manage, fragment, and dispossess Palestinians. Palestinians have resisted these plans in the past and continue to do so today."

  • Aseel Mafarjeh [08-10]: 'Is this how our story ends?' Palestinian refugees live in fear as Israel takes aim at West Bank camps: "Amid escalating raids and statements by Israeli officials promising a massive military operation against refugee camps in the West Bank, Palestinians in Ramallah-area camps say it's not a question of whether their turn will come, but when."

  • Majd Jawad [08-11]: The struggle to save the Palestinian wheat fields on the front lines of Israeli settler violence: "For generations, Palestinian farmers timed the wheat harvest by the stars and the rain. Now, Israeli settlers set the harvest instead, as their cows graze freely in Palestinian wheat fields across the West Bank after displacing Bedouin herders."

  • Jamal Kanj [08-14]: The Gaza peace Trump announced, and the rejection Netanyahu delivered: "Since the ceasefire of October 10, 2025, Israel has violated it more than 4,000 times, murdering 1,300 Palestinians — more than all the Israelis, soldiers and civilians, killed on October 7. The territory Israel was supposed to withdraw from has instead expanded from 53% to 70%."

  • Connor Echols [08-18]: US cries foul as Israel bombs Turkey-linked airbase in Syria: "Tel Aviv's quest to portray Ankara as the 'new Iran' is leading to tensions with the Trump administration."

  • Seamus Malekafzali [08-20]: The Mossad suffers a crushing defeat entirely of its own making: "High profile firings show that none of the Israeli spy agency's promises about the war with Iran have come to pass."

  • Ghada Majadli [08-24]: What's behind Israel's growing assault on West Bank healthcare: "Seeking to push Palestinians off their land, Israel is targeting the infrastructure that sustains life — and the institutions long tied to the anti-colonial struggle."

  • Janet Abou-Elias [08-25]: Forest fires just the beginning of Israel's destruction of Lebanon: "US aid is allowing IDF to systematically blow up villages, spray herbicide, shoot white phosphorus — making the land uninhabitable in the south."

    In early 2026, Israel added a third tactic: aerial spraying of glyphosate, a controversial herbicide, across roughly 11 miles of the southern border. Israeli officials described this to Lebanon's U.N. peacekeeping mission as routine vegetation management using "approved substances," intended to clear dense brush that could conceal infiltration. Lebanon's agriculture ministry found levels 20 to 50 times higher than normal agricultural use, which could sterilize soil and prevent regrowth for years. Independent Dutch research organization PAX estimated between 1,000 and 1,600 acres of land affected on the Syrian side of the border alone, with additional spraying on the Lebanese side that satellite imagery did not fully capture. . . .

    The herbicide is blanketing land already stressed by years of phosphorus and heavy-metal contamination, compounding damage to soil, pollinators, and an agricultural economy that roughly 80% of southern Lebanon depends on.

  • Jason Ditz [08-25]: UNIFIL reports Israel wiping out entire neighborhoods in Lebanon: "Systematic not selective."

    This is not incidental damage done in the course of an invasion. Rather there is substantial evidence that this destruction is broadly the point of the invasion and occupation, with Israel displacing well over a million civilians from southern Lebanon and Defense Minister Israel Katz saying in June that certain villages, which Israeli troops were actively burning to the ground at the time, "must disappear."

    How much of Lebanon is being made to "disappear" remains a matter of substantial contention rhetorically, but Israeli forces persistently are attacking civilian targets across Lebanon's south and setting fires in towns and even forests in the area.

    A more substantial concern is that occupied southern Lebanon seems to be facing a more or less permanent Israeli occupation, and the Israeli Foreign Ministry published a map earlier this month, on a totally unrelated issue, which showed Lebanon as a substantially smaller country and much of the south as effectively Israeli territory.

    Demolitions continued today, and the Israeli military set fire to olive groves in the area of Bint Jbeil. That area, like much of southern Lebanon, is heavily dependent on an agriculture economy, and the invasion has focused its attention in part on destroying farmlands and orchards.

  • Inès Abdel Razek [08-25]: Why we shouldn't call colonial Israeli settlers 'terrorists': "We need to collectively rethink describing Israeli settlers as "terrorists." The label was designed to serve imperial interests, and it implies that settler violence is an aberration, not a systemic part of Zionist settler colonialism."

  • Ioannis Vlahos [08-25]: Israel developing offensive space capabilities: "Israel is currently prepared to begin development of offensive space capabilities, including systems designed to defend Isareli satellites from hostile spacecraft, and weapons (including lasers) capable of striking targets from space." Quotes Netanyahu: "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." Why?

  • Sami Sawalmeh [08-25]: Under Israel's watch, Palestinian gangs are sowing chaos in the West Bank: "By turning a blind eye to armed criminals while constraining Palestinian police, Israel is 'engineering lawlessness' to deepen its control over the territory."

  • Aharon Porath/Roei Kleitman [08-26]: Armed Israeli settler 'hikes' aren't new — but they're becoming deadly: "A spate of recent killings have resulted from settlers trekking the West Bank under military escort, expanding Jewish presence at Palestinians' expense."

  • Meron Rapoport [08-27]: Netanyahu's 'total victory' vow kept him in power. Now it may be his undoing: "With the coalition trailing in the polls, it seems the severe costs and unattainable goals of Israel's ever-expanding wars are coming back to bite."

Israel-American-World Relations: This section deals with Israel's relations with the world, especially the US, both at the state level and regarding public opinion.

  • Shaul Magid [07-28]: The hate at the "united against hate" Jewish anti-Mamdani rally, NYC, Sunday July 26: A first-hand reflection. One note here is how the pro-Israel demonstrators directed their hatred at anti-zionist haredim counter-demonstrators. I'm not surprised by any part of that, but I imagine many people will be.

  • Shaiel Ben-Ephraim [07-28]: The disastrous Bibi-Trump meeting: July 28, 2026 insider briefing: "Bibi had to pay a price to get this meeting, but Trump gave him nothing but a photo. Trump is angry now. Will anything change?"

  • Michael Arria:

  • Mitchell Plitnick:

    • [08-07]: Trump and Israel are demanding that Palestinians disarm. Here is why that is wrong and unjust. "Demands that Hamas disarm follow decades of international calls for a 'demilitarized Palestinian state.' These demands insist that Palestinians surrender their right to self-defense, a right no people should relinquish." I've run out of patience with anyone's "right to self-defense," as it's very hard for anyone armed to recognize limits in real time. Sure, self-defense is sometimes an acceptable excuse. But to call it a right invites abuse, especially when one side has such disproportionate power that no one dares to hold them accountable: Israel, most obviously. And aren't rights, by definition and necessity, universal? Israel never admits as much. They insist on their right to self-defense, but deny that right to anyone else. Why should anyone respect a "right" that is denied to oneself and others? Still, the more you scratch, the more problems arise here. One is whether arms are always useful for self-defense? I'd argue that often they are not. There is considerable historical evidence that Palestinians are even more vulnerable when they are armed than when they are not, and that their self-defense has made their situation more precarious, not more secure. But that's not do the arms. That's due to living in an area where powerful groups are able to inflict violence without fear of consequences (again, like in Israel). But while I would like to see everyone disarm, I don't normally lose much sleep about it. I live in a state where lots of adults own guns (Google says 48.9%) yet very few of them ever shoot anyone (Google says "a tiny fraction of 1%" but admits nobody's really counting). Arms are certainly more dangerous in Israel, and especially in the Occupied Territories, but the same number of arms would be much less dangerous if there was a system of justice that worked to protect everyone, as opposed to the current one where only some people have rights, including the right to kill others with impunity, and others have none.

    • [08-13]: The Mecca Pact is the latest sign of US's declining influence in the Middle East: "The new defense agreement among Saudi Arabia, Türkiye, and Pakistan highlights how Israeli aggression is compelling the region to reconfigure its alliances and serves as the latest evidence of the United States' declining global influence." I'm not making much sense out of this, beyond the obvious point that the more aggressive states in the region (including the UAE as well as Israel, Iran, and the US) are not to be trusted, but the three states still overly rate their own militaries.

    • [08-23]: The real reason Netanyahu added Mamdani to his 'enemies list': "Netanyahu's campaign billboard lumps Zohran Mamdani with Iran and Hezbollah as an 'enemy,' an admission that he's losing America, and that no successor will fix Israel's underlying apartheid problem." Netanyahu's campaign billboard, proclaiming "They want Netanyahu to lose. Don't let them succeed", pictures Mamdani along with the heads of Iran, Türkiye, and Hezbollah. Is it worth noting that Israel has already murdered the predecessors of two of those?

  • Caitlin Dewey [08-10]: Israel can afford to lose US aid: "Ending military aid would mark a real break with Israel. But it may not change Israeli policy toward Palestinians." This is a rather bogus argument. Israel's behavior after a cutoff of US military aid could get more restrained, or it could get even more murderous. In theory, the US would lose whatever leverage the aid offered, but the US has rarely tried to exercise any leverage: last time I recall was when Bush II threatened a hold to get Sharon to pay him more lip service, but the move ultimately had no effect. One problem here is that when pundits look at this, they assume everything else stays the same. If the US wanted to restrain Israel, there's lots more they can do: like cutting economic aid, and stopping diplomatic cover in the UN. But Trump doesn't want to restrain Israel — at least not as long as war returns profits to him.

    • Eric Levitz [08-10]: What would actually happen if the US cut off aid to Israel? "The left is winning the debate on military aid. But changing Israel's behavior likely requires going further." If "changing Israel's behavior" is the standard, we're doomed. I'm not quite saying that nobody ever changes behavior, but it's really difficult. Israel is an intensely racist, intensely violent society, and those traits go very deep in their psyches. US policy isn't going to change all that. About the best the US can do is to stop reinforcing that. As long as they think that America will always have their back, it's only natural that they'll push their limits, just to see how much they can get away with. That goes all the way back to 1948, and very rarely have they had to back down (e.g., to Eisenhower over Suez in 1956, to Carter over Lebanon in 1978, to Bush over Iraq in 1990; is there a more recent example?). It may be true that without American aid, Israel could become even more unhinged. (While they've been charged with genocide, they haven't fired up the oven yet.) But cutting off American aid would reduce American complicity in everything they do, which would be good for how the world views America, and for how we think of ourselves. It might push Americans to look for peace via diplomacy elsewhere — a good thing, given that we've pretty clearly demonstrated that peace based on deterrence is a completely bankrupt theory.

  • Ramzy Baroud [08-14]: Solidarity is not enough: Why the world must force accountability on Gaza now: But there is no world. At least there's no world that thinks coherently, much less can force anything on Israel. Trump will never cross Israel. Europe doesn't dare challenge Trump. Same for the Arab or other Muslim states, where the notion that the US has gone insane in love of Israel has been normalized. China understands the virtues of minding their own business. The Left everywhere is pinned up against the wall. One might sympathize, but feeling solidarity is easy; acting on it is impossible. Even sympathy is being treated as criminal by out-of-touch prosecutors in the US, UK, and Germany. It's not like no one knows or feels better. If public shame could budge Israel, wouldn't it have at least registered by now? I find myself contemplating an essay which asks, "Is It Possible to Negotiate a Gentler Genocide?" The deal is that the UN ("the world") would agree to facilitate the transfer of most Palestinians, provided that Israel pulls back and restrains its military and civilian groups. I say "most" because I'm assuming that there is a minimal number of Palestinians that most Israeli will find tolerable (30%? 20%? 10%?), and that once that level has been reached everyone left can enjoy equal rights. Sure, there are Israelis for whom the only answer can be 0%, much as there were racists who invented the one-drop rule (which even Hitler found ridiculous). I will be clear that this would still be genocide (or "ethnic cleansing" if you prefer that fundamentally obscene term), but it could be more tolerable if one could rig incentives so that most Palestinians would want to leave, and feel like they had a degree of free choice in doing so. My belief is that perpetual war and resistance only makes matters worse. Still, one has to suspend conscience to propose such a thing, and Palestinian leaders, whose careers depend on conflict, will be unhappy. And even conceding so much, it's probable that the rulers of Israel would still reject. At least some of them seem to crave the sense of power that comes with killing, capturing, torturing, razing, crippling, and otherwise harassing Palestinians. I doubt they would even take such a prospect seriously unless the US and EU signed on to such a deal, and backed it up with the threat of sanctions. And they have their own reasons for avoiding the subject: those who still hope for international law, where opposition to genocide is fundamental, don't want to admit how badly they have failed, and those (like the US) who have built up an irrational belief in pure power politics see peace and diplomacy as signs of weakness.

  • Thomas S Karat [08-14]: The two terrorists: Britain jails tweets while the West crowns al-Qaeda's man in Damascus.

    Next Monday, at Kingston Crown Court in London, a 72-year-old grandfather goes on trial for terrorism; the evidence is a tweet of seven words, and the maximum sentence is 14 years. . . .

    Take the pensioner first, and take his record in full, because the prosecution will. Greenstein was expelled from the Labour Party in 2018; he lost a libel action against the Campaign Against Antisemitism, which had called him a "notorious antisemite," the court finding the phrase protected as honest opinion; he accepted a suspended sentence over a Palestine Action attack on an Elbit arms factory. He is abrasive, litigious and unrepentant — a Jewish socialist from Brighton, a carer, the son of an Orthodox rabbi who marched against Mosley's Blackshirts. None of that is the charge. The charge is that in November 2023, goaded by an anonymous account demanding he declare himself, he posted: "I support Hamas against the Israeli army." Five weeks later, at 6:30 in the morning, counter-terrorism officers took his computers and phones, held him for nine hours, and released him under conditions that banned him from posting about the war at all.

    Much more in the article about the prosecution of Greenstein and others caught up in the trap of not saying the right things about Israel. As for the guy in Syria, I don't much care about him. Things change, and it's easy to move from "terrorist" to upright citizen. (If Menachem Begin isn't a very good example, then Nelson Mandela.)

  • Yoav Litvin [08-14]: The crocodilian logic of Zionism: "The latest example of this dynamic came when Israeli National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir proposed surrounding Ketziot prison with a moat of Nile Crocodiles (Crocodylus niloticus) to guard Palestinian prisoners" — an echo of Trump's "Alligator Alcatraz" proposal. Author is a psychologist, with a book coming out, co-authored by historian Ilan Pappé: Wired to Steal: Zionism and the Shaping of the Western Mind.

  • Ali Abunimah [08-14]: US judge tosses Harvard case branding Gaza solidarity as anti-Jewish terror.

  • Blaise Malley:

    • [08-14]: The road to Trump's heart goes through Israel: "String of newly elected governments in Latin America strengthen ties with Tel Aviv, in hopes of currying favor with Washington." Wasn't that also the rationale when most Latin American nations voted for the UN partition of Palestine in 1947? Still, with Trump and Netanyahu, this time is more of an ideological tell. And while it's unclear what America gets from the deal, fascists in Latin America should be good customers for Israel's advanced police-state tech.

  • Nick Cleveland-Stout [08-17]: Israel creates fake think tank in likely attempt to dupe AI chatbots: "In just over a week, the Hanover Institute has published at least 100 articles that appear tailor-made to influence chatbots."

    The organization churns out think-tank style reports on questions such as "Does AIPAC Use 'Dark Money' in Elections?" and "Is Israel Carrying out a Deliberate Campaign of Starvation in Gaza?" . . . A small disclaimer at the bottom of the webpage notes that the organization was created on behalf of the Israeli Government Advertising Agency by Piro, Inc. . . . The institute's "data reports" have footnotes and tables of contents, and they present arguments in a neutral tone, helping them appeal to chatbots like Claude or Gemini. Piro's website says that it "author(s) content engineered for how LLMs evaluate credibility," describing this service as "AI Story Optimization." Others refer to this practice of influencing artificial intelligence as "LLM poisoning." . . .

    Israel has also contracted former Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale to create pro-Israel websites engineered to influence chatbots as part of a $46.5 million contract. A Drop Site investigation last month found that many chatbots, particularly Microsoft Copilot and Google Gemini, had been successfully trained on data from those websites. Other chatbots frequently cite those websites without flagging them as part of an Israeli influence operation.

Ukraine, Other Hot Spots, and World Politics: A catch-all, where the focus is away from, but not unaffected by, Trump's wars.

  • Stephen Crowley [07-31]: Russia, Ukraine, and the danger of escalation: The essential fact is that the Ukraine war is a stalemate. That should mean some kind of settlement based on current lines, but neither leader feels they can settle for that, so the temptation to escalate on some other plane may seem like the only way out. An example of this was the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s, which after the lines froze turned into a missile war. We're already seeing examples of that. I don't care to speculate on how bad it might get, but both sides are already way beyond what we should accept.

  • Giorgio Cafiero [08-12]: When US left Afghanistan, China moved in. So how's it going? "Five years on, Beijing's relations with the Taliban are a study in pragmatism and patience, but not exactly as expected."

  • Vijay Prashad:

    • [08-14]: Cuba after six months of the oil blockade: Crisis and the road to recovery.

    • [08-21]: The ugliness of Latin America's angry tide: "Of the twenty states generally thought of as being part of Latin America, eleven now have governments of the far-right." I'm surprised at this, especially given that many of these same nations had left-leaning governments in recent years. This suggests to me that power in those countries is so deeply entrenched that it tends to survive mere electoral change. Or that typical leftist policies are so limited in their reforms that they are unable to build up any mass constituency. Either way is a shame, as the right has nothing but violence and corruption to offer.

  • Stephen Costello [08-17]: US diplomatic incompetence is tanking hopes for Korean peace: "It's time for South Korea to take the lead in seeking detente with the North." Actually, there has been detente since 1953. The problem is that the US and/or South Korea have never felt the need to take the next step and normalize relations. The relationship between the US and the South has helped the South grow prosperous, while the sanctions and isolation against the North has made them poor and bitter. The gap has grown so enormous that bridging it, like the Germans did in 1990, is inconceivable. It's not like it actually worked very well in Germany. We have many more examples of former communist economies collapsing after liberalization, so the sort of triumphal march Washington has been dreaming of is probably the worst-case scenario. The best-case is probably just to let the South take baby steps toward opening the North up: increase trade, acting as a gateway, while holding the US military at bay, with mutual measures to reduce security anxiety. I doubt Trump's gang can or will do anything to help here, but maybe a bribe can ease them out of the way?

  • Branko Marcetic [08-18]: The never-ending myth of a looming Ukrainian 'breakthrough': "For years, hawks have used rosy analysis of Kyiv's military momentum to make the case against real negotiations."

  • Anatol Lieven [08-20]: "A decent respect to the opinions of mankind" mandates a search for peace in Ukraine: "Why the new American left should take up the quest for peace if the Democratic Party wins control of Contress this November, and of the presidency in 2028." I don't see how winning in 2026 will make much difference here. Where cutting aid to Israel may slow down their warmaking, peace in Ukraine depends on Putin coming to an agreement with Trump and/or Zelensky and/or Europe, none of which depends much on US appropriations. A new president would be a different manner.

Trump's World of War: I set this section up to deal with Trump's threats of war. We're obviously beyond that now, so see the section on Iran for more on that.

  • Ariana Aspuru/Noel King [08-01]: Why Trump is at war with the International Criminal Court: "Secretary of State Marco Rubio has promised to 'dismantle the ICC.'" I have a lot of problems with the way the ICC was designed, and with how it is run. I don't mind their focus on individuals, but they should also be able to target states, and non-state organizations. They should investigate charges, and issue findings of fact based on the best available evidence. Those findings should be reopened and revised as new evidence becomes available. They should seek out all views, but shouldn't depend on cooperation of those charged. They may be tried in absentia. On the other hand, they shouldn't have powers of enforcement, or of incarceration. Their findings may be used in evidence by various state courts that choose to prosecute such things. I think it proper that this only be done in one's own state, so it is up to Russia to prosecute Putin, Israel to prosecute Netanyahu, the US to prosecute Trump. Prosecuting other nation's leaders is improper interference and unnecessary hostility. In any case, I believe that there should be a global right to exile, which would severely curtail the ability of any nation to prosecute its former leaders. (However, if someone is charged by the ICC, any state that wanted to do so could lay claim to that person's property, which may cramp the style of some such criminals.) On the other hand, the need for something like the ICC is pretty clear: people and organizations that start wars and commit crimes against humanity should be clearly identified, with their crimes fully detailed. The problem that Trump, Rubio, Netanyahu, etc., have with the ICC is that they wish to be exempt from investigation, and free to commit their crimes with impunity.

  • Jennifer Kavanagh [08-04]: US is the real loser if Senate passes virtue signaling Russia sanctions: "Lawmakers will feel good voting for Lindsey Graham's 'passion project' but ti won't end the war and if anything hurts American economic and political interests."

  • Khaled Elgindy [08-05]: Bored of Peace: Why is Trump undermining his own Gaza plan? "For a few fleeting days, there was a deal that would have disarmed Hamas and secured an Israeli withdrawal from the strip."

  • Dave DeCamp:

  • Dan Grazier [08-11]: Trump's $23 billion ship will be outdated before it even hits water: "In an era of cheap drones, the new battleship is overly reliant on expensive and highly vulnerable technology."

    The U.S. Navy has a poor shipbuilding record in the 21st century. The Zumwalt-class destroyer, the Littoral Combat Ship, and the Constellation-class frigate have been complete failures. The final verdict of the Ford-class aircraft carrier is not yet in, but when the ship's crew can't even rely on the sewage system to work properly, the case isn't looking too good.

    It becomes clear reading through the CBO's report that Navy officials in Washington have learned nothing over the past 25 years from their shipbuilding mistakes. In typical Washington fashion, the new ship is being touted as "the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built," as President Donald Trump put it. In practical terms, the ship will be armed with "antiair, land-attack, and antiship missiles, hypersonic missiles, nuclear cruise missiles, large lasers, and a rail gun (a weapon that uses electromagnetic energy to fire nonexplosive projectiles at hypersonic speeds)," according to the CBO.

    All of these systems will require a tremendous amount of electrical power to operate. To meet this challenge, the new ship will also be nuclear-powered. The addition of a nuclear reactor will dramatically increase both the cost and complexity of the ship's construction.

    The original sin of all the Navy's 21st century shipbuilding failures is a lack of design discipline. The architects of each program attempted to incorporate every gadget the technologists could imagine, several of which (including cutting-edge rail guns) remain unproven to this day. Excess complexity drives up costs and delays delivery, often by years.

    Of course, it's not just the Navy that's been designing overly expensive "cutting edge" weapons systems that rarely live up to their billing. Like the F-35.

  • Mark Thompson [08-13]: US looking for 'new creative' ways to fight a war it's already 'won': "Trump attempts to spend his way out of a politically disastrous conflict with Iran, while the Air Force and Navy grapple with the usual production problems."

  • Andre Pagliarini [08-15]: Trump gets real about US dominance of Latin America: One thing I've found curious is how rarely the Monroe Doctrine has been tested, let alone invoked. Granted, it suggested an imperial sphere of influence, but both US corporate penetration of Latin America in the 19th century and the gunboat diplomacy and Cold War exploits of the 20th followed their own logic, regardless of Monroe. Same for Trump today, but Monroe doesn't offer any legitimacy for what is basically just gangster culture.

  • Cameron Peters [08-17]: The Trump-Kim Jong Un bromance comes roaring back: "A new test for the US-South Korea relationship as Trump curtails joint military exercise." I wonder which of Trump's idiot-sycophants thought this would be a good idea. I don't doubt that there is a deal to be had here, but it's basically the same one Trump is denying in Iran: give them normal relations and the imagined threat will wither away, but don't expect them to disarm while you continue to treat them as an enemy. But Trump couldn't do that when he had the chance — sure, Bolton and Pompeo, who sabotaged every move he made, are no longer there, but their replacements are little better, and he's proven to be utterly untrustworthy.

  • Austin Campbell [08-19]: Officials says 'America-hating' media to blame for USS Lincoln outrage: "Yet upon request, the Pentagon won't say whether reports of dire conditions on the aircraft carrier, at sea since 2025, are inaccurate."

  • Jesse Coburn/Ruth Talbot [08-20]: The $trillion black box: "The US military budget is vast and opaque. Projects end up facing delays and ballooning costs." This doesn't even go into the real beauty of defense procurement: you're buying stuff that doesn't do anything useful, so you'll never know whether it works or not (at least until it doesn't).

  • Jason Linkins [08-22]: Trump hates the troops. The troops are taking notice. "The administration is desperately trying to spin the hopeless war in Iran as a success, but our service members and their families are telling a different story."

  • Stavroula Pabst [08-25]: A trillion budget but military can't 'afford' to attack mold on bases? "New GAO report says there is a $285 billion repair backlog behind toxic conditions in housing and facilities across the country."

Trump vs. Law and/or Law vs. America: From ICE to the Supreme Court and the assault on democracy.

Trump's Administration: Trump can't remake America in his own image (i.e., destroy the country, culture, and civilization) just by himself. He needs help, and having largely purged the government of civil servants and replaced them with his own minions, this is what they are doing — whether he's paying attention or not, and that it's mostly not is no excuse: he sets the tone, then distracts the media with his own insanity.

  • Julian Scoffield [05-22]: Who died when Elon Musk killed USAID?: "Nicholas Enrich's new memoir details the human toll of the agency's dismantling." The book is Into the Wood Chipper: A Whistleblower's Account of How the Trump Administration Shredded USAID (with a foreword by Atul Gawande).

    The memoir also documents something more deliberate than incompetence. Mark Lloyd, whom Trump tapped as USAID's assistant administrator for global health, for example, was not ignorant of the agency's work; he was contemptuous of it. Enrich recalls how Lloyd's "eyes lit up" at the opportunity to enact vengeance on the "list" of agency employees that had apparently wronged him.

    It was a combination of administrative incompetence and malice, and the book illustrates the grim process by which dull bureaucratic procedures can end up killing human beings en masse. Meetings are held, emails are sent, phone calls are made, and something like 520,000 children die of malnutrition, diarrhea, tuberculosis, malaria, and HIV. As the book goes on, it becomes clear it was more the second explanation rather than the first — DOGE's destruction of the agency was driven primarily by animosity rather than ignorance.

    The death toll continues to grow, as in this report, at 762,000.

  • Tomy Romm/Brad Plumer [07-24]: Trump administration admits canceling grants to states that did not vote for him: "Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states 'based solely' on whether they backed President Trump in the 2024 election."

  • Martin Austermuhle [08-03]: Let's talk about the massive parking garage Trump wants to build at Dulles: "The 32,000-spot deck would surpass both existing parking capacity and what airport officials have said is needed."

  • Cameron Peters [08-10]: Trump takes aim at childhood vaccines: "Fewer vaccines, more uncertainty: What to know about Trump's vaccines order."

  • Anat Shenker-Osorio [08-13]: Stephen Miller's secret campaign against helpless kids: "That it's happening in the shadows doesn't make it less of a moral blight."

  • Mike Young [08-13]: The registry is dead: "The treasury just made permanent the deletion of a shell-company ownership database the first Trump administration once praised. The stated reason was paperwork burden." Quotes Casey Michel as saying: "Creating this new shell company registry a couple years ago was the single-greatest anti-corruption step the US had taken in decades." Just in case you wonder why Trump would want to get rid of it.

  • Brian Karem [08-14]: The worst White House press secretary of all time: "Karoline Leavitt is leaving the White House. She won't be missed by the media she mocked and despised." More on Leavitt:

  • Sasha Abramsky [08-14]: Trump is trying to sabotage the health of all our kids: "His executive order on vaccines is classic Trump: authoritarian, nonsensical, and deadly."

  • Kristin Collier [08-14]: What happens when 8 million people lose their student loan repayment play: "As the Biden-era SAVE plan ends, borrowers are facing unaffordable bills, lost payment records, and errors that have falsely put some into default."

  • J David Goodman [08-15]: Trump backed away from a wall at Big Bend. But the bulldozers are here: "Over the objections of environmentalists, local sheriffs and some state leaders, the Trump administration appears to be moving ahead with border infrastructure in one of Texas' most beloved parks."

  • Bess Levin [08-17]: Trump admin gave the Trump family's crypto company the okay to start a bank: Sen. Elizabeth Warren: "This is the most brazen act of self-dealing our financial system has ever seen."

  • Cameron Peters [08-17]: Trump's latest assault on public lands: "Why the Trump administration wants to build roads through protected forests."

  • Elie Mystal:

    • [08-19]: The Trump plan to cook the census books: "From adding a citizenship question to not tracking race and ethnicity, the administration wants to minimize Black and brown political power."

    • [08-21]: Trump's ballroom isn't just a farce anymore — it's a threat: "how the ballroom could gut key environmental protections." By the way:

      In other terrible environmental news, the Trump administration has authorized the sale of a 31 million-acre tract of seafloor off American Samoa for deep-sea oil mining. The planned sale, which represents yet another depressing first (the first time this country has opened its waters for deep-sea plunder), threatens the precious and vulnerable ecosystem off the Rose Atoll.

  • Anne Kim:

    • [08-23]: DOGE has made Americans less safe: "Hurricanes. Terrorism. Identity theft. DOGE's year-long campaign of destruction has left all of us more vulnerable to threats." Or just ordinary predation.

    • [07-29]: Businesses should step up to defend democracy: "The business community's silence could accelerate America's slide into autocracy, warns the founder of the pro-democracy business coalition Leadership Now." Shouldn't she be using the past, or at least the present, tense? Interview with Daniella Ballou-Aares. My impression is that most businesses heaved a giant sigh when Trump give up all their Woke/DEI efforts.

  • Ryan Cooper [08-24]: Why Scott Bessent can't fix the bond market: "Every Trump lackey must indulge his whims, no matter how stupid."

  • Eric Katz/Anna Kramer [08-25]: 'They want us all to leave': Interior reassigns dozens of senior staff: "Around 30 top staffers have been reshuffled, with some people moving to teams outside their area of expertise."

  • Melody Schreiber [08-26]: Meningitis is a horrible way to die. Trump will make it more common. "Mothers who have lost children to the disease are sharing their stories to warn the public about Trump's recent anti-vaccine executive order."

  • Mike Bader [08-27]: Five horsemen of the envrionmental apocalypse:

    1. The Department of the Interior redefined "harm" under the Endangered Species Act so that habitat destruction is no longer considered harmful to threatened and endangered species.
    2. The US Fish & Wildlife Service proposed to remove Endangered Species Act protection for grizzly bears less than 2 years after concluding that a host of cumulative threats puts the species at increased risk of extinction.
    3. The Fish & Wildlife Service proposed an expanded "4(d) rule" that Interior Secretary Doug Burgum says turns grizzly bear management over to the states that want trophy hunting and to kill them whenever near livestock, even on public lands.
    4. The Department of Agriculture proposed canceling the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. Tens of millions of acres of the wildest National Forests would be opened to new roads, logging, motorized use and other development.
    5. The Department of Agriculture has proposed to shred National Travel Management Planning on National Forests, opening the way to off-trail cross-country travel by ATVs, snowmobiles and four-by-fours.

Just Trump: The cult (or should I say sinkhole?) of personality. While most of the bad things he has done and is doing are the work of his administration, and many of their bad ideas are deeply ingrained in the Republican Party, he hogs the spotlight, giving off the uniquely pungent odor that we notice first. Much of this is petty. Some of it is probably meant as distraction.

  • Margaret Hartmann:

  • Maxine Joselow/David A Fahrenthold/Tyler Pager/Clarence Williams [08-07]: How the reflecting pool came to mirror Trump's Washington: "A hospitality manager for the Trump Organization traveled to Las Vegas to find a solution to problems at a national landmark. This is the untold back story of the fallout."

  • Tom Carson [08-10]: Drunk history in the making: "No, Trump isn't an alcoholic. He just might as well be, and that goes double for the Trumpified GOP." Quotes Trump as saying "I never had alcohol, for whatever reason. Can you imagine if I had? What a mess I would be." To which Carson replies, "We don't have to imagine it anymore."

    Some alcoholics — and some mental patients, too — exhibit completely altered personalities when the fit is on them. In many cases, though, we get an unhinged exaggeration of what they were like all along. That's Trump's crass cross to bear. Always prone to focus on inessentials, he now has a drunk's fixation on them, seemingly for the same reason: an escape from reality.

    He can barely muster interest in his war with Iran even when it comes to figuring out how to conceal that we've lost it. (The Pentagon recently invited any interested military personnel to chip in with inventive ideas.) But don't get him started on Reflecting Pool "vandalism" or his idiot ballroom or how do you solve a problem like Melania or how he got cheated in 2020 or how he might run again in 2028. He'll talk his own wounded-warrior ear off.

  • Cameron Peters [08-11]: Does Trump even have an agenda anymore? "The president's August doldrums, briefly explained." He never really had an agenda, at least as regards governing. Aside from his decorating projects, which do appear to be near and dear to his heart, most of what he's done has been to allow his flunkees to implement their agendas without the least regard for how it would work out, or he whether he'd be blamed for the results. Much of this stuff is rooted in standard Republican moral and mental rot, especially their media cess pool, but not even they could have thought bringing back measles was a good idea. I can't believe I'm saying this, but I miss the days when Trump had actual strategists, like Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway, to impose some discipline on his evil impulses. Lacking any progress on the Iran war or the SAVE America Act, Peters does point to Trump's enduring interest in "zombie priorities — previously dead Trump agenda items that are coming back to haunt the news cycle," like:

    • The Reflecting Pool
    • Birthright citizenship
    • Fed independence
    • The slush fund

  • Jeet Heer [08-14]: Jared Kushner finds trouble in a gangster's paradise: "The Trump princeling's deal with alleged mobsters illustrates the depth of MAGA corruption."

  • Jonathan O'Connell/Sarah Blaskey [08-14]: Trump administration set to spend at least $900 million on White House construction: "The price tag is much larger than what has been previously reported, according to a Post review of confidential contracts, and taxpayers would cover most of it."

  • Hannah Furnell [08-19]: Donald Trump's staffers claim maintaining MAGA beauty standards is 'exhausting' for top aides: "Several anonymous employees in President Trump's administration are reportedly not shocked that Karoline Leavitt is leaving her role as White House Press Secretary this month."

  • Amanda Marcotte [08-19]: Trump aide Natalie Harp nurses his decline: "The president's defensive reaction to rampant speculation reveals his fear of aging." Maggie Haberman has dubbed her Trump's "human binky."

  • Robert Kuttner [08-26]: How Trump is destroying Detroit: "His takedown of the US auto industry can't be good for Republicans in Michigan either."

Electoral Politics: Pieces on US elections (recent and future) and, more generally, inter-party politicking. Party-specific pieces in following sections.

  • Anna Wiederkehr [05-09]: Poll: Republicans and Democrats agree on 1 big election issue: The question is agreement with "There is too much money in American politics." 80% of Harris voters agree. 77% of Trump voters agree. 72% of Americans overall agree. Disagree doesn't exceed 5% for any group. Neither party has an answer to this, probably because the candidates they field are the ones most adept at raising money, and the bipartisan struggle for dollars keeps the oligarchy in power. Republicans, including their Supreme Court, are proud apologists for this system. Democrats are more likely to question it, but not when they have a chance to outspend Republicans (as Obama, Clinton, and Harris did, without extending any real coattails to their party). When you hear centrist Dems complain about the left, what they're really worried about is losing their big-money funding. They see keeping the left bottled up and powerless as a big part of the value proposition they present to wealthy donors, and they'd rather lose elections than funding.

  • Ed Kilgore:

    • [08-05]: Kansas primaries give Democrats a shot at a big upset: I'm generally pleased with the results, but I'm skeptical for November. The big win, not mentioned here, was a resounding vote to save abortion rights. But even though Democrats were motivated and organized around that issue, the Republican primary still drew more voters than the Democratic. But all the major race Democratic primaries were contested, which suggests much more interest (and hope) than usual, and most were won by pretty good people. Hamilton is still a long-shot for Senate, as is Tyndell in KS-4. The governor's race is more up for grabs. Holscher should be a good campaigner. Masterson is one of the worst ogres the Republicans have nominated, with a lot of baggage to defend. And a critical number of Kansans are getting used to the advantages of divided rule in Topeka.

    • [08-07]: Trump's grip on GOP slips again with Tennessee loss: Trump fave Rep. Andy Ogles lost his Republican primary.

    • [08-09]: What happens if Democrats blow the midterms? "It's also entirely possible that Democrats will be all over the place in their reaction to an unexpected defeat." In other words, that they will wind up where they started. But the centrists have the most to lose by losing: a big part of their pitch is the assertion that they are more electable than the leftists. Losing, especially to Republicans as offensive as Trump, is really inexcusable. Left-democrats have their reasons for thinking their approach is better. For one thing, they have better ideas of how to handle problems. A big problem with the centrists is that even when their programs get implemented, and even when those programs help (as with ACA), they still don't solve the problems. The other problem is that centrists are so preoccupied with compromise, and with catering to business interests, that it's hard to see them as really committed to most Democratic voters. It's not clear to me how anyone fell for the line that "Trump will fix it," but at least he said it. People desperate for a leader to fix things may more easily jump from Trump to someone like Sanders, who actually promises things, and identifies the opponents he's up against, than to any of the DNC centrists.

    • [08-17]: Polls show Trump's MAGA base is all he has left: "Trump's job-approval numbers are awful any way you slice it. And there's little chance that will change before the midterms."

    • [08-20]: Midterm-convention Trump-fest may backfire on GOP: On September 9-10, in Dallas, "Republicans are putting their unpopular president at the center of their midterms pitch. Democrats should enjoy the show."

    • [08-26]: Darline Graham fumbled debate, won Senate primary anyway: "South Carolina GOP voters cared more about President Trump's endorsement than the interim senator's gaffe." By the way:

Other Republicans:

  • Carlyn Beccia [07-02]: Has America crossed the asshole threshold? "Civilizations can carry a surprising number of parasites and live. But there's a line — Rome crossed it, the Gilden Age toed it, and for the first time in history, we can measure it." This characterization of the Gilded Age, and the reform movements that pulled America back from the abyss, is pretty good, although it omits a few major recessions/depressions that helped discredit the oligarchy. Rome and Greece I'll have to take on faith. The measurements involve things like Peter Turchin's End Times theory of the overproduction of elites, which I don't like but can't totally dismiss. More promising is: "Cooperators survive by clustering, finding one another, and repeatedly dealing with one another, so honesty compounds." I think we're seeing more and more of that. I'm not wild about data centers as an issue, but we're seeing good people coming together to fight them for good reasons that can reach out to tie together more good causes, so I have to see that as a net positive.

  • Sarah Jones [08-07]: The GOP's missing moral compass: I resisted the sub here — "Republicans' refusal to condemn Max Miller reflects the party's history of dismissing abuse claims" — possibly because I don't care much about such claims. But the title is true, and of much more than just abuse cases.

  • Pedro Gonzalez [08-14]: The new right's toxic addiction to racial conflict: "A former fellow with the Claremont Institute explains how white nationalist dogma sets the terms of political belonging on the MAGA right."

  • Norman J Ornstein [08-16]: The Republicans are going to kill people — but not until after they vote: "In the Big Beautiful Bill, the GOP put off Medicaid cuts until after the midterms. America is about to find out why."

    Bad as the first Trump term was, it was nothing compared to this one. And the key components of the anti-science, anti-government nihilism, combined with willful ignorance about the consequences of their actions, and the interrelationship across policy areas, is about to play out big time starting next year, with health care and policy on the front lines. Three components of horrible policies across disparate areas will interact to engender a catastrophe in an already stressed health ecosystem. . . .

    Now comes the biggest problem. When the Republican Congress enacted Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill in July 2025, it included massive cuts in the Medicaid program, totaling around $1 trillion over 10 years — but made sure to postpone them until 2027, conveniently after the midterm elections. The cuts focused on adding onerous work and paperwork requirements, all designed to force recipients off the rolls, and will remove somewhere between 10 and 15 million people from the program, leaving them without any health coverage. That is in addition to the millions losing coverage or facing huge premium increases with the erasure of subsidies for the Affordable Care Act. But the impact will go far beyond those directly losing their health insurance. Medicaid money does not go to Medicaid recipients. It goes to the providers. The loss of a major chunk of the money going out to them will have big reverberations.

  • Zach Beauchamp [08-18]: The worst primary in America just ended: "An Islamophobic Congress member beat an antisemitic influencer. It may be a sign of the GOP to come." The former is Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL). The latter is Dan Bilzerian, "an open antisemite and Holocaust denier with millions of social media followers who has said that 'most of the problems today are caused by Jewish supremacy.'"

  • Troy Farah [08-19]: Mike Lindell refuses to accept he's an election loser: "On Wednesday, he offered to fund a recount in the Minnesota governor primary." He lost by 11 points, but at least he's "on brand."

  • Branko Marcetic [08-21]: If Woke 1 was crazy, MAGA Woke is absolutely insane: "Much of the Left has been debating 'Woke 1' recently. Less discussed has been the Right's own version of wokeness, characterized by censorship, attacks on free speech, and even jailing and deporting critics." Look, moves to suppress free speech, and to control what you are allowed to think, almost always come from the right. If anyone on the left got too pushy, or too worked up, disapproving of your racism, I'm sorry. Most of us respect your right to dumb and even evil thoughts, both privately held and publicly expressed. Granted, we aren't happy about your nonsense. And sometimes we wish you would just shut up and go away. But we're not used to having the power to shut you up or banish you. Not only are we not used to having any power at all, we're pretty skeptical of people who do have power. It's important for people with power to use a substantial measure of tolerance, so as not to abuse that power. But since we don't have that kind of power, we may also feel it is personally important not to simply acquiesce to your racism or other malevolence. One might argue here that the solution is mutual respect. That would be more credible if the right exhibited any, but so far their only response to the charge of "you're not woke" has been to turn "woke" into a slur, assign it to everyone who disagrees with them, and attempt to use their considerable power to stomp it out. The irony is that many of Trump's complaints, like weaponization of the Justice Department and "cancel culture" would resonate with the left if they were applied at all fairly. But Trump only opposes such things when he imagines they are arrayed against him. If he can use them for his own purposes, he's more than happy to do so.

Democrats: Prog Democrat Abdul El-Sayed won the Senate primary in Michigan over an AIPAC favorite. Francesca Wong lost the Governor primary in Wisconsin after leading in the polls. Both margins were very close, with huge money advantages for the centrist candidates. In both cases, the decision hinged on electability, which is to say the fear that a great many Democrats, including many who lean toward more progressive positions, have of losing close races to Republicans. Some of this debate inevitably shows up below, but I'm not terribly interested in it, except to note that the credibility of the centrists is on pretty thin ice after losing two elections to Trump, and that if they sabotage this year's elections just because they think Democrats have moved left, they will never be trusted again. Well, also that I think the people with real answers to most problems are on the left, so if Democrats ever get a chance to govern again, and want to actually accomplish something for their voters — something Clinton and Obama didn't seem to be very concerned about — they're going to have to move left. But I also think that ideology has very little to do with electability. It's quite possible that the Michigan-Wisconsin split was just a matter of Wong fumbling some questions near the wire, while El-Sayed handled them with aplomb. Perhaps it's more important to be a skilled campaigner than to have the right positions? Other Senate primaries seem to bear this out; Kansas went to the better heeled and more "electable" centrist, while the progressive won in Florida, beating a DNC/AIPAC darling. By the way, for Governor KS Democrats bucked their party leadership pick in favor of a much more progressive candidate, in a race which well may be winnable — not least because Cindy Holscher won her race by campaigning harder and better.

  • Andrew Prokop:

  • Zeeshan Aleem [08-06]: A new study finds the advantage of moderation in elections has vanished. That's a huge deal. This came out after the El-Sayed win, but isn't really based on it. The needle has been moving steadily left since Bernie Sanders launched his 2016 campaign. He's won two general elections since then, vs. zero for Clinton and Harris. And people forget that before him, Vermont was so heavily Republican that it was one of only two states to vote for Alf Landon in 1936 (and Kansas, where Landon was governor, was not the other one).

  • Astead Herndon:

    • [08-11]: Why progressives are backing off "Woke 1": "The Democrats aren't the same party they were in 2020." Well, Trump made sure of that. But "Woke" in any iteration was never a political program. It was at best a self-help program, a set of meditations that might help you become a less hurtful person. It only became a political program for the right, which sensed they could exploit it to get folks riled up over the left blaming them for social problems. Here's a rule of thumb: political programs shouldn't try to get people to change — nobody wants to change, especially under duress; political programs should seek to shift power toward better, or less bad, outcomes. So why is anyone on the left talking about "woke," even in an imagined past tense?

    • [08-18]: The real "electability" question is about Donald Trump: "Democratic infighting is distracting from the top story of the midterms."

  • Jason Linkins [08-15]: Third Way doesn't care about the Democratic Party: "The centrist organization is spending millions of dollars of corporate money on a campaign to manufacture right-wing talking points to flood the media."

    Third Way's donor base is a "Trojan horse" packed to the gills with scoundrels: Wall Street cretins and private equity goons; "members of the GOP-aligned American Legislative Exchange Council," best known for producing cookie-cutter right-wing legislation that is diametrically at odds with just about every Democratic Party policy priority; and supporters of the Republican Attorneys General Association, "which helps elect Republicans who fight federal environmental and other regulations." In addition, [Robert] Reich points out that two of the organization's former honorary co-chairs are Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema. Enough said!

  • Jared Abbott/Joan C Williams [08-17]: Donald Trump's coalition is coming apart: "The working-class voters who delivered Donald Trump's 2024 victory have steadily slipped away in 2026 according to new polling. But few of them are switching to the Democrats." Their main complaint about the Democrats is "corruption and self-interest": "The biggest obstacle for the Democatic Party is a question of trust and competence — whether the party can be trusted to act for people like them." Williams, by the way, has written several books on this. One I've read and recommend was White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America (2020). There's a more recent one: Outclassed: How the Left Lost the Working Class and How to Win Them Back. The latter book starts out with 14 chapters phrased as questions. They're worth listing:

    1. Is there really a diploma divide?
    2. Isn't it just the white working class?
    3. Isn't it bizarre when the left denies the impact of inequality on politics?
    4. Why are rural and rust belts red?
    5. Is the solution to move to the center?
    6. Why does the culture wars formula work so well?
    7. Isn't it ironic that red "family values" states have weaker families than blue states?
    8. Can't people see through Trump's truculent retro masculinity?
    9. Doesn't the diploma divide just reflect "grievance politics"?
    10. Smart people get ahead; isn't that just the reality?
    11. It's a battle between sophisticated global citizens and parochial ethno-nationalists, right?
    12. Aren't the college-educated just more enlightened?
    13. Aren't elites just less racist?

    The first chunk of these are under the Part I title of "Aren't you sick of losing elections or just scraping by?" The others are "What's the matter with Kansas?" and "What's the matter with Cambridge?" The rest of the book promises "The path past far-right populism." Lots of stuff there, but here's the basic pitch:

    My message to liberals is that we will lose elections, or scrape by so narrowly we can't implement progressive changes, unless we can secure more votes from these middle-status voters in routine jobs feeling left behind. So if you care about climate change or abortion rights or defending democracy, you need to care about these lower-middle-class voters.

    One thing I'd add is that a distinguishing characteristic of Trump voters in 2016 and 2024 was that they were mad as hell. Those people have even more to be made about right now. And that makes them more accessible than the comfortable white suburban women that were the holy grail for Clinton and Harris. Even Biden got enough of them in 2020. Scanning further down the book, I'll leave you with one more line: "Precarity, not poverty, drives far-right support."

  • Bill Scher [08-18]: Americans like moderate politicians and progressive policies, but not socialism: "If Democrats focus on the vast terrain where liberals and moderates agree, they can build a durable center-left coalition." Scher seems to have a lot of trouble understanding words, which is a real problem for him because he's so hung up on what he thinks they mean. I don't want to go deep here, but let's briefly examine some of these (by the way, I'm avoiding quote marks here, even though they're very tempting):

    1. Moderate Politicians: There is no evidence that Republicans, who make up 35-40% of all Americans, like moderate candidates. They've shown repeatedly that they prefer candidates who promise to fight for their principles, even when they're flat out nuts. There is some evidence that Democrats, a similar-sized group, can be cajoled or panicked into voting for moderate candidates, but those who have won have a very poor track record of delivering the progressive policies that even middling Democrats want, so even Democrats who once could have been persuaded that moderation are responding to candidates who actually show some conviction and principles. As for independents, they're not really in the center, but are variable according to which side they hate most at any given moment. My guess is that there's a sizable chunk of people who voted for Trump against Harris who also would have voted for Sanders against Romney. It's just plain dumb to call those people centrists or moderates.

    2. Progressive Policies: It's hard to decide where to start carving here. I'd just as soon drop the allusion to progress altogether: for many people, progress no longer seems to be beneficial and/or inevitable, at least to the extent it seemed 100-125 years ago. As for policies, there is a big disconnect between what people actually want (peace, freedom from surveillance, equal opportunity, protection from predatory capitalism, public service safe from corruption, public support for recovering from if not preventing disasters) and policies as offered by "the vast terrain where liberals and moderates agree" — which isn't that vast, given that the moderates will veto any policies that aren't acceptable to their corporate sponsors.

    3. Liberals: Liberalism is an honorable political philosophy which helped broaden the definition of "we the people" to extend beyond the powdered-wigs who wrote the US Constitution to virtually everyone. On the other hand, liberalism excessively focuses on individuals, which helps explain why so many liberals, having achieved their own liberation, became conservative, and conspired to deny others their freedom. Those few liberals who do believe in universal equal rights have merged into the left, where the drive for equality started with class consciousness and expanded from there. Scher performs a switcheroo here, substituting liberals for left, because he doesn't want to deal with the left on its own terms. Either that, or he imagines a Democratic Party that offers little or nothing to the vast majority of people left out of the two-party oligarchy system.

    4. Center-left: Not sure if this is a token gesture toward the left, or simply meant to give the center a little credibility as opposed to the right, reflecting the claim that centrists are the only realistic alternative. But the key for Scher is that the center runs the show, setting direction and vetoing anything that might discomfit their wealthy patrons.

    5. Socialism: Still a taboo word for centrist Democrats, even long after the New Deal/Great Society programs they claim to love have been routinely derided as socialist by generation after generation of Republicans — to the point where most Americans react either with "what?" or "duh!" I am personally dubious about the value of embracing the word — as, for instance, DSA does. (I doubt they can build a majority around it, but they can easily build a following, which may be all the current leaders really want.) I doubt that Scher has any idea what socialism means in an American context. He may be thinking of socialism as it claimed to exist in Russia, China, or Cuba, but those systems were built on the ruins of their distinct societies, and no American socialist wants to go back to their pre-revolution states just to duplicate their later failures. Rather, in America, you start from where we are not, and work to improve the situation for everyone. A real socialist program probably involves some combination of:

      1. Shifting effective control over firms from capitalists (owners of capital, which these days are mostly financiers) to workers.
      2. Regulating businesses and markets to prevent monopolies and fraud, to establish standards and ensure compliance, and to reduce and manage externalities.
      3. Using government for public service, to direct investment, to compensate for market failures and other disasters, to make sure that all people have rights to a decent level of support, and to establish justice.

      To some extent, we're already doing these things (unions help on 1, but actual employee ownership would be better). But there is lots of room for improvement, piecemeal as well as systematically.

  • Rachel Cohen Booth [08-21]: Why this year's Medicare-for-all debate is different: "Democrats never resolved their health care war, but they may have found a way around it." Why is this so hard for some people to understand? Problems don't go away until they are solved. The solution to health care — specifically, runaway costs, which goes hand-in-hand with non-coverage and/or bankruptcy — is comprehensive universal health insurance, with investments to make sure that supply meets demand. You can make the system slightly less bad with reforms like ACA, and Democrats have long been willing to go for whatever they can get, but the problem remains until you solve it. Medicare for All is a sales pitch which may or may not solve the problem, depending on the details of its implementation. For instance, Medicare itself has various carve-outs and co-payments that fall short of universal and comprehensive, so simply extending current Medicare to everyone doesn't quite meet the requirement. One way people deal with the shortcomings of Medicare is by buying supplemental insurance. The Sanders plan not only extends Medicare, but it fixes it. If you don't fix it, you still wind up with problems — albeit fewer than you have right now. So the details matter, not just the slogan. One more thing to note here: one reason Medicare for All is becoming even more urgent is that ACA is failing, partly due to its design, but also due to Republican sabotage. That didn't have to happen, but the design of ACA certainly made it easier to blow up.

  • Robert Kuttner [08-21]: That stunning Florida Senate win: "A democratic socialist manages to build the coalition that has long eluded the left." Angie Nixon, a state rep from Jacksonville, beat Alex Vindman by 12 points, after Vindman had a 19-to-1 campaign finance advantage. Vindman is remembered from the Trump I impeachment hearings as a Ukrainian staunchly allied against Putin. He seems to have been completely tone-deaf during the campaign, relying on AIPAC money and his "national security" cred.

  • David Sirota [08-24]: Bernie Sanders reminds me of this conservative giant: "Democratic socialism's ascent mirrors Barry Goldwater's rise." That's a point, but a pretty narrow one. For starters, it gives Goldwater much too much credit for the later rise of Nixon and Reagan. The Vietnam War delivered the White House to Nixon, and Reagan won largely due to the Volcker Recession and the Iran Fiasco, both major Carter blunders. Goldwater was no giant. He was totally out of touch, mired so deep in his anti-communism he was willing and eager to destroy the world to purify it. What few votes he did get in 1964 were mostly due to his hypocritical opposition to civil rights — his "devotion to freedom" was pretty sharply circumscribed. Sanders may well be followed by even more successful leftist candidates, but his runs in 2016 and 2020 stood much stronger than Goldwater's in 1964. He would likely have won if chickenshit Democrats hadn't blocked his path, not just saving us from Trump but paving the way for a much brighter future.

Economists and the Economy: Also see Dean Baker, below.

Technology (Including AI): Also see the section on data centers, which is the political flashpoint, but based not just on immediate concerns like environmental impact but on the public's profound unease with how hugely-valued companies plan to deploy AI and the inordinate amount of influence such companies wield in our currently very corrupt political system.

  • Stacy Mitchell [04-20]: How Amazon's AI algorithms raise the prices you pay: "Online price swings look like fierce competition. In reality, they're part of an invisible strategy that steers the entire market upward."

  • David Dayen/Matt Stoller [06-30]: Organized Money: How to think about AI (with Cory Doctorow): "AI might just be useful once we get through the huckster phase." An interview. I've read, and recommend, Doctorow's book, The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It's Too Late.

  • Grace Blakeley [08-05]: Nobody asked for AI: "We tend to think that markets reflect consumer choice. But the artificial-intelligence boom has been powered by the investment decisions of concentrated capital rather than by consumer demand."

  • Marina Bolotnikova [08-11]: Everybody needs a personal AI policy. Just ask Hank Green. "How can we reap AI's benefits without melting our brains in the process?" I don't know. I haven't been there/done that, at least yet. I'm just circling around the problem/opportunity.

  • John Herrman [08-20]: ChatGPT is a huge snitch: "Never say anything to AI that you wouldn't want read aloud in a court of law."

  • Ron Knox [08-25]: Amazon's monopoly problem is growing: "Three years after Amazon caught a federal monopoly lawsuit, sellers say the company's fees and policies are even worse."

    With nearly 50 percent of every sale going out in fees, sellers must raise prices to maintain their margins and turn a profit. Earlier this month, the group Million Dollar Sellers found that 60 percent of the nearly 200 Amazon sellers it polled had raised their prices in response to Amazon's fees and policy changes.

Climate and Environment:

Regular Columnists

Sometimes an interesting columnist writes often enough that it makes sense to collect their work in one place, rather than scatter it about (especially if they cover a range of topics).

Dean Baker: Look for links here. They are all worth reading.

  • [08-11]: Trump grift vs. the "Biden Crime Family": "Trump and his family have used the presidency to generate vastly greater financial gains than the Biden family ever did, revealing the extraordinary scale of Trump-era corruption."

  • [08-12]: First, they took our wages; now they want our Social Security: "Social Security can afford to pay full benefits, but decades of policies that shifted income from workers to the wealthy have undermined the program's finances."

  • [08-14]: The price of gas: Trump and Biden: "Gas prices are now above $4 a gallon under Trump, rapidly eroding his advantage over Biden and potentially leaving Americans paying more at the pump."

  • [08-15]: Trump's war sends interest rates soaring: "Trump's war with Iran has pushed up long-term interest rates, raising borrowing costs for homeowners, businesses, and governments while increasing the cost of massive federal deficits."

  • [08-19]: Iran War sends housing starts tumbling: "Higher interest rates and Trump's immigration policies are slowing housing construction, making a major decline in home prices less likely."

  • [08-21]: The $40 trillion debt and Trump corruption: "The $40 trillion national debt is not the biggest threat to the US economy; Trump's corruption and attacks on the rule of law pose a far greater danger to investors and the dollar."

  • [08-22]: Hey Donnie, where's the beef? "Trump's plan to allow more tariff-free beef imports may lower prices somewhat, but it is unlikely to deliver his promised 25 percent price cut." He figures you might get to 5%, but I'm skeptical of even that. I was surprised to find that the US imports about 17-18% of its beef, but it's mostly trimmings that are further processed to make less valuable products like hamburger. On the other hand, more expensive cuts are likely to be exported. Related here:

  • [08-26]: The rich own the media. They want to take your Social Security: "Wealthy media owners are using the national debt to justify cutting Social Security and Medicare instead of taxing the rich or addressing excessive health care costs."

Branko Milanovic:

  • [08-18]: The spirit of the nineties and the malaise of today. Economist, focuses on global inequality, sees the 1990s as a pivot point, perhaps better explained in his recent book, The Great Transformation: The United States, China, and the Remaking of the World Economic Order. I'm not sure there is an order anymore, or that that's a bad thing.

  • [07-14]: Don't ask me about my profits, but let's talk about your wages: "How Western capitalists use China-bashing to deflect attention from their soaring profits."

  • [08-26]: On European hypocrisy and warmongering. This seems to be blaming the Ukraine war on the warmongering of a "Nordic-Baltic alliance." I don't really see this, although the Baltic countries were critical to irritating Russia by NATO expansion, and Finland and Sweden joined NATO after the invasion, adding some fuel to the fire. The historical examples of Serbia dragging Germany and Russia into WWI, and Israel goading Trump into war with Iran are more convincing.

Jeffrey St Clair:

  • [07-31]: Roaming Charges: History hurts: Starts with a pan of Christopher Nolan's The Odyssey. In other news:

    + Trump and Hegseth have launched at least 67 airstrikes on small boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific, killing at least 221 people, without any proof they are drug traffickers and, as the Washington Post reported, no evidence that the illegal killings have slowed the flow of drugs, especially cocaine, into the US.

    + Since the Trump-blessed "ceasefire" in October 2025, Israel has killed at least 1,209 Palestinians (including two children this week) in Gaza and wounded 3,943.

    + House Democrats who opposed cutting aid to Israel had pocketed three times as much money from pro-Israel donors . . .

    + Mark Zuckerberg has struck a deal with Chris Ruddy to train Meta's AI apps on Ruddy's right-wing media site, Newsmax.

  • [08-12]: Gaza Diary: Netanyahu calling.

  • [08-14]: Roaming Charges: Footprints dressed in red: Starts with a Gilles Delueze quote: "A tyrant institutionalizes stupidity, but he is the first servant of his own system and the first to be installed within it." Then he declares "the best story of the summer so far is Trump fleeing the NATO summit in a catering cart."

    + France has enacted a new law banning unsolicited telemarketing calls. Someone could be elected president of the US if they ran solely on this issue and reelected if they actually succeeded in doing it. [I've said this more than once. I'd go so far as to add a button to your phone so you can report abuses. It would be easy enough to sort the real abusers out from the occasional mistaken numbers.]

    + It's only August 14, with three months left in the fire season, and Oregon has already broken the all-time record for total acreage burned, at more than 2.3 million acres and counting, surpassing the previous record of 1.93 million acres set in 2024.

    + While the Trump administration denied emergency aid to two of the largest wildfires in Oregon history, both scorching hundreds of thousands of acres, Michael Boren, the tech billionaire Trump appointee overseeing the Forest Service, directed agency air tankers to divert themselves from fighting larger fires in order to douse out the tiny 7-acre fire on his own Idaho ranch . . .

    + The Trump crowd wants the fires to burn all summer, so that they can "salvage" log them without even pretending to adhere to environmental laws. That may be one reason MAGA ranchers in eastern Oregon and western Idaho have been harassing and threatening firefighters on the frontlines of big conflagrations in the Wallowa-Whitman and Boise National Forests.

    + According to the Wall Street Journal, auto insurance companies refused to pay out 45% of claims last year . . . yet, most states require you to buy insurance in order to drive legally.

    + According to Schroders, the London-based asset management company, 1 in 3 working adults in the US has more credit card debt than retirement savings.

    + ICE can't spend all of the money Trump and Congress kept dumping on it. For years, ICE's budget hovered around $10 billion. Then Trump opened the budgetary floodgates, hoping to create his own domestic police force, armed with more lethal weapons than 90 percent of the world's military. But after two reconciliation bills and nationwide raids, ICE has only managed to spend 12% of what Congress has given the agency. It's still got $100 billion in reserves. Is this what Trump plans to use to police polling places in November?

    + According to Border Patrol statistics, there's more fentanyl being trafficked out of the US into Canada than from Canada into the US.

    + The New Yorker's Jia Tolentino on re-reading Gone With the Wind:

    "Gone with the Wind" is evil, and far more interesting for being evil. (Scarlett, one of the finest comic characters ever written in literature, is, terrifyingly and amazingly, a lot like Donald Trump.) The novel registered to me as a paragon depiction of American political consciousness, or lack thereof. Scarlett's world is constructed through immeasurable exploitation; it implodes in war and reconstitutes itself in hideous struggle. It all happens about a half-inch away from her face, and yet all she really thinks about is her wardrobe, her dinner options, her love life, her bank account. Plenty among us, as our country commits atrocities across the globe, might relate.

  • [08-21]: Israel finally admits to killing Hind Rajab, her family and the paramedics who tried to save her. Not exactly news.

Tom Engelhardt/TomDispatch: Editor Tom Engelhardt has retired, which ironically gives him more time for writing. Meanwhile, former intern Nick Turse has taken over, while remaining The Intercept's primary critic of American militarism.

Miscellaneous Pieces

The following articles are more/less in order published, although some authors may have collected pieces, and some entries may have related articles underneath.

Alfred Soto [08-13]: Criticism in an age of discontent: Reaction to:

Eric Levitz [08-24]: Want to tax the rich? Start with the dead. Amen. I don't care for his subhed ("The rich are dying to avoid taxation"). Conventional thought is that taxes disincentivize whatever it is they're taxing, but death is a pretty obvious exception. People won't stop dying just because the estate tax rate is increased. (Maybe heirs will stop murdering them, but how would that be a problem?) The notion is overrated anyway: people don't stop earning, investing, or consuming just because the taxes go up. The Laffer Curve theory doesn't kick in until tax rates go very high (much higher than Laffer thought). And if we could deter some levels of profit-taking by taxing them away, that sounds like a pretty good idea to me. As for estates, I don't mind letting small ones slip through, not least because the hassle isn't worth the loot, but liquidating large estates would be a social, political, and economic blessing. (I could see allowing some beneficiaries, like spouses and minor children, annuities based on the estate, up to some limit.) Of course, confiscatory estate taxes would encourage people to tax evasion through whatever schemes are available. But that's a technical problem. Understanding the principle comes first.

End Matter

Books: Multiple reviews are grouped under book; other pieces by author.

  • JA Cohen [04-16]: The limits of diasporism: "Despite effectively displacing Israel as the center of left Jewish identity, diasporism might sap substance from our anti-Zionism." A review of two books: Benjamin Balthaser: Citizens of the Whole World: Anti-Zionism and the Cultures of the American Jewish Left (2025), and David Kraemer: Embracing Exile: The Case for Jewish Diaspora (2025). I have, but haven't yet read, the former, which caught my attention because I have many friends who are anti-Zionist leftist Jews. Whether their leftism came from initial Judaism or more secular sources is not something I can tell or much care about. I could make a case that my leftism is rooted in the Protestantism I was initially exposed to, but the more salient fact is that the ethics survived the end of religious belief. So, too, with most of my friends. On the other hand, it's clearly possible for believers in Judaism to reject Zionism, basing their rejection on their religious beliefs — Yakov B Rabkin's What Is Modern Israel? is jam packed with examples. I doubt they believe in diasporism so much as they accept diaspora as the shape of their universe. Elevating it to a distinct belief system may strike them as unnecessary, as sort of a back door to rejecting Zionism, which they've already done. Cohen draws this distinction between the two books: "Kraemer embraces diaspora out of pure bourgeois self-concern, while Balthaser argues for a solidaristic diasporism driven by material struggle." Cohen thinks this difference matters. I'm not so sure.

  • Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick: Israel's Lobby: America in the Grip of a Foreign Power:

    • Ian Lustick/Eli Clifton: Excerpts from the book.

    • Trita Parsi [08-11]: The most important book of 2026: Clifton and Lustick's Israel's Lobby:

      Israel's Lobby is neither a sequel to John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's groundbreaking 2007 book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, not simply an update of it. It does something different.

      Eli and Ian provide a systematic history of the moments when, in their telling, Israel and its American supporters have worked against U.S. interests. But they also add a dimension that Mearsheimer and Walt did not explore at length: money — and, specifically, the financial machinery behind efforts to put Israel's interests ahead of America's.

      They follow that money.

      Of course, we already knew about the money. Maybe some of the details were sketchy, but the Adelsons weren't what you'd call subtle, and it shouldn't have taken Ida Tarbell to connect these dots. Still, I suspect that the real difference viz. Mearsheimer & Walt does amount to a sequel: what's new is the amount and flagrancy of the crimes against humanity that today's lobby is tasked with sweeping under the rug. And possibly how they do it, as the old explanations have frayed and torn. The other thing I'm curious about here is what it exposes about the inherent corruption of American politics.

      I'd like to second this quote from a comment:

      The tipping point has been reached. It is no longer possible to support Israel and still be considered a civilized, decent human being.

    • Socialist Worker [08-14]: The Zionist lobby, the left and the far right: Don't let imperialism off the hook: "The movement should reject the idea that US imperialism backs Israel because of a Zionist lobby." Long, unsigned article, starts by attacking the Clifton-Lustick book, so we'll file it here. Argues "it lets imperialism off the hook and opens the door to conspiracy theories that weaken and undermine the movement." I fail to see why we should focus on an abstract noun ("imperialism") when simpler, stupider, and more specific alternatives exist. American foreign policy has long been rooted in notions of hegemony that are only rarely classically imperialist. On the other hand, foreign policy plays a very small role in US politics, which makes it vulnerable to well-targeted lobbies, especially ones that often run unopposed. This, of course, is predicated on how open the US system is to corruption. You may not like the idea of conspiracy theories, but when the system is built from thousands of discrete bribes, you're bound to find conspiracies.

    • By the way, Guardian used this essay to lead to several older articles still worth noting:

      • Noam Sheizaf [2025-09-14]: How to burst the Israeli bubble: "Recognizing a Palestinian state is a limited but welcome step that addresses an enduring blind spot: Palestinian rights cannot be conditioned on Israeli interests." Refers extensively to the Hussein Agha/Robert Malley book, Tomorrow Is Yesterday

      • Diana Buttu [2025-10-05]: A 'magic pill' made Israeli violence invisible. We need to stop swallowing it: "For years, I pressed Palestinian interests in peace talks. The response to Trump's plan proves the international community hasn't learned from catastrophe." Magic pill? "The 'peace process' became a magic pill rendering the occupation invisible to the west."

      • Moustafa Bayoumi [2025-07-06]: The destruction of Palestine is breaking the world: "The rules of the institutions that define our lives bend like reeds when it comes to Israel — so much that the whole global order is on verge of collapse." Quote from Colin Jones: Gaza "is a test of the American public's tolerance for the levels of death that such kinds of warfare entail."

      • Naomi Klein [2024-10-05]: How Israel has made trauma a weapon of war: "A year later, memorials to the 7 October attacks use art, virtual reality and dark tourism to stir support for limitless violence."

    • Blaise Malley [08-24]: Israel's lobby: More powerful and more unpopular than ever: Interview with Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick.

    • John B Judis [08-26]: How Citizens United supercharged 'Israel's lobby': "In their new book, Eli Clifton and Ian Lustick chart the evolution of this powerful special interest and its unmatched influence in the US."

  • Gregory P Williams [08-20]: Immanuel Wallerstein predicted the fall of the US Empire: "Soon after 9/11, world-systems theorist Immanuel Wallerstein warned that US imperial decline was inevitable. But US leaders didn't want to hear that their glory days were in the past, and they've managed that decline in the worst possible way." The article cites other essays, but his 2003 book The Decline of American Power: The US in a Chaotic World seems to sum up the case. As I recall, Kevin Phillips had much of this, including the "wind-fired Dutch and the coal-fired British" eras of hegemony before the US rode the oil boom to world power, with each declining in an orgy of financialization. See his books American Theocracy (2006) and Bad Money (2008). I might also point out that my own blog compilations were started with the title, The Last Days of the American Empire: 2000-2009, followed by two volumes of Last Days With Obama (2009-2013 and 2013-2017) and Last Days with Trump: 2017-2020. (I haven't updated those "books" since 2020, but obviously there is more material available.) Needless to say, the decline has been fitful, where most of the fits come from trying to cling onto the waning sense of superiority. Williams writes:

    Decline did not mean catastrophe. Historically, hegemonic powers do not fall very far. They land among the other great powers, albeit with greater material comfort than most (just look at the Netherlands or the United Kingdom today).

    Furthermore, as Wallerstein wrote in that 1992 essay, decline could be "the greatest blessing of all." The United States had an opportunity to embrace morality. It "was Abraham Lincoln who sounded the moral note: 'As I would not be a slave, so I would not be a master.'"

    In the early 1990s, Wallerstein saw two possible futures for America. One would involve neofascism, characterized by social conflict, with the lower strata subject to brutality and prejudice. The second, more hopeful scenario would be a form of national solidarity through social democracy and the movement toward egalitarianism.

    It's no surprise that the latter would never occur to right-wingers like Bush and Trump. That Democrats, especially Biden, have found it equally onerous to support a more equitable world order suggests that they aren't really democrats. I'll note that French Socialists and British Labourites have a comparably bad record. Perhaps the reason the left fails repeatedly in Latin America is that they keep trying to prop up the old order, rather than tearing it down?

  • Yotam Marom [08-12]: How Occupy Wall Street still explains politics today: "It sowed the seeds for a new era of social movements — but its politics of powerlessness should act as a cautionary tale." Author has a book on leftist political strategy: For Louder Days: Reaching Beyond a Politics of Powerlessness, which has been touted as "the essential guide to establishing an effective opposition movement in the age of Trump, from the leading activist and organizer."

  • Sarah Jones [08-21]: The communist conspiracy theory consuming the right: "For conservatives, 'cultural Marxism' is a shape-shifting, decades-old bogeyman." Interview with Aja Woods, author of The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy: Why the Right Blames the Frankfurt School for the Decline of the West. I doubt this book is very useful. Much of it is about Lyndon Larouche and his followers. I ran into them occasionally in the 1970s, and they were imbeciles. That they moved so easily from left to right just shows how little understanding they had of either. Beyond them, you also get more recent right-wing "thinkers" like Christopher Rufo, who see the Frankfurt School as the source of Critical Race Theory, which they don't like because its analysts are good at uncovering racism where the right thinks they have it buried. "Cultural Marxism" is a term only its opponents would use, because it links something they think everyone hates (Marxism) with something they really hate (Culture). They hate Culture because it reflects lived experience, and that tends to reflect capitalism and its order in an unflattering light. But the word we always used to summarize the thought of the various Frankfurt School thinkers was Critical Theory. Where Marx and his followers had focused on economics and political power, Critical Theorists extended their scope to include culture. And not to designate some preferred culture as Marxist: there is no such thing, nor is such a thing possible. Rather, what Critical Theory did was to uncover how economic and power relations permeate art, life, and culture. It is a powerful tool, and I came to see everything through it, almost too reflexively. (I read a lot of Adorno and Benjamin in the 1970s, but not much Marcuse, and my one attempt at Habermas was a dismal failure.) One point I should stress here is that Adorno focused almost exclusively on fascism. I'm not sure how relevant that makes him now, but probably more than 30-50 years ago. But if reading Critical Theory makes young people think like I do — and that seems to be the gist of the right-wing critiques — that strikes me as a good idea, not a bad one.

Other Media:

  • Alex Galbraith [08-21]: Columbia House closure sparks nostalgia for a bygone music scam: "Americans are fondly remembering the kinder, gentler music club swindles of decades past." I remember evaluating their offerings, but I'm pretty sure I never fell for one. (I did for a paperback book club once, which was a somewhat better deal.) Even in the '70s I hated the idea of signing up to pay more later. I didn't know they were still around, but even in the 1980s, I used to say that the only boom industry in America was fraud. I always credited that to Reagan.

    Nowadays, the taboo around scamming has fallen out of fashion with Gen Z, who see devious business models as a way to get ahead in a rigged economy. . . . The internet-savvy and unscrupulous were quick to cash in. . . . Americans lose more than $100 billion to scams every single year. As more and more of the country's citizens feel like they're being had, the Trump administration doesn't seem to be rushing to stop the con. In fact, there's plenty of evidence that they could be in on it.

    I was going to leave it at that, perhaps mentioning that few policy moves would be more popular than one that came down hard on unsavory business practices. But then I read the next paragraph, and had to include it:

    White House insiders are reportedly using privileged information to place wagers on grey-area betting platforms. Nine accounts on the platform Polymarket made millions on U.S. military actions in Iran, winning nearly all of their 80 wagers on U.S. strikes and ceasefire negotiations. The former White House teleprompter operator allegedly made tens of thousands placing bets on what words Donald Trump might use in his speeches. The president himself has spent much of his second term accepting luxurious gifts and donations that sure read like bribes in the right light. Trump has increased his net worth by more than $2 billion in his second term, largely through the launch of a crypto firm operated by his sons. He accepted a $400 million jet from the royal family of Qatar and has pardoned multiple people after their families made large donations to his campaign. Former White House ethics czar Norm Eisen told the Washington Post that Trump had "fully monetize[d] the Oval Office" and was carrying out "corruption on a scale that . . . has few rivals in world history."

    The only thing I have to add to that is that I've seen other sources put the haul above $4 billion.

Obituaries: I had been using the New York Times, but they're giving me aggravation these days, so I'll switch over to Wikipedia August), which is probably better anyway. Roughly speaking, since my last report on August 1:

Some other names I recognize:

Tweets: I've usually used this section for highlighting clever responses and/or interesting ideas.

  • Corey Robin: [07-31:

    Maggie Haberman, chief White House correspondent for the New York Times, "says 70 percent of the president's mind is dedicated to White House renovations." And they say I got Trump wrong. Pff.

    Robin goes on to offer a quote from his book, The Reactionary Mind:

    The attention to external detail, to the surface of things, is not confined to Trump's business career; it informs his political judgments as well. One of Trump's most heartfelt criticisms of Obama was that rather than hosting a celebration of foreign dignitaries in a lavish ballroom, he served dinner to them in "an old, broken, rotten-looking tent" on the White House lawn. "That's no way for America to host important meetings and dinners with world leaders and dignitaries. We should project our nation's power and beauty with a proper facility and ballroom." So enraged was Trump at this failed aesthetics of power that he called the White House and, patched through to Obama senior strategist David Axelrod, offered to build a ballroom there for free: "If there's one thing I know how to build, it's a grand ballroom." Axelrod never got back to him on his offer — yet one more sign, wrote a bitter Trump, of "what's wrong with this country."

    Now in office, Trump has set things right. . . . [quote clipped off scan]

  • Kim, Bestie of Bunzy [08-13]:

    I have a working hypothesis that 98% of people feel incredibly lonely because it's inherently the safest position in an aggressively predatory society.

  • The Onion [08-26]: "Trump pushes to rename sexual attraction to children 'Americaphilia'."

Current count: 330 links, 20766 words (25990 total)

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Saturday, August 22, 2026

Music Week

August archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46464 [46411] rated (+53), 16 [25] unrated -9).

Advance Music Week appeared August 22 on Substack as Music Week (8:3). It is also archived here. My cutoff was done on Thursday, after I finished my initial draft of my Substack post Consumer Guidance. I posted it on Friday (August 21), then went to worked on the advance, posting it Saturday afternoon (August 22).

Robert Christgau's Consumer Guides usually came out on the second Wednesday of the month. When it didn't appear, as expected, on this one, I rushed my own Music Week (8:2) out, figuring it was an opportunity to clarify what I heard before reading him from what I sought out after. When his August Consumer Guide finally appeared on Sunday (August 16), I was struck by two things: he hadn't touched the rather obvious albums I had reviewed (Rolling Stones, Madonna, Pussy Riot), but instead came up with a very different set of widely scattered albums, most of which I had been completely unaware of. That got me thinking about writing the "Consumer Guidance" post.

Unfortunately, I whiled a couple days thinking about it, then a few more writing, ultimately pushing this Music Week into the weekend. I didn't have time to do a cutoff until I finished a draft late Thursday and circulated it to some friends. By then, I had piled up 53 reviews. I would normally dump them all out, but I decided to hold some back for next week. The main reason is that I wanted a little breathing room between the CG and my later reviews — I will, of course, eventually listen to everything there, possibly revisiting some things I may have underestimated.

But once I decided to hold things back, I saw that I had quite a few jazz promos that I had gotten to before their release dates. While I don't normally worry about publishing those — I just add a release date to the end of the review — there was no urgent need to rush those out. And there was one specific reason for holding back: Henry Threadgill has two releases this month, one on 8/21 that I haven't heard, and one on 8/28 that I have. Why not review them together?

My initial holds reduced the 53 albums to 46, still including a run through the 1996-2006 Mary Lee's Corvette catalog (5 albums, 1 reviewed by Christgau). I had planned on including them here, but when I tried writing up an explanation, I concluded it would be best to hold them all back. So we're down to 41 albums below. Still a pretty robust week, at least by my standards.

Next week will probably include all of the previously unheard albums from the Consumer Guide (plus all of the other Mary Lee's Corvette albums, and for that matter two older Tipps and Obermiller albums). The one album I had listed as heard, and included below (and in the advance), was the Paul McCartney. I had played it right after the previous week's cutoff, before the CG appeared. I gave it a B then, but gave it another chance, and nudged the grade up a bit.

Turns out I erred in including the R.A.P. Ferreira & Kenny Segal album in my "unheard" list. It was released last year, and I reviewed it, rather sketchily, in November, 2025 as a B+(***). The Gurf Morlix album was another I had heard and reviewed but had forgotten about. Christgau seems to have forgotten also, as he previously reviewed it in April, 2026.

The Consumer Guidance piece also has a section on the late rock critic, Dave Marsh. I'm collecting links about him, and expect to have more to say in Loose Tabs. I felt pretty negative about him in the 1970s, regarding him as some kind of posh snob — a feeling that doesn't align very well with how other remember him. I met him once, when Christgau brought Carola and me to his apartment to pick up Yankees tickets. He gave no indication of recognizing me (although I was writing in the Voice at the time). Jeffrey St. Clair has been very vocal about his death. I've read virtually nothing by him since 1980, but I ordered a copy of his latest essay compilation, so I'll give him another look. Scott Woods put together some video here, which is of more than passing interest.

I'll probably shift back to Loose Tabs next week, to make sure I have at least something to show for August. Beyond that, I have very little idea what I'm doing anymore. August is usually the really hot month here in Wichita, and this year is no exception. Not really record-breaking heat, like so much of the world, but palpably hotter than it's been earlier in the summer, or for several years back. Usually lasts through most of September.

New records reviewed this week:

Angles 4: Angles 4 (2024 [2026], Relative Pitch): Quartet version of Swedish saxophonist's Martin Küchen's Angles project, the 10th since 2007 in my database, ranging from 3 to 9 in size, here with Mattias Ståhl (vibes), Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (bass), and Kjell Nordeson (drums). They all sound superb here. A− [bc]

Babalwa M: Acquiescence (2025, Babalwa M/Empire): From South Africa, surname Mavuso, amapiano singer-songwriter, started with an EP in 2020, seems to be her second studio album. Nice beats, pleasant voice, could grow on you. B+(***) [sp]

Baby Queen: I Hope You Don't Remember Me (2026, Insanity): Pop singer-songwriter Arabella Latham, born in South Africa, moved to London at 18 to conquer the pop world. Second album, after an EP and a mixtape. B+(*) [sp]

Baby Rose: Yearnalism (2026, Secretly Canadian): Singer-songwriter Jasmine Rose Wilson, from DC/North Carolina/Atlanta, third album, draws on "early r&b and soul legends" (Discogs names Donnie Hathaway and Nina Simone). B+(**) [sp]

Dr. Gianni Bianchini: A Study in Songbook (2025-26 [2026], Gianni Bianchini Entertainment): Pianist-singer from Florida, takes on nine standards (including a Jobim) in 36:49, backed with bass (Ross Kratter) and drums (Sam Hart). Piano is nice, voice fair. B [cd]

Cindy Blackman Santana: Coherence (2026, Mack Avenue): Drummer, studied at Berklee with Alan Dawson, has a jazz discography back to 1987, but also played with Lenny Kravitz over 18 years, and with Carlos Santana, whom she married in 2010 (a big star in the early 1970s, he is 22 years older). He plays lead guitar here on six pieces here (with John McLaughlin joining on one), the band: Emilio Modeste (sax), Zaccai Curtis (keyboards), Aurélien Budynek (guitar), and Felix Pastorius (bass, with Matthew Garrison on three tracks). Some fancy guitar, but at 80 minutes, runs long. B+(*) [sp]

Phoebe Bridgers: Lost Weekend (2026, Dead Oceans): Singer-songwriter, third solo album since 2017, with her girl group Boygenius (2023) splitting the break. Huge critical support here (91/25 at AOTY), Spencer Kornhaber calls it "a perfect album for a frustrating decade," Ann Powers dubs her "the most revered singer-songwriter of the selfie generation." I've listened enough to verify that there's something here, so I take my indifference as further evidence that I'm over the hill. Love and grief themes have little resonance for me these days. Sonically, the synths sweep away the folk roots (which make "Haunted" so appealing). The shifts convince me of her mastery. B+(***) [sp]

Mike DiRubbo: Way Out Northwest (2026, Cellar): Alto saxophonist, has mostly recorded for mainstream labels since 1996, but can bust loose an impressive solo. Quartet with piano (Tilden Webb), bass (Jodi Proznick), and drums (Jesse Cahill). B+(**) [sp]

Rob Dixon: Naptown Soul (2026, Strikezone): Saxophonist (tenor/soprano), originally from Baltimore, raised near Atlanta, but long based in Indianapolis (aka Naptown). Nice soul jazz groove, co-produced by Dave Stryker (guitar), with Sam Fribush (organ) and Richard "Sleepy" Floyd (drums). B+(*) [cd]

DJ Fantôme: Zando Beat! (2026, Palenque): "Electro Madness from Congo Kinshasa," which Bandcamp offers as a subtitle but doesn't appear on the cover, but Bandcamp also credits this to "Electro from Congo Kinsasa," as if "DJ Fantôme is a self-aware algorithm, wandering through servers and materializing a body for each performance." Each of the 12 tracks comes with a "Feat" artist, presumably the rapper-singers. B+(***) [sp]

Denise Donatelli: Take My Breath Away (2024 [2026], Savant): Standards singer, has at least six previous albums since 2007, this one directed and arranged by Geoffrey Keezer, with the usual Berlin, Jobim, and Stevie Wonder. [PS: Pretty good "How Deep Is the Ocean."] B− [sp]

Open Mike Eagle/Kenny Segal: Doomed! (2026, Backwoodz Studioz): Underground rapper, more than a dozen albums since 2008, and a producer who has his name on even more albums since 2008, and many more side-credits. Focuses on a failed relationship, and soft-pedals that, when there's much more to be worried about. B+(**) [sp]

Margaret Glaspy: I Am Both (2026, ATO): Folkie singer-songwriter, fourth album since 2016, has a similar number of EPs. Spotify tells me she's my favorite artist, which makes me wonder about the modern surveillance state (I have her down for 1 A-, 2 ***, and 1 **; based on recent plays in the car, I would have guessed Chuck Berry). Skeletal songs, so direct they demand attention. "Turns out freedom ain't free," but at least "they're allowed to change their minds." A− [sp]

Glass Triangle [Zeena Parkins/Mette Rasmussen/Ryan Sawyer]: 3 X 1 (2026, Relative Pitch): Electric harp, alto sax/voice/preparations/bells, drums/percussion/voice. B+(*) [bc]

Ariana Grande: Petal (2026, Republic): Pop singer-songwriter, eighth studio album since 2013, seventh chart topper (the other album only got to 2). This goes down as easily as ever, not that it seems to offer much sustenance. B+(**) [sp]

John Hollenbeck & Hot Club Jazz Orchestra: Peace & Justice (2022 [2026], Flexatonic): Drummer, perhaps best known for his Claudia Quintet, which this group sounds more than a little like, although the Portuguese band here, conducted by Luis Cunha, is much larger. The music was commissioned by Olha Bekenshtein, based on Ukrainian sources, a project which started in 2021, and was disrupted by the war. B+(***) [cd]

Homeboy Sandman/Jack Splash: Resonance Frequency (2026, Dirty Looks): New York rapper Angel Del Villar III, prolific since 2007, with a Los Angeles-based producer Matthew Kahane, whose work started with Cee Lo Green in 2002. He lifts this with much more than the usual slack beats. Unlike most of Homeboy Sandman's output, this runs to real LP length: 13 songs, 40:20. A− [sp]

Mike Jones: Mike Jones With Strings (2025 [2026], Capri): Pianist, common name (75 on Discogs), from Buffalo, studied at Berklee, has a dozen or so albums since 1993, including The Show Before the Show from when he was opening for Penn & Teller. Title is misleading: no goopy orchestral string section here, just fast-paced swing with a couple of stringed instruments: bass (Alex Frank) and guitar (Graham Dechter). B+(**) [cd]

Karol G: No Me Arrepiento De Sentir Tanto (2026, Interscope): Colombian singer-songwriter Carolina Giraldo Navarro, sixth album since 2017, last year's (Tropicoqueta) was a top album for me. B+(***) [sp]

Joanna Mattrey/Camila Nebbia/Camiolo Ángeles/Violeta Garcia: Heavy Handed (2024 [2026], Relative Pitch): Live set of free jazz improv from Bern, with viola, tenor sax, flute, and cello, with various FX. A little noisy. B+(**) [bc]

Nick Mazzarella: Siena Sessions (2025 [2026], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Alto saxophonist, from Chicago, recorded this trio in Italy with Silvia Bolognesi (bass) and Cristiano Calcagnile (drums), adding trumpet (Emanuele Marisco) on two tracks. B+(***) [bc]

Paul McCartney: The Boys of Dungeon Lane (2026, Capitol): Twentieth "solo studio album" (per Wikipedia; 27th if counting Wings) since 1970. I liked the Beatles as much as anyone during their prime, somewhat less for their post-Pepper period. But his solo career has ranged from disappointing to embarrassing: the best record I've heard was an oldies set from 1999, but I haven't heard most (this makes 11). This one promises Liverpool nostalgia, but on first pass, only the final song ("Momma Gets By") delivered much. A revisit showed considerable songcraft, and more than a few details of interest. B+(**) [sp]

The Mountain Goats: Days (2026, Thirty Tigers/Cadmean Dawn): Singer-songwriter John Darnielle, 24th studio album since 1994, first few songs sound like exemplars of current alt/indie rock, a sound that thins out soon, but the songs remain solid. B+(***) [sp]

Justin Pierce: Sway (2025 [2026], Justin Pierce Music): Tenor saxophonist, based in Dallas, seems to be his first album (Discogs has some credits with UNT lab bands, c. 2012), hype sheet says he's been playing locally to "delighted audiences," with wife Ashley Pierce singing. She jumps right in with the title tune, then "Honeysuckle Rose," sits out for an instrumental ("Jody Grind"). Two more instrumentals, from Duke Ellington and Miles Davis, with her returning on well-chosen standards — "Moon River" and "L-O-V-E" are standouts. As for the sax, imagine Harry Allen playing the Nat King Cole songbook, with a perfectly fine replacement for the late Rebecca Kilgore. A− [cd]

PLRLS: Sleeping in a Dress (2026, Si): Baltimore quintet, pronounced "plurals," post-punk "with a certain operatic/surfy twang and bizarre danceability," which is to say they sound a lot like the B-52s, or even more like the Waitresses. Ten songs, 28:23. B+(***) [sp]

Claudio Scolari Project: Lines of Now (2025 [2026], Principal): Italian drummer, also plays synths, third Project album, has several more going back to 1995. Group has a second drummer, Daniele Cavalca, who also plays synths, with Simone Scolari (trumpet), Ilaria Cavalca (voice), and Michele Cavalca (bass). The trumpet-led parts recall Miles Davis fusion. The vocals are artier: I'm less taken by them, but not without recognizing some point. B+(**) [cd]

Serengeti: Kenny V (2026, CC King): Chicago rapper David Cohn, underground, huge number of albums since 2003, one series based on "alter ego Kenny Dennis," running from Kenny Dennis LP (2013) through KDIV (2024), promises "this sets up the true finale." Mostly I'm getting dense and murky, but I've never been able to keep this character line straight. B+(*) [sp]

Ringo Starr: Long Long Road (2026, UME): Christgau pointed out that the Beatles broke up because "three of them believed they were geniuses and only one of them was." The other Beatle was drummer Richard Starkey, who had earned his keep within in the band, but didn't have a lot of prospects, let alone ambition, on his own. Still, like the rest, he embarked on a solo career in 1970, and has stuck with it, grinding out 22 solo albums so far (he's 86, 2 years older than McCartney). I've hardly ever bothered, but after hearing the warmly-received one by McCartney, I figured, how bad could this be? T-Bone Burnett produced, wrote most of the songs (Starkey has 3 co-credits), and vast resources. And how hard is country? Well, minimally you need a credible singer, and this album doesn't have one: not just Starr, but I didn't notice any other vocals — although I do recognize a half-dozen names from the credits. C+ [sp]

Sweeping Promises: You Say I Romanticize (2026, Sub Pop): Post-punk duo, Lira Mondal and Caufield Schnug, met in Arkansas, moved to Boston, then to Lawrence KS (unless I got that backwards). Third album. First one claimed a Liliput influence. They've only gotten stronger and more direct. A− [sp]

Gebhard Ullmann: Coffee and Berries (2024 [2026], Trouble in the East/ESP-Disk'): German tenor saxophonist, many albums since 1985, also electronics here, along with Steve Swell (trombone), Joe Morris (bass), and Charles Downs (drums). Strong showing for Swell. B+(***) [sp]

Gaia Wilmer Large Ensemble Featuring Mônica Salmaso: Parabólico: Reflections on Gilberto Gil Volume I (2025 [2026], Sunnyside): Brazilian saxophonist, several albums since 2017, two originals and five songs by Gil, featuring singer Salmaso. B+(**) [cd]

Adrian Younge: Jazz Is Dead 27: Joyce & Tutty Moreno (2026, Jazz Is Dead): Brazilian singer Joyce Moreno and drummer Moreno are featured, as this producer's series continues to round up 1970s icons. Eight songs, 28:46. B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

The Joshua Breakstone Quartet: Wonderful! (1983 [2026], Capri): Guitarist, first album he released (in 1984), a couple of originals, some standards, ranging to Django Reinhardt and Lennie Tristano, with Barry Harris (piano), Earl Sauls (bass), and Leroy Williams (drums). B+(**) [cd]

Old music:

PLRLS: Your Situation (2015, Amalgamated Widget): Baltimore group, first album (after a 2012 EP), 9 songs, 26:54, album cover spells out "Plurals," established their sound here, with mixed male/female vocals, and dreams of hits. B+(***) [sp]

PLRLS: Have You Seen My Fancy Pony? (2017, Amalgamated Widget): Second album. Credits: Bowen, Fox, Glass, Pumphrey, Wilson. Sounds like they're down a female voice. 10 songs, 29:57. B+(*) [sp]

PLRLS: Curses (2018-21 [2023], Amalgamated Widget): Third album, from multiple sessions. A little scattered, but the energy is high. B+(**) [sp]

Riverside Jazz Collective: Stomp Off, Let's Go! (2018, self-released): New Orleans trad jazz group, seems to have been a one-off, as even Bandcamp doesn't offer more. Benny Amon (drums), Alex Belhaj (guitar), and Kris Tokarski (piano) seem to be the leaders, but the only other player I recall is trombonist Charlie Halloran. Several members take vocals (Belhaj twice). A superb set. A− [bc]

Ringo Starr: Sentimental Journey (1970, Capitol): Ex-Beatles drummer, clearly adrift after the band broke up, with the three geniuses off doing their solo projects, sings a dozen moldy standards, backed by anonymous orchestras with bits of banjo and organ. Christgau explains: "reports that he did this collection of standards for his Mums are obviously true". It's the sort of thing one does 20 years down the road, when you're stuck. Trying to reframe it as such does help, but even so: if the best one can hope for is camp, what if you can't even do that? C [sp]

Ringo Starr: Beaucoups of Blues (1970, Capitol): Second solo album, recorded in Nashville by Scotty Moore, with pedal steel guitarist Pete Drake producing. I don't doubt that Ringo loves his country music, but it doesn't exactly love him back. B− [sp]

Ringo Starr: Ringo (1973, Capitol): After two quick and flimsy albums, he took a bit of time to put together something a bit more substantial. For starters, he wrote some songs, and he got some help from his friends (John, Paul, George, and Randy Newman). Richard Perry produced, and I recognize at least two dozen names on the credit sheet. Some songs I like here, especially "Photograph" and "Oh My My." The CD bonus tracks are also a plus, especially the non-album single "It Don't Come Easy." B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • The Kris Davis Trio: Lost in Geneva (Pyroclastic) [09-25]
  • Ami Molinelli: Raízes Do Choro E Samba (Amimo) [09-05]
  • Matt Wilson's Good Trouble: Love Is the Whole Thing, We Are Only Pieces (Palmetto) [09-18]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Thursday, August 13, 2026

Music Week

August archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46411 [46385] rated (+26), 25 [18] unrated +7).

Advance Music Week appeared August 12 on Substack. It is also archived here. My cutoff was done before the Substack post. The introduction started there, but has been extensively revised/rewritten.

I spent a couple hours Tuesday at the local Toyota monopoly, for what was supposed to be a free service — every six months for the first two years (two oil changes and four tire rotations), part of the new car purchase deal. I complained about numerous glitches — disconnects, muting, spurious commands (common with phones, at least in my experience) — with the (looking up the proper term) "infotainment screen" that fills up the middle of the dashboard, where cars used to provide such useful things as a CD player, radio, and various HVAC/lighting controls. The lack of a CD player has kept me in a bad mood for a year now, exacerbated by Toyota's schemes to sell me extra-cost subscriptions (music deals, other crap).

The promise of the system is supposed to be its integration with my cell phone. I have managed to stream some music from Spotify using Bluetooth (thus far, mostly Chuck Berry; it's hard to find things using the Spotify phone interface, especially as I hadn't figured out how to get Android Auto working until two weeks ago.

So I complained to Toyota, and to the dealer. The dealer at least took a look at the problem, and concluded there wasn't one. I've been locked out of the Toyota app for nearly a year, so they gave me a phone number to talk to someone else about that. Not their problem, or deal. Nor is the confusion over the rot of expiring subscriptions to "services" that never made any sense in the first place. I wrote a Substack post earlier this week called Yahoo Mail Really Sucks. I had already been thinking about a Toyota Sucks piece when the Yahoo mess broke. It's still in the works, but it's most likely just another example of how modern companies waste no opportunity to rip off their captive customers.

Still, I feel the need for further research. I have a phone, but it's too old for updates. I hardly ever use it: rare phone calls, a plate pic when I cook, uploaded via email (which otherwise I don't use). I find the browser nearly useless. I resist adding apps, which I mostly regard as infernal plots to control. My wife does much more with her phone. Perhaps I should learn some new tricks?

As for music, it's possible to get a plug-in CD player. Local businesses want about $500 to mount one somewhere, then plug it into the car's one USB port. Amazon has similar devices for about $50. Given the cockpit design, there's no good place to mount it. Another possibility would be a MP3 player (or maybe FLAC: newer ones support multiple formats). Back in the day, I'd load up three travel cases with 200 CDs, then drive cross-country. New ones can hold that much music, maybe more. It would be smaller than a CD player, easier to mount, and more reliable. I'd need some way to load it up, and to find things on it. Researching those questions has been very frustrating, but there must be a way?

I don't like going through life with giant chips on my shoulder, but that seems to be my life these days. I don't understand it very well. I used to be better at coping. But I used to be better at getting all sorts of things done. I probably need to focus on the "serenity prayer," and other "core AA slogans." (Drinking isn't an option, at least one with any appeal.) And as far as chips go, I'm in nowhere near as bad shape as Donald Trump. That's a guy whose neuroses have really screwed up his life — a situation that isn't helped by having the power to inflict his misery on others.

I was pretty despondent when I got up Wednesday morning. Then I saw that Yahoo's POP server had coughed up 124 of my emails, with more arriving intermittently throughout the day. I did nothing to get this working again. And I have no communication from Yahoo saying they did anything, or were even aware of a problem. It may be that someone there did notice my post, or maybe they just looked at their own error log files, or maybe a broken server went offline and the slack got picked up by a working machine. At any rate, dozens of suggestions from their chatbot did no good whatsoever. They mostly served to deflect attention, with not the slightest care as to how much pain and aggravation they cause.

So, not knowing what else to do, I spent Wednesday posting my advance Music Week on Substack. This week is a day or two short of last week, but with fewer distractions I have a bit more to report. I've tried to catch up with more non-jazz, but I don't have much of a plan as to what to listen to. And having posted two long rants to Substack — the Yahoo piece mentioned above, and something on political categories (capitalism, socialism, the Left) occasioned by Jordan Peterson, I wound up skimping on many reviews below — satisfied that I had heard enough to render a grade, without taking the extra time to craft a coherent review. Examples below include pretty good B+(**) records by Johnny Blue Skies, Kiss Facility, Caroline Kraabel, Arlo Parks, The Strokes, Syd, Juanma Trujillo, and Yard Act, and B+(***) for Ravyn Lenae and Wiki.

On the other hand, I did write more about the albums I highlighted, if only because they have more history to frame. I'm surprised to find two of my favorite acts of the 1960s and 1980s have come up with top-tier albums this year, although both have had post-peak albums that I liked quite a bit, even if they never turned into regular plays. (Not much ever does these days.) That's probably the case here, too, but I've played them both a lot this week, and they do hold up.

Pussy Riot was a slightly harder call. I've never paid much attention to their singles, and had little preconception going into this album. I also noted that so far it's gotten poor reviews (AOTY 63/4; I've read several, and they align poorly with what I'm hearing). Conceptually, one problem is that they don't have a signature sound or style: there are 4-6 different approaches here, but most of them are remarkable on their own terms. Also, it's mostly in Russian, which blunts the politics, aside from "Disobey." Not that I know or care much their political agenda: while I blamed Putin for invading Ukraine, I have long thought that the war should be ended as quickly as possible, based on the current stalemate, and not drawn out in some vain hope of justice prevailing. But Putin is still their problem, even as my problem is Trump.

As for Satoko Fujii's second orchestra album this year, she's on a roll. I just got the third one in the mail. I've let my demo queue accumulate, as they're mostly advances, some out to October. I'll catch up in due course.

I omitted the Oliver-Smith Incomparables album from my advance, as it isn't scheduled until later, and I didn't want to confuse with something not readily available. The album had already gotten votes in the Mid-Year poll, and I was anxious to get to it. That happens sometimes, and I note future release dates below.

No idea what I'm going to do going forward. I should finish my facelift of the jazz poll website, and I need to update the database to the Christgau website. I half-expected an August Consumer Guide on Wednesday, but it's running late (no idea how late). I could always jot down more Loose Tabs. But I'm pretty disgusted with the world these days, as I feel not just less able to affect it, but even to survive it. Which is a shame, because in many respects, we as a species have never had more opportunities to live well, and have become so productive that there is no good reason why anyone should be left out.

New records reviewed this week:

Michael Blake: Piccolos Before Rifles (2025 [2026], Baby Tank): Canadian saxophonist, a couple dozen albums since 1997, many more group- (Blake Tartare, Slow Poke) and side-credits. Plays tenor/soprano here, plus flutes, with Guilherme Monteiro (guitar), Skye Soto Steele (violin), Gil Lopes (bass), and Rogerio Boccato (drums) — three of those from Brazil, the other Puerto Rican. B+(**) [sp]

Billy Childs: Triumvirate (2026, Mack Avenue): Pianist, from Los Angeles, straddles classical and jazz, with "chamber jazz" a middle position, early albums (1988-93) on new age Windham Hill, has had some Grammy success. Trio with Matt Penman (bass) and Ari Hoenig (drums). Nice little record. B+(*) [sp]

Isaiah Collier: Joy (2026, Brownswood, EP): Chicago saxophonist, has made a strong impression with his Chose Few group, even more so with the Ancients (a trio with Williams Hooker and Parker), comes out singing here with the title track, lifted by big band and strings, and ends with another gospel-inflected vocal ("God's By Your Side"). In between, three instrumental pieces, with flute and keyboards. Total: five songs, 27:13. Not my thing. B− [sp]

DOMi & JD Beck: Who Asked? (2026, Apeshit/Blue Note): French keyboardist Domi Louna (Domitille Degalle) and American drummer JD Beck, second album, has some vocals (probably Domi), a lot of extra orchestration (flute, clarinets, oboe, bassoon, violin). B− [sp]

Ferg's Imaginary Big Band: The New Atomic (2024 [2026], Trash City): UK (Leeds) bandleader-composer Fergus Quill, leads a band of 30 or so, aiming for that Basie big bang, and then some. B+(*) [sp]

Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: After the Storm (2026, Libra): The second of this year's promised batch of five big band albums, a new recording where Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra was an archive from 2014. That was around the time when Fujii released four big band albums with different orchestras. At the time, I compared one of them to Basie's Atomic Orchestra from the 1950s, at least in terms of power and sheer brassiness. The new series is impressive so far, and this is one of the most immediately appealing of her large-scale efforts. A- [cd]

Iceage: For Love of Grace & the Hereafter (2026, Mexican Summer): Danish post-punk band, sounded solid on their 2011 debut, uninteresting on three (of four) 2013-2021 efforts, but getting a lot of hype for this sixth album. Not punk in any meaningful sense, but upbeat, engaging, with a few hooks. I like the song that goes "life is for the weak," for the words but also for the extra noise. B+(**) [sp]

Johnny Blue Skies & the Dark Clouds: Mutiny After Midnight (2026, High Top Mountain/Atlantic): Country singer-songwriter Sturgill Simpson, debut 2013, second album as Johnny Blue Skies, first to add the band name. Strays far from country, but offers protest songs to open and close (the "Extended Edition" tacks on three extras, including "A Whiter Shade of Pale"). B+(**) [sp]

Leven Kali: LK99 (2026, Def Jam): Dutch-born American singer-songwriter, couple albums since 2019, first vocal here is a dead-ringer for Prince, especially as he's already established a funk groove. B+(*) [sp]

Kiss Facility: Khazna (2026, Ambient Tweets): Arabic-influenced dream pop duo of Mayah Alkhateri (from UAE) and Salvador Navarrete (from Egypt); first album after several singles (from 2023). B+(**) [sp]

Caroline Kraabel/Pat Thomas/John Edwards/Steve Noble: Transgressive Coastlines (2024 [2026], Shrike): Alto saxophonist, born in California, moved to London as a teen, has a fair number of records since 1997, but not much I've heard. The piano-bass-drums trio is long acquainted. B+(**) [bc]

Ravyn Lenae: Blue Island (2026, Atlantic): Alt-R&B singer-songwriter from Chicago, third album. B+(***) [sp]

Madonna: Confessions II (2026, Warner): Conceived as a sequal to 2006's Confessions on a Dance Floor, which could just as well have been a sequel to 1987's You Can Dance. Down side is that everything here sounds like something you already know. Good news is that it all sounds great (except maybe for the soft landing). A- [sp]

Oliver-Smith Incomparables: Stomp Your Stuff (2025 [2026], Turtle Bay): Trad jazz group led by pianist Andrew Oliver (2 at Discogs, which credits him with one album, but 30 more performances, including Sextets from 2008-10) and veteran drummer Hal Smith, with cornet (Colin Hancock), clarinet, trombone, guitar/banjo, and bass/tuba, playing vintage goodies from the 1920s. Instant joy. A- [cd] [08-28]

Arlo Parks: Ambiguous Desire (2026, Transgressive): British alt-pop singer-songwriter, third album, first two very good, this one a bit more, uh, ambiguous. B+(**) [sp]

Pussy Riot: Cyka (2026, Stem): Russian feminist performance art collective, fiercely anti-Putin (and these days pro-Ukraine), founded in 2011, membership fluid and often jailed or otherwise harassed, has released an EP and several singles, appears here with a full album, probably because co-founder Nadya Tolokonnikova (and possibly others) escaped to Iceland. A fairly wide range of sounds and styles, where the punk/hardcore may be the most compelling because there the message comes through even without words, but the rap and electropop and something that sounds like a Kate Bush hit ("Pain") also impress, suggesting a worldview that goes beyond rage, but doesn't flinch from it when needed. A- [sp]

Rolling Stones: Foreign Tongues (2026, Rolling Stones/Polydor): Major group, rivaled the Beatles in the 1960s, has lasted much longer, survived the death of Brian Jones, the retirement of Bill Wyman, and more recently (and more importantly) the death of Charlie Watts. But the two singer-songwriters, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards, are still active, however improbably, as is Jones replacement Ron Wood. But their ontogeny basically ended with 1972's Exile on Main Street. Since then they've mostly engaged in buckraking, with regular tours, concert films, live albums, and the occasional studio effort — most lukewarm, but some significant enough to be hailed as return-to-form comebacks. Those too have trailed off and thinned out, but this is the best in quite a while (probably since 2004's A Bigger Bang, or 1986's Dirty Work, or maybe 1981's Tattoo You. The key word is "return," as they virtually defined "classic rock," and can tap into any time they want — at least half of this overly long album. Key wisdom for the aged: "Life's too short for just making money." The irony is palpable, but the line is credible nonetheless. A- [sp]

The Strokes: Reality Awaits (2026, RCA/Cult): New York alt/indie group, considered a big deal with their 2001 debut, releases have slowed down since 2005, this just the second since 2013. Surprisingly good groove band, until they aren't. B+(**) [sp]

AJ Suede: Atomic Justice (2026, Knowhatimean, EP): Seattle rapper, underground, lots of albums since 2015, this one 12 songs, 25:34. B+(*) [sp]

Skúli Sverrisson/Bill Frisell: For All Your Flowers (2026, Newvelle): Guitarist from Iceland, based in New York, albums since 1997, side credits with groups like Alasnoaxis and Yeah No, as well as working as music director for Laurie Anderson. Duo with the famed American guitarist. B+(*) [sp]

Syd: Beard (2026, Free Lunch/Warner): Neo-soul singer-songwriter from Los Angeles, third album, has a nice, easy flow. B+(**) [sp]

Juanma Trujillo/Kenneth Jiménez/Vasco Trilla: Nada Es Nada (2026, Ramble): Venezuelan guitarist, based in New York, several albums since 2018, with Costa Rican bassist (also based in New York) and Spanish drummer, recorded in Barcelona. Works through some tricky changes. B+(**) [bc]

WDR Big Band: Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto (2024 [2026], Summit): Inserto (b. 1976) studied at New England Conservatory, was a protégé of Bob Brookmeyer, teaches at Berklee, has two albums as Ayn Inserto Jazz Orchestra, a couple more where her compositions are performed by others (she also conducts here). I tend to dismiss European big bands, but this group, featuring Sean Jones (trumpet), is pretty sharp, possibly because that's what the compositions demand (or inspire?). B+(***) [cd]

Wiki: Ancient History (2026, Wikset): New York rapper Patrick Morales, started in Ratking c. 2011, eighth album since 2017. B+(***) [sp]

Yard Act: You're Gonna Need a Little Music (2026, Universal Island): British post-punk group, from Leeds, singer James Smith, third album since 2022, most impressive when most intense. B+(**) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

None.

Old music:

None.

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Dr. Gianni Bianchini: A Study in Songbook (Gianni Bianchini Entertainment) [08-01]
  • Geof Bradfield/Myra Melford/Ben Goldberg/Dana Hall: Open or Close (Calligram) [09-04]
  • Greg Chako: Hard Bop for the Record (Mint400) [09-04]
  • Christian Finger: Zeit Zirkel (Finger Music) [10-01]
  • Satoko Fujii Orchestra Berlin: Second Attempt (Libra) [09-04]
  • Gwen Hughes: The First Noel: Jazz Hymns for Christmas (Fairfield) [10-15]
  • Jason Kao Hwang/Human Rites Trio: Second Life (Flying Panda Music) [10-01]
  • Judi Silvano's Garden Winds: First Flight (JSL) [10-01]
  • Technocrats: Passionata: The Music of Gregg Hill (Cold Plunge) [08-28]
  • Chris Whiteman/John Toomey Quartet: Live at Révéler (self-released) [10-02]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Saturday, August 8, 2026

Music Week

August archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46385 [46366] rated (+19), 18 [11] unrated +7).

Advance Music Week appeared August 6 on Substack. It is also archived here. My cutoff was done before the Substack post, but the introduction is revised/rewritten the day or two after. I also published Loose Tabs (8) this week, on August 3, which was a recap of my August 1 Loose Tabs with further thoughts.

After racking up 184 reviews in July, I'm down to 19 this week (6 below + one revisit). I knew I wasn't going to keep the pace up this week. My cousin, Max Brown, died in January. He owned a ranch near Douglass, 30-40 miles southeast of Wichita, and the estate set up an auction of his equipment, tools, furniture, guns, and so forth for August 6. His nephew and nieces were coming up for that, and I spent some time with them, taking the opportunity to rustle up a fairly substantial dinner, mostly old family favorites.

So that roughly cut my week in half. But by the time that was done, I had gotten caught up in several tech crises. Unfortunately, these are not the sort of tech crises that one can research, troubleshoot, and find technical solutions to. These are tech crises wrapped up in an oozing blanket of corporate strategy, of the sort that Cory Doctorow wrote about as Enshittification.

For some reason, Toyota is not satisfied just selling cars. They've put a rather crappy computer console in the middle of the dashboard, and now they see that as an opportunity to squeeze more money out of their customers. Or also to charge third parties for the opportunity to prey on their customers: the car came with "free trial subscriptions" to AT&T and Sirius XM, which as far as I can tell are worthless. There are other deals with Amazon and Apple streaming services, which tie in with their decision not to include (or even offer) a CD player. Their "Toyota Connect" trial subscription ended July 31, which may (or may not) have something to do with lots of connection glitches, some of which occurred dangerously while I was driving on the highway.

I'll rant about this more later. My more immediate problem is with Yahoo email. My email address originally came from a local cable operator, but shortly after we moved here, they sold out to Cox, who changed my address (adding a "2" to the user name). I've had that address since 2002, but in 2024, Cox decided to stop supporting email (which, quite frankly, they were pretty bad at), so they sold their address list to Yahoo. That was annoying, but I managed to jump through their hoops and get Thunderbird working with their POP and SMTP servers. That was working ok until August 4, when I stopped receiving email. It took me another day to really notice what was going on. The error message says: "Server error - Please try again later." We are now four days later, with no successful RETR requests.

I'll spare you further technical detail, although I can assure you that I've spent many hours since then examining every aspect of the protocol, and I'm confident that the problem is not on my end. I've also spent many hours trying to get help from Yahoo. I haven't found any customer support, or any way to contact a human agent. I have spent 6-8 hours with their chatbot, going over all the possible changes I could make on my end to possibly remedy the problem. Note, however, that the chatbot is blissfully unaware of the meaning of the "server error" message: the only thing they are trained to do is to blame the customer's configuration for any mistakes. Still, I managed three times to steer it around to the point of offering to let me continue by speaking to an actual human. Yet each time after I agreed, they told me that none was available. Yahoo's webpage says as much. They sort of imply that if I had some kind of pair tier account, they would have offer 24/7 service, but it isn't clear how real that offer is. The things they offer service help on are routine user tasks. Quite possibly they are following the Cox model, where the people who actually run the servers are firewalled so the customer service people can't bother them. The assumption here is that our system is perfect, so all problems are yours (mostly due to your ignorance and/or incompetence).

I don't know what I'm going to do about this. For now, I can still read email using Yahoo's webpage app, and also, oddly enough, on my phone — which I never use for email, although I do have an IMAP/SMTP account set up there. The web app is pretty horrible. It is very slow and awkward to work. And I can't move mail to my archives. And while it probably keeps a record of sent email, that's not the same as having the archive on my own machine. But for now, suffice it to say that I'm still sorting through August 4 email, and have yet to look at any of today's email today.

I hoped to get some free time after the Mid-Year Poll, but we're off to a horrible, depressing start. With problems coming so fast, and solutions so slow, I'm starting to worry about bumping unprepared into another poll season. I am still expecting to run an end-of-year poll, but I'm hoping that will be my last, and that I can find someone else to carry it forward. I'm running out of years to . . . well, waste isn't the right word, but there are other things I still want to work on.

A few weeks ago, I decided to read up on AI, so I picked out four books I thought might be helpful (in the Recent Reading, to the left). For the most part, they were (I have some reservations about Robert Wright's The God Test, which I anticipated from the title, but had hoped he wouldn't get stuck there). I should write up some notes on them. My plan was to sign up for an LLM (probably Claude), and see what I can do with it. Now that, and much more, will have to wait until I can work through the email problem. In the meantime, I picked up a book on Venezuela I bought back when that seemed to be the most pressing Trump war policy problem.

By the way, last week's two full-A albums (Laurie Anderson: Let X = X, and Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife) are still in heavy rotation. (Cover images added.) That's another reason I've had less time for new music this week. I should also note that the main source for what I did manage to listen to last week was Phil Overeem's July list. After catching up there, I'm finding it surprisingly hard to figure out what to play next. I've paid little attention My own promo bin — disorganized again, but mostly full of future releases (as far out as October). I haven't been collecting a metacritic file, so I've mostly been leaning on a few sources (like Overeem, Dan Weiss, and Jeffrey Callahan) who are still doing the work to find things first (and that list is nowhere near complete).

Apologies if you've sent me mail I haven't noticed yet. I set thull2 [at] tomhull.com up back when Cox was giving me aggravation. It still gets through, is checked regularly, and pops up alerts I sometimes notice, but can find it easily enough, and archive the messages in my local folders. I'm not at this point saying you should use the alternative email address. I don't see it as being a real solution down the road. But it is available now.

PS: Even before the email problem, I expected to have a lot of highly technical issues to work through in the next month or two: changes to the jazz critics poll website, possibly to other websites (Robert Christgau's, mine, maybe more), investigating email alternatives for the poll, investing in some AI tools, as well as making some changes to my home stereo setup (which also flops over into the car problem). I have two email lists that I use to discuss such things. (Perhaps I should also look into public forums, which I used long ago, but not so much lately.) One list is specific to the jazz critics poll. The other is more oriented to the Christgau website. If you would like to help, or at least just enjoy listening to me banging on about such things, let me know, and I will sign you up.

New records reviewed this week:

Badger Hunt: Full Moon in My Pocket (2026, self-released): Brooklyn-based duo of Miles Lee Elissor (TX) and James McCarthy Walker (SC). Looks to be their second album, skipping three Free Noise compilations on their Bandcamp. Noisy, often in a good way. B+(**) [bc]

Concrete Rock: New York DIY (2026, Desert Island): Eleven short songs (35:09) by eleven groups, only one I've heard of (CS Cleaners, and that just last week), all new songs written for this release, inspired by Sidney Salk's "collection of comps from the 70s-90s," from punk to no wave to generic indie. B+(*) [bc]

Graham Coxon: Castle Rock (2026, Transgressive): English singer-songwriter, ninth studio album since 1998, was in Blur 1988-2002, leaving before the band's first hiatus, but also later reunions (2009, 2023). Some catchy songcraft, at least to open. B [sp]

CS Cleaners: What's This? (2026, Wharf Cat): Brooklyn-based post-punk band, first album after a 2023 EP, claim influences from "NYC downtown music from CBGB's diverse first wave through no-wave's mutations and deconstructions," but with hooks as well as overtures. B+(***) [sp]

Doseone & Height Keech: Wood Teeth II (2026, Hands Made, EP): Rapper Adam Drucker, from Idaho, was a cofounder of Anticon. Six songs, 15:42, kind of a metal vibe. B+(**) [sp]

Kelela: New Avatar (2026, Warp): Singer-songwriter from DC, last name Mizanekristos, parents Ethiopian, third studio album since 2015 (also has remixes and a live album), electropop with soul airs. B+(**) [sp]

Mark Lomax, II & the Urban Art Ensemble: Black Odes: A Reclamation Suite (2026, CFG Multimedia): Drummer from Columbus, Ohio, with many records since 1999, should be a major figure but few people are aware of him, or for that matter his brilliant saxophonist, Edwin Bayard. Part of the problem is that the streaming interface on his website is hard to find let alone trust. This seems to have four pieces, of indeterminate length, promising "jazz, classical, hip-hop, and poetry are brought together to imagine a world where racism never existed." Long on concept, but hard to track in this form. B+(***) [os]

Henrik Olsson: Antumbra Ensemble (2025 [2026], Cuneiform): Guitarist, (13) on Discogs (1 is a Swedish drummer; no bio here, but album was recorded in Denmark), debut album, a septet with alto sax, trumpet, trombone, tuba, electric bass, and drums, loosely modeled on Henry Threadgill's Very Very Circus and "Rock in Opposition" bands like Henry Cow. Frenzied, for sure, but that's all I hear here. B [dl]

Mon Rovîa: Bloodline (2026, Nettwerk): Folkie singer-songwriter, but in Monrovia, Liberia, but adopted by an American family when he was seven, and grew up in Chattanooga, where he developed a fondness for folk music. B+(*) [sp]

Navy Blue: Sir Render (2026, Freedom Sounds): Rapper Sage Elesser, more than a dozen albums since 2020, serious thoughts over mild underground beats. This winds up his "Knighthood" trilogy, following on Memoirs in Armour and The Sword and the Soaring. Probably worth more study than I can muster. B+(***) [sp]

Odd Okoddo & Ogoya Nengo: Palagoma (2026, From Cool Waters): From Nairobi, Kenya, the former a duo of dodo singer-songwriter Olith Ratego and drummer Sven Kacirek, the latter an 83-year-old folk artist. B+(***) [bc]

Henrik Olsson: Antumbra Ensemble (2025 [2026], Cuneiform): Guitarist, (13) on Discogs (1 is a Swedish drummer; no bio here, but album was recorded in Denmark), debut album, a septet with alto sax, trumpet, trombone, tuba, electric bass, and drums, loosely modeled on Henry Threadgill's Very Very Circus and "Rock in Opposition" bands like Henry Cow. Frenzied, for sure, but that's all I hear here. B [dl]

Lido Pimienta: Caribenya (2026, Anti-): Singer-songwriter from Colombia, grew up in Canada (Toronto), fifth album since 2010, titles and lyrics in Spanish. B+(*) [sp]

Speaker Music: Synoptic Audio (2026, Planet Mu): Techno producer DeForrest Brown Jr., from "the deep South," based in New York, has several albums since 2019, long on theory as well as esoteric technology. This one, for instance, is manipulated then played on a speaker array and re-recorded using an omnidirectional mic to pick up all the room vibrations. No doubt the method adds to the sonic depth, but I was more interested before it consumed the album (and I felt the need to turn it down a bit). B+(**) [bc]

Vince Staples: Cry Baby (2026, Loma Vista): Los Angeles rapper, seventh studio album since 2015, has come up with a different sound here, thin beats, moderate speed, words basic enough for rock, a combination I find appealing, much more than anything else he's done. A- [sp]

Frank Trompeter/Richard Gilman-Opalsky: Antifascist Freedom Music (2026, Mahakala Music): Saxophonist (tenor/alto/soprano) from Chicago, has several albums going back to 2001, in a duo with the drummer, who also plays wood flutes. The jazz is certainly free, if a bit shrill. But maybe that's what the times call for. B+(**) [bc]

Twisted Teens: Florida Water Blues (2026, Going Underground): New Orleans-based post-punk band, third album in quick succession, songs written by bassist C.P.N. Hollywell, sung by guitarist Cas P. Ian, 13 songs run an unrushed 42:29. Gets more interesting when it veers into swamp rock. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Lekan Animashaun: Low Profile (1977-86 [2026], Strut): Nigerian baritone saxophonist, a long-time fixture in the bands of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti, seems to be the only album under his name, two tracks totaling 23:03. Original album didn't come out until 1995. B+(***) [sp]

Los Orientales De Paramonga: 1972-1976 (1972-76 [2026], Analog Africa): Peruvian group, from somewhere north of Lima, recorded several albums in this time period. Really nice guitar and percussion. Vocals come and go, over 25 songs (73 minutes). Probably not major, but very pleasant. A- [sp]

Gary Stewart: One Track Mind (1970-73 [2026], Delmore Recording Society): Country singer-songwriter (1944-2003), made a big splash with his 1975 debut album (Out of Hand), which got MCA to finally round up a bunch of older singles and miscellany as You're Not the Woman You Used to Be. The search for his juvenilia continues here, in the label's third collection of "previously unreleased, pre-RCA recordings." Starts strong, in excellent voice, but my mind slides off the track by the end. Recording dates approximate. B+(**) [sp]

Gary Stewart: King of the Honky Tonks Live (1981 [2025], Gary Stewart): Live shot, from near the end of his RCA phase. So lots of familiar songs, a fair alternative to the many best-of compilations RCA has released from the period. B+(**) [sp]

Old music:

Twisted Teens: Twisted Teens (2024 [2025], Chain Smoking): New Orleans-based post-punk group, first album, looks like the initial releases were on cassette, first in Germany then in the US before other labels got involved. 11 songs, 32:08. I was expecting something tighter and grimmer, but instead they remind me of the Dead Milkmen. B+(***) [sp]

Grade (or other) changes:

Ratboys: Singin' to an Empty Chair (2026, New West): Chicago indie rock band, Julia Steiner the singer, guitarist David Sagan the other principal, sixth studio album since 2015. Sounded fine when I gave it an initial play, but evidently not much of a listen. [was: B+(**)] A- [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • The Joshua Breakstone Quartet: Wonderful! (1983, Capri) [08-21]
  • Rob Dixon: Naptown Soul (Strikezone) [08-21]
  • John Hollenbeck & Hot Club Jazz Orchestra: Peace & Justice (Flexatonic) [08-14]
  • Justin Pierce: Sway (Justin Pierce Music) [08-14]
  • Alex Roitman Tango Ensemble: La Cocina De Tango (ARTE-FL) [08-25]
  • Henry Threadgill Zooid: Cut You Where You Was (Pi) [08-28]
  • Gaia Wilmer Large Ensemble Featuring Mônica Salmaso: Parabólico: Reflections on Gilberto Gil Volume I (Sunnyside) [08-14]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, August 1, 2025

Loose Tabs

I've spent roughly a week pulling this together. It's nowhere near as comprehensive as it should be, but part of that is that I'm rowing against a flood of mostly disturbing news. My idea is that I'll go ahead and post this on August 1, then write some kind of Executive Summary for a Notes on Everyday Life post in the coming week. While I'm pulling that together, I'll add a few links here, plus some more subject head writing. I'll also do the Table of Contents then. Big thing is to move on, which means putting this up sooner rather than later. I'll add change bars to mark whatever I add.

As it turns out, I'm not going to have a lot of time next week anyway. We'll have visitors, and that will take a fair amount of time and attention. It will probably result in the shortest Music Week in quite some time. Also next week is the primary election in Kansas. The big issue to be decided here is an Amendment on how State Supreme Court Justices are selected in Kansas. Republicans are upset because the State Supreme Court has ruled that abortion rights are protected by the Kansas State Constitution, so cannot be simply outlawed by the state's very gerrymandered veto-proof legislative majority. A couple years ago, they tried to pass another amendment to outlaw abortion. That measures was voted down 58.8% to 41.2%. Now they're trying this back door route. We'll also have open Democratic primaries for Governor, Senator, and the House, each with multiple capable candidates. They've been hard to come by in past years, so there is some small reason to hope for this fall.

This is an occasional collection of newsworthy links and comments, much less systematic than what I attempted in my late Speaking of Which posts. The new name comes from my extensive use of browser tabs. When I get around to cleaning up, I often find tabs opened to old articles I might want to comment on and/or refer back to. So these posts are mostly housecleaning, but may also serve as a very limited but persistent record of what 20+ years ago I started calling "the end of the American empire" and nowadays feels more like "the end of civilization." I collect these bits in a draft file, and flush them out when periodically (12 times from April-December 2025, not much more often in 2026). My previous one appeared 48 days ago, on June 14. The exceptional delay this time has much to do with my work on the Mid-Year 2026 Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll.

By the way, I've been trying to write some more in-depth pieces on major issues (and/or personal peccadillos), using Substack as an email agent. I call this series Notes on Everyday Life. Here's a list of recent ones, plus a couple of oldies I've pinned because they still seem relevant here, in LIFO order:

  • [07-29]: Famous Death Dwarves: Lindsey Graham is finally laid to rest. This was based on the section below.

  • [06-26]: Arafat and Abbas on Violence: Reflections from Tomorrow Is Yesterday.

  • [06-22]: After Iran: A funny thing happened on the way to the apocalypse.

  • [05-29]: But Reality Is Unscripted: Disturbing thoughts on Trump.

  • [05-05]: The Real Road to Serfdom: Tim Wu explains how monopoly power leads to fascism.

  • [05-02]: Lookback: Iraq 2003: Why does the Iran war story sound familiar? (with allowances for tragedy repeating as farce)?

  • [04-27]: Explaining Inflation: AI treats us like 5-year-olds. They leave out a few things.

  • [04-05]: Iran War: The Big Question: How does it end? Or does it end at all?

  • [04-03]: Iran War: The Three Questions: Why is this happening?

  • [03-13]: Days of Infamy: "Franklin Roosevelt knew how to sell a war." Donald Trump doesn't. He only knows how to start one.

  • [2025-10-21]: Making Peace in Gaza and Beyond: "Looking beyond the Trump points toward a peace we can all live with."

  • [2025-10-17]: Gaza War Peace Plan: "Twenty Trump points, for better or worse."

  • [2025-08-10]: Four Stories: My first post, which sets out the basic ideas behind my effort, and takes its title from a very wrong-headed Vox piece that offered some teachable moments. One sample quote I buried in parentheses:

    There is no problem that Trump is the solution to. But his slogan, "Trump will fix it," suggests that some people thought we had problems he could fix. I think Trump's slogan was very effective, especially as Harris made little or no effort to show how very ridiculous the boast was.

I also have a Notes feed there. While I've done very little with it so far, it occurs to me that I might be able to use it to publish Loose Tabs items and Music Week reviews as I write them, instead of having to wait for a long compilation post.

Table of Contents:

New Stories

Sometimes stuff happens, and it dominates the news/opinion cycle for a few days or possibly several weeks. We might as well lead with it, because it's where attention is most concentrated. But eventually these stories will fold into the broader, more persistent themes of the following sections, or vanish altogether.

The World Cup:

  • Graham Peebles [07-09]: Poisoning the World Cup: The American Way: "The football has been brilliant, because football is brilliant. But the 2026 World Cup — hosted across the US, Canada, and Mexico — mainly in America — is the most corrupt, polluted tournament in the tournament's 96-year history."

  • Bess Levin [07-29]: Everyone hates FIFA's plan to let Jared Kushner's brother run the World Cup: "How did interested parties react to the plan? In a word, badly. In three words, quite fucking badly, unless threatening to boycott the World Cup was intended to signal support for the idea."

Lindsey Graham: [Note: I published an extract of this on [07-29] as: Famous Death Dwarves.] The Senator (R-SC) died on July 11, age 71. While I have many unpleasant memories of the man who probably ranks as the most persistent war hawk in my lifetime (a span that includes Arthur Vandenberg, John Stennis, Henry Jackson, and Graham's amigos John McCain and Joe Lieberman), one that sticks in my mind occurred back when he was an obscure junior member of the House (1995-2003). I pretty clearly remember him talking about the need for Republicans to lock up the judiciary and other centers of power whenever they have the chance, to stay in power even when elections turn against them. (Admittedly, it isn't easy to fact check this rare instance of blurting out the usually unspoken part about subverting democracy.) While his passion for provoking armed conflict was his defining trait, he was an inveterate schemer, a political animal with no respect whatsoever for democracy, or for the people it's meant to serve.

  • Kelley Beaucar Vlahos [07-12]: Lindsey Graham, last great Cold War warrior, dead at 71: "The senator was an inspiration to those who believed military power was essential to making the world 'right.' Others thought he lost his 'America First' perspective in Ukraine and Israel." I think the "Cold War warrior" concept misses the point. While he was old enough to have formed his hawkish beliefs before the Soviet Union dissolved, the Cold War was always constrained by a sense of limits. Graham, on the other hand, fully embraced the post-Cold War euphoria, relishing America's singular superpower (aka hyperpower) moment, believing that the mere threat of "shock and awe" would cower enemies into surrender and submission. That doctrine almost immediately failed in Somalia (where it is still failing 35 years later). It failed in Afghanistan. It failed in Iraq. No nation embraced it more fully than Israel, and they've been locked in a hopeless forever war against everyone (even their own people) ever since. Most people know by now that Graham never met a war he didn't want to escalate. What's less commented on, perhaps because it's even more ridiculous, is his inability to ever see a downside in the wars he promoted. They've failed time and time again, not only to achieve their stated goals but by causing enormous collateral damage that has only generated more chaos and resistance. But his only answer to such failure was to double down on violence. He not only worshipped power. He was locked inside its web, unable to see or imagine anything else. But perhaps worst of all was how glib and giddy his delusions made him. I don't know why Al Smith was called "the happy warrior," but he couldn't have been a tenth as deserving of that title as Graham.

  • Benjy Sarlin [7-12]: Lindsey Graham sacrificed his reputation to Donald Trump. He got plenty in return. "His career explains why so many Republicans made peace with Trump — and what he gave up to do it." The assumption, which isn't unreasonable, is that Trump will be soon regarded as a disgrace, even to Republicans. But one could also ask the question, what did Trump sacrifice to gain the toadying allegiance of Republicans like Graham? (And Rubio, Cruz, Vance, dozens more, among them the most reactionary reprobates in American politics.) In 2016, Trump had the smarts to run against Republican orthodoxy on war, trade, corruption ("the swamp"), and social security. But after he got elected, he turned everything over to regular right-wing Republicans, reducing himself to nothing more than an inept front man.

  • The New Voice of Ukraine:

    • [07-13]: Inside Lindsey Graham's relentless last days spent fighting for Ukraine and sanctions: On July 9, Graham traveled to Ukraine (flew out of Turkiye, took a train from Poland, "a journey that lasted 10 hours"). He met with Zelensky.

      That same day, the senator and his colleagues announced they reached an agreement with the Trump administration to advance the revised version of the Russia sanctions bill.

      In Kyiv, Graham told reporters that the deal had been struck just 30 minutes earlier.

      According to Representative Michael McCaul, keeping Trump engaged in supporting Ukraine was largely Graham's doing.

      Graham returned to the US, where he died on July 11.

    • [07-28]: Witkoff, Kushner could visit Kyiv within weeks.

    • [07-28]: Iran, Ukraine ease tensions over Caspian sea attack: "Ukrainian and Iranian foreign ministers, Andrii Sybiha and Abbas Araghchi, spoke on July 28 to calm things down after Ukraine attacked an Iranian cargo vessel in the Caspian Sea on July 26."

  • Jeet Heer [07-13]: Lindsey Graham chose evil: "Conspiracy theorists liked to say that Graham's Trump sycophancy was a result of blackmail. But the truth is worse: He stuck with Trump to keep the US war machine going."

  • Michael Tomasky [07-13]: Lindsey Graham's legacy? It's about one thing, and it isn't good: "He alone had the moral authority within the Republican Party to try to stop Donald Trump, especially after January 6. He chose not to. That's what we must remember today." It's mind-boggling to think that Graham had any morality, much less moral authority. (I don't have any more respect for McCain, but at least he had an act he appeared to believe in.) And for the record, the one Republican who could have stopped Trump after Jan. 6 was McConnell, who could have gotten Trump banned from running again by declaring him invalid under the 14th Amendment (with or without convicting him on impeachment charges). But by then hyperpartisanship had so rotted his brain he couldn't conceive of crossing Trump.

  • Chas Danner [07-13]: Was Lindsey Graham an opportunist, operator, failure, or disgrace? Probably all of the above. None of those are words a normal person would welcome in a eulogy, although Graham himself might have opted for the first two.

  • Jeffrey St Clair [07-13]: Graham Crackers: The words of a professional warmonger. Lots of Graham quotes here, not a lot of context. He contradicts himself so often some quotes may appear reasonable, but rest assured that in its proper context everything he said was meant to be evil. Like this one, which can hardly be interpreted any other way: "When this [Iran] regime goes down, we are going to have a new Middle East, and we are going to make a ton of money." I doubt that Graham was ever in the war business that much for the money, so most likely this quote was intended for an audience of the one who was [Trump]. But it sums up nicely what Graham saw as his Faustian bargain: he gets his war in exchange for his soul, which was never worth much in the first place. Still, odds are that in the end Trump will just pocket the money, leaving the old Middle East much as it was, but poorer.

  • Nathan J Robinson [07-13]: Why mourn Lindsey Graham and not his victims? "The late Republican senator was constantly lobbying for the killing of others. Why should anyone weep for a man who didn't care about inflicting death around the world?"

  • Elie Mystal [07-14]: Lindsey Graham's defense of Brett Kavanaugh told us everything: "The senator's infamous cry of rage spoke not only to his cruelty but also to his larger role in changing the court." Well, not everything, but enough.

  • Jamelle Bouie [07-15]: Lindsey Graham knew better. Better than what? Trump? Maybe, but other explanations are at least as plausible. Graham, like most politicians, had an intuitive sense of what one could and could not say and do. He also has a fevered desire to get out front whenever he could. Consequently, when Trump said or did things that plainly violated Graham's expected code, he was quick to criticize, only to find himself flat-footed, as Trump got away with things Graham thought impossible. That Graham moved so readily into the camp of Trump sycophants should be taken not as hypocrisy but as evidence that his earlier critiques of Trump were merely tactical, soon recognized as mistakes and corrected. Same for JD Vance.

  • Peter Baker [07-28]: At Graham's funeral, a glimpse into power in Trump's Washington: "The political evolution of Lindsey Graham, the South Carolina senator, both captivated and confused many of his old friends but reflected the changing order in the nation's capital."A report from the funeral, which doesn't come close to capturing how very surreal it must have been. Imagine if all the old Nazis could have shown up for Eichmann's funeral.

  • Brett Wilkins [07-28]: 'Lindsey liked war': Trump laughs off Graham's giddiness over Iran onslaught: "He's never seen a war that he didn't like." And Trump finds that charming?

  • Al Jazeera [07-28]: Lindsey Graham 'almost cried' tears of joy over war on Iran, footage shows: "Excerpts from a planned documentary show the hawkish senator claiming credit for persuading Donald Trump to attack Iran."

  • Noah Robertson [07-29]: Inside the deal to clinch Lindsey Graham's 'sanctions bill from hell': "The late senator pushed for a bipartisan financial bill that could curb Russia's main source of income."

Trump's Nuclear Proliferation Deal With Saudi Arabia: Trump announced signing this agreement on July 22. It immediately met flack from multiple quarters, including from Israel, which led to Trump insisting that Saudi Arabia sign an Abraham Accords deal. I have half a dozen categories below I could have slipped this into, but it straddles several, and is worth considering on its own. My own theory is that, having relaunched his bombing of Iran, Trump was desperate to keep Saudi Arabia support — a big deal, given that it and the other Persian Gulf states are by far the most vulnerable to Iranian counterattack. On the other hand, if the purpose of the Iran war was to stop nuclear proliferation in the region, providing Saudi Arabia with the same technology isn't a good look.

  • Trita Parsi [07-22]: The US-Saudi nuclear deal makes no sense: "How will Washington get Tehran to accept intrusive inspections beyond the JCPOA when Saudi is offered enrichment with no IAEA inspections?" The sense I can make of it is that Trump was desperate to keep Saudi Arabia aligned against Iran, but asked what it would take to keep the Saudis in line? Nuclear power has long been a Saudi goal, and long frustrated by Israel, so the agreement is above all a test of Trump's independence from Israel. That it involved granting to Saudi Arabia terms that Trump went to war to deny to Iran is the sort of irony Washington is no longer capable of understanding.

  • Kenneth Roth [07-23]: Why would Trump agree to the Saudi nuclear deal?: "The agreement offers the Saudis the same options Trump has sworn Iran will never have."

    Why would Trump agree to such a deal? Money seems to have played a big part. The deal could provide tens of billions of dollars to the US nuclear industry if it were to sell reactors to the Saudis. Suddenly the principle that Trump said was worth fighting for can be jettisoned for the right price.

  • Zack Beauchamp [07-23]: Did Trump just kill his own nuclear deal? "The US inked a deal with the Saudis. A day later, Trump walked it back."

  • Mitchell Plitnick [07-25]: The farce of Trump's nuclear deal with Saudi Arabia: "The White House announced an agreement to supply nuclear material to Saudi Arabia, and then killed its own deal by linking it to normalization with Israel under Israeli pressure. But even if the deal fails, it will significantly impact Gulf politics."

Major Threads

War on Iran: Trump's war was suspended on June 17, when he signed a Memorandum of Understanding, which among other things promised to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, while further negotiations took place for a formal peace agreement. A disagreement over protocol for shipping emerged in early July, where the US attempted to guide ships through the Strait without notifying Iran. Iran objected, and on July 6-7, opened fire on transgressing ships. On July 7-8, Trump declared the truce over, and resumed bombing of Iran, reigniting the war. Iran responded by closing the Strait, and by retaliating against US bases in the region.

  • Stephen Semler [06-22]: Iran War: Most unpopular US war in history. This was even before Trump restarted the war.

  • Andrew Cockburn [06-23]: No more Mr. Nice Iranian Guy — we killed him: "Why he never closed the Straits." "Ever since I got my hands on a secret study conducted by an Operational Intelligence Cell attached to U.S. Army headquarters in Baghdad in 2007, I've been reporting that assassinating enemy leadership figures is an entirely counterproductive exercise."

  • Robert Malley/Stephen Wertheim [06-23]: Trump's Iran debacle could be a gift for America: Since Trump resumed the war, the optimism herein has turned to dust.

  • Trita Parsi:

    • [07-01]: Why Iran believes Israel will attack again before October: "The recent Israeli-Lebanese agreement and Hezbollah's unreported role in the previous war is leading Tehran to this conclusion."

    • [07-06]: Israel belongs in the new Saudi-Iranian order: "An anti-Abraham Accords is taking shape. That would be a big mistake." This refers to something called the Better Order Project, which is basically a "two-state solution" reboot. As such, it is a non-starter for any plausible Israeli governing coalition, even with the enticement of participating in an economic zone with Saudi Arabia and Iran.

    • [07-08]: How the US-Iran fight in the Strait of Hormuz can be resolved before it blows up the MOU.

    • [07-13]: A new US-Iran war would end where the last one did: "The fundamentals won't change: Iran can threaten Hormuz, the United States can punish Iran, and neither can secure its objectives through force."

    • [07-16]: "Israel's impunity has ensured that peace is no longer part of Israel's survival strategy." "Western-provided impunity has made the Israelis believe that they can live securely without suing for peace and without ending the illegal occupation of Palestine."

    • [07-18]: Yesterday's US-Iran escalation is a mere prelude to what is likely to come

    • [07-28]: Is Zelensky trying to merge the Iran and Ukraine wars? ". . . and why Israel would benefit from intertwining these two wars." He explains the Israel angle thusly:

      This dynamic would also appeal to Israel. First, it would give the Iran war another lease on life. Second, it would internationalize the conflict further by drawing European governments into the Iran theater through their deep commitments to Ukraine. And third, perhaps most significantly, it would transform the political narrative. Defeating Iran would no longer be presented as a necessity to defend Israel, but rather, to defend Ukraine.

      Given the levels of elite and public support Ukraine enjoys — after all, it was the victim of an illegal invasion — such a framing is far more politically digestible than centering the war on Israel, given Israel's plummeting standing in the West due to its genocide in Gaza and critical role in starting the illegal war with Iran.

      Parsi turned this blog post into an article:

    • [07-28]: Zelensky's dangerous gambit to merge the Iran and Ukraine Wars: "Of course this would also appeal to Israel, prolonging the Middle East war and potentially drawing European governments into the theater, too." I've heard mixed reports about Trump's support for Zelensky: his arms pipeline has more/less shifted to Europe, which isn't capable of the same largesse as Biden provided, but also is less likely to saddle him with crappy weapons like the Abrams tanks. Zelensky's resolve to fight on has been bucked up by European support, while Putin's resolve builds on Trump's indifference to the war. So one can see how Zelensky's move tries to break this stalemate, but the key to getting Trump support isn't alignment with Israel: it's pushing Putin to align with Iran. At present, Iran is hard pressed to manufacture all their own missiles and drones. But Russia may have surplus manufacturing, and could provide Iran with weapons systems (like anti-aircraft, longer-range missiles, aircraft even) that could make a difference. Also, while Zelensky may fancy that the way to Trump's heart is through Israel, he's ignoring a lot of moral baggage that come with aligning with Israel. He's already been reckless in provoking Russia, repeatedly crossing so-called "red lines," which Putin has been reluctant to do anything about. But at some point, some Europeans are going to doubt the wisdom of following him into what might quickly become a World War. Especially if it involves supporting Israeli genocide.

    • [07-29]: Why did Iran launch a surprise attack on US bases in Jordan? "Tehran is using a risky strategy that's based on the idea that deterrence now requires demonstrating a willilngness to accept the risks of total war."

  • Mitchell Plitnick [07-11]: The US war of choice against Iran has now become the War of Hormuz: "American goals in the war on Iran were unclear from the start, driven by Donald Trump's personal ambitions and the fantasies of pro-Israel neoconservatives. Now, however, there is a clear agenda: to prevent Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz."

  • Rosemary Kelanic [07-21]: The Houthi blockade puts Trump in a serious bind: "The Iran-aligned group wants to halt shipping to and from Saudi Arabia, undermining a Strait of Hormuz alternative."

  • Chas Danner:

  • Elfadil Ibrahim

  • Qamar Cheema/Mir Ahmad Muritza [07-24]: Aiming at the Gulf, Iran shoots itself in the foot: "Tehran's attacks on its Arab neighbors have increased their reliance on the US rather than reducing it." I've long thought that Iran's best chance to force Trump to negotiate is to put pressure on the Gulf States (including Saudi Arabia), who really have the most to lose in an all-out war. Unlike Israel, they are within easy range of Iranian missiles and drones. Unlike the US bases, they are poorly defended and vulnerable to attack. Plus they have lots of money, which plays into Trump's motivations. But it's tricky to figure out the optimal amount of pressure. I think it's certainly the case that Iran has attacked much less than they could have. Some moderation makes sense: after the war, they will be neighbors, with mutual interests and concerns. But the harder Trump attacks, the more tempting it will be to strike back where US allies are most vulnerable.

  • Benjamin Hart [07-28]: Trump has only humiliating options left in Iran: Interview with Danny Citrinowicz, a 25-year veteran of Israel's intelligence groups, now a "senior researcher in the Iran and Shi'ite Axis Program at Israel's Institute for National Security Studies."

  • Spencer Ackerman [07-29]: A regional war, with options to expand: "And without any reason for Iran to trust in negotiations, this is a one-way elevator until US capitulation."

Israel:

  • Ramzy Baroud [06-22]: When the Iran War is over: The West Bank may be Netanyahu's next front: It already is, and has long been, but he'll have even more pent-up ire to vent somewhere.

  • Jason Ditz [06-22]: Israeli troops raid southwest Syria villages, interrogate shepherds, detain farm worker: Well, if they can't have their war in Iran and Lebanon, they'll just move on to Syria. For Israel, there will always be another war to fight, enemy to vanquish, and maybe even land to occupy.

  • Qassam Muaddi:

  • Paul R Pillar [07-21]: With Trump distracted by Iran, Netanyahu is squeezing Gaza: "The US administration needs to use its leverage to get Israel to follow through on the ceasefire agreement." I've long thought that Netanyahu's efforts to sick Trump on Iran were meant more to distract him from following up on the Gaza Peace Plan than to address any real or imagined Iranian threat, but I don't know that he really needed the distraction. After the hostages were exchanged, I seriously doubt that Trump cares what Israel does to Gaza and the West Bank, or even to Lebanon — maybe at the end of the rainbow he'd like to get another golf resort, but he has much shorter-term grifts to play. Trump's definition of "peace" is he doesn't have to field questions about war. Thanks to a very complacent media, that's not likely to happen (unlike with the hostage story).

  • Razi Nabulse [07-24]: How Israel's crackdown on Palestinian citizens of Israel created the crime epidemic now ravaging their communities: "Nearly every day, a Palestinian citizen of Israel is killed by gang violence within Israel. The crisis has been years in the making, but its roots trace back to Israel's war on Palestinian political activity."

  • Yakov M Rubin [07-24]: Israel in Crisis: A treat from within: Writes about the Haredim, a large group of "ultra-orthodox" Jews in Israel who are mostly anti-Zionist, noted especially for their refusal to serve in the IDF, which is to say as part of Israel's permanent war machine. Rabkin's book, What Is Modern Israel?, looks interesting (possibly dated, having come out in 2016).

  • Aurélie Daher [07-30]: Trump's Lebanon fantasy is running smack into reality: "Officials in Beirut know that any agreement with Israel would be dead on arrival at home." On June 26, official delegations from Israel and Lebanon "signed a framework agreement with great fanfare in Washington." The problem is that Hezbollah wasn't a party to the agreement, and no one else has the power to disarm them. Or for that matter, to stop Israel from continuing to devastate and occupy Lebanon.

    The systematic, large-scale destruction of the country's south and the massive killings of civilians did not produce Israel's desired results. Tel Aviv had ideally hoped for a polarization of Lebanese society that would lead to a civil war, in which Shiites would come under fire from their compatriots — or, at the very least, for a majority of Lebanese to condemn and permanently exclude Hezbollah from governance.

    The Israeli army's brutal campaign had the opposite effect, adding fuel to Hezbollah's fire rather than extinguishing it. In practice, the Israeli army has re-legitimized the Lebanese organization's narrative that it has a special (if self-assigned) mission to defend the territory against the enemy to the south.

    This represents an extraordinary failure for the pro-Israel position on the issue.

Israel-American-World Relations: I used to try to separate out Israel-related pieces into several bins. The Iran war has its own news section. The Israel section above pertains to security operations in Gaza, Israel/Palestine, and Lebanon, as well as internal Israeli political affairs. This one deals with America's relationship to Israel, and possibly with the world's.

  • Shaul Magid [06-14]: "Reactionary renewal": "Judaism," the "Jews," and a note on peoplehood: "Is Jewish renewal abandoning the left, and if so, why?" An interesting piece, not of much political import but it does bring to light a strain of thought within Judaism (Renewal, which I'm aware of only because my father-in-law was a student of Mordecai Kaplan) against the backdrop of Israel's incessant demands for fidelity.

  • James North:

  • Philip Weiss:

    • [06-21]: My generation still can't discuss Palestine, but thankfully we no longer control the debate: "My generation of Jews entered Harvard in the 1970s as outsiders and left as the establishment that built support for Israel. Today, attitudes have shifted completely, yet my group still can't discuss Palestine. Fortunately, no one is waiting for us."

    • [07-12]: Palestine and the role of the activist intellectual: Interview with Bruce Robbins, author of Who's Allowed to Protest, on "the new McCarthyism on campus targeting those who support justice for Palestine."

    • [07-23]: Nicholas Lemann's aggrieved article on Jews and progressives reveals a blindness to the evil of Zionism: "In a widely read New York Times article, Nicholas Lemann claims anti-Zionism in the progressive world marginalizes Jews. Yet his failure to even mention Palestinians reveals his ignorance of Zionism's role in driving the crisis he seeks to confront." Lemann's article is: [07-06] A profound question haunting Jews today. He does admit "the return to power of Benjamin Netanyahu, at the head of a far-right coalition, in 2022 was a devastating blow, compounded by his government's failure to prevent the Oct. 7 attack and its conduct of the wars that followed." But that's about it. I sympathize with the emotional attachment that many American Jews feel toward Israel. What I don't get is the blindness that ignores how self-centered, power-mad, and supremacist Israel has become, and how far that ethic has strayed from the one that has allowed Jews in America to largely free themselves from centuries of Euro-American prejudice. By the way, Lemann's article led me to:

      • Ari D Berman [07-01]: What Zionism has always meant: Or what actually-existing Zionism has almost never meant. The Ahad Ha'am quote is misleading — he was a critic of the idea of a Jewish state, not an idealizer — while the "similar" quote from Ben-Gurion is just misdirection: "saying that Israel's ultimate successes would be determined 'not by its riches or military power nor by its technical skills but by its moral worth and human values.'" Israel's leaders have amassed so much power that it's incredible they should persist in blaming their own moral failures on enemies they have allowed no other option to. Berman's conclusion:

        [Zionism] was a means of allowing Jews to live to their greatest potential, unfettered by the restrictive, often brutal, experiences of living in foreign lands. Zionism is thus an answer to a 3,800-year-old yearning, not only a response to a modern crisis.

        Seen through the lens of its history and ultimate purpose, Zionism becomes a framework for constructive dialogue and renewed inspiration. From its biblical beginnings until today, Zionism has carried one of humanity's most enduring ideas: that a people, rooted in its values and returned to its homeland, can build a society that honors faith, dignity, responsibility and hope.

        This reminds me of Gandhi when asked, "what do you think of western civilization?": "I think it would be a good idea." I don't mind much if today's Israelis look back to their Zionist (and/or Biblical, but don't confuse them) history to find support for better values — as Americans, we have a lot of practice at elevating higher principles from the deeply flawed individuals who founded the nation — but such efforts need to be accompanied by practice. Nations can change. There are Israelis who want this change, but they have thus far had little political impact. And that's at least partly because apologists like Berman try so hard to pretend that Israel isn't the repressive, racist powerhouse it has so plainly become.

  • Yonatan Touval [06-24]: US support is Israel's true weakness. In 1979, Jimmy Carter solved Israel's real security problem by brokering a peace deal with Egypt. This included a commitment of substantial aid to both Israel and Egypt. In Israel's case, this aid has been used to finance a long series of wars that did little if anything to enhance security, and much to convince the world that Israel is a rogue nation with no interest in peace and even less in justice. For a while, the US acted as a brake on Israeli excesses, but after Clinton's Camp David fiasco and Bush coming to power, Israel increasingly took advantage of the American blank check, and American presidents, especially Trump and Biden and Trump again, turned into mere supplicants. The result is that Israel has become abhorrent to the sensibilities not just around the world but even in the US, where there is a growing movement to finally cut the subsidies and complicity. It's unclear when this will actually happen — the Trump administration is not exactly known for its sensitivity to polling shifts, but the direction seems clear.

    • The end of Israel's American dependency will be painful. Dependencies tend to end that way. But the tragedy would not lie in the loss of indulgence. It would lie in losing it and learning nothing from the loss. If America is now withdrawing the certainty of unconditional rescue, that may be the last gift it can give. What follows will test not Israel's might, which is not in doubt, but whether it can learn the discipline that sovereignty demands.

  • Mitchell Plitnick

  • Connor Echols [07-08]: Inside the growing religious revolt against Christian Zionism: "Faith groups battled over Israel Tuesday during a marathon day of lobbying on Capitol Hill."

  • Elliott Colla [07-11]: The New York Times enabled the Gaza genocide and lost its legitimacy in the process: "Professor Elliott Colla was a lifelong New York Times reader but can no longer trust the paper due to its coverage of Gaza. In fact, he's found that there is a strong case for prosecuting many at the paper for their role in the genocide."

  • Andrew Prokop [07-16]: When Israel lost Democratic voters, in 3 charts.

  • Omer Bartov [07-21]: I'm a scholar of genocide. We're entering a terrifying new era.

  • Michael Arria:

  • Hillel Schenker [07-28]: Signs of cautious hope on the Israeli left: "One interesting development on the left is the new joint Jewish-Arab 'Place for All of Us' party, founded by leaders of Standing Together."

  • Hanno Hauenstein [07-30]: Free speech crackdown: Germany deports Bob Vylan frontman for anti-Israel chants.

Ukraine, Other Hot Spots, and World Politics:

  • Jennifer Kavanagh [06-16]: Trump is blowing his chance to make peace in Ukraine: "A serious attempt to end the war means shifting focus from territory, making realistic promises, and bringing all parties to the table."

  • Alina Khamatdinova/Matthew Blackburn [07-23]: The West's plan to pressure Putin has a glaring flaw: "Hopes that a Ukrainian deep strike campaign will force a ceasefire are based on a misunderstanding of Russian politics."

  • Stavroula Pabst:

    • [07-27]: As war drags on, Ukraine's population is collapsing: "As the war in Ukraine trudges through its fifth year, deaths there now outnumber births at a nearly four-to-one ratio."

      The new population figures come as fewer Ukrainians are demonstrating a desire to fight. Earlier this month, anti-conscription protests rocked the western city of Lviv. Ukraine also has about two million draft-dodgers and about 200,000 military deserters, according to the country's former defense minister.

      In line with polling it conducted last year, Gallup found last month that Ukrainians' support for continued fighting remains low. Only 24% of respondents told Gallup that Ukraine should keep fighting until it wins the war. In contrast, 66% wanted a negotiated solution to end it as soon as possible.

      About 52 million people lived in Ukraine in 1991. Back in May, Denys Uliutin, Ukraine's Minister of Social Policy, said the country now only has about 22 to 25 million residents.

    • [07-29]: Ukraine's 'turned tide' doesn't comport 'with basic military reality': "Cajoled by Zelensky, Western media is dangerously upselling — again — Kyiv's ability to win."

  • Caitlin Dewey [07-28]: Why Europe is warming twice as fast as the global average: "The wildfires sweeping France and Spain this week are the largest blazes either country has faced in modern history."

  • Connor Echols [07-28]: Zelensky's big idea for Trump: Ukraine is the Israel of Europe: "The Ukrainian president is emphasizing the close ties between Iran and Russia as he seeks greater US support."

    Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky landed in Washington with a bang Tuesday, just days after Ukraine carried out a missile strike against an Iranian cargo ship in the Caspian Sea.

    The attack appears to be part of Zelensky's effort to win over President Donald Trump, who has long had a tense relationship with the Ukrainian leader. The pitch is simple: Ukraine is the kind of partner who will take action when others won't.

    As George Beebe of the Quincy Institute put it, Zelensky's goal is to "convince President Trump that Ukraine will be an Israel-type partner for the United States in Eastern Europe, where it can serve to counter Russian aggression, contain Russian expansionism, and protect Europe and NATO." Beyond that, Kyiv is hoping to show Trump that it is "even more valuable than America's NATO allies," which the president has repeatedly criticized for being insufficiently supportive of his war with Iran.

Trump's War Department: I set this section up to deal with Trump's threats of war. We're obviously beyond that now, so see the section on Iran for more on that.

  • Ben Freeman [05-29]: Congress quietly moves to integrate US and Israeli militaries: "In the first step towards shifting aid further into the shadows, the House's 2027 NDAA would all but fuse the two countries' armed forces together."

  • Stabroula Pabst [06-25]: Trump's $88 billion Iran war request is stuffed with pork: "The proposal includes hundreds of millions for elevator and memorial repairs — and lawmakers aren't buying it."

  • Charles A Kupchan [07-02]: America does not know its own mind: "Internationalist are once more doing battle with America Firsters, cleaving the body politic between two incompatible approaches to global affairs." The previous time was the 1930s, when "America First" was a slogan of anti-interventionists (including fascist sympathizers), who were ridiculed as "isolationists" by advocates of extending America's increasingly global economic power into world politics. Of course, it was (and is) more complicated than that, and then and now much effort has been made to confuse the issues. I'm not finding much clarity in this thumbnail sketch of US history. Part of Responsible Statecraft's America 250 deep dive into American history, arguing about the past to score points about the present.

  • Medea Benjamin [07-10]: Eight contradictions behind NATO's Summit of "Love": Member nations have long had different views on NATO, as have people within those nations, and the result is not just confusion but an ingrained habit of stasis. For most of its history, the US was happy with that. Russia wasn't really a threat beyond its Warsaw Pact satellites, the US wasn't terribly demanding, NATO's existence allowed Europe to pretend at keeping a military while keeping it impotent (France and UK were partially exempt as long as they had colonies to suppress). This only got messy when the US went on the warpath, starting with Iraq/Kuwait in 1990, and accelerated with the War on Terror, where Washington expected them to fall in line. NATO increasingly became a US-dominated arms cartel aligned with Israel's militarism, US foreign policy was redirected to promoting arms sales, which meant provoking potential threats in Russia and China (where the Cold War playbook still resonated). What Europe (and Canada) got from this new regime was hard to quantify, but it's mostly been negative. Any reasonable analysis would move them to negotiate deals with Russia, China, Iran, etc., and cut the Americans loose. But their longstanding habit of humoring the Americans has held steady — so far, at least.

  • Joseph Solis-Mullen [07-23]: How Washington's interventions fuel Somalia's cycle of chaos.

  • Blaise Malley [07-24]: What a US war with Cuba would really look like: "Experts say every military option carries its own strategic, political, and humanitarian risks."

  • Dana Frank [07-29]: Trump's favorite drug trafficker returns triumphantly to Honduras: "Juan Orlando Hernandez came home with a skip in his step after receiving a pardon despite moving 400 tons of cocaine."

  • Jeet Heer [07-31]: Trump's Caribbean killing spree is a feckless, criminal failure: "Blowing up innocent fishermen hasn't curbed the drug trade."

Trump vs. Law: Early on the emphasis here was on ICE, which appeared as Trump's rough draft for a national SS. I've mostly deferred to Jefrey St Clair for those stories, but they are still killing people. I then moved on to focus more on Supreme Court cases (which Ian Millhiser covers especially well), and related cases. But lately Trump's crime spree — weaponization of the Justice Department, cover for corruption, and other abuse of powers — have spread far and wide.

Trump's Administration: Trump can't remake America in his own image (i.e., destroy the country, culture, and civilization) just by himself. He needs help, and having largely purged the government of civil servants and replaced them with his own minions, this is what they are doing (whether he's paying attention or not):

  • Aparna Soni [07-19]: 2.6 million lost health insurance after ACA subsidies expired. That has real consequences. "Many people switched to cheaper, higher-deductible plans, but average premium payments still rose 58% and deductibles climbed 37%, or more than US$1,000 per person. By February 2026, only 83% of people who selected a marketplace plan had paid their premiums and kept their coverage, down from 91% the previous year."

  • Dylan Scott [07-23]: So is the lettuce bad or not? "Can we trust anything the Trump administration says on cyclospora?" Nope.

  • Tony Romm/Brad Plumer [07-24]: Trump administration admits canceling grants to states that did not vote for him: "Federal officials said in court documents that they halted billions of dollars in funding for energy projects to states 'based solely' on whether they backed Trump in the 2024 election."

  • Caitlin Dewey [07-27]: The worst year for measles in a generation: "Measures is back in part because we stopped fearing it." Also . . . Trump.

  • Emily Badger/Alicia Parlapiano [07-27]: Congress budgeted billions for big transit projects. Trump isn't spending it.

  • Brad Plumer [07-29]: Trump administration is repurposing federal land for AI data centers: "In the latest example, the Energy Department will convert a shuttered Cold War-era uranium enrichment facility into a data center campus and gas plants."

  • Thom Walsh [07-29]: The Big Beautiful Bill's market-based health care delusion: "The Rural Health Transformation program asks states to build market-style reforms in places where health care markets often do not exist." It is fair to say that the program is not only designed to fail, it is designed to fail irreplaceably:

    But the program is not simply a grant program. It is leverage. States are being asked to manage the consequences of reduced federal health care financing through plans that must satisfy federal expectations. If a state does not use the funds in accordance with its approved application, the federal government can withhold, reduce, or recover funds. The statute also bars administrative or judicial review of those decisions.

    That matters because the program is built partly around the familiar vocabulary of health care reform: choice, competition, technology, transparency, partnerships, right-sizing, and value-based care. Those ideas are not inherently wrong. The problem is that access-sustaining money is being used to push market-style policy in places where the market case for that policy is often weakest.

Donald Trump:

Politics: Pieces on US elections (recent and future) and, more generally, intra-party politicking. Party-specific pieces in following sections.

  • Ed Kilgore: Lots of pieces that could be sorted under other categories, but many become obsoleted almost as fast as they land.

    • [06-20]: Trump's new GOP midterm strategy is pure chaos: "He thinks Republicans should stop fixating on voters' concerns about prices and focus on his phony voter-fraud panic."

    • [06-23]: Tucker Carlson and MTG choose irrelevance over GOP: "These high-profile apostates may claim they represent many unhappy MAGA folk. But the fact is they're leading no one and going nowhere fast." For now, sure, but could there be a longer-term positioning angle?

    • [06-26]: JD Vance identifies with Nixon, which says a lot: "The veep compared himself to the former president, painting him as another bad boy who overcame his snooty detractors and achieved supreme power."

    • [07-07]: Why 'Medicare for All' is back on the Democrats' agenda: "Exploding health-care costs and a New Wave of progressive-candidates are reviving calls for single-payer health." It will be on the agenda until it is implemented, because anything less is bound to fail. The best one could hope for ACA was to delay the inevitable: it solved a few problems, and ameliorated some more, but at a high cost, as it also attempted to keep all industry business interests fat and happy. But rather than welcome what was actually a big victory for business, Republicans did everything they could to sabotage the law, which only accelerated its failure.

    • [07-10]: How Trump's polling lies fuel his election denial: "Trump conditions his supporters to believe his election fables by regularly making delusional claims about his popularity." And vice versa.

    • [07-15]: MAGA won't stand for limits on ICE brutality: "Efforts to rein in ICE tactics and poorly targeted mass deportations have been met with a backlash from Trump's base." As Adam Serwer put it, The Cruelty Is the Point.

    • [07-16]: Trump drags America deep down the rabbit hole: "In a White House address Trump spouted wild election conspiracy theories. Damage to the midterms could be profound."

    • [07-20]: GOP's midterm message: Democrats stink more than we do! "With Trump unwilling to defend his own record, Republicans must struggle to make the election comparative and smear the opposition as extremist." The thing is, this tactic has been backfiring. Indeed, it arguably backfired for the Democrats in recent elections, even though there is a good case that the Republicans are far more extremist than any Democrats. When Republicans attack Democrats as "socialist" or worse, the reaction is increasingly divided between "huh?" and "cool!" The charge only resonates for people who already hated Democrats.

    • [07-22]: Polls show even MAGA has soured on Trump's Iran War: "The Iran war has always been unpopular, and as the conflict drags on, public opinion is looking more and more dismal for the president."

    • [07-22]: John Fetterman's party-switch calculus: "The erratic Pennsylvania Democrat is flirting with a party flip. If the midterms produce a narrow Senate majority, he could have massive leverage."

    • [07-26]: Democrats need to postpone their civil war.

    • [07-27]: Will Trump make January 3 another January 6? "Reversing a 2026 midterms defeat wouldn't be easy, but the president is laying the groundwork."

    • [07-28]: Democrats poised to overreact to Michigan and Wisconsin primaries: Both races seem to be cases where the Democratic money people are in panic because their preferred candidates simply don't have the appeal of their challengers. The problem is that they're not coming up with good candidates to campaign for their do-nothing agenda.

    • [07-30]: Democrats need a better answer on voter ID. Here's one.

    • [07-30]: Trump is absolutely flailing in high-quality polls: Approval rates: CNN 34%, AP-NORC 33%, Quinnipiac 32%. At Silver Bulletin, Trump is −13% on immigration, &minus-22.4% on trade, $minus;-27.7% on the economy, −43.3% on inflation, and &minus-39.9% on his Iran war.

    • [08-02]: The GOP's big red scare is really stupid: "No, Democrats aren't communist, and the relatively small progressive surge in primaries isn't a Bolshevik revolution." I'd add that the success of the red scares (both after 1918 and 1945) was largely based on the charge that communists were effectively foreign agents, and their failure happened after McCarthy and the Birchers expanded their targets to include the Army, Eisenhower, and Earl Warren.

  • Robert Kuttner [07-28]: Yes, Trump will attempt a coup: "If we are vigilant, he won't pull it off."

Other Republicans:

  • Rick Perlstein [06-28]: Ronald Reagan to JD Vance: minimizing Watergate is a Republican tradition: "On the American right, there is an unbroken lineage of Watergate propaganda going back to the 70s from today." There was a brief period starting in the 1990s — I date from Clinton's shameful eulogy of Nixon — when liberals loved the irony of touting Nixon as a liberal icon. That went hand-in-hand with the tendency to view the Republican turn to the right as starting with Reagan in 1980. That turn was deeply embedded in the Nixon years, even if he let some laws pass that later conservatives decried (like Clean Air, and OSHA), and put Harry Blackmun on the Supreme Court. But Nixon also installed Rehnquist, which started the erosion of civil rights. (Also note that he turned the Office of Economic Equality over to Donald Rumsfeld's deliberate incompetence, so that the Great Society programs would end in failure.) Nixon also largely invented the "culture war" manipulations Reagan and others would later advance. But only with the advent of Trump has it become clear that Nixon's main contribution to the Republican right has been to justify presidential criminality, both against domestic and foreign "enemies." Unfortunately, the backlash against Watergate was limited to domestic affairs; his more serious foreign policy crimes, like the murder of Allende, were never addressed, partly because they weren't new with Nixon.

    • Lauren Gambino [06-25]: JD Vance says Nixon's Watergate scandal would be '12-hour news story' today. This says more about Vance, who was 12 year short of being born when Watergate broke, than anything else. He doesn't know the story (especially about how the cover-up overshadowed the crime, but also the whole panoply of "dirty tricks" Nixon was also hoping to cover up), and he has even less understanding of how people, including the media, viewed political crime back then. What's less clear is how much media have changed: certainly Republican-aligned media have cozied up to Trump's crazed criminality, so they can be counted on to deny and dismiss any charges. But it's not like Nixon didn't have allies hoping to bury Watergate. It couldn't be buried due to the way that it slowly leaked out, as every attempt at cover up backfired.

    • David A Graham [07-21]: JD Vance isn't a fool. Why does he act like one? "Every politician does some pandering, but few do it as clumsily, or with such evident disdain for their own supporters, as the vice president."

    • Thomas B Edsall [07-28]: Who does JD Vance think he is?

  • Bess Levin [07-15]: Ken Griffin, GOP megadonor and Rubio fan, goes all in on midterms: "The billionaire Citadel founder is said to be focusing on Senate races in hopes of shaping the party beyond Trump." He was the 5th biggest political donor in 2024, and "has contributed some $40 million to midterm races," which "could easily double by November." Susan Collins (R-ME), Dan Sullivan (R-AK), and the Republican nominated to succeed Joni Ernst (R-IA) are major beneficiaries.

  • Ariana Aspuru/Sean Rameswaram [06-29]: How the rich got stingy: "The ultra-wealthy used to build libraries and public parks. Those days are over." Interview with Bella DeVaan, director of the Charity Reform Initiative at the Institute for Policy Studies.

  • Elisabeth Zerofsky [07-28]: What the crackup of the Heritage Foundation says about the post-Trump right: "The bastion of American conservatism best known for Project 2025 has been consumed by an ideological — and generational — civil war."

  • Virginia Heffernan [07-31]: Don't be fooled: America hates these toxic right-wing gasbags: "Ben Shapiro, Candace Owens, and Erika Kirk get lots of attention. But America hates them. And increasingly, they hate each other." Hate, after all, is their stock-in-trade.

  • Annie Karni [08-02]: Ohio Senator calls former son-in-law accused of abuse unfit for office: "Senator Bernie Moreno, Republican of Ohio, broke his silence about allegations of domestic abuse his daughter had made against Representative Max Miller."

Democrats: Had I written this in real time, I probably would have expressed my dismay and revulsion over how prominent Democrats as well as the usual media vultures piled on to wreck the Graham Platner campaign in Maine, and especially over those ostensible Democrats who had promised to vote for Collins. I was never much of a Platner fan, nor am I overly enamored of his "working class charisma," and I know nothing (and care little) about the disputed facts. It's quite possible that my own kneejerk reaction isn't all that different from the way Trump fans responded to libelous charges against their hero. But we don't need to go into that any further. Platner has withdrawn. Maine Democrats have a new candidate. No need to rehash this again.

  • Kate Yoder [06-16]: The climate myth Democrats can't quit: Climate change seems to have slipped to the bottom (24 out of 25) of issues that voters identify as "very important to their vote," which is being taken as an indication that it's not worth talking about.

    The idea that talking about climate change is a liability for Democrats has become conventional wisdom. Last year, the Democrat-aligned think tank Searchlight Institute issued the advice "Don't say climate change." A recent op-ed in The New York Times concluded, "When it comes to climate change, for now, it might be better to say nothing at all." An early draft of the Democratic National Committee's autopsy report of the 2024 election, released under pressure in May, posited that messages about climate change and shifting to green energy "created anxiety among workers in traditional industries worried about job losses."

    This question deserves a much deeper answer, but all I can offer here is a paragraph. First, we have to get realistic: about the real dimensions of the threat; about how difficult it is to prevent the conditions from getting worse; and about what government needs to do to for disaster recovery. From this you can make at least two clear points: one is that Republicans are bad at disaster recovery, for lots of reasons (denial of causes, unwillingness to help anyone who isn't one of their chosen people, corruption in what they do spend); another is that climate disasters are driving up insurance rates, eventually to levels no one can afford (government needs to be able to provide insurance, starting with people who can't afford it, but also to make people who used to be able to afford it more comfortable). Neither of these things attacks people for driving SUVs or eating meat, nor do they try to shame people for setting thermostats wrong. But sure, once you start to rebuild trust, you can suggest sensible changes to reduce carbon footprint, etc. And you can justify investing money in changes that will eventually pay for itself in managing insurance costs. I suspect that the problem isn't denialism, although Republicans have campaigned on that. Most people believe the science. But they don't want to take personal responsibility for it, nor should they given the role that companies and government (like the military) play in making it worse. And they're not impressed by the solutions Democrats have been pushing so far, which are mostly just subsidies to alt energy companies and tax breaks for buying electric cars. That's a deep problem with the political system, which only supports proposals that make interest groups money.

  • Bhaskar Sunkara [07-02]: Jonathan Chait doesn't understand the socialists he's attacking: This seems to be the new definition of an academic squabble: not only is Chait's Atlantic essay behind a paywall, so is Sunkara's Jacobin rebuke. All we get is this: "Jonathan Chait thinks the Democratic Socialists of America has become the thing founders like Michael Harrington built it to oppose. He has the history totally wrong. The thread from Harrington's DSA to this one isn't hard to find."

  • Kevin Kruse [07-08]: Punching Left: Ed Kilgore refers to this as the "Democrats' civil war." Basically, there is one faction which has controlled the upper ranks of the Democratic Party since the Reagan-Bush era, largely by tapping into big business money (mostly in tech and finance). They saw this shift as both necessary, given the decline of unions as a force for political mobilization, and as an opportunity, given the Republicans' embrace of reactionary "culture war" issues. Indeed, by the time you get to Trump, their main pitch is that they're the only safeguard against fascism. But they found that they couldn't get the rich to support them unless they attacked anyone who challenged the rich and powerful, which is to say the left. This wasn't new. This happened way back with Truman and his "loyalty oaths." It happened when LBJ wrecked his Great Society to fight a pointless, hopeless war in Vietnam. And it's still a reflex for the Democrats who still raise money and direct campaigns, even though their candidates have lost much of their credibility. The problem is that their campaign pitches don't win, not least because their solutions don't work. And also because they keep embracing wars that make a mockery of their supposed commitment to peace and justice. It's no surprise that the people cited below who want to purge the Democratic Party of its left see support for Israel as their litmus test issue. (The link is to Shapiro, but Fetterman has been even more adamant.)

    Over the last month, there's been a flurry of panic from self-styled moderates and centrists in the Democratic Party about the success of a few socialist candidates in party primaries.

    Some of this grumbling has simply been the self-interested reaction of inert incumbents who are (rightly) worried that these political upstarts might be coming for their own jobs in Congress. But other prominent figures in the party have also gone out of their way to trash these leftists and assert that they have no place in the party's coalition. Rather than working alongside the left, these misguided moderates seem to believe the Democratic Party needs to distance themselves from them and denounce them.

    Today, professional concern troll David Brooks confirmed that this is a horrible idea by embracing it in a piece for The Atlantic titled Democrats Became Great By Fighting the Left.

    • As Kruse points out, at least from the New Deal forward, the left has been the leading force behind Democratic rises. I'd go further and make three more bold claims: the left has better solutions for most of the problems that trouble us today; that left arguments are potentially more effective than pitches for "moderation"; and that left overshoot is almost structurally impossible, so there is no reason to panic about power shifting left. We're a long, long ways from stopping the rich from getting richer, and even farther from making the rich poor. Few on the left even want that: we'd rather have poor people more secure, while reducing the power differences; some degree of inequality may be inevitable, but at some point the value of further leveling up may cease to matter.

    Also, I must say, if Brooks thought the Democrats were great in the 1940s by fighting the left, why did it take him until Trump came around to leave the Republicans?

  • Howard Dean [07-16]: Democrats' key to winning the midterms: "The party's healthcare affordability agenda could lower prices and put the Senate in play." One thing I've never forgiven Obama for was getting rid of Dean as DNC chairman, after Dean had engineered the Democrats' majority in Congress in 2006, and Obama's own election in 2008. Obama's pick may have helped him get reëlected in 2012, but by then Congress was lost, and stayed that way.

  • David Freedlander [07-20]: Like it or not, Kamala Harris is the front-runner: That means quite simply there is no front-runner. It's silly to even talk about the prospect. She lost to Trump. There is no excuse for that. And while she "comes in with 99 percent name ID," much of that ID isn't favorable, and virtually none of it was built by campaigning against any other Democrat.

  • Steven Greenhouse [07-22]: Democrats need to hammer Trump on his unprecedented corruption: "To win in this year's midterm elections, the party must highlight that Trump has made huge financial gains while millions struggle to make ends meet." While Trump embodies many character faults in the American people, this level of corruption should still be a major turn off. He cites Hungary as a similar example:

    Democrats should repeatedly hammer Trump for his greed, corruption and conflicts of interest the same way that Hungary's opposition repeatedly attacked Viktor Orbán for his immense corruption — a strategy that caused Orbán's popularity to plummet and caused Hungarian voters to oust their country's authoritarian leader last April. Peter Magyar, Orbán's challenger, defeated Orban by focusing on three issues the Democrats would be smart to focus on: the cost of living, the lack of economic opportunities, and the fact that their country's leader and his family grew ever richer even as many people grew poorer.

  • Andrew Prokop:

    • [06-24]: Why urban Democrats love socialists now: "Democratic socialists are winning in New York — and in other cities." I suggest everyone go back and read Thomas Geoghegan's primer on European (especially German) models for social democracy, Were You Born on the Wrong Continent? How the European Model Can Help You Get a Life. For sure, socialism is better for the poor than no socialism, but where the value of robust rights and generous public services really pays off is with the middle class. Socialism makes it possible for people with middle incomes to get a good education, to get health care when they need it, to bounce back from loss of a job, to give their children opportunities, to plan for retirement, and to avoid the pitfalls of sudden bankruptcy that haunt many Americans today. Highly educated, somewhat better than median income people, especially in large and expensive cities, may benefit even more. Moreover, they're likely to have traveled and seen that it's possible to have functioning government that treats people fairly and generously.

    • [07-30]: How "abundance" lost the Democratic war of ideas: "Moderates hoped 'Abundance' could be the party's new vision. It hasn't worked out." First I've heard of that, but centrists probably spoiled the concept by adopting it too fervently. I still haven't looked at the Klein & Thompson book, but probably will at some point. Klein makes some bad calls, but he's a pretty smart guy, and I'd expect him to have some good ideas. (Thompson I'm not so sure about, so let's forget him for the rest of this comment.) Also, I think Klein's intent was to convince the left to add yimbyism to their repertoire, and not as a substitute for everything else — which was the tack took by the centrists, who were looking to rekindle their love affair with the rich by adopting some kind of supply-side, trickle down economic agenda. And beyond that, they saw it as another cudgel for punching down the left. Of course, some on the left took their bait, and took it out on Klein. Mamdani, on the other hand, took what he liked, and ignored the rest — which seems like the right way to handle things. After all, the left does want things like more affordable housing, and has no affinity for zoning rules and anti-development hassle that derails development that would be worthwhile.

  • Bill Scher:

    • [07-28]: The DSA platform would destroy American democracy: "The socialist group's vision of a federal government without three equal branches providing checks and balances would facilitate the whims of a would-be authoritarian. Sound familiar?" Not really. The "checks and balances" system has been more effective at preventing popular reforms than it has been at preventing authoritarianism. The Republican-packed Supreme Court has pretty consistently backed Trump's authoritarian power grabs. Maybe not as consistently as Trump wanted, but the right has won some pretty serious arbitrary victories there, like ending abortion rights, allowing unlimited campaign spending corruption, and much more. What protects democracy is the right to vote, which is also under attack from Trump. It's certainly not the electoral college, the manifestly unrepresentative Senate, the gerrymandered House, the unelected war machine, or the highly politicized federal courts system.

      That much said, I'm in no position to defend DSA. I'm not a member. I'm not involved with them in any way. I've never read their platform, nor do I want to. My views are generically leftist (I believe that equality is the foundation of justice), democratic (I believe that government should serve all people, so should be responsive to all of their needs), and liberal (I believe that individuals should be as free as possible within the constraints of mutual respect and cooperation). The "socialism" label carries some historical baggage that I fear is unhelpful (as does "communism" and "anarchism"), but I recognize people who adopt such labels as fundamental allies, even if we may quarrel over details (as I also do with other leftists, democrats and/or liberals).

      Still, if the best charge Scher can make against DSA is that they want to write a new constitution which would abolish the Senate, that's a pretty weak complaint. The Founders certainly didn't regard their Constitution as permanent or sanctified. They allowed for amendments, and indeed for a new constitutional convention. The latter hasn't happened, because we've always found it easier to work with the old document than to open up a blank piece of paper. In recent years, the people pushing for a constitutional convention have been on the right, not on the left. Give this political threat, I've basically taken a defensive posture, and given no consideration to proposals to restructure government. On the other hand, if DSA wants to dream, I can only say, "good for them." Back when I was in my teens, before I settled on any real position in politics, I was fascinated by the various utopian thinkers, so it's fair to say I've always loved a good thought-experiment.

      Scher has long been the most dutiful of centrist DNC pundits, so it's pretty clear who he's carrying water for. His argument is pure distraction: DSA has many more immediate goals and plans before they get around to abolishing the Senate (which, however good in theory, can only happen after they win the Senate, by which point it will no longer be an obstacle). However, his argument takes a weird turn when he looks for a case where a "democratic socialist" case advocating "unrestrained majority rule" without constitutional checks and balances, and comes up with David Ben-Gurion. He was a nationalist first and foremost: his commitment to "socialism" was limited to "Hebrew Labor," a repudiation of the fundamental leftist notion that all are equal; and his view of "democracy" was as a bag of favors he could use to shore up his power bases and general legitimacy. There is much more that can be said about Israel's example, but one thing odd here is that one of the main complaints centrist pundits have about DSA is their opposition to Israel's wars on equality, human rights, and democracy.

    • [07-31]: How left will Democrats go in 2028? That depends on 2026: "Democratic voters, long partial to candidates who show a capacity for bipartisan compromise over ideological purity, may be changing." That statement is probably wrong on every point, except perhaps "may be changing." Democratic voters supported Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden against Bernie Sanders not because they wanted compromises with Republicans but because they feared unbridled Republican control, and thought that the better-financed "moderates" would be better positioned to protect them. They failed, in part because all this talk about seeking bipartisan compromises made Democrats look weak and wobbly, while raising the expectations that Republicans could be moderate. Also, there's no evidence that anyone on the left wing of the Democratic Party is hung up on ideological purity. As for "changing," Scher runs through a lot of polling data, of which the most surprising is:

      According to annual Gallup polling sampled from 1994 to 2025, the share of Democrats who identify as "liberal" — as opposed to "moderate" or "conservative" — sits at a record high of 59 percent, up from 25 percent during Bill Clinton's first term.

      The label poison seems to be wearing off, as it is also for "socialist" and all the other red-baiting epithets. Scher makes more hay with polling on how many Democrats are willing to compromise, but much of that can be explained by poll construction. Let me put it this way: if I was president, and had a Democratic majority in Congress, I would still profess my willingness to cooperate with Republicans on bipartisan solutions to any problem they were willing to engage with seriously. Any time you can reach a consensus, that's better than eeking out a narrow partisan win. But how often are Republicans willing to help solve a problem? Damn near never. Clinton once described his welfare reform bill as a fundamentally good bill "wrapped up in a sack of shit." At least since Clinton became president, the only times Republicans have been willing to work out compromise deals is if they wound up making Democrats look bad, mostly by alienating their base. (NAFTA was the first big example of this. ACA was an example of months of bipartisan negotiation compromising a bill that should have passed with 80% margins, only to be 100% of Republicans oppose it, they turn it into a political cudgel.) One shouldn't be surprised that Democrats are getting sick and tired of their politicians selling them short in a pretense of bipartisanship that only seems to ratchet right. It doesn't take ideological rigor to see that candidates with left principles are more likely to see through these centrist ruses and hold out for principled solutions.

  • David Atkins [07-31]: The case for the DNC's Ken Martin. Really: I don't have any insight or opinion here. As far as I've been able to tell, the only DNC chair who did any good was Howard Dean, and Obama put an end to that. Since then, it's been a tool of the money-grubbing "centrists," and as such dead weight on efforts to elect Democrats across all 50 states. I don't know whether Martin is a change or more of the same. I will say that having to assume $20 million of Kamala Harris campaign debt isn't a good look.

The Economy (and Economists):

  • Ha-Joon Chang [06-12]: The end of the old economic order is an opening for the left: Interview. Another subscriber's only thing. (My wife subscribes, but no, I don't have the password.)

  • John Herrman [06-29]: AI inflation is screwing with the rest of the economy: "Rising prices for computers, phones, game consoles, appliances, and cars are just the beginning."

  • Brad DeLong:

    • [06-30]: Is Kevin Warsh as bad a central banker as he seems? Perhaps . . . : "Standing on one's Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination is no way to create a stable standard of value."

    • [06-27]: The centuries of Eric Hobsbawm, and:

    • [07-02]: The centuries of Eric Hobsbawm II: "Hobsbawm's Long Nineteenth Century — in which his unshakeable bedrock foundational commitment to Marxist teleology is both his superpower & his Akhilleus's heel." First piece is based on an Enzo Traverso review of a book by Emile Chabal. Untangling this gets messy, not least because DeLong wants to draw a line between Hobsbawm's 1789-1875 books and his later 1875-1991 volumes, praising the former, and condemning the latter, mostly for unfashionable politics, which are blamed for excessive gloom. DeLong sees his own book as the antidote, a choice that doesn't seem like much of an improvement: by limiting himself to "actually existing socialism" DeLong loses the critiques offered by all the other possible socialisms, which only serves to lock in actually existing capitalism. Still, I like this bit by DeLong:

      In Hobsbawms telling, 1848 fails as a social revolution. However, it succeeds in killing the old order: thereafter, rulers know that they must reckon with capitalism, mass politics, and national movements, and that if anything is going to stay the same, everything must change.

      I thought Hobsbawm was far too sketchy and far too glib about 1848, especially given that between the two books, I read Christopher Clark's 896-page Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World: 1848-1849. While the loss of detail may matter little, DeLong's two sentences are closer to the point than Hobsbawm's "nothing changed." What changed was the side the bourgeoisie aligned with. While they could proclaim equal creation and universal rights back in 1776 and 1789 without considering the possibility that their slaves and workers (and wives and children) might consider claim to such rights, by 1848, their world had changed, even if they weren't totally aware of it. They restarted their revolt against aristocracy, but quickly found they had more in common with the aristocracy than with the masses (something Marx anticipated in The Communist Manifesto, which is directed not against the aristocracy but instead against the bourgeoisie — this may be why Hobsbawm showed so little respect for the 1848 revolutionaries).

  • Paul Krugman:

    • [07-14]: Suddenly, Hormuz is less crucial than it was: "Why? Because the real energy crunch is coming from the Russia/Ukraine war." He points out, and has the charts, that pump prices have risen far above crude barrel prices, and that they came down less during the brief opening of the Strait. How much of that has to do with Russia isn't clear, but when Ukraine attacks Russia's "energy infrastructure," they're aiming at refineries, not production wells. While closing the Strait was certain to raise oil and gas prices, I've always been skeptical that the increased costs would spell economic disaster for the rest of the world. While demand for many individuals is sticky — it isn't easy to switch to more fuel-efficient transportation, or to cut your commute — there is some slack in the system to absorb shocks. (Krugman gives several examples.)

    • [07-24]: Quagmire of the vanities: "Why the world economy is still at risk from the Iran debacle." Following up on the previous post, he points out that the "crack spread" (the difference between the price of crude oil and the price of refined products like gasoline and diesel) "has exploded, from around $25 a barrel before the war to more than $65 now."

      Trump's gratuitous war on Iran has turned into a remarkable quagmire — remarkable because the only thing keeping the war going is Trump's vanity. He effectively lost the war in the first few days, when it became apparent that Iran's hardline regime had survived the initial decapitation strike and that the U.S. military couldn't keep the Strait of Hormuz open. But Trump is psychologically incapable of admitting failure. So the war goes on, weakening America by the day, as he searches for some way to spin his abject defeat as a victory.

Technology (Including AI):

  • Caitlin Dewey [07-22]: The AI that went rogue: "The models broke out of a controlled digital environment in an "unprecedented" show of AI risk."

  • Eric Levitz [07-30]: AI could end up too cheap to control: "Think anarchy, not oligarchy." He's talking about Chinese AI models, which are nearly as powerful and currently much cheaper than American models. Competition should drive software prices down to near-zero. AI I'm not so sure about, but I do believe that American AI companies will never make profits that justify their current valuation.

  • Kate Clark/Sam Schechner [08-01]: The race to build an American alternative to cheap AI from China: "Silicon Valley startups are setting up open models, with some operating on shoestring budgets because of limited interest from VCs."

The Environment:

Media:

  • Scott Carney [07-29]: The real reason that Substack is collapsing: "The subscription model has maxed out." Quotes Taylor Lorenz as saying, "I wish I could turn off the ability of anyone to 'follow' me. Because what good are followers when follower growth seems correlated with losing paid subs??" The author shows a graph of his total subscribers growing (+1.8%) while paid subscribers are dropping (−11.6%). He also notes that "on a good day my brain can only keep up with about 5 newsletters. Meanwhile my wallet is skeptical of the value of even paying for that number." I probably subscribe to a dozen (my two paid subscriptions were comped; I don't pay for anything else, but my wife pays for but I can't access; I very rarely pay for anything, but sometimes I can pick up on her subscriptions).

  • Margaret Sullivan [07-30]: No TV experience? At CBS News, that's no problem: "The conservative columnist Ross Douthat is the network's latest perplexing hire — but the move is in line with the new leadership."

Regular Columnists

Sometimes an interesting columnist writes often enough that it makes sense to collect their work in one place, rather than scatter it about.

Dean Baker: Look for links here. They are all worth reading.

  • [07-08]: The Sanders-Trump plan for an AI sovereign wealth fund: Don't buy it: "An AI sovereign wealth fund would concentrate political power, reinforce the AI bubble, and divert attention from more effective industrial and corporate tax policies." I'm not sure what Sanders' position on this is, but I doubt it's the same as Trump's. I can imagine developing a sovreign wealth fund system that could be beneficial, but the main point wouldn't be to piggyback on bubble riding (which is what investment in AI would be at this point) but to direct investment to businesses that need more support, including for countervailing power reasons like stimulating more competitiveness. Baker makes another pitch for his "serious corporate income tax: non-voting shares in lieu of taxes." Two questions here: I don't see how the government gets its in-lieu-of-taxes from stock buybacks; and while I can see the logic of the government not voting in corporate management, I'd like to see more employee ownership, with customers also having a voting stake, so why not give the voting shares to them?

  • [07-14]: Social Security is a problem of income distribution, not demographics: "Social Security's long-term financing shortfall is driven primarily by decades of rising income inequality and slower wage growth, not an aging population or overly generous benefits."

  • [07-15]: Blocking the Paramount-Warner merger: Keeping the Trumpers from owning everything: "The Paramount-Warner merger threatens media competition, increases political control over major news outlets, and underscores the need for alternative public funding of journalism."

  • [07-16]: The NY Times reports on China: A teachable moment: "The New York Times exaggerates the weakness of China's economy by misrepresenting GDP growth, misunderstanding deflation, and overlooking the country's longer-term economic transition."

  • [07-18]: Exporters are still not eating the Trump tariffs: They are taxes on us: "New import price data reinforce that Trump's tariffs function as taxes paid by American importers and consumers, not by foreign countries." This is mostly a point on Trump's misunderstanding, which is fair enough. Still, the point of tariffs is to disadvantage foreign products, which happens regardless of who pays the tax. What's less clear is who benefits? In theory, when foreign products become more expensive, domestic equivalents become more competitive, but nothing stops them from simply becoming more expensive, raising profits. The classic theory is that tariffs help protect developing industries, which as they grow may become competitive enough to no longer need tariff protection. This doesn't seem to enter into Trump's calculations at all.

  • [07-22]: Government-granted monopolies in health care create need for prices controls: "High health care costs are largely driven by government-granted patent monopolies on drugs and medical devices, making price controls a response to existing market intervention rather than a source of it." I'd rather get rid of patents altogether, but this is one of the least things one can do to make a difference in limiting the abuse.

  • [07-23]: Trump and Hegseth are demanding big bucks for their wars: "Trump's proposed military budget would increase defense spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, far exceeding the cost of many domestic programs that have faced intense political opposition."

  • [07-29]: Trump wildfires: The arsonist complains about the smoke: "Trump's threat to tariff Canada over wildfire smoke ignores his own role in promoting fossil fuels, worsening climate change, and raising costs for US consumers."

Jeffrey St Clair:

  • [06-26]: Roaming Charges: Call the shrink. Per Woodward and Bernstein, Nixon's last days in the White House were spent "having drunken conversations with the portraits of FDR, Jefferson and Lincoln." Unlike Nixon, "Donald Trump posts his insane rants online for all to see, nearly every night, and without the aid of alcohol to set him off, just his own disintegrating mind and no one bats an eye anymore. Last week, he compared himself to Genghis Khan, Napoleon and Alexander the Great, claiming he was more powerful than all of them, and was 'by far the most powerful person that has ever walked the planet,' because of his 'global reach.'"

    + AI-linked securities now account for a record 45% of the S&P 500, according to Yahoo Finance.

    + Ayn Rand acolyte Alan Greenspan, dead at 100, may have inflicted more human misery than any other American in the post-World War II era . . .

    + Speaking of housing costs, there are 25 million American adults living with their parents, a new record.

    + $2.5 billion: the total amount of taxpayer money the Trump administration has paid out (so far) to cancel offshore wind projects.

    + Sen. Roger Marshall: "53 Republican senators, you're gonna find 53 opinions. We're very strong-willed, typically top of our class type of folks. So we've got opinions. And the hope is, the debate within us, we take 2+2 and turn it into 8." Turning 2+2 into 8 is how the Pentagon ended up with a $1.2 trillion-dollar budget and still couldn't defeat Iran (total defense budget $20 billion) . . .

  • [07-03]: Priapic ambitions: Notes on George Washington.

  • [07-10]: Roaming Charges: The American mirror: Opens with another ICE story, this about them killing Lorenzo Salgado Araujo in Houston. Farther down, he has a chart on "wealth per adult in USD": the US is number 2 in average wealth, but didn't make the top 20 in median wealth. (Switzerland dropped from 1 to 8; Luxembourg rose from 3 to 1; Belgium rose from 11 to 2; Singapore fell off the chart from 6; Denmark rose from 7 to 5.) More bullet points:

    + The Telegraph on the AI bubble: "The overvaluation of US stocks has now surpassed the level that brought the stock market crashing down in 1929. At a rating more than double that of their British and European counterparts, and the highest since the peak of the dotcom bubble, US equities are in for a hairy decade."

    + Trump made $2 billion on his crypto swindle and more than a million of his investors lost $3.8 billion . . .

    + Measles had largely been eliminated from the US. Trump and RFK, Jr. have brought the disease back, with a vengeance, as cases reach a near record high . . .

    + NYTimes Pitchbot: "Graham Platner's history of sexual assault proves he does not belong in the US Senate. He belongs on the Supreme Court." by Susan Collins.

  • [07-17]: Roaming Charges: When farce repeats itself: Starts with a Jean Beaudrillard quote, one-upping Marx. Then details another ICE killing, this one in Maine, Joan Guerrero, who was "shot and killed by ICE officer David Brouillette, a recent recruit with a history of domestic violence who was, in the words of one relative, 'extremely mentally ill.'" Also: "ICE has shot at least 17 people while they were inside their vehicles."

  • [07-22]: Transmitting the news from Neptune: Carl Estabrook's embrace of the life force.

  • [07-24]: Sound Grammar: When Hendrix hit home.

  • [07-29]: Sound Grammar: The best jazz records of 2026, so far: Among other things, describes my site as "essential reading for music fans."

    Music therefore can reach us without conditions, without expectations or contrived limits. It seeps through the boundaries of accepted discourse and hits us in the gut and the head and heart at the same time. And can only dispute the message if you play the sax, which has rarely, if ever, been an instrument of fascism. Jazz has other advantages in times of autocracy. It can express radical, even revolutionary, ideas and sentiments without falling under the censor's lash. Bill Orcutt's Music in Continuous Time may well be a call for sedition against the regime, but good luck to Todd Blanche proving it or even understanding it.

TomDispatch: Editor Tom Engelhardt has retired, which ironically gives him more time for writing, although his stock-in-trade remains rants about Trump which all lead back to global warming. Meanwhile, former intern Nick Turse has taken over, while remaining The Intercept's primary critic of American militarism.

Miscellaneous Pieces

The following articles are more/less in order published, although some authors have collected pieces, and some entries have related articles underneath.

Sara Herschander [07-09]: What that wobbling New York office tower reveals about America's housing crisis: The US is finally turning empty offices into homes. But it isn't always easy.

Paul Starr [07-22]: Proportional representation gets a new look: "Supreme Court decisions and unrestrained partisan gerrymandering are focusing attention on a fundamental election reform. But one version is more feasible than the others." This "fringe" idea is common around the world. It encourages the development of multiple political parties, which compete for leverage, then try to form coalitions once the votes are counted. It's a pretty good idea, but I've proposed a version that is, I think, better: I call this representative democracy. The idea here is that everybody (or almost everybody) gets their own representative. The country can still be divided up into districts, although they don't have to be equal sized. Each district would elect at least two representatives, and each of them would proxy for how many votes they received. Thus, for instance, in my district in and around Wichita, Ron Estes would be entitled to cast 198,465 votes (or 0.65 vote), but Esau Freeman would also get a ticket to Washington, where he could cast 106,632 votes (or 0.35 vote). Thus the 35% of the electorate who aren't in the least represented by Estes would still have representation. Elections would move from winner-take-all to minor adjustments. Gerrymandering would be pointless. The advantages of raising huge amounts of money would diminish, and with it all of the attendant corruption. Of course, this could be more complicated with third parties, independents, write-ins. I could see making allowances for people who didn't vote to sign up for a representative after the election, or for people who did vote to transfer their proxy. Of course, there is no chance of anything like this being implemented as long as the Republicans think they benefit from the current undemocratic system of corruption. But were that system to turn against them, representative democracy could be a lifeline, to at least stay in the game.

Emily Topping [07-22]: You should get to own your media, not rent it forever: "From Playstation games to ebooks and family photos, corporations are replacing ownership with temporary access. But we don't have to accept that." File this under "Enshittification." Leasing games go back a long ways, and come back whenver some company sees an angle to maximize profits that way. (Renting vs. owning houses is another example.) But the thing about media that's different is that the marginal costs of additional copies are so near to zero that everyone could have a permanent right to access. And, as someone who's spent most of his disposable income on print and music and has, thereby, ammassed a ridiculous amount of clutter, that sound much better to me (and, no doubt, even better for you). Of course, short of my imagined world, there are lots of reforms that can be implemented. A good first start would be to get rid of patents. Ensure a right to repair. Demand that products that are no longer maintained become part of the public domain, so that others can maintain them. Expand rights to share and copy. One more I'd like to throw out there: no clickthrough license can be enforced unless the provider can prove that the customer had adequate legal representation before clicking.

Books:

  • Zack Beauchamp [07-04]: The late historian who rekindled my hope for America's future: "Gordon Wood's argument for the 'radicalism' of the Revolution reveals something profound — and hopeful — about America." Wood has long been my "go to" historian for the period from 1875-1925, as he always seemed to have a view that was both generous and precise of very different people in a very different time. In short, he made sense to me, but I also appreciated that his view of the radicalism of the American Revolution fit in nicely with my view of its essential virtues.

  • Daniel Felsenthal [07-31]: The Jewish radicals who wanted equality for all: "In her history of the Jewish Labor Bund, Molly Crabapple tells the story of workers who opposed prejudice, tyranny, and nationalism." Which, among other things, means Zionism. The name of the book is Here Where We Live Is Our Country: The Story of the Jewish Bund.

  • Joseph Heath [06-12]: Harari vs. Henrich: "What science actually says about human evolution." Contrasts two books on human evolutionary theory: Yuval Noah Harari: Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, and Joseph Henrich: The Secret of Our Success: How Culture Is Driving Human Evolution, Domesticating Our Species, and Making Us Smarter. The two books differ in how they order evolution. For Harari, it goes: 1. intelligence, 2. language, 3. cooperation, 4. culture. For Henrich, the opposite: culture, cooperation, language, intelligence. This may be explained by an ambiguity in the word "culture." While we commonly think of it as the constellation of arts produced by intelligence/etc., another meaning is the nutrient soup in the petri dish in which bacteria grow. That is at least logically previous to whatever else can develop. On the other hand, how can you tell you have intelligence unless you can manifest it somehow (like in language, or art)? Putting language before cooperation also seems backward, as the utility of language depends on interaction with others.

  • Katherine Kelaidis [07-06]: How historians took over liberal punditry: "The hottest resistance talking heads during the Trump 2.0 are academics. What happened?": The author names: Jill Lepore, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, Joanne B Freeman, Kevin M Kruse, Heather Cox Richardson, and Timothy Snyder. Author focuses, rather critically, on the latter two — not my favorite examples, although I don't read any of them regularly (or Ben-Ghiat and Freeman at all). That overlooks numerous other academics, most prominently economists like Paul Krugman and Adam Tooze (who could just as well be considered a historian).

    • Charlotte E Rosen [2025-01-20]: The end of resistance history: Cited above, deals with many of the same people, more critically on Richardson, reminding me how she became a prominent fan of Biden's foreign policy, even when it ran off the rails with Ukraine and Israel. (Snyder is another one, a Russophobe and Ukraine hawk. His area is the "bloodlands" between Germany and Russia.)

    • Osita Nwanevu [07-03]: Who owns the Declaration of Independence? "The founding document has been fought over since it was written. Today, we can let Trump claim it, or we can take up its battle cry to 'alter or to abolish' what's destroying our country." A prime example of arguing over history to make current political points. I've long been sympathetic to the view that it is a radical document based on high ideals that still have some way to go to be implemented for all. For a detailed reading, see Danielle Allen: Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality.

  • Allen Lowe [05-17]: Melvin Gibbs' How Black Music Took Over the World: Book review. Noted because Lowe complained about the reactions he provoked, and I figured I should check it out. But I still haven't.

  • Michael Shorris [07-21]: What's so scary about the Frankfurt School? "In The Cultural Marxism Conspiracy, AJA Woods looks at how the Frankfurt scholars became the latest bogeymen for the contemporary right." I had never heard of Lyn Marcus, but Lyndon LaRouche, sure, what a nitwit! And then you get to William S Lind, and eventually Ted Cruz and Andrew Breitbart. Critical theory is difficult enough without having to extricate it from people who understand nothing and intend to keep it that way.

  • JD Vance: Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith:

Music: I should probably make this a regular section.

Obituaries: I had been using the New York Times, but they're giving me aggravation these days, so I'll switch over to Wikipedia (July, also June), which is probably better anyway. Roughly speaking, since my last report on May 12:

  • [05-20]: Cleve Moler, 86, American mathematician and computer programmer, developed the LINPACK and EISPACK math libraries, and MATLAB, a software package that helped non-programmers solve complex math problems.

  • [06-05]: James Bradley, 72, American historian. I read two of his books: The Imperial Cruise: The Secret History of Empire and War (2009); The China Mirage: The Hidden History of American Disaster in Asia (2015). His earlier Flags of Our Fathers (2000) was the basis for Clint Eastwood's movie about the legacy that followed the taking of Iwo Jima in WWII. [NYT]

  • [06-12]: David Hockney, 88, English painter. [NYT]

  • [06-15]: Abdullah Ibrahim, 91, South African pianist. [NYT]

  • [06-22]: Clive Davis, 94, record producer and executive. [NYT]

  • [06-22]: Alan Greenspan, 100, long-time Fed Chair. [NYT]

  • [07-05]: Mike Wallace, 83, historian, best known for his three-volume history of New York City, starting with Gotham: A History of New York City to 1898 (co-authored with Edwin G Burrows; he was the sole author on the other two volumes). In the 1970s, he was involved in the Radical History Forum, and Radical History Review. I have a memory of him writing about Mexico. I'm not finding much to substantiate that, but he was married to Mexican author Carmen Boullosa, and they co-wrote A Narco History: How the United States and Mexico Jointly Created the "Mexican Drug War" (2016). [NYT]

  • [07-11]: Lindsey Graham, 71, American politician and war criminal. See his section above.

  • [07-13]: Pat Oliphant, 90, Australian-born American political cartoonist.

  • [07-15]: Plas Johnson, 94, American saxophonist. [NYT]

  • [07-19]: Richard Heinberg, 75, journalist and ecologist, wrote extensively on fossil fuels (especially oil depletion) and climate change. I've read a bunch of his books, including The Party's Over: Oil, War, and the Fate of Industrial Societies (2003); Peak Everything: Waking Up to the Century of Declines (2007); and Blackout: Coal, Climate, and the Last Energy Crisis (2009) — seems like there must be more, but the only one I readily found on my shelves is The Post Carbon Reader: Managing the 21st Century's Sustainability Crises (2010). The idea of "peak oil" attracted a lot of interest c. 2000, but faded later in the decade as secondary production (aka "fracking") took off, especially in the US. With that, US production finally increased beyond the 1969 peak, which lulled people back into a sense of complacency — although by then, the worry was less about running out than about turning all we had into greenhouse gases. Actually, the advent of widespread fracking proved that the era of really cheap fossil fuels was over, and that oil and gas would only become more expensive to produce.

  • [07-20]: John C Dvorak, 80, tech writer. I read him regularly, especially in the 1980s personal computer magazines.

  • [07-20]: James Woolsey, 84, Clinton's first CIA Director, possibly his worst appointment ever (no mean feat). Especially prominent in his suport for Bush's invasion of Iraq. I recall a description of how Clinton appointed him: he was just a name the staff proposed; Clinton met with him once, 15 minutes top, and was satisfied. It was not a job he cared about, let alone realized would undermine his presidency. Now we should understand that his biggest mistake was his failure to radically curtail the military and CIA/NSA/etc., which metastasized under his benign neglect. That started with Colin Powell backing him down into "don't ask; don't tell," which turned a reasonable proposal into license for unprecedented enforcement. He should have fired Powell, like Truman did MacArthur. Instead, he kept promoting machine cogs like Woolsey (and his oily replacement, George Tenet), until the "vulcans" were calling the shots, and he was just rubber-stamping them — especially when he saw that bombing Iraq was a good political diversion from impeachment. [NYT]

  • [07-28]: Raoul Vaneigem, 92, Belgian author of The Revolution of Everyday Life, a major tract associated with the Situationist International (best known for Guy Debord's The Society of the Spectacle).

Some other names I recognize:

Tweets: I've usually used this section for highlighting clever responses and/or interesting ideas.

  • Kurt Andersen [08-01]: Picture is a Trump-posted meme which poses two pictures of Trump, one from his military academy days, and one current with an admiring glance of his youth, and the caption: "Same Guy. Even more energy now!"

    The ultimate malignant narcissist posting a perfectly unwitting self-parody of his malignant narcissism.

  • Kevin M Kruse [08-03]:

    I'm just going to keep screaming this until I'm hoarse, but until Trump the norm -- for 50 years -- was that sitting presidents had their taxes audited by the IRS and released to the public to show they were clean.

    But Trump refused repeatedly, and sued when his return was leaked, and now . . . this

    FLAG: Trump gets to keep tax immunity for himself, his sons, and the Trump Organization under the new 'deal' struck by Todd Blanche.

    The new order also reaffirms that Trump won't have to pay any taxes he might have owed the IRS.

    Kruse has another tweet about the Seattle Mariners bullpen deciding they believe that "Babe Ruth didn't exist."

    People in this country used to be afraid of announcing to the world that they were stone-cold idiots who shouldn't be allowed behind the wheel of a car. Now they're out there bragging about how dumb they are.

Original count: 299 links, 18965 words.

Current count: 344 links, 19921 words (25204 total)

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, July 31, 2026

Music Week

July archive (finished).

Music: Current count 46366 [46332] rated (+34), 11 [14] unrated (-3).

Advance Music Week appeared here on Substack. It is also archived here.) Hopefully I'll get the album covers right before sending it out. (I did.)

We're a week past the publication of the Mid-Year Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. I expected to have more to say about it at this point, but as is so often the case, exhaustion has left me distraught and distracted, looking elsewhere. I did start a slight facelift to the top-level website, but checked it in with just enough to cover the mid-year poll, and haven't gotten back to it. I think it works better for landscape screens, but probably not for phones (which I gather is what most people use for web browsing these days, although I almost never do). I know there's "responsive website" code for figuring that out. I just have to dig it up. I'm thinking of adding album covers for the landscape version. People seem to need graphics to look at a web page these days. Go figure.

I also need to move the Francis Davis obit notice into its own file. I also want to create new top-level files for charts that span the multiple polls. I have some cheat sheets I've compiled that I use for stats when I'm writing essays. There's no reason that information shouldn't be easily available. It hasn't happened because polls go in boom-and-bust cycles. During the voting period, it's all we can do to keep up. After voting ends and the essays are sweated through, we're busted and don't feel like doing any more.

One solution I've thought a bit about is to raise some money and hire someone to work on the poll more/less full time. I don't know whether that's even possible. One idea I had was to create a Substack, where the revenues would go to hiring a manager. We could then give voters free subscriptions for their troubles. (DownBeat continues to get lots of voters who won't give us the time of day, even though it takes at least ten times as long to fill out their ridiculous 50+ category forms. But they give voters a free subscription, and a promo T-shirt, or I guess it's a cap this year. I don't know that it makes a difference, but perhaps it does.) Or maybe there's some foundation money available somewhere. Or a "go fund me." I have no idea how that sort of thing works. There isn't a huge audience for the poll, but I'm pretty sure there is an appreciative one.

For my part, I'm pretty good at doing things on the cheap, and I like not having to cater to the whims of those with money. So I'm not the right person to attempt anything like that. And while I'm happy to help, at my age I'm not likely to be able to keep doing this sort of thing much longer. I'm fairly committed to running the poll again in the fall, but not beyond that. The question is how can the poll be organized this fall so it can continue in the future. Because the need is there, and most likely always will be.

As it is, I've spent most of the week trying to catch up after ignoring Loose Tabs for over six weeks — the longest gap since I gave up on doing the weekly Speaking of Which. My draft at present is up to 15,729 words (264 links). I am hopeful I can finally publish it over the weekend. It's already provided raw material for my Lindsey Graham post (Famous Death Dwarves). Very little reaction to that, leaving me with questions about the experiment. It probably would have had more impact had I taken my links/comments and restructured them as a straight essay.[*] I could also have expanded on where I see his legacy going. For now, the Ukraine war hawks are riding high on his dead horse.

More non-jazz this week than jazz, for the first time in quite a while. There are still many records from the poll that I haven't heard — I have a list I've been ticking off, which has shrunk from 295 to 242 albums (roughly from 50% of the poll picks to 40%) — but finding the ones that look most interesting is getting hard. While I still get a fair number of promos, I depend on Spotify and full albums on Bandcamp to make up the slack. I only rarely follow up on download offers — there must be some system that other people use to manage them, but I've never figured one out — and I rarely ask for CDs or downloads. Besides, I've neglected non-jazz over the last couple months. In particular, I've hardly looked at any mid-year lists this year (and I'm not tracking metacritic grades, so I've lost that major source of information).

I don't get many questions, but I tried to answer one today. Probably not very satisfactorily, but it's impossible to review everything, or anything remotely close, so one has to pick and choose, based on what seems promising, and what doesn't. I could have added that these days (thanks to streaming) I continue to check out virtually every record Christgau writes up, even the male alt/indie rockers I have little hope of actually liking. I was pretty solidly into rock and soul from the 1960s through the 1980s, diversifying only a bit into roots and jazz in the 1970s (before returning seriously in the 1990s), but not getting to hip-hop until late (like, Run-DMC, so I guess mid-1980s, not that late). So there's always a chance. But sorry, not a lot of patience these days.

[*] I'm in the market for some AI tools. Supposedly one thing they're good at is summarizing articles, which makes me wonder how good one might be at taking notes and forming them into a proper outline. Not quite the same thing, but related, at least if they evince some understanding. Could I, for instance, take everything I've blogged over 25 years and feed it to one, and have it spit out some kind of coherent piece on North Korea? It wouldn't even have to be right. Once I have something, I can fix it. The big problem is getting from very scattered notes to something I can work with.

I've been reading a series of books on AI, and am currently about one-third done with the fourth. The books are shown under "Recent Reading" to the left. I think the order is well-considered:

  1. Cory Doctorow: The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence — Before It's Too Late (2026, MCD)
  2. Arvind Narayanan/Sayash Kapoor: AI Snake Oil: What Artificial Intelligence Can Do, What It Can't, and How to Tell the Difference (2024, Princeton University Press)
  3. Joanna Stern: I Am Not a Robot: My Year of Using AI to Do (Almost) Everything (2026, Harper)
  4. Robert Wright: The God Test: Artificial Intelligence and Our Coming Cosmic Reckoning (2026, Simon & Schuster)

Doctorow emphasizes the business issues, expecting the bubble to burst, while warning that the key issue is who controls whom. AI Snake Oil admits that AI has many practical uses, but disparages "predictive AI." Stern is a tech-testing journalist, with access to lots of the latest gadgets and models, so helps break the big concept of AI down to its practical (and impractical) constituents. I hate Wright's title, and his general fascination with cosmic evolution, but I started reading his newsletter due to his good sense on foreign policy, and I've followed his interest in AI for several years now. More generally, I agree with is focus on the need for cooperation in political matters — to which point, I've read his 1999 book Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny, which has the same God baggage, but isn't fatally undermined by it. I'm about a third of the way through The God Test, and it is the most troublesome of the four books, but I still have hope. For one thing, it is the only one that looks beyond the current state of the art to try to figure where it's going, how it will impact us, and what we might most constructively do about it. At that point, I suspect we'll be in substantial agreement. If AI can be abused by nefarious characters (including governments), and it almost certainly can, we need a kinder, more generous, more cooperative, more trustworthy politics and economy (something Wright might be tempted to call a religion).

I've read several other books, like Ronald Kneusel's How AI Works: From Sorcery to Science, and Matteo Pasquinelli's The Eye of the Master: A Social History of Artificial Intelligence. I've also found that AI figures in other recent books I've read, like Daron Acemoglu/Simon Johnson's Power and Progress: Our Thousand Year Struggle Over Technology and Prosperity, and John Cassidy's Capitalism and Its Critics: A History: From the Industrial Revolution to AI. In the wings, I have a book from the library, Artificial Intelligence for Dummies: All-in-One, which runs some 716 pages. I expect it to be superficial, and tied to specific programs, few of which I will ever use, but I hope it might be worth thumbing through for ideas on how to use whatever tools I do try out.

New records reviewed this week:

A-F-R-O & Motion Plus: Frequencies (2026, Fro Thizzle Productions): Rapper James Dean Santiago-Gutierrez, handful of albums since 2016, acronym for All Flows Reach Out, with producer William Sterns, heavy on the turntablism. B+(***) [sp]

Akhavelli: Moorthodox Psyence (2026, Below System): London-based producer, first album as such, but also known as Yvng Face, billed as "instrumental" but his collages have lots of hip-hop vocal samples. Vibe strikes me as Public Enemy, but the artist is probably thinking more of Tupac Shakur. B+(***) [bc]

Ishmael Ali: Burn the Plastic, Sell the Copper (2023-25 [2026], Amalgam): Cellist, from Chicago, touted as his debut album but Discogs credits him with ten since 2020. Also credited with voice, electronics, and compositions, with Ed Wilkerson Jr. (tenor sax/alto clarinet), Corey Wilkes (trumpet), Jim Baker (piano, ARP), Brianna Tong (voice), and Bill Harris (drums). Voice a plus, for once. B+(***) [bc]

Laurie Anderson With Sexmob: Let X = X (2023 [2026], Nonesuch): Performance artist, combines very brainy spoken word with her violin and minimalist synths to produce a series of brilliant albums, starting with 1982's Big Science, with 1985's United States Live (a 5-LP box) and 1989's Strange Angels most remarkable. Live album, with 23 songs in 94 minutes, based by a jazz quintet organized by Steven Bernstein and Briggan Krauss (brass) in 1998, with Doug Wieselman (clarinet/guitar), Tony Scherr (bass), and Kenny Wollesen (drums). They don't replace, let alone eliminate, the synths and violin, but they add warmth, and occasionally some rhythmic flex. I suspect that Bernstein is the musical hero here, not for his trumpet but for his arranging skills. One surprise is they dropped in a vocal from the ghost of Lou Reed (they were married from 2008 to his death in 2013). But even more than the music, I'm struck by the philosophy, so much needed for our times: the last lines are "there are so many sad things in the world, and if you pretend they're not there, you're an idiot. The point is, that it is very, very important not to become sad yourself. And more than that, he said, 'You know, you need to remember that the reason we're here, the actual reason that we're here is to have a really, really, really good time.'" A [sp]

Nia Archives: Emotional Junglist (2026, Hijinxx/Island): British jungle/electronica producer Dehaney Nia Lishahn Hunt, I had her filed as such based on her early EPs, but this is a songs album, and she's a singer-songwriter, even if her beats are exceptionally deft. A− [sp]

Charli XCX: Music, Fashion, Film (2026, Atlantic): British pop star, eighth album, produced by A.G. Cook and Finn Keane, who co-wrote the 11 tracks (a tight 30:05, with the vinyl shorter, dropping a David Cronenberg vocal sample, and a "B-Sides Edition" extra CD available which only adds 5:45). B+(***) [sp]

Christopher Dammann: Dead Words (2025 [2026], Shifting Paradigm): Bassist, has a previous album (Sextet), Chicago group with trumpet (James Davis), strich (Jon Irabagon), piano (Jim Baker), and drums (Mike Reed), some electronics. Boisterous freebop. B+(***) [sp]

Eliane Elias: Ao Vivo (2023 [2026], Candid): Brazilian pianist, early albums (from 1983) were instrumental, started singing at some point — certainly by 1998's superb Sings Jobim — and that's become a regular dimension of her act. Live album, from a performance at SFJAZZ, with Leandro Pellegrino (guitar), Marc Johnson (bass), and Rafael Barata (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Andy Emler/Claude Tchamitchian/Eric Echampard: There Is Another Way (2025 [2026], La Buisonne): French pianist, albums back to 1982, in a trio with bass and drums, his regular group at least since 2003. B+(**) [bc]

Jimmy Farace: Big Shoulders, Big Sounds (2026, Shifting Paradigm): Baritone saxophonist, from Chicago, second album, trio with Clark Sommers (bass) and Dana Hall (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Kelly Green: Eat Your Greens! (2026, Green Soul): Pianist-singer, (19) at Discogs, has a couple previous albums. Mostly covers, with just bass and drums on one track, combinations of horns on the rest — most often Scott Robinson (tenor sax), with Wallace Roney Jr. (trumpet), Wycliffe Gordon (trombone), Steve Wilson (alto sax), and Elijah J. Thomas (flutes), most successfully on oldies like "When You're Smilin'" and "Solitude." B+(**) [cd] [08-28]

Elias Haslanger: Legacy (2025 [2026], Bandstand Presents): Tenor saxophonist, based in Austin, debut 1994, takes a look back here, although I'm not really sure to what — bebop, I suppose. With Mike Sailors (trumpet), backed by piano, bass, and drums. B+(*) [sp]

Illit: Mamihlapinatapai (2026, Belift Lab, EP): K-pop girl group, fourth EP, 5 songs, 13:16. B+(*) [sp]

Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: Bury Deep My Heart (2026, Carrier): Country singer-songwriter Jeff Snyder, sneaking up on a career that started in 2011 with an EP, then an album in 2018. Second album. His country + EDM concept has settled in clearly on the country side, with fiddle and pedal steel more convincing than George Jones covers. Still, there's something synthetic here I don't quite buy, although I'm not opposed to pop art in principle. B+(***) [cd]

David Maranha/Rodrigo Amado: Desolation Row (2025 [2026], Comets Coming): Organ and tenor sax duo, second album together. I've never looked into Maranha's other work, which includes close to 20 albums back to 1994, as well as the experimental drone group Osso Exótico (9 albums 1990-2010). Here he fills out the background, for some pretty major tenor saxophone. A− [bc]

Rico Nasty: RX (2026, Sugar Trap, EP): Rapper Maria-Cecilia Kelly, four albums 2018-25, 9 songs but only 20:41 B+(**) [sp]

Jenny Reynolds: Willow & Stone (2026, self-released): Singer-songwriter from New England, based in Austin, where she won a poll as "Best New Local Act" in 2005. Fourth album, as far as I can tell (2002, 2008, 2020, 2026). Strong songwriter, but not much sticks. B+(**) [sp]

Tom Ricci: Happening in Buenos Aires: Live at Borges 1975 (2023 [2026], self-released): Standards singer, from Argentina, based in California, fifth album (can't find him on Discogs), "Borges 1975" is "a popular cultural space, jazz club, bar, and bookstore" in Buenos Aires. Plays guitar. Opens with very nice takes on "Mood Indigo" and "Night and Day," slips into Spanish (or Portuguese) for three songs in the middle (including a Jobim and "Besame Mucho"), followed by a touching reading of "What a Beautiful World." B+(**) [cd]

David G Smith: Hero Street (2026, Hey Dave): Folkie singer-songwriter, from Iowa, seven previous albums on his website, only one album I can find on Discogs. B+(***) [sp]

Clark Sommers: WaBaSH (2025 [2026], Calligram): Bassist, from Chicago, has a stimulating postbop group with two saxophonists (John Wojciechowski and Geof Bradfield) and drums (Dana Hall). B+(***) [cd] [08-07]

Swamp Dogg: Swamp Dogg Contemplates the Afterlife (2026, S-Curve): Jerry Williams, started as a mainstream soul producer for Atlantic in the 1960s, adopted this persona for one of the singularly great albums of 1970, and has been hit-and-miss ever since. But at 83 he's hitting as consistently as ever. Possibly his best since Total Destruction to Your Mind. Sure, the subject matter reminds me more of the later 1970s albums when his relationships went sour, but age has given him insights into the big picture, while he still has the chops to arrange and sing. A [sp]

The Westerlies: Have You Heard? The Music of Bill Frisell, Vol. 1 (2020-24 [2026], Westerlies): Brass quartet, formed in 2011 by Riley Mulherkar (trumpet) and Andy Clausen (trombone), here with seconds Chloe Rowlands (trumpet) and Addison Maye-Saxon (trombone). Over a dozen albums since their first on The Music of Wayne Horvitz. This one compiles eight Frisell compositions from eight separate dates, evidence that they've been thinking about his music for a long time. B+(**) [sp]

Earl "Guitar" Williams: The Soul King of Bessemer, AL (2025 [2026], Music Maker): Blues guitarist-singer, b. 1952, can't find him on Discogs but another source says this is his fourth solo album. B+(**) [sp]

Otomo Yoshihide/Kei Matsumaru: Shutsumin (2024 [2026], Trost): Japanese guitarist and turntablist, many albums since 1988, including some recordings as far back as 1975. I was looking for his rendition of Out to Lunch, but instead found this duo with saxophone. Way too discordant for my taste, which I only coped with by turning it way down (at which point, sure, it had some merit). B— [bc]

Tucker Zimmerman: Dream Me a Dream (2026, Big Potato): Singer-songwriter, recorded the modestly titled Ten Songs back in 1969, more albums up to 1983, big gap to 2003-05, got going again in 2021. Died with his wife in a house fire in 2026, leaving this final album. Others have complained about "musical drop-off," but I'm finding this very charming. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Charles Lloyd: Sangam & Friends (2009 [2026], Blue Note): Tenor saxophonist, plays some flute, recorded an album in 2004 called Sangam with Zakir Hussain (tabla) and Eric Harland (drums), regrouping the trio in Mumbai in 2009, along with additional players, with vocals by Vijay Prakash. Hussain died in 2024, so this appears as a tribute. B+(***) [sp]

Shūdan Sokai: Live at Hachioji Alone (1976 [2026], Aguirre): Japanese free jazz quartet, recorded this one album, group name translates as "mass evacuation. Group is led by Yoriyuki Harada (piano) and Kazutoki Umezu (alto/baritone sax), back from a spell in New York exploring the jazz loft scene, with Junji Mori (alto sax) and Takashi Kikuchi (drums). Umezu went on to have the more notable career, but the pianist's Cecil Taylor moves are most impressive here. And when they switch gears, that's doubly impressive. A− [sp]

Sun Ra Arkestra: Somewhere Over the Rainbow: Live at the Bluebird Cafe, Bloomington, Indiana (1977 [2026], Strut): De trop: 26 songs, 141 minutes, fills up 2 CDs, 3 LPs, giving you a wide view of their entire schtick, some of which is wonderful, more may have been fun at the time (where the element of surprise is always in the air), some of which just wears on your nerves. B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Plas Johnson: This Must Be the Plas! (1959, Capitol): Tenor saxophonist (1931-2026), a couple dozen albums and lots of side-credits from 1956, best known for his work with Henry Mancini. Second album, strong sax over an easy listening groove, with vibes, guitar, piano/organ, bass, and drums. B+(**) [sp]

Plas Johnson: Bop Me Daddy (1956, Tampa, EP): Tenor saxophonist, playing eight songs (21:33), backed by piano, bass, and drums. Nothing exciting, but Johnson has a rich tone with a solid blues grounding. [Reissued 2014 on CD along with a second Tampa album, Drum Stuff, from 1957.] B+(*) [sp]

Plas Johnson/Red Holloway: Keep That Groove Going (2001, Milestone): Two tenor saxophonists, Holloway (1927-2012) mostly played with blues musicians in the 1950s, moving into soul jazz in the 1960s, especially with Jack McDuff. This one — with Gene Ludwig (organ), Melvin Sparks (guitar), and Kenny Washington (drums) — gives the leaders each a standard for a solo feature, plus seven more songs: two originals each, more from Coleman Hawkins, Arnett Cobb, and ending with "Dream a Little Dream of Me." B+(**) [sp]

Mary Lee Kortes: Will Anybody Know That I Was Here? The Songs of Beulah Rowley (2016 [2023], Lakeside Lounge): Story goes that Rowley was a Michigan singer-songwriter who died tragically in the 1930s, leaving a locked box of songs that Kortes eventually discovered, inspiring her to a career that thus far includes five 1996-2006 albums as Mary Lee's Corvette, plus this Hal Wilner-produced album, along with supporting prose, including a biography of Rowley. This doesn't sound antique, but I suppose the themes are timeless. The music production is very tasteful. A− [sp]

Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: A Love on My Mind (2008, Carrier, EP): "Debut album from electro-country pioneer Owen Lake," actually Jeff Snyder, just six songs (17:27), opens with a duet with Anna Stirr on "Just Someone I Used to Know." That establishes some country cred, which the electro doesn't do much with. B+(*) [bc]

Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: the Best of Your Lies (2018, Carrier): First album, a decade after first (and only) EP, draws on "1960s country, 1980s dream pop, and electronic dance music" for, well, it's hard to say. The country covers offer some interesting grounding. B+(**) [bc]

Dana Maragos: Unimaginable Things (2024, self-released): Singer-songwriter from Chicago, has a short album from 2020 (8 songs, 27:57), not much more here (8 songs, 28:49). Appealing, straightforward songs. B+(***) [sp]

Dana Maragos: October (2020, self-released): First album, short (8 songs, 27:57), every bit as solid. B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Mike Jones: Mike Jones With Strings (Capri) [08-21]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, July 24, 2026

Music Week

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46332 [46299] rated (+33), 14 [10] unrated (+4).

Advance Music Week appeared here on Substack. (Thank you for subscribing. It means a lot to me.) It is also archived here.) A couple of oddities in the advance this week: I included Maya De Vitry's All My Faith from a few weeks back. It's release date is today, and it's an A− country album that deserves recognition, something it didn't really get when I jumped the gun. My intention was to omit it here, but nothing's stopping me from giving it a second exposure. Also, I didn't bother with the Miles Davis review in the advance, figuring that it was an automatic for music that's already rated A− (or higher) at least three times before, but I wound up adding the album cover there to balance out their gallery display. Hopefully, anyone confused there will read this here.

I wrote on this yesterday, but it's been such a large investment of my life that I feel entitled to mention it at the start of every post for the next month or so: Arts Fuse has published The Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll at Mid-Year. While that link is a good place to start, the place to go for everything is my archive website. And by everything, I mean totals charts down to one vote, every voter's complete ballot, links that tell you who voted for each album, the original drafts of the essays (including bullet lists of notes where I try to look beyond the music to find other subtle influences, and a lot of technical detail on the rules and how they are applied. There's also an "In Memoriam" piece that's nearly up-to-date. And when it occurred to me that I hadn't said very much about the music, I pulled together a collection of my reviews on every charted album I've heard. (This also reveals how many I haven't heard, a fairly substantial number — although I keep working to whittle it down, as this week's albums demonstrate.)

While I'm nominally done with the Mid-Year Poll, freeing myself from constant thought about it going to take some time. I feel some obligation to promote it, although my skills in that regard are negligible. I also feel like I've left a lot undone. (Although I do feel like I came closer this time than in the last Annual Poll. I was hoping to elicit comments then, but while I can complain about lack of response, I also dropped the ball. That's why, this Mid-Year, I decided to write everything on my own — although I did have some exceptional proofreading/editing help.)

More should be done on the website, including adding more notes and reviews, but the much bigger question is what happens to the website, and to the poll in the fall. I'll write more about that as the fall approaches. For now, I really need to do some kind of redesign on the poll website, even if it's just reprioritizing the current data (especially upgrading the link to the 2026 Mid-Year, which is currently microscopic at the bottom of the page).

Of course, it's also tempting to work on things I've been neglecting, such as Loose Tabs: I haven't posted one since June 14, and haven't collected much in the meantime (although I do have a couple dozen tabs to revisit). And I'd love to do a Book Roundup, which is even more daunting given that the last one came out on May 23, 2025 (14 months ago). I also hope to post some other pieces here, including one on the DownBeat Critics Poll. (I was going to do one after voting. The results are out now, but I haven't looked at them yet — partly because I decided it would be best not to get distracted while I was trying to wrap up our own poll. I was also going to do one catching up with 2025 EOY lists, which is really feeling old now. I have a couple of more everyday-life-ish items that I started writing but never got back to. And I was going to do one from the Hussein Agha/Robert Malley book, which I just had to return to the library.)

New records reviewed this week:

Yazz Ahmed: Shinrin-Yoku (2026, Night Time Stories, EP): British trumpet player, father from Bahrain, four albums since 2011, also several EPs, this one with four songs, 24:36. She's one of several London jazz musicians who, like Miles Davis, seem capable of crossover without compromise, but she's never quite hit the mark yet. B+(**) [sp]

Bob Bert: Beach Bongo Bloodbath (2026, Bar/None): Name shortened from Bertelli, father played pro football after winning a Heisman Trophy in 1943, first drummer for Sonic Youth (1982-85), played in Pussy Galore after that, later Chrome Cranks, Lydia Lunch Retrovirus, other bands. First album under his own name, 14 songs, 25:58, some originals, some covers (Richard Hell, Jonathan Richman, Lou Reed, John Lydon). The covers are extra interesting, not least for the drums. A− [sp]

Dave Burrell & David Liebman: Reservoir (2026, Bespoke Jazz): Pianist, b. 1940, records start in 1969, in a duo with the saxophonist, playing soprano. B+(**) [sp]

Jonas Cambien/Magnus Skavhaug Nergaard/Dag Erik Knedal Andersen: The Ear Behind the Airport (2025 [2026], Motvind): Belgian pianist, based in Norway, with bass and drums. I'm most impressed by the percussion here. B+(***) [bc]

The Paul Carlon Trio: Between Us Three (2024-25 [2026], TRRcollective): Tenor saxophonist, has several albums since 2006, credits include Grupo Los Santos and Schapiro 17; trio with bassist Alex "Apolo" Ayala and percussionist Wilson "Chembo" Corniel (congas, güiro, guataca, chemboro). I reckon this could count as Latin Jazz: the rhythms sure do, and the sax adds a single, uncluttered voice, a simplicity I admire. A− [sp]

John Clayton: The Two-o Duo Project (2026, ArtistShare): Bassist, brother of saxophonist Jeff Clayton, they've recorded 8 albums as the Clayton Brothers (1991-2015), as many more as Clayton-Hamilton Jazz Orchestra, also father of pianist Gerald Clayton, who plays as this "duo-centered studio project grew organically into select trio performances." The third "duo" partner here is singer René Marie. I quickly lost track of who plays what with whom, and wasted a lot of time trying to look such basic info up. Part of that problem is that they all flow together so seamlessly. B+(**) [sp]

Maya De Vitry: All My Faith (2026, Mad Maker Studios): Folkie singer-songwriter based in Nashville, four previous albums since 2019. Sound reminded me first of Joy of Cooking, then Joni Mitchell (but warmer). That may be enough for now. I'll take the faith on faith. A− [cd]

Fathers: Fathers (2026, Blue Note): New collective — Kenny Beats (producer), Kiefer (keyboards), CARRTOONS (bass), Nate Smith (drums) — pitch is "to explode existing notions of what jazz is by fearlessly taking the music in new directions." Which is what? Something in the gap between instrumental hip-hop and disco, I guess. Eight pieces, 27:16. Voice on the finale doesn't help. B [sp]

Flöjter: Brest Blow (2025 [2026], Utech/Gigantonium): Improv duo of Mats Gustafsson (flute, slide flute, spilåpipa, harmonica, live electronics, organ, so he left the heavy artillery at home) and Delphine Joussein (flute, electronics). Two tracks, 32:09. B+(**) [bc]

Flöjter: Paris Blow (2025 [2026], Utech/Gigantonium): Same deal, recorded the day before, only more so: 4 tracks, 50:24. B+(***) [bc]

Carlos Henríquez: Monk Con Clave (2026, self-released): Bassist, from New York City, fifth album since 2015 (including the similar title Dizzy Con Clave), started with Tito Puente in 1999 but main gig since 2004 has been the Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra, which provides much of the fire power for this big band album, with some vocals. B+(**) [sp]

Marquis Hill: (Beautifulism) Sweet Surrender (2026, Black Unlimited): Trumpet player, from Chicago, debut 2011, impressive sax solo early on (Immanuel Wilkins), but also a lot of vocals, including rap. Has been billed as an EP, with a demo and a remix pushing this out to 10 songs, 34:20. B [cd]

Julia Hülsmann Octet: While I Was Away (2023 [2026], ECM): German pianist, albums since 2000, ninth (or tenth) album on ECM, first octet, but that's counting three vocalists, leaving you with a piano-bass-drums trio (with Eva Kruse and Eva Klesse) plus violin and cello. Five songs by Hülsmann with borrowed lyrics (mostly poets), two songs (plus one lyric) by singer Live Maria Roggen, three others including an Ani DiFranco cover. B+(**) [sp]

Hannah Marks: Feed the Fire (2025 [2026], Endectomorph Music): Bassist, second album (first was on Out of Your Head), quartet with Nathan Reising (alto sax), Lex Korten (piano), and Steven Crammer (drums), produced by Jason Moran. Originals and selected jazz covers, including Dewey Redman and Geri Allen. Impressive. B+(***) [sp]

Pedrito Martínez/Antonio Sánchez/Michael League: Elipsis (2026, GroundUP Music): Cuban percussionist (conga/bata), moved to New York in 1998, also sings, with the Mexican drummer and a "genre-busting" bassist (founder of Bokanté, Forq, and Snarky Puppy), and others, one presumes. The percussion impresses, the vocals seem frantic, and the bassist brings doom and gloom, for better or worse. B+(**) [sp]

Orchestre National De Jazz: With Carla (2025 [2026], ONJ): French big band + strings, created 1986 by the Ministry of Culture, has had 12 directors and released 33 albums. This one seems to be led by Sylvaine Hélary (flute), mostly playing music by the late Carla Bley. B+(**) [bc]

Ivo Perelman/Elliot Sharp/Cyro Baptista: Triacontagon (2024 [2026], Defkaz): Tenor sax, 8-string electric guitar, percussion/vocals. At some point, one has heard so many Perelman albums that one starts to take the superb sax play for granted, and look to the others for differentiation. From the first note, this album stands out, with its metallic sinews and odd klangs. A− [bc]

Susana Santos Silva/Vasco Trilla: Mushin (2024 [2026], Defkaz): Trumpet and percussion duo, from Portugal and Spain. B+(*) [bc]

Elias Stemeseder/Thomas Morgan: Io Pur Respiro (2024 [2026], Squama): Austrian pianist, increasingly active since 2013, in a duo with the bassist. Starts with a madrigal, adding two 1930s standards and two originals to span "400 years of melodic evolution." B+(***) [sp]

Steve Swallow: Winter Songs (2024 [2026], ECM): Bassist, has played electric since the early 1970s, long associated with Carla Bley, 83 when this was recorded. With Mike Rodriguez (trumpet), Chris Cheek (tenor sax), Steve Cardenas (guitar), Gil Goldstein (piano), and Adam Nussbaum (drums). Original pieces, modestly numbered, elegantly played. B+(***) [sp]

Micah Thomas: Lucid (2026, Birdwatcher): Pianist, several albums since 2020, plays in Immanuel Wilkins Quartet. A notable here with Wilkins (alto sax), Kalia Vandever (trombone), Thomas Morgan (bass), and Lesley Mok (drums), but they are very careful to hew to the composer's vision. B+(**) [sp]

Ben Wolfe: Any Time After Now (2025 [2026], Resident Arts): Bassist, a dozen albums since 1998, mostly mainstream labels, side credits start with Harry Connick Jr., Diana Krall, and Wynton Marsalis. Quintet draws on two rising stars — Joel Ross (vibes) and Sullivan Fortner (piano) — adding tenor sax (Chris Lewis) and drums (Aaron Kimmel). B+(*) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

John Butcher: Away, I Was (2008-25 [2026], Relative Pitch): British avant-saxophonist, prolific since 1985, offers a widely scattered collection of solo tenor and soprano pieces. B+(**) [sp]

Miles Davis: Miles '56: The Prestige Recordings (1956 [2026], Craft): As I've long owned the 8-CD Chronicle: The Complete Prestige Recordings, I wasn't in a rush to check out Craft's year-by-year series, which started in 2024 with Miles '54: The Prestige Recordings, added Miles '55, and ends here. They skipped the scattered early 1951-53 stuff, so the three annuals add up to 7-CD, but 1954 was when Davis started to get his shit together, and in 1956 he got his much touted "first great quintet" together, with John Coltrane, Red Garland, Paul Chambers, and Philly Joe Jones. It was also the year he signed with Columbia, owing Prestige four last albums. Those four were cut in two sessions, one on May 11, the other on October 26, and Prestige released them slowly to compete with the new Columbias. The first was Workin' With the Miles Davis Quintet, the rest replacing the verb with Steamin', Relaxin', and Cookin'. Despite the throwaway intent, they are among the major hard bop albums of the 1950s, and did as much as the more ambitious Columbias to establish the Quintet's legacy (at least until Kind of Blue made "modes" a by-word in 1959). Those are prefaced here by a March 16 session with Sonny Rollins that contributed three songs to Collector's Items. A− [sp]

Miles Davis: Miles '55: The Prestige Recordings (1955 [2026], Craft): Prestige was famous in the 1950s for just rolling the tape and knocking out product. Sonny Rollins was so great he did his best work there, but nearly everyone else got much better when they went elsewhere: Coltrane and McLean were prime examples, but Monk and Davis also count. B+(**) [sp]

Ellery Eskelin: Setting the Standard (1988 [2026], Prime Source): Tenor saxophonist, originally from Wichita, first album, a trio with Drew Gress (bass) and Phil Haynes (drums), released 1989 on Cadence Jazz, seven standards, remastered with two extra tracks added. Sometimes I talk about the major wave of tenor saxophonists that emerged in the 1990s. I've never really thought of him in that regard, possibly because he never appeared on major or mainstream labels, but on this evidence he could have squared off against any of them. B+(***) [bc]

Medeski Martin & Wood: Tonic (1999 [2026], Blue Note): Fusion band popular in the 1990s (albums 1992-2014), with John Medeski (keyboards: piano to start, electronic later, mostly organ), Billy Martin (drums/percussion), and Chris Wood (bass: mostly acoustic, some electric). Wood moved on to a folk-rock group called the Wood Brothers, with Oliver Wood on guitar. By the time they broke up, Martin and Medeski were doing other projects on the side: Martin released a series of solo percussion albums with occasional extras; Medeski played on a wide variety of sessions. This was their first live album, reissued as part of Blue Note's Tone Poet series. B+(**) [sp]

Big John Patton: Got a Good Thing Goin' (1966 [2026], Blue Note): Organ player (1935-2002), recorded for Blue Note 1963-69, a couple more scattered albums into the 1990s. This one features Grant Green (guitar), who co-wrote the first side originals, with Smokey Robinson, Sam Cooke, and Duke Pearson tapped for the back side. With drums and congas. B+(**) [sp]

Hans Reichel: Dalbergia Retusa (1973-88 [2026], Black Truffle): German guitarist (1949-2011), debut on FMP 1973, also designed typefaces, and invented instruments, most famously the daxophone, but much of his guitar work involved some degree of preparation, modification and/or invention. This collects 2-LP worth of solo pieces. He gets a panoply of remarkable sounds. A− [bc]

Mal Waldron/Steve Lacy: Play Monk, Ellington & Strayhorn: Live at Yoshi's 1994 (1994 [2026], Elemental Music): Piano and soprano sax duets, nearly 2 hours worth. They've played together at least since 1972, mostly in duos. Moreover, Lacy's 1958 debut started with "Day Dream" and included Monk's "Work" and Ellington's "Rockin' in Rhythm." B+(***) [sp]

Old music:

Ellery Eskelin/Sylvie Courvoisier: Every So Often (2008 [2020], Prime Source): Tenor sax and piano duets, well known figures, recorded in a studio in Brooklyn. B+(**) [bc]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Nicki Adams and Michael Eaton Featuring Francisco Mela: Arrival (J-man) [09-10]
  • Barcelona Art Orchestra & Miguel Zenón: Expressions: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (Miel Music) [06-26]
  • Satoko Fujii Orchestra Kobe: After the Storm (Libra) [08-07]
  • Oliver-Smith Incomparables: Stomp Your Stuff (Turtle Bay) [08-28]
  • Sarah Pillow: Wanderer (Buckyball) [10-05]
  • Terry Waldo & the Gotham City Band: Treasury Volume 3 (Turtle Bay) [06-05]
  • Miguel Zenón & Luis Perdomo: El Arte Del Bolero Vol. 3 (Miel Music) [08-28]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Saturday, July 18, 2026

Music Week

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46299 [46249] rated (+50), 10 [15] unrated (-5).

Advance Music Week appeared here on Substack. (Thank you for subscribing. It means a lot to me.) It is also archived here.) Once again, I slipped up and sent the email out before I pasted the album covers in. I need some kind of checklist process.

I failed to get my essays done, so the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Mid-Year Poll will have to wait until next week. I've heard complaints about why don't you just post the results already? Sorry. They're tabulated, and if you're anxious just ask me. But the essay is my one chance to write the first draft of history, and I have things I want to say. And no, I'm not going to wait until I say everything I have to say. I expect to write more about the poll later. And I'd like to encourage you all to send in any questions or comments. While I have my own ideas about what's important, I'm open to discussing any aspect of the poll, or what it tries to cover, or even what it fails to cover.

Lots of records below. I'm still very much focused on jazz. As I've noted, before I started counting, I had only heard of about half of the 600 albums that received votes this half-year. Not easy to figure out how many of those 600 albums I had heard before I started counting, but I'm up to 420 rated 2026 jazz releases in my tracking file.

Lots of stuff I've neglected over the last six weeks. First up will probably be to start (yes, I mean start) compiling a Loose Tabs. Hopefully not much has happened, and what has happened isn't too aggravating, but I suspect not. Taking a break tomorrow to cook for friends. That I'm looking forward to.

New records reviewed this week:

Ricky Alexander: Ragology (2025 [2026], Turtle Bay): Clarinet player, third album since 2018 (plus one with singer Sweet Megg), "takes an emphatic dive into the roots of ragtime and tangentially related genres that morphed into jazz." Conal Fowkes plays piano, along with banjo, bass, and drums. B+(***) [sp]

Zoh Amba: Eyes Full (2026, Matador): B. 2000, made a big splash in 2022-23 with a flurry of astonishing free jazz saxophone albums, reinvents herself as a guitar-playing, Dylanesque singer-songwriter, but lower-fi and occasionally dissolving into some kind of detuned Sonic Youth postpunk. Not a direction I'd like to encourage, but fairly unique even if the signposts are easily recognized. A− [sp]

Florian Arbenz Feat. Bill Frisell/Greg Osby: Quiet Lights (2026, Hammer/Conversation Lab): Swiss drummer, started in the trio Vein, started remotely piecing together his "Conversations" during the pandemic, originally by passing tapes back and forth. This started with the drummer's soundscapes, but was recorded in a studio session without overdubs. B+(***) [sp]

Ran Blake & Dominique Eade: Roots & Byways (2023 [2026], Sunnyside): Pianist, debut 1965, won a MacArthur in 1988 (along with Max Roach, the first jazz musicians so honored), many records, I haven't done the math but roughly speaking they fall into three fairly equal bins: solos, trios, and duos with singers (starting with Jeanne Lee in 1966). (Although as with all generalizations, there are exceptions: my favorite of his albums is a piano duo with Clare Ritter, Eclipse Orange, and I very rarely fall for piano duos.) Eade has 9 albums since 1990, this her 3rd with Blake. She is one of those soprano divas I rarely react well to, but Blake brings out the best in her. B+(***) [cd]

Cheer-Accident: Your Smile / The Song Is Over (2026, Cuneiform): Prog rock group, founded 1981 by Thymme Jones, released their first album in 1986, hype sheet says this is their 27th without specifying when, but it is packaged (at least with my download) with two 2022-23 live shows, offered separately on Bandcamp. This hardly seemed worth the trouble until "The Blue Lie," a 9:37 hard groove piece, marred by unnecessary vocals. B [dl]

Cheer-Accident: CheerAx Basement, Chicago 4/2/22 // Reggie's Chicago 9/26/23 (2022-23 [2026], Cuneiform): Two live sets, available separate or bundled with the new album, the first expanding the septet to nine with an extra singer and drummer. It's not unfathomable that they would have a cult following, but this is an awful lot of not so very much. [PS: I left this hanging overnight, then finished it the next morning. When I was fresher, I found myself more amused and less annoyed, so nudged the grade up a bit, while doubling down on my summary line.] B+(*) [dl]

Alexander Claffy: Alive in Philadelphia Vol. 1: At Chris' Jazz Cafe (2025 [2026], Cellar): Bassist, has several albums since 2016, more side credits, mostly mainstream. Leads a veteran quintet with two saxophonists — Seamus Blake (tenor) and Jaleel Shaw (alto) — piano (Kevin Hays) and drums (Bill Stewart). Strong set, especially for Blake. B+(**) [sp]

Mike Clark: Kuon Ganjo (Time Without Beginning) (2025 [2026], Wide Hive): Drummer, made his mark in the 1970s with Herbie Hancock, and has been central to all the later Headhunters revivals. Returns here with a funk-oriented hard bop group: Eddie Henderson (trumpet), Craig Handy (sax), Patrice Rushen (piano/rhodes), Esiet Okon Essiet (bass). My wife thought this sounded familiar, and indeed half of the pieces are, with the others close enough. B+(**) [cd] [08-07]

Paul Cosentino's Boilermaker Jazz Band: Everything Is Jumpin' (2025, self-released): Clarinet player, leader of a trad jazz group with over a dozen albums back to 1995 (most just under the band name). This one is subtitled "Plays the Artie Shaw Songbook," so mostly hits from 1937-39, with vocals by Erin Keckan. B+(**) [sp]

Dominique Cravic Et Les Primitifs Du Futur: Les Crimes Du Musette (2026, Buda Musique): French guitarist, fondly remembered for two albums Sunnyside released in 2006-08 (World Musette and Tribal Musette, the former dating back to 1999). The booklet (scanned on Discogs) includes two pages of credits, and a gallery of 77 pics, which presumably map to the credits. French chanson, many singers, most offhand as is the fairly minimal music, booklet has notes on the 27 songs but no recording dates, cover art by R. Crumb. B+(***) [sp]

Marilyn Crispell/Anders Jormin: Memento (2025 [2026], ECM): Brilliant pianist, emerged in the 1980s in Anthony Braxton's quartet and on her own outstanding albums. Landed on ECM in 1997 with an Annette Peacock tribute I didn't think much of at the time, probably because I suspected the label of trying to tame her and tone her down, although 2003's The Storyteller and 2008's One Dark Night I Left My Silent House overcame my misgivings. Approaching 80, these are mild, measured duets with bass. Probably too mild. B+(*) [sp]

Caroline Davis: Fallows (2025 [2026], Ropeadope): Alto saxophonist, born in Singapore (parents British and Swedish), moved to Atlanta when she was 6, then to Texas. Eighth album since 2012, solo over electronics (something called the Organelle, which looks to be an open source patch processor and/or sampler). John Surman has done similar things, but never pushed the electronics this far. A- [bc]

Adam De Lucia: The Man Who Would Be King (2025 [2026], self-released): Guitarist, seems to be his first album, but talks about his "path to jazz fusion" starting in 1995 with "a decade of one-on-one study." His compositions, although some feature Oz Noy on guitar, most with Henry Hey (keyboards), Tim Lefebvre (electric bass), and Jordan Perlson (drums), some with sax (Donny McCaslin or Michael Ghegan), vocals (Ghegan and Chrissi Poland), one track with string quartet. One problem is that fusion often sounds heavy, even when the metal is flimsy. Then there's the problem of trying to do much. Maybe he should have aimed a bit lower, like Prince. B [cd] [08-07]

E'DU & Judgitzu: Nuku (2026, Nyege Nyege Tapes): E'DU is a traditional voudou ensemble from Togo. Judgitzu is French producer Julien Hairon. This appears to based on a 2023 recording of the group, a dense thicket of percussion and chant, with a veneer of electronics. [PS: Bandcamp only makes offers the 31:24 remix track, "Edu & Judgitzu," and that's all I've heard; the 29:55 second track, "Edu," appears to be the original, unheard 2023 track. The label usually presents all tracks, so this case is unusual.] B+(**) [bc]

Maria Grand: Both Sides (2026, Lilaila): Swiss saxophonist (tenor/soprano), sings some, half-dozen albums since 2017; first side with bass-drums-percussion; second side with piano (Angelica Sanchez), voice (Jasmine Wilson), and alto sax on two tracks (Immanuel Wilkins). The spoken word is interesting. B+(***) [bc]

Miho Hazama: Frames (2025 [2026], Edition): Japanese composer/conductor, based in New York, tenth album since 2012, has been leaning on European big bands since 2018, here with the Danish Radio Big Band (who Discogs gives a co-credit to, but Bandcamp doesn't). She's very good at this, and they're good enough, but I don't feel like figuring out exactly how much. B+(**) [sp]

Gerry Hemingway: Live at Bau 4 (2025 [2026], Hat Hut): Drummer, part of Anthony Braxton's famous 1980s Quartet, also of the long-running BassDrumBone trio, with several dozen albums on his own. This one features Izumi Kimura (piano) and Frank Gratkowski (clarinet/bass clarinet/alto sax/alto flute), who turn in exemplary solos, and Christian Weber (bass). A− [cd]

House of the Black Gardenia: Mazurka in Jazz (2026, HOTGB): Trad jazz nonet, led by bassist Neil Hopper and vocalist Elise Rana Hopper, second album after a 2020 debut. Mostly original songs, which shifts them from nostalgia act to some kind of cabaret sophistication. A− [sp]

I Compani: Basta! 7-Tet [The Last Concerts 2025] (2025 [2026], I Compani): Dutch group, led by saxophonist Bo van de Graaf, founded in 1985, decided to call it quits after a series of "last concerts" in December 2025. Throughout their career, they've mostly recorded film music, in the circus style that seems peculiar to the Dutch avant-garde (cf. ICP Orchestra and Willem Breuker Kollektief) and is often deliriously wonderful. Core group here includes no household names, so I'll just list instruments: oboe/english horn/duduk, violin, bandoneon, piano/keyboards, bass, drums. A companion volume squeezed another 18 friends onto the stage, and both CDs are reportedly available as Basta! The Last Concerts 2025, but they are split up for streaming, and further information is hard to come by. [NB: Last song glitched out, which I'll assume is Spotify's fault.] B+(**) [sp]

I Compani: Basta! Extended [The Last Concerts 2025] (2025 [2026], I Compani): The Dutch group's farewell concert at Bimhuis in Amsterdam, the Septet-minus-drummer joined by 9 friends (including a replacement drummer) to start, 3 more briefly on the second track, then another 6 for tracks 8-9 (of 13). The vocalists add an element of cabaret to the circus. B+(***) [sp]

Randy Ingram: Sound Within: A Celebration of Bill Evans (2025 [2026], Chill Tone): Pianist from Alaska, eighth album since 2009, trio "featuring" Rufus Reid (bass) and Joe LaBarbera (drums), both with direct links to Evans, adds two originals to two Evans songs, and a batch of standards common to all, done with the care and touch Evans was famous for. B+(***) [cd]

Mike Khoury: For Hind Rajab (2025 [2026], Relative Pitch): Violinist, based in Detroit, has a couple dozen albums since 2001, found this when I was looking for a forthcoming album with Jason Kao Hwang and two drummers. This is solo, a sound that often gets on my nerves, but nonetheless a tour de force. Hind Rajab was a five-year-old girl in Gaza, killed in the genocide, but unlike most anonymous victims remembered for her recorded calls desperately pleading for help after her family was killed by an Israeli tank (see the Oscar-nominated film, The Voice of Hind Rajab). I'm reminded of The Diary of Anne Frank as one more instance where focus on an individual helps dissolve the mass dehumanization that allowed such mass slaughter to happen. A- [sp]

Andrew Kim: Lineage (2025 [2026], Origin): Trombonist, studied at Michigan State, and draws heavily on their faculty and alumni for his debut album: Sharel Cassity (alto/tenor sax, flute), Xavier Davis (piano), Rodney Whitaker (bass), Ulysses Owens Jr. (drums), with Michael Dease producing and playing baritone sax on two tracks, and Randy Napoleon playing some very tasty guitar on two more. Five originals, two more from the band, new arrangements of JJ Johnson and Curtis Fuller. Perhaps tries to do a bit too much. B+(***) [cd] [07-24]

Kiri Ra!: Nen (2026, We Jazz): Finnish trio, second album, all three play piano, keyboards, balafon, and other instruments — Linda Fredriksson also plays sax and flutes. No recording dates, but "it took 10 years to combine the right pieces for the album." Intricate and slightly exotic music closer to ambient than to jazz, which doesn't mean it isn't. B+(**) [sp]

Knats: A Great Day in Newcastle (2026, Gearbox): "Geordie jazz" group from Newcastle, started by Stan Woodward (electric bass) and Kind David-Ike Elechi (drums), expanded to a quintet for their first album — trumper (Ferg Kilsby), tenor sax, keyboards — expanded much more here, with extra horns, strings, vocals, and Geordie Greep (from Black Midi) on guitar. Seems like another case of the "great" overwhelming the "good." B [sp]

Elan Mehler: Renee Said (2025 [2026], Newvelle): Pianist, based in Brooklyn, eleven albums since 2007, most of his Discogs credits are for producing records on Newvelle, which he co-founded. Originals plus one song each by Paul Motian and Frank Kimbrough. With Scott Robinson (tenor sax), Loren Stillman (alto sax), Ben Monder (guitar), Tony Scherr (drums), and either or both drummers (Francisco Mela and Matt Wilson). B+(**) [sp]

Sei Miguel: Viva! (O Carro De Fogo De Sei Miguel) (2023 [2026], Clean Feed): Portuguese trumpet player (1961-2025), first album 1988. This offers two improv sets (54:56 + 52:24) of an octet with trombone, alto sax, electric guitar, electric bass, organ, drums, and extra percussion, nicely spaced out with plenty of food for thought. This is being billed as the label's final new release, after 25 distinguished years. (A quick check reveals I have 639 of their records in my database: 6 A, 70 A-.) They will be missed, but the music will continue. B+(***) [sp]

Nils Petter Molvær: Be Quiet (2026, Edition): Norwegian trumpet player, a major player in the development of jazztronica in the 1990s, first in Masquelero and then in a series of albums for ECM and Thirsty Ear. This dispenses with the beats, offering a series of ambient duos (one trio), most with electronics or exotica, but also piano (John Paul Jones), cello (Anja Lechner), percussion (Marilyn Mazur), voice (Imogen Heap). Quiet as advertised, which I don't find very engaging. B [sp]

Nolatet: Somethin' to Relax With (2025 [2026], Royal Potato Family): New Orleans quartet, third album since 2016, names on cover: Brian Haas (piano), Mike Dillon (vibes/percussion), Johnny Vidacovich (drums), and James Singleton (bass). Closer to MJQ than anything I associate with New Orleans. B+(*) [sp]

Onilu: Jakuta's Dance (2025 [2026], 577): Group name is Yoruba for drummers, was used as title in 2025 for an album attributed to Joe Chambers, Kevin Diehl, and Chad Taylor. I filed that one under the first-listed Chambers, but Diehl (ex Sonic Liberation Front) is the evident leader here, with Taylor out and two more percussionists added: Craig McIver and Daniel Villarreal. While all four know their way around a drum kit, Chambers' first credit is for vibraphone, and McIver's is for marimba. Diehl favors bata drums, and Villarreal adds conga and cajon to all of the above. B+(***) [dl]

Ivo Perelman/Matthew Shipp/William Parker/Bobby Kapp: Synesthesia (2024 [2026], Defkaz): Avant-saxophonist from Brazil, has hundreds of albums since 1989, many with the pianist, quite a few with the bassist. The drummer's discography is down around 30 credits, but it goes way back to 1967, and includes separate duo albums with Perelman and Shipp, as well as two previous quartet albums. B+(***) [sp]

Brooks Prumo Orchestra: Good Bait (2025 [2026], self-released): Austin-based guitarist, third group album, a 13-piece big band plus singer Alice Spencer, wants you to dance. B+(**) [sp]

Olivia Rodrigo: You Seem Pretty Sad for a Girl So in Love (2026, Geffen): Pop star, was groomed from a very young age, with vocal, acting, and piano lessons, which got her on screen by 7, and into Disney roles in her teens. Her platinum (6X) debut album in 2021 was one of the year's best, and her sophomore effort topped my 2023 list (if only 3X). First couple songs sound great, but the "girl so in love" side is certain to beat out the "you seem pretty sad" side. But I'm less concerned with the narrative these days than with the sound. So while the hooks get subtler, they're still pretty satisfying. A− [sp]

Armand Sangalang: Waypoints (2025 [2026], Calligram): Tenor saxophonist from Chicago, second album, quartet with Dave Miller (guitar), Ethan Philion (bass), and Devin Drobka (drums). Mostly originals, but takes a swing at "Body & Soul" that could earn a spot if Gary Giddins ever updated his list. B+(***) [cd] [08-07]

Helen Sung Big Band: Oracles (2024 [2026], Sunnyside): Pianist, from Houston, parents from China, 10th album since 2003, first big band venture, conventional plus extra percussion. Note songs dedicated to Clark Terry, Wayne Shorter, Ron Carter, and Jimmy Heath. Also a section called "Pianism" that name-checks Barry Harris, Kenny Barron, and Herbie Hancock. B+(*) [sp]

Tyler "Twerk" Thomson: Plays in Bands (2026, self-released): New Orleans bassist, "young" by one account, no dates given but earliest side credit I can find, either under Tyler or Twerk, is 2013, but album cover is in the style of the old Bunk Johnson anthologies, and the music dates back a century (more or less). Five tracks with Thomson's Starting 7, followed by five with Charlie Halloran's Quality 6 and 4 with Tommy Mack's Band. Nothing spectacular, but exactly what this classic music should sound like. A− [bc]

Tierra Whack: Whack's Museum (2026, Interscope): Rapper, from Philadelphia, went viral with a 15-songs-in-15-minutes video, Whack World (2018). New mixtape is slightly less economical (12 songs, 27:07), slightly less striking. B+(***) [sp]

Håvard Wiik/Antonio Borghini/Tim Daisy: One Brief Cure (2025 [2026], Relay): Norwegian pianist, side credits since 1996, especially with Atomic, gained some note in Chicago at least in Ken Vandermark groups, notably Free Fall (named for the Jimmy Giuffre trio with Paul Bley and Steve Swallow). With the Italian bassist and Chicago drummer (ex-Vandermark Five), both with previous Wiik duos. B+(***) [bc]

Wrens: Live @ Nublu (2025 [2026], Out of Your Head): Quartet, fronted by rapper Ryan Easter (also trumpet), mostly dense electronics from Elias Stemeseder and Lester St. Louis (also cello), with Jason Nazary (drums), following up a very interesting debut album (Half of What You See) with a rather rough improv live set. B+(***) [os]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Art Blakey & the Jazz Messengers: Jazz Messengers '70 (1970 [2026], Good Time): The drummer's definitive hard bop group left Blue Note after 1964, and his stars split as well. Blakey's label work petered out, but he kept touring, and had a knack for finding young talent. This live album was released in Japan in 1970. The group: Bill Hardman (trumpet), Carlos Garnett (tenor sax), Joanne Brackeen (piano), and Jon Arnet (bass). They're mostly playing his hits — starts with "Moanin'" and "Blues March," ends with "A Night in Tunisia" — with only one new piece (by Garnett, the most interesting thing here). B+(**) [sp]

Art Blakey & the New Jazz Messengers: Buttercorn Lady (1966 [2026], Elemental Music): Another live set, released at the time on Limelight (a Mercury subsidiary). This particular group featured Chuck Mangione (trumpet, also wrote 3 of 6 songs), with Frank Mitchell (tenor sax), Keith Jarrett (piano), and Reggie Johnson (bass). Mangione started in the Jazz Brothers (aka Mangione Brothers) in the early 1960s, and went on to commercial success in the 1970s, leaving this as his only album with Blakey. While he is central here, Mitchell, Jarrett, and Blakey himself leave stronger impressions. B+(*) [sp]

Dollar Brand/Don Cherry/Carlos Ward: The Third World-Underground (1972 [2026], Wewantsounds): South African pianist, soon changed his name to Abdullah Ibrahim, debut album in 1963 "presented by Duke Ellington," soon became known for his integration of township jive with jazz, up to his death in 2026. With trumpet and alto sax (and everyone tapped for vocals and percussion), recorded live in Copenhagen, and released (until now) only in Japan. Strong ideas, somewhat harshly achieved. B+(**) [sp]

Mick Goodrick/Fred Hersch: Feebles, Fables and Ferns (1988 [2026], ECM): Guitar and piano duo. Goodrick (1945-2022) recorded his excellent debut album, In Pas(s)ing, for ECM in 1979; he worked with Gary Burton, Charlie Haden, Jack DeJohnette, and others, recording a few more albums, but mostly teaching. This was Hersch's session, previously unreleased. B+(**) [sp]

Thelonious Monk: Live in Paris, 1967: Volume One (1967 [2026], Rhythm-a-Ning): Estate-authorized bootleg, the Nov. 3 concert was released on France's Concert in 1988 (as Thelonious Monk Nonet: Live in Paris, 1967), running 68:49, then remastered and reissued in 2002 by Thelonious Records. This version, aimed at vinyl junkies, is trimmed to an introduction and four songs, 38:33, with a second volume promised. The original order opened with Monk's Quartet (Charlie Rouse on tenor sax, Larry Gales on bass, and Ben Riley on drums), then added horns, starting with Ray Copeland (trumpet), then saxophonists Phil Woods (alto) and Johnny Griffin (tenor), Jimmy Cleveland (trombone), and finally Clark Terry (trumpet). This version moves the nonet tunes to Side A, the smaller groups to Side B. I have reservations about the business proposition, but Terry's solo reminds me that his previous encounter with Monk on In Orbit (1958) was one of his best albums. B+(**) [sp]

Jimmy Scott: Falling in Love Is Wonderful (1963 [2026], Tangerine): Jazz singer (1925-2014), originally "Little" due to his diminutive stature and high voice, recorded singles early, three albums for Savoy 1955-60, then this album for Ray Charles, which has been long out of print. His voice takes some getting used to, but he picks great songs, and puts his mark on them. Bigger problem for me is the string arrangements, which I've always gagged on. B+(*) [sp]

Sun Ra: East Two + 7 (1972-73 [2026], Cosmic Myth): Two previously unreleased sessions, named for the first track ("East Two") plus extra tracks (5 for the LP, 7 for the CD; the difference is extra live tracks from 1984-85). B+(**) [sp]

McCoy Tyner: Extensions (1970 [2026], Blue Note): Pianist (1938-2020), from Philadelphia, played briefly in the Jazztet (with Benny Golson and Art Farmer) before joining John Coltrane's legendary quartet (1961-65). Started recording his own albums in 1962, and went on to have a major solo career, notably with Blue Note (1966-70, although this one was held back to 1973). This sounds like it popped out of a Coltrane time capsule, spacey and spiritual but not burdened by the ambitions and delirium of Trane's last years. With two saxophonists (Gary Bartz on alto, Wayne Shorter on tenor/soprano), Ron Carter on bass, Elvin Jones on drums, and Alice Coltrane on harp. A- [sp]

McCoy Tyner: Asante (1970 [2026], Blue Note): Another leftover from Tyner's Blue Note period, released in 1974, makes more explicit the pianist's interest in Africa, with Andrew White (alto sax), Ted Dunbar (guitar), Buster Williams (bass), Billy Hart (drums/African percussion), Mtume (congas), and vocals on the first two tracks (Songhai, aka Sandra Smith). The 1998 CD reissue added three tracks from an earlier session, with Gary Bartz and Hubert Laws, that had appeared on Cosmos, a 1976 2-LP that also picked up two earlier sessions. (Cosmos was part of "The Blue Note Re-Issue Series," an attractive series I bought several of at the time, as they looked like useful intros to major artists. Most, like the Tyner, were actually previously unreleased sessions. I didn't buy the Tyner, but I did pick up sets by Sonny Rollins, Jackie McLean, and most importantly Herbie Nichols.) The new Tone Poet vinyl reverts to the original four tracks, but streaming includes the extras. The extra tracks don't add much (well, Bartz, and more good piano). I suspect that LP consumers will heavily favor the first side (the one with the vocals, which delight in the groove). B+(**) [sp]

McCoy Tyner: The Seeker: Live at Umbria Jazz Festival (1993 [2026], Red): Previously unreleased live album, a quartet with Bobby Hutcherson (vibes), Avery Sharpe (bass), and Aaron Scott (drums), a few months before Tyner and Hutcherson recorded their duo album, Manhattan Moods. Their careers intersected as far back as 1966 (on Hutcherson's Stick-Up!) and 1968 (on Time for Tyner). But the rhythm section really helps here. A- [sp]

Old music:

House of the Black Gardenia: The New Lowdown (2020, HOTGB): I didn't notice this above, but this is a British group, from Newcastle. First album. Singer Elise Rana hadn't yet taken bassist-arranger Neil Hopper's name. Hopper also plays sousaphone and washboard. I'm not seeing song credits, but I'm pretty sure the one about sexting is new. B+(***) [bc]

L'Afrique Danse No. 1 (1965-68 [1969], African): French label, started compiling albums of Congolese hits with this volume, extending this numbered series at least to No. 11, although there are other titles, and other labels, including Sonodisc (which picked up the catalog in 1980). This is mostly O.K. Jazz (Franco) and Ensemble Conga Succès (Jean Bokolo). I didn't feel up to tracking down the singles, but Google says 1965-68, despite "some sources citing an initial 1966 pressing" (e.g., Discogs). Nor do I know how much of this duplicates the piles of Franco I already have. But Bokelo (d. 1995) may warrant further research. And chances are that the rest of the series are worth hearing — after No. 3, they move to feature artists (Rochereau on No. 4, Docteur Nico on No. 5, Franco on No. 6, and Bokelo on No. 7. A− [sp]

Twerk Thomson: Plays Unpopular Songs (2017, Twerk-O-Phonic): New Orleans bassist, seems to be his first album, various groups credited as Twerk Thomson Trio, Twerk's Dance Band, Twerk Thomson's 5, and Twerk & Maria (Dixon, trumpet and vocals, with Thomson on tenor guitar). Designed to sound as ancient as possible ("recorded live with one microphone into a Presto K8 lathe, cut directly to acetate discs at 78rpm, and edited only for volume"). I'm no fan of the sound, but the last set, in particiular, does sound like ancient lost treasure. B+(**) [bc]

McCoy Tyner: Expansions (1968 [1969], Blue Note): Album before Extensions, with Woody Shaw (trumpet) joining saxophonists Gary Bartz (alto) and Wayne Shorter (tenor), Ron Carter moving over to cello, with Herbie Lewis (bass) and Freddie Waits (drums). B+(**) [sp]

Limited Sampling: Records I played parts of, but not enough to grade: -- means no interest, - not bad but not a prospect, + some chance, ++ likely prospect.

Art Ensemble of Chicago: People in Sorrow (1969 [2026], Play Loud!): Early album (first one listed by Discogs, but a 5-CD box of 1967-68 recordings was later issued on Nessa), recorded in France (where they cranked out 14 albums in 23 months) and released by Pathé Marconi there. Just snippets available. ++ [bc] (4 snippets, 8:14)

Art Ensemble of Chicago: Les Stances à Sophie (1970 [2023], Play Loud!): Recorded toward the end of their Paris stay, a bit of soundtrack with Fontella Bass vocals. ++ [bc] (8 snippets, 5:01)

Jason Moran: Plays Duke Ellington (2026, Yes): Pianist, became a star during his 1998-2014 run at Blue Note, won the Jazz Critics Poll and a MacArthur in 2010, slipped back into obscurity after he retreated to his own label (although his 2023 album, From the Dancehall to the Battlefield, got consideable attention). + [bc] (7/12)

I tried combining the separate I Compani reviews above into one for Substack. I didn't figure my reservations about the 7-Tet grade sufficed to bring the Extended grade down. More likely, with multiple plays either or both could rise. But we're not there yet.

I Compani: Basta! The Last Concerts 2025 (2025 [2026], I Compani): Dutch group, led by saxophonist Bo van de Graaf, founded in 1985, decided to call it quits after a series of "last concerts" in December, 2025. Throughout their career, they've mostly recorded film music, in the circus style that seems peculiar to the Dutch avant-garde (cf. ICP Orchestra and Willem Breuker Kollektief) and is often deliriously wonderful. My understanding is that packages 2 CDs, which are available on streaming as separate albums. One is their core 7-Tet. The other is "Extended," where an additional friends or hangers-on drop in for a song or two or more. The latter includes more vocalists, who add a cabaret air. Of the digitals, I prefer the latter, but I wasn't able to give either nearly enough time. Maybe if the CDs exist, and could somehow be obtained? B+(***) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Gerry Hemingway: Live at Bau 4 (Hat Hut) [04-24]

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Thursday, July 9, 2026

Music Week

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46249 [46219] rated (+30), 15 [16] unrated (-1).

An advance Notes on Everyday Life version of this Music Week was published on July 9 as Music Week (7:2), and is archived here. This two-step process has given me more flexibility in scheduling, as well as a bit more discipline in editing. The advance version typically has the pick hits (all five of this week's A− albums) and more substantial reviews (like Russell and Salvant). This post, on the other hand, gives you the full week's context. Often I get to the end of a record and don't feel like I have anything interesting to say, so I just jot down a grade and move on. The advance trims that sort of thing out, while focusing on good tips, and other interesting items.

I finished counting ballots for the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Mid-Year Poll. We wound up with 127 ballots, which is +14 from last year — a margin provided by 14 first-time voters. It always seems to me that the hardest part of the job is vetting new voters and chasing down old ones, so that part is done.

The other hardest part of the job is writing the essays, something I've spun my wheels on for a couple days now. The problem there is getting started: deciding what to explain, what to focus on, what to leave out. I've done this twice before, so one idea is to look at what I've written before. In 2024, I wrote Diversity Brings Riches, which started with my listmaking habits, then noted the lack of jazz albums appearing in that year's numerous mid-year best-of lists. I noted that "this is one problem with the world I could actually do something about," given that I had website tools, a mailing list, and a willing publisher. The rest of the essay flows out of the charts, and concludes with the voter list. All I had left to do was to stress how diverse and all-encompassing the lists were.

In 2025, I shifted the focus slightly to the community of jazz critics who contributed to the poll. I called this piece Sharing What We Know at Mid-Year. One thing I might note here is that while Steve Lehman won the Mid-Year poll, the Annual Poll was won by Mid-Year runner-up Mary Halvorson. That suggests one of many possible avenues of research. Trying to keep on track while facing so many possible detours is going to be a challenge.

I also needed to address the issue of Francis Davis dying in April, including the inevitable question of "who the hell am I to be running his poll?" I wound up writing this:

Today's mid-year jazz poll covers the same ground in the same way, but feels different. Last year we were building something new. This year we're keeping something old going, struggling to hold back the rot, the stench, the assaults of a new barbarism. I'm sorry for bringing politics into this. I don't believe that there is anything inherently political in art, except when politics turns fascist and attempts to exterminate critical thought: that's when creativity itself turns into a struggle to survive. And that's where we're heading, and to a large extent already are. Listening to jazz may not give you quite the sense of solidarity as going to a demonstration does, but it sets you apart, gets you thinking, gives you something to care about — things fascism cannot abide. (And while I was pretty critical of the utility of "fascist" as a label last year, no other word adequately conveys the dead weight and despair of our increasingly oppressive political system.)

Again, personal motivations and the state of the world are weighing heavily on my mind. I ended last year's poll with serious doubts that I would ever do another. But after fraught months of winter and spring, when Bill Marx asked me if I was planning on doing a mid-year poll, I found myself saying yes. Again, I had the tools and skills. I also had the time, as some things had cleared up, while other projects hadn't yet been started. And after doing an increasingly despairing series of Loose Tabs reports, I felt like taking a break from a world gone mad (especially as it would see me through whatever Trump had in mind for July 4). So here we are. Even with my typical procrastination, it shouldn't take more than a week to wrap this up.

After that, I have projects I'm itching to get to. We'll look into them later.

New records reviewed this week:

Josh Berman Trio: Everybody Else's Life Too (2025 [2026], Corbett vs. Dempsey): Chicago cornet player, credits start in 2002, include groups with Keefe Jackson, Ken Vandermark, Mike Reed, Jason Adasiewicz, many more. Trio with Jason Roebke (bass) and Chris Corsano (drums). B+(***) [bc]

Seamus Blake: The Electrifying Seamus Blake Plays the Music of Eddie Harris: EH! (2025 [2026], Cellar): Tenor saxophonist, born in London, raised in Vancouver, has lived all over (Discogs says New York; Bandcamp page puts him in Cologne), has worked steadily since 1991 (Discogs credits him on 211 albums). This opens with Dawn Pemberton singing "Compared to What?" — backed by Sam Yahel (organ/keyboards), Tim Lefebvre (electric bass), and Corey Fonville (drums). This makes for agreeable funk, but the sax seems shortchanged. B+(*) [sp]

Henriette Eilertsen Trio: Moder (2024 [2026], Motvind): Norwegian flute player, side credits since 2011 and several albums, trio with Joel Ring (cello/electronics) and drums (Øystein Aarnes Vik), with pianist Jon Balke on a couple of cuts. B+(***) [sp]

Ingebrigt Håker Flaten (Exit) Knarr: Fly (2025 [2026], Sauajazz): Norwegian bassist, scores, probably hundreds of album since the early 1990s, several with this group since 2021: two saxophonists (Amalie Dahl and Karl Hjalmar Nyberg), piano (Marta Warelis), guitar (Jonathan F. Horne), and drums (Olaf Olsen). B+(***) [bc]

Hayeminol: Ingen Vår I År (2026, Tarmkylling): Norwegian punk band, but that doesn't sound like the real label, so Discogs also offers psychedelic rock and art rock. Quartet, everyone sings, the two songwriters play 10 + 21 instruments. Reminds me of the Flaming Lips, only in a language I can't understand, for better or worse. B [sp]

Colin Heshmat: Elastic Groove (2026, HMC): Pianist, first album, quartet with trumpet (Ryo Sasaki), bass (Yuma Takagi), and drums (Ben Cuness), eight originals plus three covers (includine Kenny Dorham and Herbie Hancock). Not especially a groove album. That's just one of many elements subsumed in their postbop. B+(*) [cd] [07-23]

Jana Horn: Jana Horn (2026, No Quarter): Singer-songwriter, born in Texas, based in Austin, but has no discernible country airs; started with an interest in Christian screamo, but teaches and writes fiction, and over three albums has settled into a very spare confessional style, playing guitar and synth, with minimal bits of piano, clarinet, and flute. B+(**) [sp]

It Was Her Idea: Daughter of War (2025 [2026], PNL): Quartet with singer (sometime cougher) Juliana Venter, backed by piano (Oscar Grönberg), bass (Ole Mortan Vågan), and drums (Paal Nilssen-Love), although I'm more impressed by the piano. B+(*) [sp]

Kirk Knuffke: Brother (2026, SteepleChase): Cornet player, "one of modern jazz's most skilled navigators of the divide between freedom and swing," presents a trio with Charlie Burnham (violin) and Thommy Andersson (bass), mostly keyed to Yusef Lateef. B+(***) [sp]

Nicolas Leirtrø's Action Now!: Entrance (2025 [2026], Sauajazz): Norwegian bassist, side credits since 2016, just emerging as a leader. Quartet with Mats Gustafsson (saxophones/flute), Kit Downes (organ), and Veslemøy Narvesen (drums), playing the leader's music, which mostly keeps Gustafsson safe from blowing our brains out, although it also saddles him with a flute section I didn't get into — not nearly as much as the loud section at the end. B+(***) [bc]

Camila Nebbia & Chris Corsano: Six or Seven Ways Towards Becoming Undone (2025 [2026], Relative Pitch): Tenor sax and drums duo, the former from Argentina but has been tearing up Europe since 2020. B+(***) [sp]

Bob Nell & Michael Bisio Trios: We Are Here (2025 [2026], Origin): Pianist, Discogs only lists 9 appearances, starting in 1979, and most with the bassist, who has logged 128 album credits, so while he's hardly a household name, he is much the more famous musician. Plural as they switch drummers, starting with Adam Greenberg, then Austin Belluscio. Originals by Nell. Nice as these things go. B+(**) [cd] [07-24]

OM: Südpol (2024 [2026], Intakt): Avant-fusion group from Switzerland, active 1972-82 with Urs Leimbruber (sax), Christy Doran (guitar), Bobby Burri (bass), and Fredy Studer (drums), have regrouped on anniversary occasions since then, until Studer died in 2022, and is replaced here by two drummers, Gerry Hemingway and Tony Buck. B+(**) [sp]

Rebecca Rafla: Fundamentally Unfinished (2024-25 [2026*], Rebecca Raffla Music): Jazz singer-songwriter, also plays flute, offers six originals, including the first five, with four standards, one a taste of Brazil to get the rhythm flowing. Steve Allee plays piano, along with horns and strings. The standards get better, especially with "What a Difference a Day Makes" the closer. [*] "first servicing to the press," after a 2025 self-release. B [cd]

Catherine Russell: Live at Jazz at Lincoln Center (2024 [2026], Dot Time): Jazz singer, got a late start at 50 with her 2006 debut, but her famous father was older still when she was born (that's swing bandleader Luis Russell, 1902-63, who after 1930 ceded top billing to his star, Louis Armstrong), although her less famous mother, Carline Ray (1925-2013, a singer who played guitar and bass) must have had a more direct influence. She's impressed every time out, but rarely moved this far into the old songs, with a seven-piece swing band — including Jon-Erik Kellso (trumpet), John Allred (trombone), Evan Arntzen (tenor sax/clarinet), and Matt\ Munisteri (guitar), plus a tap dancer on four tracks. B+(***) [sp]

Cécile McLorin Salvant: With Every Breath I Take (2025 [2026], Nonesuch): Jazz singer, born in Miami, father Haitian, mother French, moved to France at 18, studied classical voice (and Sarah Vaughan), eighth album since 2013, moving into the top echelon of jazz artists — with the MacArthur "genius grant" to prove it, as if winning the vocal section of our poll every year she had an album out wasn't testimony enough. Still, I've never been much of a fan. I admit that she has exceptional technical command (as did Vaughan), but I've never much enjoyed her albums (aside from the odd song or two). And this one, hyped as her first with an orchestra (Metropole Orkest, with big band master Darcy James Argue co-producing), seemed pretty unlikely to appeal. Then I found myself tempted, by "Send in the Clowns" (of all things), followed by "Barbara Song" (I'm always up for Weill, and she has impressed me there before). But after that, nothing really meshes — not even the French song, or her masterful navigation of the notoriously tricky "Lush Life." Why is hard to pin down, or maybe doing so just doesn't seem worth the effort. B+(*) [sp]

Sweet Megg: Massive Negroni (2026, self-released): Retro standards singer Meaghan Farrell, has a dozen albums since 2017. Less swing and more slow ballads than I expected, but "Where or Win" sticks with you. B+(**) [sp]

Kalia Vandever: Mana (2026, International Anthem): Trombonist, sings some, fifth album since 2019, second solo album, with "spare piano" and other electronic effects. Title Hawaiian. Vibe ambient. Short (7 songs, 27:06). B+(*) [sp]

April Varner: Ella (2025 [2026], Cellar): Standards singer, based in New York, masters degree from Mahnattan School of Music, 2023 winner of "the International Ella Fitzgerald Jazz Vocal Competition," second album (or fourth if you count two volumes of Winter Songs). The notes insist on how original her approaches are to the material, how she "never imitates her long-time idol," instead striving to "capture the spirit of Ella" with "her own creative imagination." Still, her voice is dead on, and her professional help — notably pianist-arranger Emmet Cohen and drummer-producer Ulysses Owens Jr. — know how to work a sure-fire formula, which is great songs swung hard with a more than capable singer. [PS: Alternate parsing of title: Ella by April Varner.] B+(***) [sp]

Karsten Vogel: Late Night Ballads (2026, Storyville): Danish alto saxophonist, b. 1943, credits since the 1960s, albums since 1976. Seven standards and an original, played slow, backed by piano-bass-drums.B+(*) [sp]

Hein Westgaard & Matt Maneri: Chamber (2024 [2025], Gotta Let It Out): Guitar and viola duo. Guitarist has a few albums, including one from 2023 I liked. Maneri has many records since 1994, picking up his father Joe Maneri's microtonal practices. "Chamber jazz" is a loose term borrowed from classical, where the defining feature is an intimate and intricate group of soft instruments: mostly strings, almost never drums, wind instruments only on their best behavior. Maneri's viola fits the mold, but usually sounds too classical for me. But the guitarist plays around the edges, keeping it interesting, even adding a bit of rhythm. A- [cd]

Jack Wright and Ben Bennett: Tourne (2026, self-released): Sax and drums duo, the former from Pittsburgh, with dozens of albums since 1983; the latter from Philadelphia, with several albums together since 2011. Three tracks (35:12). That's a good length for this sort of prickly free jazz, which I find instantly appealing as long as it doesn't run too long, or too loud. Reminds me that I've long appreciated Wright, even if I rarely remember his name. A- [bc]

Your Brother's Keeper & Gary Bartz: Where Rivers Meet (2023 [2026], Brownswood): British group, first album under this name but most were members of Maisha, which backed the veteran alto saxophonist (b. 1940) on his 2020 Night Dreamer Direct-to-Disc Sessions. This has a nice spiritual dimension. B+(***) [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Carla Bley: Joyful Noise (Live in Hamburg 1984) (1984 [2026], Moosicus): Pianist (1938-2023), exceptionally famous as a composer and arranger, was a founder of the Jazz Composers Orchestra Association, whose initial project was her ambitious opera, Escalator Over the Hill. Large (10-piece) group, with four brass, two saxes, piano (Ted Saunders), organ (Bley), electric bass and drums. Title is taken from a song, but is also a philosophy of life. A- [sp]

Marion Brown: Awofofora (1976 [2026], Aguirre): Alto saxophonist (1931-2010), recorded his debut for ESP-Disk in 1965, followed by albums on Impulse! and ECM, but by this time he was consigned to obscure labels (this on Discomate, a Japanese label). B+(***) [bc]

Satoko Fujii: Satoko Fujii's Bunker Ulmenwall Orchestra (2014 [2026], Libra, 2CD): Japanese avant-pianist, very prolific since 1996, went on a big band kick around 2007, organizing a series of orchestras wherever she traveled (first three were New York, Nagoya, and Tokyo). Many more since, with five new tapes of various vintages promised this year, starting with this one from Bielefeld, Germany (Bunker Ulmenwall was a WWII-vintage air raid shelter; to be followed later this year by the Orchestras Kobe, Nagoya, Berlin, and Tokyo). Detailed with many remarkable passages, demanding close scrutiny. A- [cd] [07-10]

Wynton Marsalis & Vince Giordano: The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong (2012 [2026], Blue Engine): They pulled this old tape off the shelf to celebrate the centennary of Armstrong's Hot Five and Hot Seven sessions, so the reference is to the cutting edge of 1920s jazz, not to the pop icon of later years. Giordano is a long-time trad jazz leader, playing bass sax and tuba here, while Marsalis shares trumpet duties with Jon-Erik Kellso. B+(**) [sp]

Mal Waldron & Sam Rivers: Live in Mestre Venezia 1984 (1984 [2025], Caligola): Piano and tenor sax duets. Around this time, Waldron was playing in duos with Steve Lacy and Marion Brown, so he has a well-honed sense of how to engage here. It's hard to imagine a more astute accompanist, and his solos never leave you wanting. Probably helps that they stick to standards, including "Scrapple From the Apple" and "Blue Monk." A- [bc]

The Wonderful World of Louis Armstrong All Stars: A Gift to Pops (2021 [2026], Verve): A discographical nuisance, opens with a genuine Armstrong from 1964 (Sparks, NV), but after that it's just another anonymous tribute band. I originally filed under Wynton Marsalis, but it turns out that Nicholas Payton plays most of the trumpet, and also does most of the arranging, with Wycliffe Gordon on trombone, soprano sax, and some vocals; also Reginald Veal (bass), Herlin Riley (drums), and scattered others, including vocalists who don't make the slightest effort at the original. Consequently, some songs stray, to mixed effect. B+(*) [sp]

Old music:

Northwest Improvisers: Fanfares (2022 [2023], Entropy Stereo): Free jazz ensemble, founded in upstate Michigan in 1976 by Mike Gilmore (vibes) and Mike Johnston (bass), added drummer Nick Ashton in 1986, first album was 1994, recorded several albums backing Faruq Z. Bey, one with Dennis González. Gilmore is absent here, but they've added two saxophonists (Dominic Bierenga and Donovan Boxey) and strings (Mike Khoury on violin, Jack O'Brien on cello). Opens with a Don Cherry piece to set up the groove, then builds around it. B+(***) [bc]

April Varner: April (2023 [2024], Cellar): Jazz singer, first album, covers 11 songs with "April" in the title — wrote some, including improvised lyrics and some vocalese to Pat Metheny. Only "April in Paris" is well known, done simply here with just piano (Caelan Cardello) backing, after just bass (Reuben Rogers) on "April Blues." The other sources and treatments vary widely, but include nice spots for Russell Malone (guitar), Benny Benack (trumpet), and Dayna Stephens (tenor sax). [PS: Alternate parsing of title: April by April Varner.] B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Randy Ingram: Sound Within: A Celebration of Bill Evans (Chill Tone) [07-10]
  • Owen Lake and the Tragic Loves: Bury Deep My Heart (Carrier) [07-27]
  • Bill Scorzari: Sidereal Days (Day 2) (self-released) [09-25]
  • WDR Big Band: Jagged Edges & Elegant Lines: The Music of Ayn Inserto (Summit) [08-07]

Ask a question, or send a comment.

Friday, July 3, 2026

Music Week

July archive (in progress).

Music: Current count 46219 [46191] rated (+28), 16 [14] unrated (+2).

My advance was published on Notes on Everyday Life Music Week (7:1) (archived here). You can get it delivered to your inbox by subscribing.

As I noted there, most of my time continues to get sucked up in running the Francis Davis Jazz Critics Mid-Year Poll. Deadline is July 5. I've set myself the goal of publishing a week after counting to write up and publish the results. I hope to keep it fairly simple, and let the data speak for itself. Otherwise I'll just find fault with everything, and wind up in a horrible state. I've already worried much too much about how many ballots we can get. (The past two mid-year polls produced 90 and 113, vs. 159 and 177 from the previous year-end polls. Last year we were down to 168, so a slight decline from 113 is probable. With 90 ballots counted so far, it's hard to tell whether we're on track or not.)

One positive note is that I've sent out more invites than ever before. On the other hand, I have a longer list of people I'm aware of but don't have email addresses for. And there are many more unknowns who are most likely qualified enough. It's a big job to figure this out, and I never seem to have the time or energy to do it. The negative note is that a lot of regular voters have bowed out, mostly figuring they haven't listened to enough as yet. I've tried to stress that this is a cooperative project, improved by small incremental efforts by everyone. Still, it's a tough sell.

In case you're interested, the ballots are already available online, as well as lists of all albums that have received votes. The totals will appear when we publish the poll results at ArtsFuse, in mid-July.

However, other things have chew up large chunks of my time this week (hence, the much lower rated count). My brother-in-law, Mark Shepherd (73) died last week, and the funeral was on July 1. Mark has long been part of a community here that restores classic cars, and they effectively staged a show in the mortuary's parking lot, then a parade from there to the cemetery. Our niece and nephew from Washington drove down for the funeral, so I tried to entertain them, including a comfort food dinner. So scratch one day cooking, and two more visiting, during which I didn't listen to anything I had to write about. Guests are gone now, but things are only slowly getting back to normal. Although "normal" seems an odd word to use for anything these days.

Some quick notes on records below:

  • I almost never get promos aside from jazz, but De Vitry was a rare country album, and an excellent one. (Asher Brinson's Midnight Hurricane was another). However, I accidentally reviewed it several weeks in advance of release date. In the past, I tried holding back advance reviews, but it got to be too cumbersome, and nobody much seemed to care. But I held this review back from the advance because it's not yet available.
  • I revisited the Messthetics album because it has since gotten so much support that I questioned my negative reaction. Although I've bumped it up a bit, I'm not really doubting myself. I'm a bit clearer now, especially that the Fugazi rhythm section isn't the problem; it's just the guitarist.
  • I used to like Emperor X a lot, so I jumped at seeing a new album, then quickly found I really wasn't in the mood (possibly for anything rock). Since then I've seen numerous raves from critics I generally like (e.g., Dan Weiss ranks it 7 on his The 40 Best Albums of 2026 So Far; much on this list I should check out when I'm done with the jazz poll). A better-than-average candidate for an upgrade, although I wouldn't bet on it.
  • Sad Daddy is being promoted by a publicist whose junk mail always gets spam-trapped. I dug this message out for no good reason, then figured why not give the sound of Eureka Springs a try? Only later did I discover that Melissa Carper is part of the group: she has several good records, with Borned in Ya (2024) my pick hit.

My only plans for 4th of July is that some friends are coming over for leftovers. Plus whatever the poll reveals. I imagine we'll hear nonstop fireworks tomorrow evening. I've been hearing them on occasion most of today, but it seems to me that the volume is down considerably this year. Not sure whether folks are simply not in the mood to celebrate, or if incomes have become so precarious few people are willing to literally blow up their savings.

New records reviewed this week:

Julian Argüelles: Echo Fields (2026, Escapade): English saxophonist (tenor/soprano), albums since 1991, trio with Larry Grenadier (bass) and Jorge Rossy (drums). B+(**) [bc]

Barcelona Art Orchestra & Miguel Zenón: Expressions: Concerto for Alto Saxophone and Orchestra (2025 [2026], Miel Music): Barcelona-based group, has at least one previous album, led by Néstor Giménez (piano), Lluc Casares (tenor sax), Joan Vidal (drums), and Lluis Vidal (piano), each composing a section here, featuring the alto saxophonist. B+(*) [sp]

Patricia Brennan/Sylvie Courvoisier: Talamanti (2024 [2026], Antlia): Mallets player, from Mexico, based in New York, won our debut poll in 2018, finished 1st and 2nd overall with her last two albums, in a duo here with the Swiss pianist. Piano-vibes duos are rather common, partly due to similar tones, but also because the vibes focus the piano as a percussion instrument. You get a taste of that early here, but then the piano meanders into its own less-but-still-interesting space. B+(***) [sp]

Ron Carter & Yotam Silberstein: Duets (2026, Jojo): Bass and guitar duo: the 89-year-old bassist almost certainly holds some kind of record for most albums appeared on; while he's still best known for his 1960s work with Miles Davis, one could probably construct a whole CG from his duo work, and delight in doing so. (Pick hit would be Chemistry, his 2016 duo with Houston Person.) The guitarist has appeared regularly since 2008, with a soft tone and delicacy that I find pleasant but rarely give a second thought. But this brief set (2 originals, 7 standards, 34:02) raises pleasant to pleasure. A- [cd]

Maya De Vitry: All My Faith (2026, Mad Maker Studios): Folkie singer-songwriter based in Nashville, four previous albums since 2019. Sound reminded me first of Joy of Cooking, then Joni Mitchell (but warmer). That may be enough for now. I'll take the faith on faith. A- [cd] [07-24]

Duchess: A Marvelous Party (2025 [2026], Anzic): Vocal trio, fourth album (including one live) since 2015, all three with notable solo careers: Amy Cervini, Hilary Gardner, Melissa Stylianou. Favors older songs with harmonies reminiscent of the Andrews Sisters, and swinging arrangements by Oded Lev-Ari. B+(**) [sp]

Emperor X: Unified Field (2026, Bar/None): Singer-songwriter Chad Metheny, albums since 1998, first one I really noticed was Western Teleport (2011). Several strong song on the way out. B+(**) [sp]

Nick Fraser: Areas (2026, Elastic): Canadian drummer, close to 100 credits since his 1997 debut album, has several albums with Tony Malaby (tenor sax) and Kris Davis (piano), who return here, along with John Kameel Farah (electronics). B+(*) [bc]

Hannah Gill: I Like the Sunrise (2026, Turtle Bay): Standards singer, several albums since 2023, backed by guitar-bass-drums, with Ricky Alexander (sax). B+(**) [bc]

Devin Gray/Andrea Parkins/Frank Gratkowski: Hz of Gold (2021 [2026], Rataplan): Drummer, fair number of albums and side-credits since 2006, in an improv trio with electronics/accordion/wurlitzer and saxes/flutes/clarinets. B+(*) [sp]

Alden Hellmuth: Tether (2026, Leiter): Alto saxophonist from Connecticut ("she grew up surrounded by the legacy of the great saxophonist Jackie McLean"), based in New York, second album, seems to be a quartet with two basses (Logan Kane and Miller Wrenn) and drums (Justin Brown), but also "additional instrumentation" (trumpet, piano, voice, guitar, sound design, lots of effects). B+(***) [sp]

The Joymakers: A Texas-Sized Band (2026, Turtle Bay): Austin-based ten-piece trad jazz outfit, named for a 1920s Texas band of the same name, led by arranger Colin Hancock, who also plays cornet, alto & baritone sax, mellophone, kazoo, and is one of several singers. B+(**) [sp]

Goran Kajfeš Subtropic Arkestra: & Avin Omar (2026, We Jazz, EP): Swedish trumpet player, leading a group that includes two saxophonists (one is Jonas Kullhammar), keyboards, guitar, bass, and drums, featuring the Kurdish-Swedish vocalist, leads off with a trad Kurdish piece ("Suleymanieh") that is pretty captivating. Three songs (23:38), the first of three planned EPs with vocalists. B+(***) [bc]

La La Lars: Lilla Lars (2026, Gothborgen, EP): Swedish drummer Lars Skoglund, has four albums as La La Lars since 2017, many side credits since 1998, trio here with Carl Bagge (piano) and Johan Berthling (bass), four songs (18:00). B+(*) [sp]

James Brandon Lewis Quartet: Omni (2025 [2026], Intakt): Tenor saxophonist, possibly the best and certainly the most accomplished of any near his age (42), has won two of our jazz polls, often splitting his vote among multiple projects. Sixth quartet album on this Swiss label, with Aruán Ortiz (piano), Brad Jones (bass), and Chad Taylor (drums). Still keeps you on edge. A- [sp]

Virginia MacDonald: In Search Of . . . (2024 [2026], Cellar): Canadian clarinetist, first album (although Discogs gives her a share of a Canadian Jazz Collective album), side credits especially with Michael Dease and Caity Gyorgy. Backed by piano (Geoffrey Keezer), bass, and drums, with voice on two tracks. B+(***) [cd]

Nduduzo Makhathini: The Myth We Choose (2026, Blue Note): South African pianist, various local labels from 2009, picked up by Blue Note in 2020, fourth album there. He has some credentials as a "traditional sangoma header," which may be context I cannot begin to fathom. Sounds sedated to me, with many vocals I can make no sense of. But the piano has grown on me a bit. B+(*) [sp]

Michael Marcus Quartet: Next Stop Down (2024 [2026], ESP-Disk'): Reeds player, albums since 1991 including the Cosmosamatics (with Sonny Simmons), plays tarogato, soprano and tenor sax here, with "featuring" credits for Rod Williams (piano), Ricky Rodriguez (bass), and Allan Mednard (drums). B+(***) [cd]

Tal Mashiach: Who's Around? (2026, Anzic): Guitarist-bassist, has a previous album as well as appearance in Anat Cohen's Quartetinho. Original pieces, musicians come and go, with only the drummer on most cuts. First impression is rather scattered. Unclear whether multiple plays might elevate that to eclectic. B [cd]

Chris Potter: Alive With Ghosts Today (2025 [2026], Edition): Tenor saxophonist, got an early start in 1994, impressive soloist, albums can be uneven. Original pieces here, inspired by John Brown's 1859 uprising, played by a septet featuring Bill Frisell (guitar), with clarinet, trombone, violin, bass, and drums. B+(*) [sp]

Sad Daddy: Ozark Shine (2026, Catfish Music/Free Dirt): Arkansas group, Bandcamp page says Eureka Springs, fifth album since 2010, multiple singers, four songwriters: Brian Martin (guitar), Melissa Carper (bass), Joe Sundell (banjo), and Rebecca Patek (fiddle) — Carper also has a solo career with several notable albums. B+(**) [sp]

Harry Skoler: Echoes (2026, Red Brick Hill): Clarinetist, debut 1995, not many albums since, this one a quartet featuring Bill Frisell (guitar), with bass (Dezron Douglas) and drums (Johnathan Blake). B+(**) [sp]

SML: Spontaneous Music Live (2025 [2026], International Anthem): Los Angeles-based jazz quintet, third album, two pieces (23:46 + 24:34), selected and mixed from a three-night stand (credit Bryce Gonzales, who mixed Jeff Parker's live EVA IVtet albums). Close-knit group, most also known for their solo efforts: Anna Butterss, Jeremiah Chiu, Josh Johnson, Booker Stardrum, Gregory Uhlmann. Groove is somewhat minimalist, but the differences matter. A- [sp]

Matthew Stevens: Matthew Stevens (2026, Candid): Canadian jazz guitarist, half-dozen albums since 2015, varying cast beyond bass and drums, with Josh Johnson (alto sax) on most tracks, including two vocals, and some Joel Ross vibes. Originals, with a Sonny Sharrock cover. B+(*) [sp]

Soojin Suh: Prism of Existence (2026, Endectomorph Music): Korean drummer, has several previous albums, this a trio with piano (Jaehun Kang) and bass (Hoo Kim), recorded over four sessions (but dates not given). B+(**) [sp]

Martin Wind: Stars (2025 [2026], Newvelle): German bassist, close to 30 albums since 1993, the title may well refer to the talent he lined up here: Kenny Barron (piano), Anat Cohen (clarinet), Matt Wilson (drums). A mix of originals and standards, with "The Stars Fell Down on Alabama" especially delectable. A- [sp]

Recent reissues, compilations, and vault discoveries:

Either/Orchestra & Ethiopian Guests: Nalbandian L'Ethiopien/The Ethiopian [Éthiopiques 32] (2011 [2025], Buda Musique): Large band from Boston, founded by saxophonist Russ Gershon, released albums 1986-2010, website touts their "40th anniversary season," but this live tape, following up their 2004 Live in Addis [Éthiopiques 20], seems to be the only new release. B+(***) [sp]

Evan Parker/Paul Rogers/Louis Moholo: Tebugo (1992 [2025], Jazz in Britain): Live tape from the Vortex in London, tenor and soprano sax, bass, and drums. Takes a while to warm up, but delivers in the end. B+(***) [bc]

Old music:

None.

Grade (or other) changes:

The Messthetics and James Brandon Lewis: Deface the Currency (2026, Impulse!): Guitar-bass-drums trio had a couple albums (2018-19) before they joined up with the powerhouse tenor saxophonist. I filed the early albums under rock as the bassist (Joe Lally) and drummer (Brendan Canty) came from Fugazi, although guitarist Anthony Pirog had a fringe-jazz resume (two albums with Henry Kaiser, one a conduction of Terry Riley, a couple more I've heard but don't particularly recall). Time to move them into the jazz file, but I'm not all that pleased. The saxophonist makes a strong effort, but the guitarist rarely if ever matches him, nor is he very complementary. It's not quite accurate to say that the rhythm section rocks: they move freely, but their energy mostly expresses itself in speed and volume, which can come off as clunky. My disappointment was such that I probably overreacted at first. [was: B] B+(**) [sp]

Unpacking: Found in the mail last week:

  • Colin Heshmat: Elastic Groove (HMC) [07-23]
  • Andrew Kim: Lineage (Origin) [07-24]
  • Bob Nell & Michael Bisio Trios: We Are Here (Origin) [07-24]
  • Rebecca Rafla: Fundamentally Unfinished (Rebecca Raffla Music) [06-22]
  • Armand Sangalang: Waypoints (Calligram) [08-07]
  • Claudio Scolari Project: Lines of Now (Principal) [04-24]
  • Clark Sommers: WaBaSH (Calligram) [08-07]

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