Trump Mobile is already failing to deliver on some early promises, according to the latest report from The Verge. The report revealed the near-final design of the T1 smartphone and uncovered some major changes with pricing and manufacturing.

The Verge spoke with Don Hendrickson and Eric Thomas, two of the three execs behind Trump Mobile, about the company's first smartphone, which will get a more expensive price tag and no longer boast being made in the USA. Thanks to a screenshot from the report, we can see that the latest T1 design also changed the camera array, which first resembled the iPhone's but now has three cameras in a misaligned vertical stack.

As for the price, Hendrickson told The Verge that anyone who paid the $100 deposit will still pay $499 total for the T1 as an "introductory price," but that later customers could fork up to $999. Thomas also revealed that the T1 smartphone will go through "final assembly" in Miami and no longer be "proudly designed and built in the United States," as seen in the introductory press release. Instead, the website now shows a description that says, "with American hands behind every device." We still don't have a release date — and now we don't even have a final price — but the website still claims the T1 smartphone will be released "later this year."

In an act of desperation, Labour deputy leader Lucy Power has asked the Green Party to stand down in Gorton & Denton:

This is staggering. @LucyMPowell writes to @ZackPolanski telling him to stand down @GreenPartyHan so Labour can win. Zack has a duty of care to Green Party members & voters, not to Labour. The arrogance from Lucy is staggering. Lucy give us something to vote for, that's democracy pic.twitter.com/8vsKP5eP0X

— Cantona & Best (@bestcanton7) February 7, 2026

It's an interesting tactic, but we're not sure it will catch on.

In the interest of transparency, here is Powell's letter in full:

LUCY POWELL
DEPUTY LEADER OF THE LABOUR PARTY

Dear Zack,

I'm writing to you about the Gorton and Denton by-election and a number of misleading claims you and your party have made which may lead to Reform getting in through the back door - something I cannot stand by and let happen.

There is a lot at stake in this by-election which goes beyond the usual politics of who is up and who is down. For me, I am doing whatever I can to stop the nasty, divisive politics of Reform and Matt Goodwin getting a foothold and platform in my city. A city built on tolerance, openness and collectivism.

However, I fear you are being played by Reform and have a different agenda.

You know as well as I do, that the Green Party just doesn't have the base or the breadth of support across the constituency to win the seat. The best you hope for is to take support from us to boost your profile nationally. This is exactly what Reform wants - it's their only route to victory - split and suppress the long-standing Labour vote.

If just seven Green Party voters had backed Labour in Runcorn and Helsby, we wouldn't now have a Reform MP in Parliament who made appalling comments about seeing too many Black and Asian people on TV. A Reform victory in Gorton and Denton would usher in an even more extreme candidate into Parliament.

What's more, in seeking to push your agenda, you and your party have shared misleading election material and claims on social media.

Your bar charts would even make your former Lib Dem colleagues blush. The independent Full Fact organisation agreed, stating:

"The most recent projection from Election Maps UK for Gorton and Denton suggests the Greens will see the second largest increase in their vote share compared to the 2024 election, behind Reform UK. But it also suggests that Labour will still hold the seat."

Your claims that respected academics Professor Rob Ford agrees with you are also not true. Prof Ford said that your latest leaflet is "misleading and out of context" and "that you have misrepresented his views".

Your assertions do not reflect the reality on the ground. The evidence is clear. You have no councillors at all here. All of the councillors in Gorton and Denton were elected Labour, bar one.

Your briefings from doorstep to doorstep do not add up - which is extensive and more scientific - is clear: only we can beat Reform, your support is simply not anywhere near wide enough.

Labour has a strong Manchester Labour brand and organisation here, with Mayor Andy Burnham, the Labour Council and Labour Government delivering real change.

We all know what's at stake here. Both Nigel Farage and his candidate in Gorton and Denton, Matt Goodwin, have talked repeatedly about immigration and the far right racist rhetoric in their campaigns. We need to defeat them.

This contest is bigger than you. It's time that you stopped the bogus briefings and bar charts. The Greens can't win here. If you really thought that, you would have stood here yourself (as someone from nearby).

Voters won't forgive you and your disingenuous campaigning will come back to haunt you.

Only voting Labour's Angeliki Stogia can prevent a Reform win. You and I both know that.

Yours sincerely,

Lucy Powell
MP for Manchester Central
Deputy Leader of the Labour Party

For further transparency, this is what polling says right now:

Interested to see an update poll, but polling is difficult in by elections.

One thing is clear, Labour can't win. https://t.co/jXbRJUrsbv

— Curtis Daly (@CurtisDaly_) February 7, 2026

We can imagine the above Labour supporters going Green to keep Reform out; it's harder to imagine the Green's returning to Labour given everything that Starmer & co have done, as we'll get into.

Lucy Powell is arguing that the Greens need to stand down, because they used an improper bar chart. The Labour Party at large, meanwhile, is dealing with the following scandal:

We all knew that Peter Mandelson kept a close relationship with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein after his conviction.

Yet Keir Starmer appointed him US Ambassador and said he had "full confidence" in the bestie of a convicted nonce.

My full speech in Parliament: https://t.co/CwRcTpMUKe pic.twitter.com/et0ofls0qB

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) February 7, 2026

You can't act like you're the arbiters or good and moral behaviour when your man literally did the following:

Peter Mandelson sold Government secrets to foreign agents for personal profit.

He doesn't need to be thrown out of the House of Lords, he needs to be thrown in jail. pic.twitter.com/ruBKPtQ16U

— BladeoftheSun (@BladeoftheS) February 2, 2026

Seriously — who do these ghouls think they're kidding?

Featured image via Barold

By Willem Moore

Micheál Martin's government is backing the criminal actions of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) brownshirts by allowing Shannon airport to be used as a refuelling point for illegal deportations.

A report by The Guardian highlighted the latest breach, in which a private jet belonging to a friend of US president Donald Trump flew groups of Palestinian men to so-called 'Israel'. Once there, Zionist thugs transported them to the West Bank and dumped them at the side of the road.

One of the men is Maher Awad, a:

…24-year-old originally from the West Bank, who had lived in the US for nearly a decade.

He has a girlfriend and young son in Michigan where he lived. Awad was detained by ICE following a police arrest for a domestic violence charge a year previously. Despite authorities dropping this charge, he:

…spent [a] year being shuffled between immigration detention centres across the country, including in Michigan, Texas and Louisiana.

ICE then deported him to the illegitimate Zionist settler-colony. Another man The Guardian spoke to was Sameer Isam Aziz Zeidan. He had been in the US for over 20 years. Before ICE kidnapped him, he was living in "Louisiana with his wife and five children". They were among eight men shipped overseas in shackles, then left stranded with only a few belongings at a West Bank checkpoint on 21 January 2026.

Senator Patricia Stephenson, foreign affairs spokesperson for the Social Democrats, pointed out that the rendition amounts to leaving people in an "active conflict zone". The terrorist regime based in West Jerusalem has killed over 1,000 Palestinians in the West Bank since 7 October 2023.

Land thieves — sometimes referred to as 'settlers' — have carried out a relentless series of ethnic cleansing raids in the last two years. 700 Palestinians have been subject to these pogroms in January alone. Deporting people to a territory where they are at risk of violence is illegal.

Stephenson said:

The government must now answer serious questions regarding whether they view this action as a breach of international law, and what action they will take to take control of the situation.

She continued:

The government claims it is a staunch supporter of international law, a beacon of hope when it comes to upholding human rights - it must now explain its hypocrisy.

This is not the first time the Irish government has assisted ICE crimes. In November The Ditch reported that US planes landed at the Clare airport to refuel while:

…carrying deportees to African countries they have no personal ties to…

Orville Etoria was one of those kidnapped, a Jamaican man with no connection to Eswatini, the country he was dumped in. His legal team say he was:

…illegally deported and imprisoned in Eswatini without charge or access to a lawyer for two months…

He eventually managed to make it back to Jamaica. The Irish government told The Journal that:

…stops at Irish airports by private aircraft and commercial charters for technical, non-traffic purposes (such as refuelling) "do not require prior authorisation from the Department."

The government takes a similar lackadaisical approach to military planes stopping off at the airport before going on to assist Zionist atrocities in Palestine. Shannon Watch has documented the massive volume of these warplanes using the airstrip. Given the scale of US criminality on all fronts, it would seem a sensible policy would be to inspect all flights coming from the North American territory. This would invert the current policy of inspecting virtually none.

Gil Dezer was the man responsible for ferrying the kidnapped Palestinians thousands of miles away from their homes. A close friend and business partner of Trump, Dezer is also a:

…member of the Miami branch of Friends of the Israel Defense Forces.

The private jet used appears to be the property of Dezer Development:

…a real estate company established by the Israeli-American developer Michael Dezer and today run by Gil Dezer, his son.

The company has built various Trump branded properties and contributed to his presidential campaign. In the wake of the latest Epstein documents, this serves as another example of the sickening links between the ultra-wealthy, US politicians, 'Israel' and serious criminality. A class of truly wretched people causing harm to everyone they deem beneath them, with their racism and misogyny exacting particular suffering on women and people of colour.

Featured image via the Canary

By Robert Freeman

The Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine (MJAP) group has condemned a local Israel lobby group for attacking Manchester City football manager Pep Guardiola.

Guardiola, who has a consistent record of solidarity with and support for the Palestinian people, spoke out against Israel's slaughter again on 4 February. The BBC amplified the manufactured pearl-clutching of the — apparently entirely unelected — so-called 'Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester & Region' (JRCGM) that Guardiola should stick to football and not get involved in politics.

While it calls itself a council, JRCGM is in fact a company, registration number Company registration: 8953235. It is one of numerous self-appointed 'representative' organisations that act as lobbying groups for Israeli interests.

In a statement, MJAP condemned JRCGM for its whitewashing of the "horrors perpetrated by Israel". It also pointed out the lack of condemnation by footballing bodies for the 'right' kind of political statement and their failure to take appropriate action against the genocidal colony. And it reminded the 'council' that as a city — Manchester, including many of its Jews — is united against the crimes of the ethno-supremacist occupation:

Manchester Jewish Action for Palestine (MJAP) welcomes Pep Guardiola's recent comments decrying Israel's pursuit of a genocide in Gaza and calling on us all not to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinian children. Guardiola's heartfelt statement that "to completely kill thousands of innocent people, it hurts me" captures our collective pain as we've watched the horrors perpetrated by Israel over the last two and a half years. Guardiola's brave comments build on expressions of solidarity with Palestinians from many other prominent football figures, including Jurgen Klopp, Mo Salah, Cristiano Ronaldo and Eric Cantona.

MJAP disagrees profoundly with the Jewish Representative Council of Greater Manchester (JRCGM) in their criticism of Guardiola. They say that he "is a football manager" and "should focus on football" rather than "straying into international affairs". It is not Guardiola who is bringing international affairs into football. The Premiership were quick to organise official displays of solidarity with Ukraine in grounds across the country, and FIFA suspended Russia from international football competitions within days of the invasion of Ukraine. Yet football supporters are not allowed to take any expression of solidarity with Palestine into games (not just flags, but even badges), and after two and a half years of genocide, FIFA has still not suspended Israel from international football competitions. Guardiola is simply expressing a different view on international affairs to those of the Premiership, the FA and FIFA. In doing so, he is giving voice to millions of football supporters, around the world, in the UK and in Manchester.

The JRCGM does not speak for all the Jewish people of Greater Manchester. Many of us are horrified by the genocide that has been pursued in our name by Israel, and have joined countless marches and rallies to oppose it. "Never again" means never again for anyone, including the Palestinians. In failing to call out the crimes of the state of Israel against Palestine the JRCGM have effectively acted as apologists for the genocide.

Israel has murdered thousands of footballers in Gaza - professional and amateur, adults and children - and has deliberately destroyed countless football stadiums, pitches and facilities. Israel has encouraged illegal settlers and their football clubs to operate in the West Bank, against the rules of FIFA.

MJAP supports the demand of football supporters around the world to "red card Israel", calling on FIFA to suspend Israel's national teams and clubs from international football competition until Israel ends its genocide, withdraws from illegally occupied land, drops the siege of Gaza and dismantles all its apartheid laws.

In particular, MJAP supports "A City United for Gaza", a local campaign who have been rallying outside games at Old Trafford and the Etihad for the last two and a half years, collecting signatures for a petition to FIFA."

Israel was condemned this week by one of its own top generals as modern-day 'nazis', doing to the Palestinians what Germany did to the Jews eighty-odd years ago. Solidarity with Pep Guardiola.

Featured image via Facebook

By Skwawkbox

The political right wing has failed. Donald Trump has proven that. At the same time, the left wing has no answers. Whether that's in the UK, where the Labour Party is all at sea, or in the US, where the Democrats are frankly, well, floundering. Neoliberal politics, now embraced by so-called left-wing parties, is out of road, and that matters.

For the last year, politics has been dominated by the right.  Trump, culture wars, blame, authoritarian instincts, all have dominated our political narratives.  And now we can see the result: chaos, instability, economic incoherence. But there is a problem that no one wants to face: this has left the left wing of politics cruelly exposed without any answers to any of the questions that now arise.

Let's be clear, the right-wing's moment is over. I know that it won't be dying as yet, but the point is, the current political conversation was set by the right. They promised growth, strength, and national renewal. What we have got instead is institutional breakdown, policy incoherence, economic nationalism without an economic plan, and personalised power replacing competence.

Trump is not an aberration. He is the logical outcome of right-wing neoliberal populism, just as much as the right-wing leaders of European equivalent parties are, from Nigel Farage onwards. And what is clear is that the right wing has failed in the USA just as much as it will in Europe because it has no theory of care. There is no commitment within right-wing politics to public institutions. There is no concern within it for the distribution of income or wealth. There is no understanding of economic independence within their thinking. They presume everyone is an isolated individual with no relationship between the two. And there is no respect for limits, whether they be social or those imposed by our planet.

They claimed markets were meant to solve everything. But the truth is, as we can now see, markets have solved nothing,  and voters are rightly turning away from those who promised them something, which has turned out to be hollow.

So  the consequence is that the right is failing, but the question is left: what can the left offer instead? And this is where the real crisis begins, in my opinion, because when asked for answers, Labour has none.

It's very clear  Keir Starmer is clueless as to why he is in office as Prime Minister, and none of his leadership team have any answers either.  Nor does Andy Burnham. The great saviour from the north does, in fact, share the same economic philosophy that has left the rest of Labour in trouble because he, like them, is a neoliberal.

Labour talks about fiscal rules that prioritise markets over people. That is all that Rachel Reeves has ever said she'll deliver.

Growth is treated as the only objective of economic policy, irrespective of who gets the gains, and we know that the rich have always captured them.

Public services are treated as costs, and care is treated as if it is a private problem and not a matter for collective concern.

This is not a left-wing programme. It is neoliberalism with a softer tone, and neoliberalism has run out of road because, quite clearly, none of these prescriptions work.

Neoliberalism assumes that markets allocate resources efficiently, that growth fixes distribution, and that the state must step back and care will somehow happen anyway. Maybe out of charity, maybe because those who need it will die and therefore fall off the end of waiting lists. Who knows? But none of this is true; without care, economies fragment, trust collapses, inequality deepens, democracy weakens, and that is the reality that we are living through.

This means that better management is not enough. Starmer offered us competence without purpose. Burnham's offer is decency without a framework. Neither answers the central question: what is the economy for?  If the answer is still "growth first, and care later", then nothing changes, and voters will notice. That is the real crisis.

And so this is where both the right wing have failed in practice, and the left wing have failed in imagination. We are stuck with a political class that cannot think beyond markets, marginal tweaks, focus groups, and the fear of challenging the power of capital.

This is not leadership. This is exhaustion.

We do not need a new leader. We need a new organising principle. One person isn't going to change everything; ideas can.

A politics of care means that the economy exists to support life itself and the life of everyone.  And that public services are investments and not costs. And that care work is foundational and not residual. And that the state exists to enable resilience and not just growth.

This is not utopian. This is what is necessary, and deep down, that's what people know. That's why this whole idea that the left has nothing to say in response to the right is so well known in the community at large. In fact, you hear it in so many interviews.

They say, "They all say the same thing," and they're right, they do. If all you have is neoliberalism, then in 2026, you are definitely out of road.  The right has proved it. They have failed. The left is about to because they've got no answers, and until politics is rebuilt around care, this crisis will not end. That is the conversation we should be having, even if no one else is, because this conversation is the one that's going to change the political narrative and make it relevant again.

There has never been a greater need for grassroots journalism that investigates the stories that really matter, holds power to account and champions the voices of everyday citizens. We are proudly powered by volunteers but what we do isn't free.

STAND WITH US for independent, citizen-led journalism that makes democracy stronger, and you will even get some exclusive benefits.

The post Politics has now run out of road first appeared on East Anglia Bylines.

So, I disable screen always on but when I locked the screen an when the sleep time pass the screen does turn off but instantly turn on. This only happens when the music is on pause, if the music is playing the screen does turn off. Anyone knows how to fix it? The only solution I found was to delete the playing notification

Does anyone knows where is it or how I can activate it? or if its only a paid feature now?

Basically the title. All tracks are corrupted since the latest software update. Anybody else experienced this? Don't know 100 % if this was the cause, but the timing seems to suggest it is.

Edit: Just to clarify, I'm talking about the latest update to the phone's UI (7.0), not to the app. Up until now, the app has worked perfectly fine for me.

The main way i used this app was just by going into the tracks section and using the "sort by date added" function i have a little over 4,000 songs on my phone i like to shuffle through all of them. Now there is no way to access all 4000 songs tye folders section only shows half. And the sub sections on the play now section are very limited as well. Why would the "tracks" section be removed seems like a pretty big development oversight. Is tgere a way to put it back if not could you please bring it back in the next update i know i cant be the only one annoyed to see it gone. I use the paid version EX

When I try adding album covers to songs, it returns with a message "Failed to set new image". It used to work on my previous phone.

Hey all,

Wondering if there is a way, or if anyone has figured out a way, to transfer offline playlists to the server (plex in my case)

Also, is it possible to share server playlists with others like on the plexamp app?

Thank you!

Dynamic island/mini capsule notification feature

I'm sadly seeing that custom fonts are not working anymore with Black Player EX. It worked for a long time before.

Any fixes in the works?

Been using this for years and I was hoping to continue as long as I can, but it's seeming like this is where it's finally gone for me unless someone knows a fix. Out of the blue the app stopped recognizing that I had any music at all. The files are all there, but it only throws errors when I try to play. I'm on a LG V60 so I'm pretty sure it wasn't a phone update. Does anyone else have this issue? Really blows that this app is depreciated.

Edit: fixed by uninstalling latest version and reinstalling using version 20.62 BETA.

I used to be able to enter my car, bluetooth would automatically connect, and pressing play on the car would make music start.

But since i updated, this doesn't work anymore and i have to take out my phone from my pocket, this is super frustrating. I fiddled with settings but nothing works what i have to do?

I heard that there was a bug that would delete all your music off your phone / SDCARD, can anyone confirm on if this is still the case? BP is a great app still, and I love the sleek look, but it's such a booger on the product if this bug was never fixed.

Thanks.

Hi. I've been using Blackplayer EX for years and loved it. I recently upgraded my phone from a Galaxy S21 to an S25. I transferred all my music files, playlists, and statistics with no issues, but now most of my albums have no cover image, or they have an image from a completely different album.

I have tried:
- using the "repair album covers" option which only results in either a few new covers or none, depending on each try.
- using the "download missing album covers" option which has the same result as above.
- using the "auto download new cover" on each individual album, which just doesn't work.
- updating each album cover manually. This process is very laggy and most of the time doesn't work, but if it does, it then sets the same, specific album cover for almost half my albums at once.
- removing and granting write access to my music folder, no changes.

Is there any possible solution to this issue? I am not particularly tech savvy and I would prefer not having to install any third party apps etc.

I have switched to Musicolet and like it so far, though I do miss some of the features from Blackplayer. Many of my albums are still missing covers in Musicolet, but I am at least able to add them manually, however tedious that process may be.

Thank you!

I have this annoying bug going on and I need help or a fix.

I was manually setting artist pictures, buy I choosed the wrong photo for one artist so I tried to do the process again and choose the correct picture but instead now it shows the default "4 album cover" artist photo instead of the choosed photo, and no matter how many times i try, it doesn't load the picture i chose.

The only workaround for this is deleting all artist pictures from the settings, but this is annoying when you have a lot of artists.

I use the 20.63 paid version in a android 14

A few days ago I bought the premium version but the bluetooth auto play doesn't work. Searching in old threads, I learned that is a problem from about a year ago. Did someone figure out how to fix this annoying problem? Most of the time, I play my music in 3 differents bluetooth devices, and it drives me crazy that the music doesn't start right away. It's really frustrating that in the free version of the app this feature does work (but the notifications don't).

I got error loading track

For all tracks but I never updated it or anything so why ?

Hi. I am struggling with a very annoying delay. When playing music tracks and going to the next track, it updates the UI, but the previous song audio keeps playing without interrupting at all. Then I go to the next song and the first one keeps playing. In some time, after multiple UI interactions trying to go to the next, it finally updates the audio with the current song being played in the UI. It seems to be a bug of delay between the App and the audio management of android itself. I tried going back to 20.62 and reinstall the 20.63 App too. But the issue continued.

Note: when I uninstalled the app, I was listening to a song, and it continued playing for several seconds even after the app was uninstalled, with no notification of media playing or anything.

Like most of us here, it's sad this app has been broken for the last couple years. There's nothing in the app store for me that comes close to Blackplayer Ex so I've been trying to find the correct APK before the updates that broke this app. It's version 20.59 and I've linked it to this post. Hopefully the developer comes around to fixing things while we use this older version.

NOTE: You may need to uninstall the original app before installing this one. Just backup your plalists and settings before doing so and import it with this APK. Worked fine for me.

Something happened to my apo where I was forced to re-download it, and now it can't seem to find my music.

I've confirmed all my music is still on my SD card and I've even assigned the app to look in the specific folder it's located, but it keeps searching forever and never stops.

Same result if I let it search the whole phone.

It just keeps searching and never stops.

Against the rules I know, but god damn we need help out here

Hi, This music player is great. Can you make this app for iOS too? It's been a few years but there's still no news. Please give us the iOS version too.

I've got 12 soundtracks in my library. I've tried using both Various Artists in my tags for Contributing Artists, and I've also tried changing that to Soundtrack in an attempt to get Blackplayer to simply show that as a category in Artist view.

I can only see 2 of the 12 as a Various Artists category, but all are still visible as Albums. The rest I just have to add as playlists in order to find and play them without scrolling through hundreds of albums. What the f* am I doing wrong?

2 presses on earphone controls should be the next track, 3 should be the previous one. But with Blackplayer, 2 presses skips one more song than it's supposed to and 3 presses just restarts the song. I find that this problem occurs in Android 11+ devices. Changing the Audio Library to the Android Standard Library used to solve the issue for me, not anymore, plus it would be a downgrade since the Android Standard Library has less features.

I went back to an Android 8 phone, never had the issue for years. I got a new phone now and cannot enjoy this very convenient feature that works with every other music player. It's infuriating that this is the same issue from like 4 years ago and there is no fix still! Please fix the issue!

I use wired earphones btw, 9mm jack.

How do you restore a song you blacklisted? I see where you can blacklist a song, and I can see where it says one song is blacklisted, but I don't see a way to simply click to restore it.

We have ads now? Is this new?

Analogue is back with another hit of N64 nostalgia, but with colorways that are deep cuts for even the biggest Nintendo nerds. Analogue announced its latest run of limited edition versions of its 3D console, this time drawing inspiration from a batch of prototype colorways for the original N64 that were manufactured but never hit the market. Now, the Analogue 3D will come in Ghost, Glacier, Extreme Green, Ocean and yes, even Atomic Purple.

It may just be a cosmetic upgrade, but it's worth noting that each of the colorways has matching cables, power adapters and 16GB SD cards that come preinstalled. Analogue even partnered with 8BitDo again to create color-matched controllers that complete the colorful retro experience.

As usual, Analogue said this latest run will be available in "highly limited quantities," starting on February 9 at 11AM ET. Be sure to set a reminder because the first Analogue 3D drop sold out quickly and the Funtastic colorways went out of stock just as fast. According to Analogue, the consoles will go for $299.99 and start shipping 24 to 48 hours after orders are completed. 8BitDo said the $49.99 controllers will be available for preorder at the same time as the 3D console, but see its first shipments starting in April.

My first video report from Venezuela

My being her reporting is entirely possible due, as is all my journalism and activism, to your individual subscriptions and donations. We now have a Venezuela reporting crowdfunder. I have simply edited the Lebanese GoFundMe crowdfunder, because that took many weeks to be approved and I don't want to go through all that again. So its starting baseline is the £35,000 we raised and spent in Lebanon.

I do very much appreciate that I have been simultaneously crowdfunding to fight the UK government in the Scottish courts over the proscription of Palestine Action. We fight forces that have unlimited funds. We can only succeed if we spread the load. 98% of those who read my articles never contribute financially. This would be a good moment to change that. It is just the simple baseline subscriptions to my blog that have got me to Venezuela, and that remains the foundation for all my work.

Anybody is welcome to republish and reuse, including in translation.

Because some people wish an alternative to PayPal, I have set up new methods of subscription payment including a Patreon account and a Substack account if you wish to subscribe that way. The content will be the same as you get on this blog. Substack has the advantage of overcoming social media suppression by emailing you direct every time I post. You can if you wish subscribe free to Substack and use the email notifications as a trigger to come for this blog and read the articles for free. I am determined to maintain free access for those who cannot afford a subscription.

Subscriptions to keep this blog going are gratefully received.

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Venezuela GoFundMe

The post Is The USA Controlling Venezuela appeared first on Craig Murray.

Here at the Canary, we've long criticised Rupert Murdoch and his grotty tabloid (the Sun) and his grotty broadsheet (the Times). We've got to admit, though; even we didn't think they'd publish a puff piece on Peter Mandelson in the middle of his Epstein-stoked mega downfall:

I deleted my post from before…

I thought it was fake

So I went to WH Smith and here it is

An unbelievable attempt to sanitise this man and normalise what's he's done. pic.twitter.com/HXTgAn8D5C

— Marina Purkiss (@MarinaPurkiss) February 7, 2026

Just when you think the British media can't sink any lower, the floor falls out from under your feet.

To quickly get you up to speed:

• Jeffrey Epstein was convicted of sex crimes with an underage prostitute.
• Mandelson maintained a friendship with him anyway.
• The British media decided this wasn't really a big deal, even when Starmer made him the ambassador to the US.
• Additional leaks showed that Mandelson really, really liked Epstein.
• Even more additional leaks showed that this fucking rat was leaking British state secrets to Epstein.

Digitally, we've had access to the Mandelson interview since the 2 November. We also had access to the pictures. And while the interview seemed ill-judged at the time, it's so much fucking worse to publish a printed copy several days later.

Just look at this cunt:

JUST IN:

TL;DR: This Apple's iPad 11 (2025) is on sale for $369.99, a 25% discount on a Grade A refurbished tablet.

Looking for a tablet that won't drain your wallet but still packs a serious punch? This refurbished iPad 11 might be your answer. — Read the rest

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image by AI; not my prompt

As a compulsive writer and an incurable overthinker, I have a great love of incongruity. Some of the most important insights I have had in my life came from recognizing and addressing incongruities — things that seemingly contradict or which don't make sense in the context of something else I thought I understood. And some of my favourite writing (my own and others') plays with clever incongruities, including but not limited to ironies.

So, just as one example, I love the fact that the best sad songs make me cry, and can make me feel happier than the most cheerful anthems can, and they can pull me out of the deepest feelings of sadness.

I hit upon the title for this post because I was trying to compose a song about learning to accept things we cannot control or change — which is basically everything, at least if, like me, you accept the overwhelming (and, to human brains, utterly incongruous) scientific evidence that we have no free will.

Creative writing is, for me, the hardest to do, and (perhaps as a result) the most satisfying when it works out, or even when I just learn something important from the process.

Most songs are designed to appeal to us emotionally rather than intellectually, and hence the particular subject for my intended song was problematic — it's just too conceptual and theoretical to appeal to the listener, and even to lend itself to notes and music that convey meaning and feeling. There's a reason most songs are stories about how people feel. You want to write a song about the injustice of Trump & Co's ICE Gestapo, you tell an angry and heart-wrenching story, you don't quote from the constitution and legal precedent.

I tried writing a variety of stories about acceptance, and they came out as terribly bloodless. Not the stuff of a moving song. I looked for some hints and ideas from Suno music AI, and it kept feeding me very personal stories about lost love and heartbreak, not stoicism. And it eviscerated my cold titles, creating clumsy and soulless choruses that just made me wince.

And then I realized how important the title of a song is: not just the denotation of the words, but their rhythm, which can dictate the entire tone of a song. Suno was trying to work the title into the first or last lines of the song's chorus, and the result was awful.

And hence, the title of this post, and my intended song. Let It Be Just What It Is has a good rhythm to it, one that is both driving and accommodating, a perfect incongruity. And indeed, the music of the resultant Suno song is actually pretty good (in fact, I can't get the chorus out of my head):

Let it be just what it is
Not a promise, not a wish
We can love, we can miss
Let it be just what it is
Let it be, don't make it more
Leave your armour at the door
If we lose all of this
Let it be just what it is

Here's the song:

Let It Be Just What It Is (Suno) (Soundcloud)

OK, the lyrics are pretty bad. All I provided was a short, cold prompt. The Suno lyrics are mostly pretentious and awkward, with a few incongruous 'clever' juxtapositions of words. But the music, I think, is great.

How could I rescue the lyrics to make them as good as the music? For all kinds of legal reasons (potential for copyright violations of recorded works etc) Suno won't let you change the lyrics and keep the music. There are workarounds, but they're hard. And I'm lazy. And the song is even telling me not to change it.

I did consider an alternative title with a similar rhythm: Let It Be What It Will Be. A title that ends with a hard-to-rhyme syllable is a cardinal sin in songwriting, and lots more rhymes exist for the word be than for the word is. Why did I reject it? For purist reasons: My preferred title refers to the present moment, which is all that really matters, while this alternative refers to a future (which arguably doesn't exist) and alternate 'possibilities' (which don't exist either).

And then I realized that my preferred title is also incongruous. Since we have no free will, we can't choose to 'let it be just what it is'. We have no volition, no agency to accept or not accept. If these bodies of ours appear to accept, or refuse to accept, the way things apparently are, then all 'we' can do is rationalize that 'decision' after the fact.

But that's an incongruity I can live with. A little smile, perhaps, to the impossibility of us having the free will to act as if we don't have free will. Let it be just what it is.

But of course I couldn't do that. I tried again with my alternative title: Let It Be What It Will Be, and the further prompt that it be a song about acceptance. Here's what it came up with:

Let It Be What It Will Be (Afro-Caribbean version) (Suno) (Soundcloud)

The music is not quite as catchy as the first song, but I think the lyrics are definitely better. Coherent if not memorable. And lyrics are important:

Let it be what it will be
If you stay, if you leave
If you heal, if you bleed
Every part of you speaks
Let it be what it will be
From your roots to your wings
You're the song, you're the beat
You're already redeemed
Let it be what it will be

Overall I think it's a better song.

Now, you'd think I might learn at this point to let the song be.

Of course, I couldn't. So I told Suno to remake the song, with the same prompt, but as a soft rock song. And again I was surprised. Here's the result it produced this time:

Let It Be What It Will Be (Soft rock version) (Suno) (Soundcloud)

Solid, well-constructed music, I thought, and pretty good lyrics as well:

Let it be what it will be
I'm done rewriting gravity
If it breaks. let it break me clean
I'll rise up from the fault lines underneath
Let it be what it will be
Open hands, whatever comes to me
If it hurts, let it move me free
I'm done hiding from the life in front of me
Let it be what it will be

 New Yorker cartoon by the late Charles Barsotti

After 'writing' the songs above, I was inspired by Canadian music superstar Shania Twain's recent song Boots Don't, to try 'writing' a song in Southern Country Rock style about the idea that we foolishly think we know ourselves, and other people, when in fact "Nobody Knows Anything" (or Anyone). Trying to learn from the previous song, I came up with what I thought was a catchy title with a good rhythm: I Know You Think You Know Me (But You Don't).

With the Southern Country Rock prompt, here's what Suno made of that:

I Know You Think You Know Me (But You Don't)  (Suno) (Soundcloud)

Again, the lyrics are meh, but the vibe, I think, is great fun.

Thanks to Paul Heft for the link, above, to Tom Murphy's post on Ditching Dualism, which title is itself a masterful example of incongruity. Here are links to my six favourite AI-assisted songs:

1. After Us — a song about my feelings about civilization's collapse, and what might come after (lyrics mine, AI assisted)
2. If It Wasn't For Words — a song about how human life might have emerged on Earth if we'd never evolved language (lyrics mine, AI assisted)
3. Everything Is Fine — a tongue-in-cheek 'protest' song about our denial that everything is falling apart (lyrics mine, AI assisted)
4. Only This — a song about radical non-duality and a 'glimpse' of the absence of a separate self (lyrics entirely mine)
5. Rise and Shine — a K-Pop girl group style song on women achieving equality (unedited AI lyrics based on my prompt)
6. She Knows — Celtic-style song based on the maiden-mother-crone triple goddess myth (unedited AI lyrics based on my prompt)

If you're interested in hearing more of 'my' music, you can find it all on my Suno page (slow loading but includes lyrics), or my Soundcloud page (faster loading, no lyrics).

And just to reiterate what I've said on my previous AI-inspired posts:
1. I have a love-hate relationship with AI. When it's used properly and carefully as a tool, as an aid to learning and creativity, I believe it can be very useful, and enormous fun. But most of its large-scale applications (like replacing jobs and facilitating wars and surveillance) are ill-conceived, immoral, incompetently designed and conceived, vastly overreaching the capabilities of AI, ecologically disastrous, socially disruptive, and extremely dangerous.
2. The staggering amount that has been invested in AI has absolutely no viable business case to justify it. It represents possibly the most astounding squandering of money based purely on imagined and improbable future developments and blind faith, in history. Those who have studied this have concluded that this massive bubble will soon burst, and those who've invested in it will lose their shirts. At that time, the window to use AI as a learning and creativity tool will quickly close forever. Our playing with these essentially-free tools now is not going to aggravate its abusive uses, nor will it have any impact on the timing or extent of the coming AI crash. So my view is: use it while you can; it will soon be gone.

Reduxion

Traffic to this blog went up an order of magnitude when somebody (not sure who, or what), drove traffic to this post, which I put up 10.5 years ago. It was good and right for that time in history, which is much worse now.

Kill the lottery

I have a simple suggestion for getting rid of tanking in pro sports.

Hope he gets the hat tip

Progress is the process by which the miraculous becomes mundane. Aviation, for example. At  any moment a million people across the world are airborne and traveling safely. (Stop now and watch this bit by Louis CK. Yes, I know he's been canceled, but the bit is brilliant.) So yesterday, we flew from North Eleuthera (ELH) to Indianapolis (IND) by way of Atlanta (ATL), all on Delta (though the first flight was on Delta Connection). It all went better than well. The first flight was clear all the way, with excellent views (for me, the devout window-sitter and scene-shooter) of several Bahamian islands, coastal Florida, and Georgia from Savannah to Atlanta. The second flight wasn't the near-midnight one we were scheduled on, but one we noticed, while passing the gate in late afternoon, was boarding for Indianapolis. They gave us the last two seats on that plane, and it got us to Indy in time for dinner at Iozzo's, one of our favorite restaurants. Nice!

Then this morning, I got a survey from Delta. I tend to fill those out if I've had a very good or bad experience. But surveys still suck, because they're not human, meaning not conscious or aware of their existence. They're a pro formality that paints pictures with numbers. But I did want one human rewarded, so I filled it out. The human was Isaac, or something like that, on the second flight, Delta 3120. When the drink cart came by, I asked for a cup of ice. He said they didn't have any, and gave me a bottle of water, which was fine. But later, without being asked, he brought me a cup of ice anyway (presumably from the business class ice bin). That was nice and worth a mention.

Michael Johnson's latest Substack, "Ezra Pound and Robert Anton Wilson and Publishing and Editors," examines RAW's general disdain for the editors he worked with. There are lots of interesting comments to the post. The piece is "part one," and I am really looking forward to part two. 

I just wanted to put this out there, but that creeping sense of cognitive dissonance you get when you go to supermarket and still see full shelves, no matter how out of whack the prices have gotten? That sense of disquiet but acceptance when you see kids on phones following their parents around like zombies? How every day that the internet is still on, but it keeps putting out cycle after cycle of outrage and falsehoods trying to top the falsehoods of yesterday?

None of that is normal. All of that is hypernormalization.

We cannot envision a viable alternative to an unsustainable system, and so we quietly go about our daily lives because most of us can afford to be insulated form them. For now. But the rot creeps in.

We are living in a ghost story, a purgatory, and the best we can do is make our own little preparations until the other shoe drops and the bright blinding light of collapse hits.

So we got to talking at my job this morning and quite frankly everyone is kind of freaked out. I am under the impression that what I currently see on my feed is fed to me by an algorithm that won't allow me to see things that they are seeing as I used my phone to decompress. I am not saying that our government isn't in line for a complete collapse but they are speaking in terms of everything that we know. As like a world order is going to throw us under (think 1984 George Orwell) So I would love to hear what y'all have to say and sources I can fall into heavily. Talk to me like I'm a child that knows nothing. I'm trying to gather information the best I can. I've always mentally prepared for a horrible future but this seems worst than what I've ever thought.

I dig a well on my property. Now I have water. But it lowers the water table below the depth of my neighbor's well.

I didn't do anything wrong. Neither did my neighbor. We both made reasonable choices. And now one of us doesn't have water.

This is how the commons dies. Not through villainy, but through everyone optimizing correctly, one reasonable decision at a time. One well becomes a subdivision, becomes industrial agriculture, becomes the Ogallala Aquifer dropping a foot a year across eight states. Nobody's wrong at any step. The aggregate is catastrophe.

Now scale it up.

We strip-mine rare earths — two thousand tons of toxic waste per ton extracted — to build AI data centers that consume more electricity than some countries and drink millions of gallons of water a day for cooling. We build them as fast as we can, because the quarterly targets demand it, because the competitors are building theirs. Each step is rational. Each step is someone's optimized business case.

And what do people actually use this machine for?

According to Harvard Business Review, the top uses of AI are therapy, life organization, and finding purpose.

We hollowed out the commons — the water, the air, the earth itself — to build an optimization engine so powerful that people mainly use it to ask why they feel so empty. The machine doesn't know. It's a next-token predictor reflecting our own confusion back to us in comforting paragraphs. But people are so starved for the conversation that they'll take it, because the chatbot has time, doesn't judge, and costs less than the therapy that the economy they live in has made unaffordable.

We destroyed the village well to build a machine that people use to ask why they're thirsty.